wise words from big momma

a friend of mine on facebook posted the following status ...
I SMOKE EVERYDAY BECAUSE....

and his mother commented the following ...
BECAUSE I WANT TO HAVE BLACK LUNGS AND COUGH A LOT AND BREAK MY MOTHER'S HEART.

absurd

the lebanese minister of labor boutros harb proposed a law that would make it illegal for a christian to sell his land to a muslim and vice versa ... true story ...

cash rules everyone around me

people these days just don't give a shit about others ... seems to be ... you hear stories of someone laying for dead in the street and people just stepping over him ... or stories like this ... well today i had a little experience of my own ...

there was a huge storm in jeddah today ... it didn't last very long but it was enough to turn the streets into seas ... and as i drove home from work my car decided to stop working ... i'm guessing the water had something to do with it ... anyway ... i stood there stranded on the curb ... and people just drove by ... i finally got someone to stop and told him my problem ... he said i will tie a rope to your car and tow you ... i told him i don't want you to take me to a mechanic i just want to get off the road ... i just want to park it at the side of the road and i'll come back for it later ... he said how much ... and here i thought this guy was nice enough to stop and help me because i was in need ... i honestly was not expecting that ... but i was in no mood for negotiations and i desperately wanted to move my car ... so i told him 100 riyals ... i knew he would accept ... and he did ... so we towed it and i parked it on the side of the road ... i'll go back for it tomorrow with my friend and see if it will work or not ... i'm probably going to take it in even if it does work anyway ... get it checked out ... so anyway ... then i stood by the side of the road trying to get a ride home ... most people wouldn't even stop when i would try to flag them down ... finally someone stopped and accepted to give me a ride home ... it wasn't a taxi ... but he also wanted money ...

what a photo

Palestinian Ahmad Daana, 12, looks out from a police vehicle, as his mother and brothers (reflected in the window) watch, after Israeli police detained him on suspicion of throwing stones during clashes in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan, Dec. 26.
Ammar Awad / Reuters

that's all i have to say

حسبي الله و نعم الوكيل

song of the day

say my name

so yahoo had this thing about crazy celebrity baby names ... and i knew alicia keys and swizz beats had a baby together i just never knew his name ... apparently it's Egypt Daoud ... i don't know about you but i think that's a pretty cool name ...

dream on

i had a terrible dream last night ... it really was terrible ... so terrible it woke me up ... was around 3:30 am when i woke up ... i stayed awake until about 6 and fell asleep again ... and had a beautiful dream ... but it was cut short by the sound of my alarm telling me it's time for work ... why couldn't it have been the other way around ...

jundi's life

well we got our salaries early this month ... just before christmas ... and with a nice bonus to go with it ... so that was nice ... i decided to do some mini-shopping ... i went to ikea and bought some things ... no furniture ... just things ... like i bought a clock ... and some plates ... why did i buy plates ... well i don't own any plates ... i was using plastic up until now ... i have bowls ... but no plates ... i bought some other stuff but i don't have to tell you every item i bought ... or do i ... no i don't ... anyway ... i also went to saco ... that's a hardware store chain here in saudi ... very famous ... love saco ... though the one here in jeddah is kind of lame ... the riyadh one was so much better ... place was like a mall ... anyway ... so i bought a toaster ... i also got a snuggie ... see i didn't go in there thinking i was going to buy anything ... i just went in there to walk around ... but i was like hey a toaster ... i make sandwiches almost everyday so why not ... speaking of sandwiches ... you know what's a good one ... peanut butter and nutella ... it's really good ... but i digress ... so then i was like hey a snuggie ... that can come in handy when i'm laying on the couch playing ps3 so why not ... yeah it's a hardware store but they have random things like snuggies ... they even have a sports equipment section ... they have the shake weight ... no kidding ... what else ... oh yeah they had high school musical skateboards in the sports equipment section ... which i thought was pretty ironic ... because i don't think there is anything more anti-skateboarding culture than hsm ... moving on ... i was driving home today ... i was on the highway ... and it was kind of dark ... and i see this thing in front of me in the distance ... i'm like huh ... and i realize it's a guy ... he's standing in the middle of the lane ... i was on the left lane btw so i'm going pretty fast ... and he wasn't even facing the oncoming cars ... he was looking the other way ... just standing there ... i had to swerve to avoid him ... if there was someone next to me i would have hit them ... i would love to know what the fuck he was doing ... was he trying to commit suicide or what ... maybe it was jinn ... i don't know really ... but that was weird ... what else ... i started listening to podcasts recently ... previously i used to just play music or quran ... depending on what i feel like ... and even the music can be arabic or english ... depending on what i feel like ... so there are a lot of podcasts out there ... i mean a lot ... so i was like which podcasts should i subscribe to ... there were the obvious choices ... the espn ones ... like the nba today and around the horn and pardon the interruption ... also the thundering herd ... but i don't have a one track mind ... i care about other things besides sports ... so i subscribed to keith olbermann's countdown ... also the rachel maddow show ... i don't necessarily agree with them but i find them entertaining ... beats rush limbaugh or glenn beck any day ... i also subscribed to a couple of playstation podcasts ... but i think i'm going to unsubscribe from them ... because oh my god they are too geeky ... i mean i enjoy playing videogames but listening to these people talk in such depth about games is a bit much ... i also subscribed to some jazeera ones ... ittijah il mu3akis for example ... so anyone have any podcasts they want to recommend for me ... moving on ... work is exhausting ... i almost made a big mistake the other day ... one that would have gotten me in some trouble but i was saved ... so that was a big phew ... hamdulila ... i'm probably going to go home next weekend ... visit my parents ... probably the last time i ever visit that home ... it's starting to look that way ... sob ... oh well ... life goes on ... i will close with this ... how about that lakers heat christmas game ... are the heat legit now ... well the lakers have been in a slump lately ... they lost to frickin milwaukee the other day ... i think the heat have finally shaken off the bad start they got off to ... but it's all going to waste unless they win the championship ... anything less is unacceptable ... so yes they deserve credit for the victory and yes they seem to have finally gotten their shit together ... but let's not get too excited ... until they hoist up that trophy i refuse to be impressed ... in conclusion i leave you with a song ... good night ...

