Be afraid, be very afraid.

So, I haven’t been blogging recently, thanks to amazing amount of work and travel, but I’m BACK baby! Okay, you know they introduced in the EU this regulation in Airports that you can't have liquids on the plane unless they are less than 100mls a piece and put in a clear plastic bag right? Also stuff you buy from the Duty Free are but in clear plastic bags, if you buy any food from the airport you need to consumer it before boarding the plane ...bla bla bla. So my story begins in Munich (which btw the is BIG-A$$ airport) and I have 2 hours to waste there and I go buy me a 500ml bottle of Coke(tm) and I indulge in my book. As we start boarding I totally forget about the Coke and I just walk in there, with the Coke bottle in my hand, and no one tells me anything. As soon as I am sitting a friend of mine who was traveling with me was like: Are you supposed NOT to take liquids on the plane? So there I image how kool would it be if: a Male, 25 years old, Arab with black hair and bottle of a suspicious black bio-chemical agent stood-up and screamed

I AM GOING TO BLOW THE PLANE UP!

Seriously, would you think it would be too obvious I'm joking or the Arab-Terrorist stereotype is SO string that I can actually hijack the plane, make it land in Honolulu and probably get 3 million USD in my Cayman isles bank account?

The Russian Mafia

Since I’m an imbecile living in Poland with an Egyptian passport, embassies refuse to issue for me long-term (1-2 years) visas. Their logic is simple, since I am not a Polish citizen or a Polish resident (I should get my residency some time next year) then they can only issue to me short-term visas.

So after waging a full fledged war against their messed-up logic, and let me explain my two key points:
1.The Polish regulations state that for the first year in Poland I don’t get a residency, I am on an extended work visa.
2.These embassies are in Poland and therefore should respect the Polish regulations and help foreigners –like me- issue long-term business visas in their first year.
.....I decided to let it go and be the bigger man, I took the chance that I am back in THE MOTHERLAND and I wanted to issue a few long-term visas to the countries I expect to visit in the next 1-year.

So here’s how the Russian Embassy Mafia operates in Cairo:
First, they ask for an HIV test and they have an exclusive deal with one of the worst labs in Cairo. Just walking inside this lab gives you the feeling that you’ll probably contract HIV. Wait, it’s not over, this “exclusive lab” charges 100$ for a standard HIV test that usually costs 20$! Which makes you wonder if the remaining 80$ somehow finds their way into the pockets of someone @ the Russian embassy.

Second, they don’t allow anyone inside the embassy?! So you need to bribe some middle man 50$ to do this for you!? And based on the guy I was working with 30$ go to the embassy people?!

Finally, even the official fees for a 1-year visa to Russia is 300$?!

I really find it a pity that such corruption exists in an institution that should represent a country.

I HATE Needles!

So, I am not comfortable around needles. It’s not the pain, it’s the feeling that such a tiny device can actually kill you?! We’ve all seen the movie whereby the dude punches a syringe into the tubes connected to the other dude who’s in a comma but “knows too much” and within seconds the dude is gone right? It’s true! a tiny amount of air can kill, and I can’t get over this feeling whenever someone is taking some blood from me… I am a small man:(

You know that it’s estimated that 10% of the population has fear of needles? Yes! It’s true… Wikipedia has spoken: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypodermic

And why on Google Earth are we still having painful needles? Aren’t we in like the 21st century?! Shouldn’t we have like solved this problem long ago?