well duh

in a shocking discovery ... a study has found that women who post lots of photos of themselves on facebook are rather vain ...
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أسامينا شو تعبو أهالينا

this is a real name ... i saw it with my own eyes written on the guy's iqama ... if i am lying may God strike me down ... it's the name of the sponsor (kafeel) of a driver who works for one of our contractors ...

دايخ مدوخ ذعّار الشلوي

that's dayi5 midwi5 tha33ar alshlewi ...
if that's not the most bedouin name i have ever heard in my life i don't know what is ...

revolutionaries can't be choosers

have you noticed how selective people are about which revolutions they support .. or in which countries they would like to see one ...

i'm just saying

i was having dinner with soon to be ex-boss and current acting boss and a client representative ... it wasn't like a business meeting .. very casual .. we had albaik at work .. lol .. anyway .. so they got to talking about egypt and i said look what they did was awesome and mubarak deserved to go but ok they removed mubarak now what .. i mean the army is in control and the egyptian army shares very close ties with the americans .. soooooo?

to burn or not to burn

some people are debating whether what bouazizi did was right or wrong ... talking about does he deserve to be called a hero ... is he going to heaven or hell ...
first of all before i offer my own take on the issue let me say a couple of things ... what he did was commit suicide ... there's no debating that ... and suicide is a very grave sin ... there's no debating that either ... i think even atheists would agree that suicide is a serious transgression so it's not a religious thing ...
having said that ... context is very important ... considering all the events that led to him taking his life it's kind of understandable why he did what he did ... i'm not saying it justifies his actions however it does help us see him as a victim of a brutal regime that drove him to despair ...
and so here's the way i see it ... what he did was not right ... in the sense that it was suicide and suicide is a grave sin ... however to talk about heaven or hell is not for us to decide ... God is merciful and we pray that He will forgive him for what he did ... as for the question of is he a hero ... absolutely ... his sacrifice was the catalyst that set off the revolution ... rest in peace comrade ...
and while we are on the subject of suicide and it being a sin ... let me close with this ... if it wasn't such a huge sin ... i would've done it a long long time ago ... i'm just sayin ...

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 ...

a day in the life of jundi

well my mom and my brother were here ... they just left like an hour ago ... they had come for hajj and they came to visit me ... they arrived in jeddah last night at 11 pm ... i would have been asleep had i not been expecting them ... so i went and picked them up ... they were hungry apparently ... it was late and so i suggested al baik ... they said yes ... so i got them some takeout from there ... for those unfamiliar with al baik it is a VERY popular restaurant chain here in jeddah ... arguably the most popular restaurant in all of jeddah ... visit their website if you are interested ... so that took forever ... the ticket number for my order was 698 ... the number on the display was 625 ... yeah it's always packed like that ... anyway ... so they came home ... ate ... and soon passed out ... mom took my bed ... my brother took the sofa ... i got the floor ... how about that ... they were exhausted ... next morning my brother and i went to friday prayer ... after coming home i took them out ... we went out at 2 and stayed out till 8 when they left for the airport ... i don't know many places in jeddah but i showed them what i know ... first i took them for a cruise ... that was about an hour ... then we had lunch at some place called uno chicago grill ... good food ... then we went to the corniche for only a few minutes ... my mom wanted coffee ... then basically we just killed time by going from mall to mall ... we didn't buy anything ... not a single thing ... it was just about wasting time ... their flight was at 11 pm and the plan was they would leave for the airport at 8 ... so we just kept going from mall to mall ... which bored me tremendously ... them as well ... but there's nothing to do at my house really ... so all in all it was a long and tiresome day ... but at least i got to see them ... also they got to see my apartment ... which they admitted exceeded their expectations ... so i was pleased about that ... and yeah it's back to work tomorrow ...

also ... away from my own personal life details which mean nothing ... i want to take a second to address something that actually does ... mean something that is ... and that is maid abuse in the arab world ... every other day it's a new story ... today i read about a horrific story where an indonesian maid in saudi arabia was found in a dumpster ... her throat had been slashed apparently ... i just want to say to all those people who abuse their maids ... ya wailkum min Allah ... i think we are all familiar with the hadeeth about the woman who entered hell because she tortured a cat ...

