Bx2

if your smile was a person ... her name would be sunshine ...

behold

i shall now attempt to scale the mighty corporate ladder ...

after that = that

edward scissorhands

saw the movie edward scissorhands ... it's pretty old ... i think it came out in 1990 ... but i'd never seen it ... i'd heard of it though ... it's even referenced in a seinfeld episode ... winona ryder looks really young in this movie ... she was too ... anyway so the movie stars johnny depp as edward scissorhands ... edward is the creation of some dude who used to live up in the castle on the hill ... but the dude died before edward was complete ... and so edward has scissors for hands ... then one day the makeup saleswoman in the fantasy suburban world at the bottom of the hill pays a call to the castle thinking they might buy something ... and that's where she finds edward ... and takes him home with her to the fantasy suburban atmosphere ... and so the movie is the adventure of edward in this world ... edward is not only an outsider but he looks different and he has scissors for hands ... so he's also a freak ... so that's what the movie is about ... it's kind of like pinochio on acid if you will ... it's pretty trippy ... it's a tim burton movie if you're familiar with his work ... he did corpse bride if you know it ... so yeah lovely movie ... it has its fair share of awwww moments ... i think everyone's seen it by now but if you're like me and you haven't ... you should ... 9.5/10 ...

also if you like seeing depp and scissors on screen ... you might also want to watch sweeney todd which is almost as good except it's a musical ...

the lookout

i watched the lookout last night ... it stars joseph gordon-levitt ... that's the kid from third rock from the sun ... if you still don't know who i'm talking about look at the picture ... that's him ... he is the main character in the movie ... then there's jeff daniels ... that's the guy who is not jim carrey in dumb and dumber ... they are the two main characters in the film ... they play roommates actually ...

levitt plays a guy who was a popular highschool kid ... until he has a terrible car accident which impairs his brain to a certain degree ... daniels on the other hand plays a blind guy ... they both do a great job ... so anyway levitt works at a bank as a janitor at night ... so this shady local guy tries to recruit him to help rob the bank ... levitt's role would be the lookout ..

despite the bank robbery thing ... this is not some adrenaline movie with lots of action and car chases ... it's actually quite moving ... it's more about levitt coming to terms with his condition ... the bank robbery is just a sort of catalyst ...

i enjoyed it ... 8/10 ..

oh and if you have a thing for isla fisher ... then you're in for a treat ...

who's that girl lalalalalala

hey gang ... my brother's wife is supposed to have a girl in a couple of months ... inshala of course ... and i will be an uncle ... oh boy ... anyway they were gonna name her salma but it seems they changed their mind ... so now my brother is looking for suggestions ... i told him go for something short and simple ... like a nada or lana or a lara or a maya or sara you get it ... you know like two syllable names that end with an a ... there's dozens of them ... noura or huda or rula or ruba or rana or dana ... and on ... but no he wants something a little more unique ... which i guess is why they decided to cross salma out ... so come on people ... think ... THINK dammit!

القدس عروس عروبتكم

The Palestinian National Authority (PNA), Hamas movement and other factions warned Sunday of a new Intifada, or uprising, after the earlier clashes between Palestinian prayers and the Israeli police in Jerusalem.
The Palestinian warning came after the clashes between Palestinian Muslim prayers and Israeli police forces who accompanied a radical Jewish group.
The Jewish group tried to break into the yard of al-Haram al-Sharif, where the Muslims first Shrine al-Aqsa mosque is, in the eastern part of Jerusalem.

would it be cliche if i said ...

