Reminiscing About 2007

2007, also known as The Year of The Golden Fesh was a good one. Here is to 2007 that saw:

1. The humble starts of my stand-up comedy career.
2. Me give-up coffee.....mmmmmm...coffffeeeeeeee.
3. The end of my long-haired, gay, Mexican pool-boy look.
4. The Rise of The Lord of The Fesh
5. The unsociable Fesh succumb and join Facebook.
6. Me break my bed due to ..*ahm*... my highly active and athletic sex life.
7. Me psychotically countdown (T-10/T-9/T-8/T-7/T-6/T-5/T-4/T-3/T-2/T-1/T) to the Simpsons movie. And then watch it an undisclosed number of times.
8. Me expose my sever case of untouchy-unfeely-ness to the world.
9. The rise of Iron Fesh
10. The beginning of my career as a published author (Nov07, Dec07)

Although 2007 had it's fair share of sad events too, I have to decided to reminisce only about the good ones! In a couple of hours I'm heading to the uber new year's PARTAAAAYYYY to welcome 2008 in style! Have a great one everyone and

Nasdrovia!

My Dream Job

I am sure there is more to me than my professional status as a corporate whore. On the other hand, I have consciously voted against leaving my mark on humanity. After all, if I discover cure for AIDS and end world poverty by the time I'm 40, life would be boring afterwards. I have done a lot of soul searching and came to the conclusion that coming out infornt of a live audience (or TV viewers) and making a complete ass of myself is very appealing. I think I have the potential to be a stand-up comic. Even better, I'd have my own late night show, I would be a funnier and more handsome Jon Stewart. I have a lot of respect for folks like Seinfeld or Jon Stewart. It takes a lot of skills and a hell of a personality to do what they do. You just need to see how when small (and mostly unplanned) things happen during their shows, like a certain reaction from the audience and how quickly they adapt and react to it. They are extremely smart, funny and the best thing is that they think on their feet. I really want to attend improv 101*.

But back to my show, I think I'll keep the smart-funny take on world news that Jon Stewart offers but would add a twist of the trademark Seinfeldian sarcastic humor about everything. It would be perfect, I'd watch it and even buy it over iTunes.

*Disclaimer: Intention to attend an improv class qualifies as doing "ONE thing towards my obsession with Improv/Stand-up". I hereby consider resolution #4 (pls reference previous post) completed.

New Year's Resolutions - Take I

I'm happy I did quite well on most of this year's resolutions, and I have been thinking about next year's. One thing I wanted to change is to be more specific, this will probably mean smaller resolutions, but much more actionable. I'll also go with 7, for the sentimental value.

1. I'll close the water tap when I'm brushing my teeth (Green Fesh).
2. I'll lose another 10KG (Iron Fesh).
3. I'll read more (Intellectual Fesh).
4. I'll do ONE thing towards my obsession with Improv/Stand-Up (Funny Fesh).
5. I'll complete ONE personal goal in life (Normal Fesh?).
6. I'll be a better son.
7. I'll continue to travel, visit 3 new countries. (to add up to 39 out of a target of 100).

Still a first take, I'll adjust and finalize by first week of Jan.

A History of God

Growing up as part of a Christian minority living within a Muslim majority forces you to hang on to your religion. Although I am not religious, I have a lot of respect for my religion and its significance to me and my family. And it's really sad to see how the world is going through some religiously turbulent times nowadays. The rise of fundamentalism has caused a lot of uncalled for inter-faith hate. To many, current day Christians are neo-Crusaders, Muslims are terrorists and Jews are superevil, baby-eating conspiratorial aliens who actually built the pyramids. I think it's safe to say that all 3 are just stereotypes fed to the uneducated masses by years of propaganda that serves a certain hidden agenda (I stole that line from somewhere, clearly it's not me). And it doesn't stop there, religious discrimination and prosecution is everywhere, Christians in the Arab world, Muslims in Europe, and even Muslims by fellow Muslims in Iraq for example.

