life is like that sometimes

one minute you're celebrating .. the next you're being carried off on a stretcher ..

Los Angeles Angels first baseman Kendry Morales broke his lower left leg while celebrating his winning grand slam in a 5-1 victory over the Seattle Mariners Saturday.
Morales will undergo surgery Sunday with ankle specialist Phil Kwong. The Angels did not release a timetable for his return, but the severity of the injury suggests it could be season-ending.
The Angels players had surrounded home plate in anticipation of Morales' arrival. He flung his helmet aside and leaped as he reached the dish.
According to Angels manager Mike Scioscia, he did not land on a player's foot, but simply slipped on the plate and slipped, all 225 pounds landing on his turned ankle.
He collapsed and remained on top of home plate for several minutes, the Angels clustered around him. Trainers administered an air cast to Morales' left foot and he was placed on a stretcher and carted off the field.
"It'll change the way we celebrate," Angels manager Mike Scioscia said.

word of the day

flotilla

oh well

swing and a miss ...

God bless you

Palestinian sympathizers demonstrate on a boat on the river Seine in Paris, denouncing the Gaza Strip embargo. An aid flotilla due to sail for Gaza in defiance of an Israeli embargo and warnings will be delayed by a day until May 29, organisers said.
(AFP/Joel Saget)

oui oui

had a meeting with my boss and the logistics manager today ... boss left for a while ... leaving me and the manager alone ... then the manager's phone rang ... imagine my surprise when he answered and began conversing with his caller in french ... i mean fluent french ... he is arab by the way ... i haven't heard someone speak french in ages ... took me back to my days in beirut ... after he ended the call he asked me if i spoke french ... i said no ...

dora the illegal immigrant

In this composite image provided May 20, 2010 courtesy of Debbie Groben and FreakingNews.com, is an image of Nickelodeon cartoon Dora the Explorer created late last year by Debbie Groben of Sarasota, Fla., for a contest for the fake news site FreakingNews.com. The image, and others like it that question or make fun of the Latina cartoon character's immigration status and country of origin, have been in wide circulation since Arizona passed a controversial immigration law. Groben, who is against the immigration law, said she just created it out of good fun and didn't know it would enter the immigration debate.
(AP Photo/Courtesy of Debbie Broben and FreakingNews.com)

song of the day

the event planner

my boss called me tonight at 8 ... it's a friday ... a weekend ... i was like why is he calling me ... i had just gotten back from the barber and was getting ready to shower ... have a cup noodles for dinner and call it a night ... as you know i'm new on the job ... i've been at the company for a week and he never called me once ... turns out they want to organize an outing on monday ... and they want me to be in charge of the whole thing ... so he's like here's what we want ... we want to have some fun and some food ... and it shouldn't cost more than this ... oh and we need it to be organized by no later than tomorrow ... now not only was this very short notice but i've only been in riyadh for two years so i don't know much but i didn't say any of that ... instead i was just like umm ok ... i guess i should feel flattered that they trust me enough to organize their day of fun for them even though i am new ... or maybe it's a job nobody else wanted to do so they dumped it on the new guy ... anyway ... in my head i was thinking i guess we can go to an istiraha ... those are like these things you can rent ... there is a small house ... a pool ... a small soccer field ... usually there is a tent with a nice jalse 3arabiye inside and a fireplace and a tv ... you can go and barbecue and have argeeleh ... play cards ... play soccer ... swim ... we did it several times at my previous company ... anyway i got dressed and went out ... i was on the phone the whole time ... calling everyone i know asking them for recommendations ... finally one friend gave me a golden suggestion ... the intercontinental hotel has a bowling alley that can be rented for private functions ... so i went there ... i booked it for three hours ... for dinner we will also have it at the hotel ... i am going back there tomorrow to meet with the buffet guy to discuss the menu and price ...

nike's new wc commercial

the au of b

this is interesting ... massive student protests against tuition increasing by 25% at aub ...

song of the day

third time is a charm ...

song of the day

another fairuz song ... no reason this time but do we really need a reason to listen to fairuz ...
the answer is no we don't ...