وينكم يا عرب .. وينكم يا مسلمين

song of the day

artist: allman brothers
track: whipping post

LaTe NiGhT tALk shOW

i was thinking of moving out ... a guy at work lives in a better building for cheaper ... though my location is better ... and my apartment is bigger ... anyway i went to his landlord's office today to see if i could find a place there too ... turns out there are five vacant apartments ... but they are all reserved ... but he told me to come back tomorrow anyway ... so i will ... i'm kind of worrying about the move if i go through with this ... it'll be my first move ever ... well we moved when i was in seventh grade but that was like i didn't have to do anything ... hehe ... what else ... i had these two lights that weren't working even if you put a new bulb ... so i brought an electrician to my house to check it out ... it turns out it was just a circuit breaker thing ... he just flipped a switch ... doh ... i gave him 5 riyals i was like dude you didn't do any work you just flipped a switch ... he didn't mind ... plus i brought him from the shop and back in my car ... it was real close ... yeah ... still without a tv ... they said it should be ready at the end of the week ... i don't mind much ... got a lot of stuff i can watch on my laptop ... i saw all seven episodes of season 13 south park ... dude it's way better than 12 ... also season 3 of 30 rock ... right now jack (alec baldwin) just started dating salma hayek ... she's supposed to be playing his mother's nurse ... damn that is the hottest nurse ever man she is so amazing ... she's married to some billionaire dude ... i never stood a chance lol ... listening to killah priest right now ... the song is called inner g ... work is beautiful ... no boss ... OH YEAH BABY haha ... all smiles ... end transmission ...

i called my best friend today ... i know him from college ... he's like my only real friend in this city hehe ... but he gave me the busy signal ... then he sent me a message saying he is still in syria ... he didn't answer because he doesn't have much credit and roaming charges are a bitch ... hehe ... so yeah can't wait for that ... some semblance of a social life ... gotta love this city ... by the way did you hear about what happened on saudi national day ... there was like a mini-riot at the khobar corniche ... a whole bunch of youths just smashed the place up ... looting and shit ... don't believe me? ... here look at the pictures ... they did this on national fucking day for fuck's sake ... oh and what makes it even more ironic is that on the same day kaust was inaugurated ... kaust or king abdullah science and technology university is being touted as the arab MIT ... well it's too soon to tell but this thing cost an effing fortune ... so a LOT of hype surrounding it ... but i digress ... but you didn't hear about these riots in the news now did you ... who controls the media ... hmmmm ...

downloaded movies

here is a list of the movies i downloaded over the eid holiday ... i've only seen three of them and that was a long time ago ... they are highlighted in red ...

30 days of night
almost famous
appaloosa
before the devil knows you're dead
children of men
chinatown
closer
in the company of men
don't be a menace to south central while drinking your juice in the hood
eastern promises
edward scissorhands
eraserhead
fargo
fear and loathing in las vegas
funny games
ghost world
gladiator
half nelson
house on haunted hill
i spit on your grave
inside man
into the wild
jacob's ladder
lars and the real girl
magnolia
meet the feebles
midnight in the garden of good and evil
monster's ball
mystic river
remember the titans
role models
rosemary's baby
running with scissors
stranger than fiction
superhero movie
synecdoche, new york
team america world police
the basketball diaries
the foot fist way
the lookout
the man who wasn't there
the mist
the night of the hunter
the orphanage
the wackness
thirteen
unforgiven
waitress

just checking in

well i'm back in riyadh ... i arrived this morning at 8 ... i overnighted so i was asleep the whole flight ... which was great ... came home ... did a little cleaning and slept again ... woke up at 5 ... ate ... still didn't unpack ... work tomorrow ... yay ... not ... but the boss won't be around for another two weeks so it's not so bad ...
well eid break was boring ... the highlight was going to bahrain ... i bought this book and this shirt while i was there ... but while it was boring it was not useless ... see my parents house has a super fast internet connection ... i'm talking lightning speeds ... so i downloaded 76 gb worth of stuff ... some series ... something around 50 movies ... i even have some to be continued downloads which are not yet complete ... those will have wait until the next time i go ... so that was my break really ... hope everyone enjoyed their eid ... so anyway i'm still very tired so i think i'm just going to end it here ... peace ...

god i missed my bed ...

واحد فجعان

i'm still on break ... i'll write a post recapping all the "exciting" things i did during the holiday later after i get back to riyadh ... notice the quotes around exciting ... that's not a coincidence ... anyway i was watching late night with jimmy fallon and he made a joke about this guy in his monologue ...