What's even more dangerous, in my opinion, is that sometimes families tend to socialize their kids about how their religion/faith is the greatest and how other faiths are not. Growing up, I remember things like: Jesus the son of God! The son of God walking on Earth! Jesus didn't die on the cross! thrown at me by my 'friends' at school when we were only in 4th grade?! But I can't judge because I too have been socialized with a lot of 'wrong things' with Islam.

Maybe it's just me, but from where I stand it is a gloomy picture, so amidst all of this I decided to be part of the solution and seek to understand. I started reading Karen Armstorng's
A History of God. This book doesn't preach religious tolerance to its reader, it demands it. I was impressed by how extremely similar different faiths are to each other and how all those misconceptions you hear about, make a lot of sense when you read about them in an unbiased context. I've just finished the book and I feel I have a new found understanding to both my faith and other's. I believe this book should be a mandatory reading to graduate from high school if we want to have a shot at a peaceful future.

P.S: Sunny elCairo, I love you.

elCairo: I'm Lovin' It.

It's 3am, just back from my first night out in elCairo. Amazing. Nothing was planned, Feedz picked me up at 8pm. Had a great time, ate uber foul @ Shabrawy (orgasmic food). And to top it off, it's 11C now. For sure beats the current -5C in the Northward Frozen Wastelands.

I'm Lovin' It.

elCairo in 5!

Yup, I return to the sweet sweeeeet elCairo next Friday! oh boy, can't wait... great friends, perfect weather and real food! Have I died and gone to heaven?

The Sand Nigger

The Terrorist was approached by Racist Pig#2 and #3 in the underground today. Clearly the pigs were mesmerized by his beard, so black and terroristy. The pigs closed-in on The Terrorist and uttered something in the accursed Frozen Wastelandese Tongue. The Freedom Fighter explained: me no Polskie, me so horny... nothing, not even a laugh. The pigs started to use sign language. They clearly wanted to search The Terrorist's suspicious backpack. The Freedom Fighter refused, explaining that they are racist pigs who are stereotyping him as no one else is being stopped.... and that he'll sucky sucky for 2 dolla. Still no laughs, tough crowd. The Freedom Fighter asked to be taken to the Master Racist Pig, #1. There, the following exchange happened.

The Terrorist: This is racist, me being stereotyped like this.
Racist Pig#1: No, no, we are very sorry. It's not like this, we search everyone.
The Terrorist: I don't see anyone being searched.
Racist Pig#1: No, we do, it's your bag, it's big and that's why they stop you. Not because of anything else. Your ID?
The Terrorist: Here, knock yourself out.
Racist Pig#1: What do you do in Poland?
The Terrorist: None of your business.
Racist Pig#1: uhm..okay... we need to see your bag.
The Terrorist: No, if you search someone else, I'll show you my back
[The Freedom Fighter then decides to fuck with them for 20 more mins of not allowing them to search the bag, finally he lets them]
Racist Pig#1: You live around here?
The Terrorist: Address on my ID.
Racist Pig#1: Ok, so, where do you come from?
The Terrorist: ID.
Racist Pig#1: Oh, Egypt, which city?
The Terrorist: None of your business.
Racist Pig#1: uhm.. we'll check you card now, basically we'll....
The Terrorist: Spare me... I'll be sitting there.. come let me know when done.
Racist Pig#1: ah.. Ok.
*The Terrorist gives Racist Pig#1 a disgusted look and walks away. 10 mins later the Freedom Fighter is released and heads to work.

My social experiment was a complete success. I can shave my beard now, I have successfully proved that the average Frozen Wastelander has a very high chance of being a racist pig. Two years I have lived here and I was never stopped or searched, or have seen anyone searched for that matter. Add a beard and now I'm randomly selected for extra security in the underground!? Not because of my looks thought. It's because of how suspicious my backpack looks like. That makes sense.

I think I need a new backpack... one that says: No, no, I aint a Sand Nigger.

40 Year Old Fesh

There is something intimidating about a well built guy in his early 40's, who has this dead serious look on his face and walks around with a cane. I saw this dude a few days back on my way to work and right away I started wondering what's that dude's story? He is probably an ex-Alpha operative, he took part in the Russian diplomats hostage situation in Beirut, October 1985. Even though he was shot in the leg, he still managed to complete the mission and protect three of his comrades. He was flown back to Moscow where he retired and started his own business.