overheard

while waiting for my takeout order today ... two saudi men are sitting at a table nearby ... they seem to be on their lunch break ... they are older men ... maybe in their forties ... one has a newspaper ... he is telling the other guy about the flotilla ... how there is one more ship on the way ... that the ship is named rachel corrie and he explained to him who rachel corrie was ... then he said ... there were 18 kuwaitis on those ships ... and even some bahrainis ... but not one saudi ... then they started to discuss why that is ... is it because they can't ... because nobody cares ... they were still debating it when i left ...

daddy's little girl

(AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

Julia Lira, 7, dances during a rehearsal by the Viradouro samba school in Rio de Janeiro late Wednesday, Feb. 3, 2010. The tiny dancer will be at the helm of the Viradouro samba school's parade at the upcoming Rio carnival. The Viradouro samba school has been known in the past for having local superstar actresses at the front of their shows.
A judge is considering blocking Julia's participation. A state agency that defends children's rights says she's too young to take on a traditionally sexy role. But the girl's father, who happens to be the president of the Viradouro group, says Julia is a natural who can easily samba through the 80-minute parade route in Rio's sweltering summer heat.
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meanwhile in beirut

read a sad story about a domestic worker committing suicide in lebanon ... not an uncommon thing over there apparently ... it happened in sanaye3 ... that was close to where i used to live ... there was a park ... anyway ... this is just another reason why arabs suck right now ... we treat our domestic workers like slaves ... remember those commercials that used to come on tv ... about treating your domestic workers like human beings ... they used to break my heart ... they stopped showing them though ...

innocence

you can look but don't touch

The sexual harassment of women in the streets, schools and work places of the Arab world is driving them to cover up and confine themselves to their homes, said activists at the first-ever regional conference addressing the once taboo topic.
Activists from 17 countries across the region met in Cairo for a two-day conference ending Monday and concluded that harassment was unchecked across the region because laws don't punish it, women don't report it and the authorities ignore it.
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i wonder if sexual harassment panda was present at the conference ...

virtual suicide

whoever thought of this is genius ... i loved the idea ... i'm not gonna do it ... but i loved the idea ...

Palin Za3laneh

The choice of photo for the cover of this week's Newsweek is unfortunate. When it comes to Sarah Palin, this "news" magazine has relished focusing on the irrelevant rather than the relevant. The Runner's World magazine one-page profile for which this photo was taken was all about health and fitness - a subject to which I am devoted and which is critically important to this nation. The out-of-context Newsweek approach is sexist and oh-so-expected by now. If anyone can learn anything from it: it shows why you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, gender, or color of skin. The media will do anything to draw attention - even if out of context.

- Sarah Palin

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باب الحارة

i didn't really get what the point of this article was ... but i have to say i found it very amusing ... and i'm sure you will too ... read it ...

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 ...

Beiruti Parks

this park was extremely close to where i used to live in beirut ...

ذاكرة ستُمحى هو عنوان حملة أطلقتها مجموعة من المواطنين المعنيّين بهويّة مدينة بيروت، احتجاجاً على مشروع بلدية بيروت القاضي بتحويل جنينة الصنائع إلى... موقف سيارات! وستشهد الحديقة التي تعود إلى عام 1908، تجمّعاً احتجاجياً عند العاشرة من صباح السبت، للمطالبة بوقف المبادرات التي تلوّث البيئة، وتشوّه بيروت، وتبتلع ذاكرتها، وتحرم أهلها فسحة أخرى للحلم والأمل

the biggest douche

some people might remember an episode of south park where they make fun of this guy called john edward ... for those who don't know john edward is a person in real life and he claims he can talk to dead people ... i saw him on larry king once ... anyway at the end of the episode edward is proclaimed the biggest douche in the universe ... well today i caught an old episode of snl on tv where seth rogen was hosting ... and they did a little sketch where they're pretending to have this event called the national douchebag championships ... so anyway we come to the point of this post ... suppose there really was an award for biggest douche ... who would you choose ... personally i think i would give the title to queen rania ... she has done much to deserve this award ... for example there's the whole youtube and twitter thing which is so lame in my opinion ... but this takes the cake ...

Miss Saudi Arabia

But at Saudi Arabia's only beauty pageant, the judges don't care about a perfect figure or face. What they're looking for in the quest for "Miss Beautiful Morals" is the contestant who shows the most devotion and respect for her parents.
"The idea of the pageant is to measure the contestants' commitment to Islamic morals... It's an alternative to the calls for decadence in the other beauty contests that only take into account a woman's body and looks," said pageant founder Khadra al-Mubarak.

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according to recent studies

people who frown in photos are five times more likely to get a divorce than people who smile ...

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