The 42-year-old husband and father of three from Royersford, Pa., claimed the Harrah's Louisiana Downs Grits Eating Championship first place Saturday, 24 hours after he won the 2009 World Burrito eating championship in Albuquerque, N.M.
source

Fantastic Mr. Fox

who has never heard of roald dahl ... we all read his books growing up ... charlie and the chocolate factory ... danny the champion of the world ... the bfg ... james and the giant peach ... matilda ... to name a few ... he also wrote a book called fantastic mr. fox ... well it's going to be made into a movie ... it's going to be sort of an animation ... like not cartoon but handmade stop motion as you can see in the trailer ... george clooney will do the voice of mr. fox ... and meryl streep will be doing the voice of mrs. fox ... other voices include bill murray and owen wilson ... so anyway i actually remember reading this book when i was in the first grade ... so i'm looking forward to this one ...
click here to watch the trailer ...

be right back

well we were supposed to have all of next week off ... meaning my holiday should have started yesterday ... but they said the warehouse team has to work on saturday ... and since i am part of the warehouse team ... quality control supervisor ... so i have to work on saturday ... but the boss left on thursday ... so it's all good ... it'll just be a game of running out the clock ... probably going to leave early ... actually definitely going to leave early ... i leave for khobar at 8 pm nshala ... going by plane this time ... i usually go by bus ... it's such a short flight ... then i come back to riyadh on friday morning ... like early morning i think the flight is at 7 ... i'm taking my passport ... my dad told me to bring it because we'll probably go to bahrain ... wooo i'm traveling ... that was sarcasm ... going to bahrain doesn't count as traveling ... i'm reading girls of riyadh these days ... it's an old novel ... not that old like five years maybe ... i'm not sure ... i read lord of the flies before that so i wanted to read something light for a change ... even though it's kind of feminine as the name might suggest ... sort of a saudi sex and the city if you will ... but i'm comfortable enough with my sexuality to read such a girlie book ... ya i said it ... i got my first audit coming up at work ... as in i'm going to do my first audit ... i'm actually looking forward to it ... i'm going to make everyone feel my wrath ... i will take no prisoners ... it was supposed to be on saturday the 26th but we postponed it until the boss comes back on october 10th ... yeah he left to get married ... remarried i should say ... so that's good gives me more time to prepare ... this is a great chance to make a good impression ... promotions and evaluations are coming up in december ... and i want more money ... well i do ... ramadan is over ... well one day to go ... so happy eid everyone ... if i don't post for a while it's because i'll be in khobar ... see you in a week ...

doctor phil moment

go to sleep with a smile ...

serves him right

sheikh hamad bin abdullah al-thani is the brother of the emir of qatar ... this prodigal fool thought it would impress the white man if he bought a hotel in paris for more than 50 million dollars and restored it ... and he bought it from a rothschild of all people ... but karma is a bitch ... the french court has ruled that he won't be allowed to restore it because it's a cultural site ... apparently chopin and voltaire stayed there at one time ...and while we're talking about khaleejis buying hotels in europe ... click here ...

cTs

3arab

after the world's largest kibbeh dish ...

Lebanon will attempt to break the Guinness World Record for the largest servings of hummus and tabouleh as part of a campaign to claim ownership of the traditional dishes.
source

reflections

the problem with religion these days is it's used as a way of dividing people ... that's not religion's fault ... it's the fault of those abusing it ...