makes you go hmmm

if i am here ... and you are there ... then where are we?

and we couldn't be prouder

Rima Fakih, a 24-year-old Lebanese immigrant, was crowned Miss U.S.A on Sunday evening, making her the first ever Arab-American to win the title.
The Detroit Free Press quoted pageant fan Zouheir Alawieh as saying, “This is the real face of Arab Americans, not the stereotypes you hear about.” He added, “We have culture. We have beauty. We have history, and today we made history... She believed in her dreams.”

photos of rima here

hilarious

i don't know if he's right about the origins of the easter egg or not ... wouldn't be surprised if he was ... but the title of the book and the illustration cracked me up ... click here ...

song of the day

in honor of the nakba anniversary ... a song that combines two of the things i love most in this world ... fairuz and palestine ...

impressive

some drama at the recent job fair held in aub ... i remember those job fairs ... never cared about them ...

first day impressions

mumblings

they say money doesn't bring happiness but whenever i find money in one of my pockets i'm ecstatic ...

the irony

have you seen this commercial for the gillette vector ... where some guy is supposed to be a news reporter ... and then when the guest of honor arrives all the other reporters hold out their mics to ask her a question but she just ignores them ... but when she reaches him she stops to answer his question because he is the only one with a clean shave ... well next time you see the commercial pay attention to his eyebrows ... and you will notice that he is in fact a unibrow ...

only in the uae

It's the ultimate hole-in-the-wall -- a money machine that dispenses pure gold.
But installed beneath the gold-coated ceilings of Abu Dhabi's Emirates Palace hotel, where royalty and billionaires come for cappuccinos topped with gold flakes, the machine almost seems part of the furniture.
"The reason we chose Emirates Palace is because it really fits with the surroundings here," said German entrepreneur Thomas Geissler, creator of the "Gold to Go" brand and chief executive of Ex Oriente Lux.
The exterior of the machine is coated with a thin layer of gold and offers customers 320 items to choose from, ranging from gold bars that can weigh up to 10 grams, to customized gold coins.
story

quote of the day

I don't know if Cheryl is going to want to support England. She might be a bit anti-England players at the moment. If she is looking for a new nation to follow at the World Cup, she should look no further than Argentina.
We play the prettiest football, have the prettiest players, and Argentinian men also know how to treat their women. She would of course have to do the Tango. I don't think there would be a shortage of Argentinian players willing to help teach her.

Lionel Messi talking about Cheryl Cole who recently split from her husband England footballer Ashley Cole because he was cheating on her

source

i just realized

my first day on the new job will coincide with nakba day ...

happy trails

today was my last working day at agility ... well technically it's tomorrow but tomorrow is a half-day and i'm only going for like an hour ... just to say goodbye basically ... since resigning a month ago it's been a blast ... i would miss work when i felt like it ... show up one or two hours late when i did go ... take long lunch breaks ... pretty much just did what i pleased ... also i was able to stay up late and watch nba playoff games without worrying about what time i had to get up ... thankfully the company was very gracious about the whole thing ... they didn't mind too much ...

i brought them donuts today ... from krispy kreme ... two dozen ... everyone in the office got one but not all the warehouse guys did ... only a few were lucky enough ... i got the official your resignation has been accepted letter from the company ... finalized my clearance papers ... and so now i can officially say ... so long agility ...

saturday will be my first day with the new company ... i'll let you know how that goes ... wish me luck ...

song of the day

well it appears that the fluke rains we've had over the past month are finally done ... and the summer heat is set to kick in ... it was extremely hot today ... and it's only going to get hotter ... so ...

anatomical observations

when guys talk about a girl's body .. you have the usual suspects .. the boobs .. the ass .. the legs .. but i feel the collarbone is underrated .. i think it's hot when a girl has a nice set of protruding collarbones .. kind of like this .. by the way is it singular or plural .. like if i wanted to compliment a girl would i say nice collarbone or collarbones .. anyway .. i'm just saying ..