Or maybe he's an ex-CIA undercover operative, he parachuted into a Central American Dictator's palace to pave the way for his party's chopper that was approaching. After neutralizing twelve of the elite republican guards and securing the helipad he was shot down. He was awarded The Medal of Honour for his actions on that day.

When I'm in my 40's I'll walk around with a cane and a dead serious look on my face. When asked, I'll always reply: Oh the leg.... it's a long story.... let's just say the world is a little bit safer today.

*pause for a while, work up a teary eye... and whisper:
It was horrible....

If pressed to elaborate more, I'll make something up, it will include me, Angelina Jolie, a microchip, chocolate syrup and guns.....lots of guns.

0.5 Decades Later

Oh I remember that day, the sleep deprivation, the stress and the inhumane amounts of coffee inhaled to prep for it. But I think we put on a great show, we prepared very well for it and ontop of this we added a counter and tried to set a new world record! I think it took us 14 mins or so to generate a signature and a removal tool for a new 'malicious code'. Off course part of that demo was staged, nonetheless it was uber. My parents were pretty impressed and that's what matters.

That day was the climax of my 4.5 year rollercoaster at university, key highlights of my uni-life:
-Badminton (as gay as it sounds, big shout out to Hamema!)
-Assignments, mid-terms and grades.
-Dressing up as a belly dancer (bra, wig, make-up and all) and showing up on campus for a party.
-Assignments, mid-terms and grades.
-Making LOTS friends, falling in love and breaking up.
-Assignments, mid-terms and grades.
-Representing many countries in many councils in those make-believe Model UN/AL conferences.
-Assignments, mid-terms and grades.
-Interning with The Evil Corporation.
-Designing a full stock market simulation system and having 50 people run around in suites for 3 days trying to make money.
-Assignments, mid-terms and grades.
-And last and definitely not least, The One, The Only, The Ultimate Nemesis. BIG SHOUT OUT to you guys, you were and are the best: Maggie, Douby, Fox, Pete et moi.

Ah.... good times, good times. I don't wish them back, I look forward to the better times to come and I wonder, where would I be in another 0.5 decades?

The Fesh Factor: Dec 07

I give you The Fesh Factor article for December 2007. Oh must mention NileGirl, yes you are the "friend of mine" in the article!
(you can enlarge the picture by clicking on it and it opens up in full screen)
..and the actual article:
Hail me, for EyE R STILL DAS UBER Published Fesh.

The Fesh Factor: Nov 07

I give you The Fesh Factor article for November 2007.
(you can enlarge the picture by clicking on it and it opens up in full screen)
...and the actual article:
Hail me, for EyE R DAS UBER Published Fesh.

Blog Bitch! Blog!

I haven't been blogging that much recently. I think it has to do with my new career as a renowned writer. No, no not that I'm rich and powerful now and "blogging" is below me. I'm a few weeks away from that, it's something else. Now between the internal newsletter I contribute to and The Warsaw Insider, I have SO many deadlines. Not only the deadlines but also the fact that I'm expected to be funny with anything I write. My topics too are boxed now. For the internal newsletter it has to be work-related and not evilly sarcastic (what a waste?) and for the Warsaw Insider it has to amuse the readers about the Dilbert-style situations at the office. So now whenever I get time to write I don't blog but rather work on my articles... ugh... I guess that's how marriage feels like.

So there you have it, this is why I have been snobing you lately and not writing regularly, although I have like 10 posts in draft. I want to go back to blogging whenever I wanted about whatever I wanted, instead of having to corner my twisted mind to certain topics and write with a deadline... I need to get me some alone time with my blog... yess.. yesssss... oh the sick things I'd blog about... BOLAHAHAHAHAHA!

The BILF Hunter: Fesh

[Dudettes, if the title doesn't ring any bells, ask your boyfriends. Dudes, if the title doesn't ring any bells, update your porn collection.]

It's true, I've been hunted by Jade (The BILF Hunter) in her latest episode. It's very flattering considering I'm quite repulsive in the real world.