bad propaganda

تكشف الحقد الدفين في صدور بعض المندسين في صفوفنا الذين يعملون كالخفافيش في الظلام الحالك. حقد يفوق سواد الليالي السرمدية التي يقبع مثل هؤلاء في ظلمتها. لكنهم لن ينالوا من هيبة وطننا الحبيب و ندعو جماهير شعبنا العظيم للقيام بواجبهم و الذود عن عرض بلاد الأجداد و الوقوف كالسد المنيع في وجه التمدد الامبريالي الذي يزحف زحف السلحفاة على رمال الشاطئ محاولا التسلل بين ظهرانينا كي يزرع الفتنة بين أبناء الوطن كما يزرع المزارع بذور الطماطم في حقله و يحاولون نفث سمومهم الكريهة في وجوهنا الطاهرة النقية لكن هيهات لهم ذلك فنحن عصيون على الاختراق و سنقطع اليد التي تمتد إلى كرامتنا

the M squared

the office

something i see too often at the workplace .... is one person will be having a conversation with someone else ... and he's being a perfect gentleman ... but the minute the conversation is over ... and the other guy is gone ... or no longer on the line ... that perfect gentleman will start cursing the other guy ...

SoM

funny junk mail

From: naomi morris (slmnfriday@yahoo.com)
You may not know this sender.Mark as safeMark as junk
Sent: Wed 9/16/09 11:54 PM
To: naomimorris90@yahoo.com

Oh my friend,

Hoping you are fine and living good. Nice having your address, I want be your friend, for first friendship cannot be seen or even be touched, it must be felt within the heart. Hoping you feel just the way I do.... Wow, friends are like clothes, without them you feel naked! I guess am right. Am Naomi Morris from Orlando,Florida,USA I will tell you more about me, my family and all that maybe necessary in this relationship when you reply to this mail. If this interests you, get back to me.

Yours dearly
naomi

Kanye Gate

this is funny ...

stupid vacuum booster

the thing in the picture is called a vacuum booster ... here's how it works ...

last week my brakes stopped working properly so i had to take my car to the shop ...

the diagnosis ... they had to replace the vacuum booster ...

the damage ... 1150 riyals ... that's about 300 dollars ...

200 parts for the labor ... 950 for the effing vacuum booster ...

what an asshole

A settler tosses wine at a Palestinian woman on Shuhada Street in Hebron.

Photo: Rina Castelnuovo for The New York Times

Hooray

Muntathar Al-Zaidi, the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at former President George W. Bush was released Tuesday after nine months in prison.

this is kind of nasty but

there's this girl that i like ... she knows that i like her because i once told her ... but she only wants to be friends ... we've been friends for a long time ... long before i ever told her i liked her ... so anyway ... i was chatting with her online at work today ... and she was telling me about how she is feeling very manfoo5a today because yesterday they had shorabit 3adas and mjadara ... so a double dose ... and i was thinking to myself ... i bet your farts smell like roses ... but of course i never actually said that ...

I know you like to think your shit don't stink

But lean a little bit closer

See that roses really smell like poo-poo-poooooo

Yeah, roses really smell like poo-poo-poooooo

awards of the day

hero of the day ... bryon russell ... it takes balls to challenge michael jordan to a game of one-on-one ... having said that ... jordan started it so the challenge didn't come out of nowhere ... also this is not exactly the jordan of old ... he's really let himself go since retirement ... it's kind of like challenging muhammad ali to a boxing match ... but still ... balls ...

douche of the day ... kanye west ... for his outburst at the vma's ... ironically he once did an snl skit about the exact same thing ... although being an mtv award show the whole thing could've been staged ... but given his track record maybe not ... but to his credit at least this time he was whining about someone else not winning for a change ...

arageel arageel

i have a friend from work ... his name is mahmoud ... i love the guy ... but i hate going to his house ... why ... because i always come back smelling like charcoal ... always ...