and we couldn't be prouder

A day after firing a 10-tonne hummus broadside in a food fight with Israel, chefs in Lebanon weighed in with another first for a Guinness record on Sunday -- five tonnes of falafel.

story

women

i can hook them ... i just can't seem to reel them in ...

the lighter side of changing jobs

سبحان الله

This NASA image released on May 4, 2010 from the European Space Agency's Herschel Space Observatory shows the cloud associated with the Rosette Nebula, a stellar nursery about 5,000 light-years from Earth. The formation of new stars in galaxies like the Milky Way has declined five-fold in the last three billion years, initial findings of the European Space Agency's Herschel telescope showed.
(AFP/NASA/ESA)

subtitle of the day

party pooper translated as هادم الملذات on foxmovies channel ...

celebrity sighting

today after friday prayer i walked over to my car and got in ... i turned the ignition, put the ac on, and let it warm for a few seconds as i got ready to leave ... then i noticed these kids next to me ... couldn't be older than 13 ... i don't know ... they looked pretty young ... they were looking at me ... and smiling ... and talking among each other ... you know when you get that feeling like i know they are talking about me ... well that was how i felt ... and even though i was looking back at them they didn't look away ... then one of them walked over for a closer look at me ... he kind of circled my car ... and he said something back to his buddies ... and they continued to look at me and smile ... finally i could not take it anymore ... so i rolled down my window and gave them that little shake of the head that usually means what do you want or just plain what ... and the kid says ... mish inta ili btitla3 bil mbc ... well he said it in saudi dialect so it was something like ... moo int ili titla3 bil mbc ... and in my head i was like what did he just say ... moo int ili titla3 timshi ... what is he talking about ... so i said aish ... as in can you repeat the question please ... and he said moo int ili titla3 bil mbc bil tilfizyon ... and i told him no ... but they continued to smile and said they were sorry and walked away ... now i have been racking my brain trying to figure out who they were referring to ... but to no avail ...

bismillah

one week from today will be my last day at work ... the saturday after that i will start my new job ... am i excited ... maybe excited is not the right word ... anxious is more like it ... little bit of both ... more anxious though ... it's normal ... new place new coworkers new boss etc ... new kid in town ...
i came to riyadh from dhahran two years ago to work with the company i am leaving ... i will still be in riyadh at my new job ... unfortunately ...
this is actually my third job ... they say it's not good to be a job hopper ... but at least i've never been fired ... i quit my first job after one year ... that was with aramex ... that was a nasty split ... i literally walked out on them ... hadn't transferred my iqama so they couldn't do shit about it ... but they deserved it ... i was able to last two years with agility ... that's my current company ... no regrets about quitting ... i knew i was going to leave for a while now ... even before the whole drama with the US government began ... although that certainly didn't help ... it was just a matter of finding another job ... and now here we are ... happy to be finally getting out of the service sector ... would've preferred to move to manufacturing but retail is not so bad either ...
so long agility ... hello jamjoom ...

birds flyin high you know how i feel
sun in the sky you know how i feel
it's a new dawn
it's a new day

true story

i was at subway yesterday buying what would be my dinner ... and the guy ahead of me ordered what had to be the strangest combo ever ... a hotdog with tuna ... i am not making this up i swear ... also the guy looked just as strange as his taste in sandwiches ... tuna or not i don't think i've ever seen anyone order the hotdog at subway anyway ...

on the road again

you know when you are driving towards that green light ... and you see it turning yellow ... and you step on the gas just a little bit harder ... maybe give a little highbeam action to let the people waiting at the other signals know you're not stopping and that they should hold their horses ... maybe honk your horn a couple times ... let them know i'm coming through ... sometimes you cross the finish line while it's still yellow ... other times you don't quite make it and the light just turns red as you reach it but you don't care and continue on ... we've all done it ... well i was in that situation today ... it was yellow and i was getting ready to run it when i noticed that there was a police car parked at the curb ... one of those undercover traffic police cars ... with their knightrider lights that go back and forth from side to side ... so i was like ok i guess i'll just slow down and wait for it to turn green again ... and as i waited at the signal i started to think ... it wasn't the fear of what might happen when you try to run a red light that made me stop ... you know like smashing into someone else ... no it was the fear of the policeman ... it didn't seem very logical ...