Normalized Fesh

I'm a big fan of debates, a few days back I tune to the Egyptian Satellite Channel (the acronym is ESC, ironic right?) and there was this talk show and they announced they'll be debating Normalization (i.e. eltatbeye3) next. The background on this one is simple, although Egypt has a peace treaty with Israel and therefore we have a political relationship, whether or not we should venture into normalizing other aspects of a mutual relationship like cultural, economic or academic is still a very touchy topic. To say that what followed was the most unprofessional, biased and lowest form of debate I have ever seen in my life is a gross understatement. Here are my very simple expectations going into the debate:
1. It will be professional.
2. Both points of view will be tackled.
3. I will learn something about Normalization with Israel.

First, there was no content as the anchor was picking on a few incidents like showing an Egyptian movie in Israel and just attacking the director of the movie, who was one of the guests. Second, I thought that the director was actually FOR normalization, which would have added some value to the debate. But later I discovered that surprisingly all 3 guests were against Normalization! Third, the anchor was clearly biased and was making sure that everyone agreed that Normalization with Israel is definitely the 8th original sin. Finally, the dumbass anchor, ended the debate with this line: Normalization should go to hell!

After 60 seconds of staring blankly at the screen I realized that this is it! I always wondered how it would feel to be mentally violated, over and over and over. That must be it.

I walked away not understanding WHY we shouldn't normalize, apart from the sheer emotional hate of the Zionist Zombies? How do we expect to progress and solve any of the outstanding fundamental points of difference we have with Israel without REACHING OUT and COMMUNICATING? All of this emotionally-charged 'No for Normalization' reminded me when in the early days of Israel, the Arab Leaders were in cease-fire talks with their Israeli counterparts and the Arab leaders refused to acknowledge or even talk directly to the Israelis! Did we learn anything from Sadat? On his own initiative he flew to Israel to resolve the issues and seal a peace treaty that returned to Egypt every single inch of its land. What ended the Cold War? Was it a policy of complete and utter isolation towards USSR or was it continuous dialog?

But screw all of that, your typical Arab will always hate the 'Satan-backed State of Israel' and unless they:
1. Returned Jerusalem to Palestine.
2. Returned the Golan Heights to Syria.
3. Allowed Palestinians abroad to come back to Palestine.
5. Stopped all acts of violence against Palestinians and Arabs.
6. Released all prisoners, Palestinian and Arab.
7. Erased the State of Israel from the map (this one is becoming a bit optional now, but highly preferable).

We will not normalize with them evil baby-eating Jews. I think this makes perfect sense, let's wait on that to happen.

Fesh=Fesh-8KG

I kicked-off my uber 6-month health plan in July with the objective of losing 10 KGs. I am glad to report that with only 6 weeks to go I am @ 80% of my target!

*The crowd cheers..

Settle down, settle down, this by no mean undermines my Feshyness. I am and will always be Big Fesh, I am just slightly lighter now... that's all. Now, I will be opening the floor for some questions. Please note that I will not be answering any questions regarding the following two topics:
A. How much do I weight now or before I lose those 8 KGs.
B. How much are those 8KG's as a % of my weight.

Yes, pls the lady at the back of the room....yes you with The Daily Obese, pls go ahead.

The Bicycle Lover

Recently there have been a couple of interesting stories about psychos having sex with weird things. I remember reading about the dude who had sex with a road sign? Aren't those signs sharp and metaly? But the most interesting one is that one, sex with a bicycle! The article explains that the 'offender' was discovered in a hostel by the cleaning staff. After knocking on the door and not getting any reply, they used the master key to get in only to find the dude nekked and pleasuring his bicycle. If you think this is weird enough, wait it get better. The first thing the cleaning staff did was call the Police! Why call the police, after walking in on a a 51-year old dude nekked with his johnson stuck in a bicycle? Here are my best guesses:
A. The cleaning staff couldn't tell if the bicycle was of the legal age or not.
B. The dude actually asked them to call the police because he was trying to get freaky with the bicycle and ended up stuck in between the gears.