The Curse

it seems the madden curse is real ... it just happened again ...

not a good week

first of all i had the flu ... so much so that i missed four days of work ... i did not get to enjoy my time off because i really was sick ... then my tv stopped working properly ... i just dropped it off at the shop today ... the warranty will cover the repair but the guy told me that most likely it won't be ready until after eid ... and today i discovered that there's something wrong with my brakes ... i know there are people out there with bigger problems than me but still ... thank god it's friday ...

don't be a loser

وَمَن يُؤْمِن بِاللَّهِ وَيَعْمَلْ صَالِحًا يُكَفِّرْ عَنْهُ سَيِّئَاتِهِ وَيُدْخِلْهُ جَنَّاتٍ تَجْرِي مِن

تَحْتِهَا الْأَنْهَارُ خَالِدِينَ فِيهَا أَبَدًا ذَلِكَ الْفَوْزُ الْعَظِيمُ

he had a feeling from the start

remember this ... well after more than 70 days of unsuccessfully trying to form a government ... he decided to step down ...

reflections

nobody's too cool to be your friend on facebook ...

by the way

my tv broke down ... it works but when you turn it on half the screen kind of flickers plus a funny smell comes from the tv ... like a burning plastic smell ... i've googled and it appears it's not uncommon ... it's a damaged capacitor or resistor ... there's still a long long time on the warranty so servicing will be free ... but i have to take it in ... and it's rather huge ... so that's going to be kind of a hassle ... i'll just have to watch stuff on my laptop until then ...

كاد المعلم ان يكون رسولا

there's this girl i went to school with a long time ago ... she was the first girl in our class to have sex ... we were in the seventh grade at the time ... the guy she had sex with was also in our class ... it wasn't an older guy ... anyway ... thanks to facebook i know what she's up to these days ... she is working as a middle school teacher ... so i don't know i just found that sort of ironic ... or maybe it's just an arab thing ... what do you think ...

this stuff is delicious

w fee minno 3a farawla kaman ...

Beiruti Graffiti

one of my friends is using this as her facebook profile picture ... it was taken in hamra ...

Feel Good Story of the Day

Steve Mazan

Mean Mug

this is roger stephens ... roger is 61 and was recently arrested by georgia police ... his crime ... slapping a two year old toddler in the face at a local walmart because her crying annoyed him ... oh yeah he slapped her several times by the way ...

sleeping can make you sick

i came home from work and fell asleep today ... was fine when i fell asleep ... i woke up feeling just awful ... i think i have the flu ... my head hurts ... my limbs hurt ... and i can barely move ... how do you get so sick from falling asleep ... and i have to go to work tomorrow ... and i'll be fasting ... looking forward to tomorrow ...

exceptions to the freeze

Netanyahu's aides, speaking on condition of anonymity Friday because the plans have not been formally announced, said any Israeli settlement freeze would not halt building the new units and or block completion of some 2,500 others currently under construction. They also said the freeze would not include east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians hope to make their future capital.
source

translation: there's not going to be a settlement freeze

3arab

Madonna has wrapped up her world tour with a sightseeing trip to Jordan's famed ruins in Petra. Madonna, 51, was flown by helicopter into this ancient Roman-era city carved out in red stone in a trip arranged by Queen Rania, the wife of Jordan's King Abdullah II.
The pop star, in a white shirt and white slacks, was escorted by Jordanian security and an armed bodyguard during her 15-minute tour Thursday.
She made no comment to reporters as she walked in almost total darkness. Jordanian security lit the area with headlights from their vehicles.
Madonna arrived in Jordan from neighboring Israel, where she performed two concerts over the last two days.
source

zbaleh

who has seen or heard this new song by dominic hourani ... the indian one ... that has to be one of the worst songs ever made ... i mean the majority of arabic music being made these days is crap ... but this is beyond crap ...

the ramadan spirit

we had our company iftar today ... i was talking about it at work today with some people ... asking them if they are going ... some people said no ... when i asked why not ... they said because quote 7a tkoon kulha hnood w bakistaniye unquote ...

iftar observations

being a bachelor i have iftar at restaurants quite often ... a couple of observations ...

crepaway ... the iftar offer is 44 riyals ... that includes drink, soup, salad, main dish, and dessert ... no 15% service charge ... just 44 riyals ... yet if you get soup, salad, and a drink ... they don't consider that as the offer and they charge you full price ... that's 39 riyals ... 33 for the soup and salad and 6 for the drink ... but there is 15% service charge ... which equals 5.85 riyals ... plus the 39 that comes out to 44.85 ... so it's actually more expensive ... so you're better off getting a main dish and not eating it just to save 0.85 ... yeah that makes perfect sense ...