obsolete skills

this website is hilarious ...

new year resolutions

quit smoking ... also stay away from the things i already quit ... pray more ... try to go for walks on the corniche as often as possible ... work out ... lose more weight ... have X amount of money in my account by the end of the year ...

jacob's ladder

this is what you call a mindfuck movie ... quite an old one ... released twenty years ago ... it's kind of hard to tell you what it's about ... partly because i can't say i fully understood the movie ... and partly because it's hard to describe the movie without giving part of it away ... basically tim robbins plays a vietnam veteran who is haunted by what he saw during the war ... and he is constantly tripping balls ... so you never know what is real and what is hallucination ... well sometimes you can ... but it is confusing ... i would like to say more but i would ruin it for you ... so as a movie it really wasn't that great ... it was pretty terrible actually ... but it gets a 10/10 for the mindfuck factor ... only watch it if you really like mindfuck movies ...

dame helen

i was chatting with my friend the other day on msn and we were talking about what movies we had seen recently ... and he said he wanted to see red ... i told him i had never heard of it ... so he's like it has bruce willis and john malkovich and "that queen bitch" ...

happy festivus

today is december 23rd ... so happy festivus everyone!

retro

in my last post i shared a clip from one of duraid lahham's movies ... which kind of inspired me to post another one ... but this one is from a play ...

jundi's two cents

well some of you may have heard about the latest wehdat faisali drama ... if you haven't then good ... just stop reading now and go on living not knowing ... but i digress ... i will not take sides ... nay i refuse to take sides ... the whole thing is disgusting as far as i'm concerned ... and it's been going on forever ... i never cared for it and i'm not about to start now ... i will however address the issue from a broader perspective ... let's think back a few months when algeria and egypt went to war because of soccer ... seems to be a trend in the arab world ... and it's not just domestic soccer ... even international soccer ... look how worked up we get over the world cup or el classico for example ... now one would think that there are far more serious things for us to fret about ... but apparently not ... as elton john would say ... it's a sad sad situation ...
it reminds me of the ending of duraid lahham's movie "التقرير" ... skip ahead to the 5:53 mark ...

the real guitar hero

gossip trip

thanks to yahoo i know that tony romo got engaged to candice crawford ... romo is the cowboys quarterback who previously dated jessica simpson ... anyway ... here's why i mention it ... it turns out candice crawford who is a former miss missouri is chace crawford's sister ... now i'm straight but even i think he's a handsome guy ... which brings me to my point ... damn that family has some good genes ...

happy trails

my dad might be retiring soon ... well forced into retirement is more accurate ... he reached the age of retirement ... it's still not for certain but they might be leaving within the next few months if the company doesn't grant him an extension ... and that means two things ... one papa's getting old ... well he is a grandfather now that i think about it ... though a relatively new one but a grandfather nonetheless ... may Allah give him health and long life ... but the second thing is my parents would leave saudi ... now there's a mind blower ... i'd be here all alone ... well my brother would still be here ... working in khobar ... meaning we would be on opposite ends of the country ...

merry christmas

interesting

http://bartsblackboard.com/

il3ab

my brother sent me this song on my email today ... if i ever get married i'll play it at my wedding ...

it's delicious

khaleeji christmas

Christmas came in extravagant fashion to the Muslim desert emirate of Abu Dhabi as a glitzy hotel unveiled a bejewelled Christmas tree valued at more than 11 million dollars on Wednesday.
It holds a total of 181 diamonds, pearls, emeralds, sapphires and other precious stones, said Khalifa Khouri, owner of Style Gallery, which provided the jewellery.
story

remember the gold vending machine ... this is the same hotel ...