Help me understand how is walking in on this pervert any different from walking in on a dude in his hotel room while he's masturbating? Don't you think cleaning staff do walk in on folks doing all sorts of weird stuff all the time? Do you think they report them? Do you read about people discovered masturbating in their hotel rooms everyday? No you don't. This case aint different, clearly he's a very sad sad old man, whose life is already down the drain (he lives in a hostel and has a casual relationship with a bicycle?). But yeah, I can see the cleaning dude's angle: Oh well why not report his ass to the police, so that he's first violated in the media and then thrown in prison only to become someone else's 'bicycle'.

Lord of the Fesh

Legend has it that ships brought the Elves from the West to Middle-fesh. Munqy, an Elven Lord, befriended Fesh Bombadil and introduced him to the saga of Lord of the Rings. Fesh was initially skeptical and repeatedly mocked Munqy for his nerdy taste. Months later the cold winter nights of the Frozen Wastelands forced Fesh to acquire the Lord of the Rings trilogy (in print format) and read it. Fesh's amazingly slow reading speed meant that he kept on reading the books till the following summer. As Fesh put down the last of the three books, he knew that his world will never be the same. Middle-fesh too will never be the same, it was then that the First Age of Middle-fesh ended.

In the Second Age of Middle-fesh, ShadShad, of the Dwarves shares Fesh's dream of holding a 12-hour-long Lord of the Rings movie marathon. On a Saturday morning, Fesh embarked on a perilous journey to cross Middle-fesh and arrived safely at the Northern Caves, where ShadShad dwelt. As Fesh entered the Northern Caves he was drawn to the DVD boxset of the Extended Edition of Lord of the Rings, Fesh held it up close and hissed: my preccccciiiioooouuuussssssss. The marathon started at noon and the by the stroke of midnight the marathon was over and with it ended the Second Age of Middle-fesh.

The Third Age of Middle-fesh started with Fesh's Journey to Mordor (a.k.a. London). Fesh first stopped at Rivendell (a.k.a. Manchester) where he met aku the Grey and there the Fellowship of the Fesh was formed. The Two Companions left Rivendell and set off for Mordor. They arrived on a cold Saturday noon where they met Lady Gogoladriel. Together Fesh Bombadil, aku the Grey and Lady Gogoladriel entered Mt. Doom and there they cast the One Ring into the fire. On that Saturday afternoon, after the curtains were closed the Third Age of Middle-fesh has passed and the dominion of The Fesh began.

[If you didn't understand anything from the above, here's the summary: I read the Lord of the Rings books in like 9 months, thanks to Munqy for recommending! I then watched all 3 DVDs (extended edition) on one day, pls spare me the nerd jokes. Thanks ShadShad for arranging that! Finally I watched the biggest theater production of Lord of the Rings in London, which was awesome. Thanks aku and Gogo!]

My Nice Lady

So, my 7-minute meditation routine took a turn for the worst a couple of months back. Yeah, after the dreaded wait is over the officer obviously started getting the REJECTED message and I can see them panicking. I like to think it's because of my intimidating rapist look combined with the rejection message. So the new extended routine includes them picking up the phone and right away calling The Party Headquarters for guidance. Then they need to pass my name over the phone along with my other info so that this info can be prepared on a punch card and then fed to the Mainframe. Off course to make things more fun they pass my name letter by letter and they don't pronounce the letters they pick a name for EACH letter, military-style ......ah I almost feel I am at Guantanamo bay already.

As per my passport my full name has THIRTY-TWO letters, so yeah, it takes a while to pass my name. After a couple of exchanges on the phone, I get my passport back with a stamp. The annoying thing is that they are very rude, they don't say anything like: Sorry for the mix-up or We're sorry we have a crappy-ass Communist-era computer system or anything. So seeing this, I started giving them some attitude, like saying something in Arabic, waving my hands in the air or my all time favorite: the look. Yeah, giving them this look that says: I'm an Arab and I know people, does the name AlQaeda ring any bells, bitches?