tony roma's ... the iftar offer is free soup and salad with your order of any steak, ribs, chicken, or seafood platter ... as far as the soup is concerned ... it's good but they use shot glasses as bowls ... they really are that small ... then the salad ... you can either choose the house salad or the caesar salad ... both of them are just a pile of lettuce on a plate with dressing ... and some croutons ... well the house salad also has a couple of tomato slices ... so to recap basically their offer consists of a shot glass of soup and a pile of lettuce ... for free ...

mumblings

if my life was a wall ... i'd punch holes in it all day ...

state of play

saw the movie state of play with my friend tonight ... starring ben affleck, rachel mcadams, and russel crowe ... also some smaller roles for some well-known names in there as well ... like helen mirren, jason bateman, and jeff daniels ... viola davis also has a role in the movie ... that's that black chick from doubt ... also a great movie ... anyway so it's really good but it's also kind of long ... like two hours long ... but it really is good ... it's kind of a political thriller ... crowe and mcadams play reporters who work for the washington globe ... they are investigating the death of affleck's mistress ... affleck plays a congressman by the way ... their investigation reveals a tangled web of political and corporate corruption ... kind of a blackwater thing ... the story is very good ... the acting is very good ... and rachel mcadams is damn cute ... so yeah it's a good movie ... check it out ... 8/10 ...

what a voice

kind of cliche but what the heck ... some quran recital to put you in the ramadan mood from my main man ... yaser eldossary ...

ramadaning part 2

so if you don't know this already i've been connecting to some unsecured network in the neighborhood for the past eight months or so ... but suddenly that connection became secure ... in other words the guy decided to put a password ... which is why i've been missing for the past few days ... i didn't have any internet ... but now i have my own connection ... well i tried geting wireless broadband first but the area i live in isn't covered ... lovely ... so i exchanged it for a usb dialup modem connection thing ... it's not nearly as fast but it will have to do ... so yeah i'm back now ... i've been going back and forth to mobily all week ... that's the name of the internet provider ... but i don't have to go back there anymore thank god ... what a nightmare ... it's not that far but the traffic ... oh lord the traffic ... i booked my flight to dammam for the eid holiday ... i'll be staying there all week from the 19th till the 25th ... i wanted to go to beirut but the tickets were way too expensive ... more than double what i paid when i went in march ... so it's not worth it ... i should've booked earlier ... so yeah ... been having iftar at crepaway a lot ... i think i've had iftar there like six times ... one of those times i went alone ... i don't normally go to restaurants alone ... but ramadan is an exception ... anyway they have this open salad bar which is great ... you can basically fill up on it ... no need for the main dish ... and no reservations necessary ... i hate restaurants who make you reserve ... i tried taking my friend to b3albak restaurant for iftar the other day but they turned us away at the door because we didn't have a reservation ... work is so damn boring during ramadan ... and they blocked msn to make things worse ... i'm leaving an hour early everyday ... but my boss warned me about coming in late ... i can't help it ... i was late today so i made up something about being at the bank ... i'm playing batman arkham asylum these days ... awesome awesome awesome game ... also watching a lot of office episodes even though i've already seen them all ... but it's a great way to kill time ... i saw observe and report the other day ... it's like the r rated version of paul blart ... it's a crappy movie ... seth rogen's movies get progressively worse ... we're supposed to be having our corporate iftar tomorrow ... oh joy ... still not watching bab el hara ... watching maestro right now ... his guest for tonight is shatha omar ... that's that chick from lbc ... speaking of lebanon ... they still haven't formed a government ... what else ... i think that about sums it up ... in closing i leave you with a great flash game ... i play it a lot at work these days ... my record is 1300 something meters ... i forget the exact figure since it's on my office computer ... anyway try to beat that ... click here to play it ...