أحول

Cross-eyed opossum Heidi is pictured as she sits in her enclosure at the zoo in Leipzig, eastern Germany. In the wild, a crosseyed animal would not have much chance for survival.
(AFP/DPA/Hendrik Schmidt)

dior destruction

it's the end of the year and a lot of the brands our company carries are destroying their discontinued stock ... one of those companies is christian dior ... they destroyed something like six million riyals worth of goods at our warehouse today ... i observed part of the destruction ... there were shoes, bags, clothes ... there was one dress that cost 65000 riyals ... for me that is just ridiculous ... i don't care how much money you have ... it's just ridiculous ... ri-di-cu-lous!

song of the day

not really a song ... it's just a beat ...

despicable me

it was kind of kiddy for my taste ... but it was good ... not in the same league as finding nemo or wall-e but good ... i didn't like the romanian accent steve carell had ... or was it russian ... whatever it was i didn't like it ... but yeah nice light movie after a long week of work ... gru is a villain who plans to steal the moon but in order to do so he must first get the shrink-ray gun from his nemesis vector ... and he adopts three little girls to help him do that ... so that's the story for you ... 7/10 ...

mumblings

every so often ... one of your female facebook friends gets married ... or engaged ... and you think to yourself ... niyyalo ...

allegory

there once was a book ... with no pictures on the cover ... quite old and dusty ... pages yellow and creased ... and yet it had a certain allure ... for some reason anyone who laid eyes on it instantly became curious to read it ... sadly nobody could understand the language it was written in ...

song of the day

mumblings

life is a highway ... and i'm looking for the nearest exit ...

awesome

song of the day

the social network

it's two hours long ... i found it kind of boring at times ... i mean i honestly don't give a shit about the whole how facebook got started story ... having said that i have to admit it is quite a dramatic story despite my lack of interest ... lot of betrayals and what not ... the movie paints a very unflattering picture of zuckerberg ... you can't help but come away with the impression that the guy is an asshole ...

so i don't really recommend it ... it's not terrible or anything ... but i feel it owes its success to the fact that it is about facebook ... and not to anything else ... so i think most people watched it out of curiosity ... other than that i didn't see what was so special ... the soundtrack was great though ... trent reznor did a good job there ... i give it a 5/10 ...

friday funnies

SoM

tuesday

well the training is over ... it was supposed to be four days but they reduced it to three ... i was very impressed with the trainer ... he is a young guy ... younger than me even ... anyway ... it's not the end of it ... the project that we are training for is launching next month and training will be continuous ... there will be more guys coming from dubai to help us with the launch later on ... anyway ... i did learn something ... and i enjoyed the daily buffet lunches at the hotel ... good food ... i used to just fill a plate of appetizers without going for main dish ... the appetizers were so good ... i would just get some sambusa some kibbe some tabboule some bamye some wara2 3inab some fatayer and fill up on that ... some people thought i was on a diet ... i got the new need for speed game the other day ... it's supposed to be really really good ... still haven't played it though ... saving it for the weekend ... also i was able to get a little bit of revenge on someone recently ... or shall we say vindication ... or maybe a little of both ... i won't go into detail but i will say this ... it felt good ... it felt really good ... moving on ... sent my laundry to the cleaners yesterday ... why is that news ... well i've never done that before ... you see back in riyadh whenever i had a laundry situation i would just go home to dhahran for the weekend and it would be taken care of ... but now dhahran is not so close anymore ... and going is not so easy ... so i sent my laundry to the cleaners ... first time ever ... back to normal work tomorrow ... no more training ... kind of happy about that actually ... training was oh so boring ... it really was ... and now i must go to sleep ... goodnight everyone ...

analogies

abu ghraib is to prisoners as life is to my soul ...

mumblings

you look sad ... and angry ... and discontent ... all at once ...

corporate mumblings

you know you hate your job when you welcome a four day training course because it will be "a nice change of scenery" ... even though it's being held in the same building where you work ... i'd like to think it's because i'll be learning something new ... which i will ... but that's not it ... i'm just glad that the routine will be broken ...

song of the day

easy a

it's a good movie despite the degeneracy ... good in the sense that it's funny and light and also has hot chicks ... nice afternoon movie on a weekend ... basically emma stone plays a girl called olive who accidentally starts a false rumor about herself ... a rumor that she had sex with an older guy ... the rumor spreads and olive sort of plays along ... and things start to get out of hand as olive begins perpetuating a slut image of herself ... as the slut image grows the line between reality and image gets blurrier ... and olive decides to set the record straight ... clearly it's not the most sophisticated premise in the world but it is a teen movie after all ... 7/10 ...

song of the day

what a photo

A Siberian tiger growls at the St-Felicien Wildlife zoo in St-Felicien, Quebec November 30, 2010.
REUTERS/Mathieu Belanger