After a couple of times, I made a deal with myself: since I am not planning on staying in this hellhole of a country any more (shhhhh it's a secret) I just shouldn't care any more and should take it lightly. So I started messing with the immigration officers, one time as I was coming in, after handing in the passport I told the officer: Hey, I think you'll need to call your pal to check my passport, it's going to take time, so I suggest you do it right away. The dude gave me this fuck-off look and then 2 mins he was embarrassed like hell as he picked up the phone to make the call. 1 point Fesh, 0 Frozen Wastelands.

Couple of days ago as I was coming back from Mancuria this lovely lady officer after completing the call, hands me my passport back and -in English- says: I am very sorry, I know you have to go thru this every time, all your documents are in order it's just that it's the process and we have to do it. Amazing how just a simple statement like this can automatically make you forget such an annoying situation, I am intrigued by my own fucked-up psyche.

Fesh 'n Chips

Over the years I have had many enemies. aku however is my archnemesis, he dwells in his den of evil in Manchester (a.k.a Mancuria) plotting his evil plans against me. Over the years he has built his empire: The wZt empire out of his headquarters in Mancuria. Great as it is the wZt empire, it is nothing compared to the empire I have built back at the Frozen Wastelands: The eZt empire. Over the years I managed to contain the influence of the wZt empire and keep it off the continent. But recently the tides have turned and wZt empire seemed to be growing stronger and stronger, taking advantage of the internal power struggle (between me and the voice in my head) that has torn the eZt empire.

For long I have sat there and did nothing, but those days are over. Today @ 10.05 CET I landed in Mancuria to put an end to this. I am on a 5-day vacation here in the wZt empire where I shall be consuming inhumane amounts of al-ke-hole and I'd be sighted in various clubs bouncing like a cheap ho. If you are in Mancuria, you have to see this.

Fesh Factor 2.0

After my successful pitch for a column at our internal newsletter, I decided to explore if the world was ready for some of my sick sick articles. The victim was: The Warsaw Insider. A monthly life-style magazine, that's targeted at expat and foreigners living in Warsaw. I approached the editor and she asked me to draft something that is around 600 words! Now, this is longer than my average post, but I went thru my old work and pieced together something ..........and wasn't expecting much. Got a call-back, it will run in November edition!

I give you a sneak peek of the upcoming Fesh Factor article in the Warsaw Insider magazine:

The Fesh Factor

Busytoids

In my 5 years with the Evil Corporation, I’ve seen busy. You know, those weeks when your world is falling apart and you wonder who mysteriously left half of yesterday’s pizza on the porch and you discover the dog in the microwave. But recently I’ve noticed that everyone at the office is busy all the time. And I mean everyone, be it the Global Operations Director or that new hire working on that amazingly-stupid-and-dangerously-brain-cell-reducing project. According to a recent survey, 9 out of 10 corporate employees have answered ‘Yes’ when they were asked: Do you consider yourself busy? Okay, so I made that bit about the survey up. I needed to add some creditability to my article and I was too lazy to look it up online, you got me.

I guess it’s another one of those corporate stereotypes. Overtime, this stereotype got associated with young hot-shots who make it big and skip the ladder and jump on the corporate elevator, they were always busy, right? So more and more of us Homo Corporatuses (Man The Corporate Offices Dweller) are aspiring to that level of busyiness. We consider it a measure of how successful we are, if we are more busy, chances are we are more successful. We chose to be busy, even subconsciously. More importantly we chose to let other people know that we are busy. It’s become a status symbol, like driving a Beemer or wearing a Bottega Veneta.

So at that point you can more or less classify yourself as a busyitoid or a non-busytoid. If you’re a busytoids then excellent, keep up the good work. If you are unfortunate enough to discover that you’re a non-busytoids, now is the right time to panic. Chances are, your boss is thinking to fire you at this very same moment because you’re not acting busy enough at work. But fear no more, I’m here to help transform you into a high performance busyitoid. Here’s my quick 5-point rough guide:

1. Whenever someone is passing you in the corridor and says: Hey, how's everything? always answer: Busy, busy!
2. Don't answer mails on time, and when someone asks you about the mail they sent you, complain for 5 mins about the 700 mails you get daily. They don't know you get 10 messages half of which from people you don’t know offering you different ‘miracle products’ to enlarge your penis.
3. Don't get back to voice mails, you will sound very needy if you answer back, and what are you going to say: I'm returning your call! That's just a reputation killer.
4. Always block your calendar even if you don't have meaningful stuff to do. For example: 9:00-10:00 stare at the screen mindlessly; 10:00-11:00 think about my happy place ...etc. Makes you seem very busy for people wanting to book you.
5. Most importantly, always, always show up late for meetings. Come in with a pill of papers and spend the first 5 mins explaining how today is a "crazy day".