heavy rain

we got like zero rain this winter season ... but for the past month or so we have been getting some ... nothing significant just light drizzles here and there ... but yesterday was the big one ... it almost never rains in riyadh in may ... but that was a lot of rain for any time of year ... it was a normal day until around 2 pm ... i was at my desk doing some boring report when naser a coworker of mine came to my desk and told me to come outside and see the storm ... so i did ... walking toward the entrance to our building i could see that there was no sun outside ... the color coming through the windows was like orange ... outside it was raining like a mother ... and strong winds too ... like the rain was horizontal ... and so it continued to rain all day ... the drive home which usually takes 20 minutes at most took about an hour and a half ... thankfully the area where i live did not suffer so much ... we got strong rains and winds just like everyone else but today i got some emails containing photos of what happened in some other parts of riyadh and i was like damn ... there were photos of cars literally covered in water ...
here is an article about it ... note the part where they mention the rawdah district ... that's where i live ... and no my satellite dish was not blown off the roof hamdulila ... aljazeera also has a nice article about what happened ...
and finally ... here is a boring video i made while driving home in the rain ... just right-click and save target as ... it's nothing dramatic so feel free to skip it ...

gaza world cup

The Gaza Strip has kicked off its own version of football's World Cup, pitting 16 teams of local and foreign players in a contest to win a trophy made out of twisted metal and rubble from last year's war with Israel. Organizer Patrick McGrann says the Gaza World Cup is meant to highlight a three-year blockade that has prevented most of the tiny territory's 1.5 million residents, including athletes, from being able to travel abroad.
The two-week competition got under way Sunday with a match between the "Italy" and "Palestine" teams. Most of the teams are named after international football powerhouses like Brazil, Spain and France. The squads have a small contingent of foreigners from these countries — mostly international aid workers who are based in Gaza.
source

typical dubai

There's a designer vacation to be had at the world's first Armani Hotel, perched in the world's tallest building at the heart of Dubai.
This week Giorgio Armani's vision of high-style hotelery was unveiled to the world, taking in its first guests after a gala grand opening. Every physical detail of the hotel was designed by Armani himself, from the soaring arches in the lobby to the bathroom soaps in each room.
Walking through the hotel feels like living in a fashion show: hotel staff don Armani suits and dresses, walls of satin frame the clean lines and neutral tones of each room, soaring ceilings meet with sweeping views of Dubai's downtown district. A selling point of the "Stay with Armani" experience is the hotel's closely managed air of exclusivity. There are meant to be no walk-ins, only those with room or restaurant reservations can reach the building in its separate wing of the Burj Khalifa. Each of the 160 rooms comes with a "lifestyle consultant," a personal concierge who handles all of a guest's recreation and relaxation needs.

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thunder's season comes to an end

well the thunder's season came to a heartbreaking end last night ... they were down seven with less than five minutes to go in the fourth quarter ... they came back and managed to get up by 3 only to lose by one point thanks to a tip-in by that gangly bastard pau gasol with 0.5 seconds remaining ... oh what cruel folly ... still it was beautiful ... i will admit that had they won the game the series would have gone back to los angeles for a decisive game 7 which the lakers probably would have won but now we'll never know ... like i said it was beautiful nonetheless ... this team won 23 games last season and nobody expected them to even make the playoffs this year much less give the defending champs such a hard battle ... it was very sweet when the buzzer sounded and the fans even though they knew the season had just ended for their team continued to cheer and gave them a standing ovation ... because what a season ... there's always next year ...

anyway ... looking at the bigger picture ... only one first round series has not yet been decided ... that is the hawks and bucks ... doesn't matter because whoever advances will be crushed by the magic in the next round ... celtics cavaliers play game 1 tonight looking forward to that ... gonna do my best to stay up and watch it live ... suns spurs should also be interesting but they don't play tonight ... god i love the playoffs ...

i heart my grandma

a friend of mine shared this story on facebook ... pretty gross ...