You follow this guide for 4-6 weeks and I promise you that your chances of promotion will at least double!

You should probably also know that a few of us busytoids have realized how much of a joke all of this is, after living this lie for so long. We searched and found our ‘blue pill’ out of this lie. We live in secrecy in the corporate offices, hiding, waiting. It’s easy to spot us though, we’re one of the few remaining people in the corporate offices who when asked: How is everything? We still answer, with a smile: Fine, how about you?

FeshFesh

Are you a busytoid? Write me @

Consider THIS!

Those nifty envicons (à la emoticons), like the one above, are spreading like wild fire in the dry corporate mails nowadays. First I didn't mind them, but seeing how they are spreading now at an amazing speed, made me wonder why are we not seeing more of those envicons?

Maybe one that reads:
Please consider the environment by turning off the lights as you finish this meeting.
[icon of a cute little green lamp here]

Or we can turn up the intrusiveness a bit:
Please consider the environment by reusing this plastic cup you’re having your green tea in (yes, I can see you) for your next drink.
[icon of a green arrow pointing to where the cup is]

Or being a little bit more assertive, like:
Please consider the environment by recycling …you pig.
[icon of cute little piggie]

I’m down with the whole let’s be environmentally friendly and all, it’s just the method I'm questioning. Is that really an effective way? Picture this, you get a 15-page-long email (font 8) and procced to print it to be able to review it. Suddenly you see the envicon starting back at you, you realize this one is ‘marked’ and you can’t print it. This can only mean one thing: you need to get your printing-fix from one of the unmarked ones. File>Print, 100 copies. OK. aaaahhhhh the sweeeet sweeeet smell of freshly printed email. What, you don't do this regularly?

But if the person really cares about the environment and wants to help raise the awareness of others by doing something, aren't there more appropriate ways? For example, picking a worth cause, joining or donating to an NGO that actually does something about the environment instead of only preaching to others? I once had a meeting with one of them enviconics and she actually brought a print-out of her email (which had the super kool envicon at the end of it) instead of, like, I don't know, maybe bring her laptop to the meeting, like we all do?

Bottom line is, if you picked the environment as your cause and you are taking personal actions to help the environment and you live by those principles and this envicon is part of your cause, then respect. Otherwise please spare me this hypocritical, egoistic, feel-good, space-consuming piece of garbage... and please please don't print your own mails, that's just stupid.

21st Century Colosseum

I was watching a documentary about the Colosseum on National Geographic today and the dude was explaining how it was originally designed for gladiatorial fights. Over the centuries it became a popular sport, until it was outlawed in the 4th century. Yeah, it's beyond me how it took them couple of centuries to figure out that maybe killing other humans is not a bright idea. The weird thing is that later today I saw this show ' Robotica' which basically have two teams design two competing robots and then fight them to death, you're seeing where I am going right? Do you think that this robotic gladiatorial fights will be outlawed in the future? Say 25th century?

I agree that initially it sounds like one of the many stupid ideas I blurp regularly BUT I am sure stopping fights in the Colosseum 17 centuries ago wasn't a popular idea too! And if you're thinking this doesn't apply because we can't compare humans being killed with robots, then how do you justify the current international pressure to stop the Spanish bullfighting for example?

Think about it, it's the 25th century, cyborgs roam the earth serving us in every possible aspect. They have become an integral part of our civilization. Will bot fighting be outlawed? I would argue that it would, because as our civilization progresses we develop more compassion towards others, be it man, animal or cyborg.

it begins...

So I survived the last winter in the Northward Frozen Wastelands, worst I've witnessed was -16C and I must say it wasn't that bad. Few weeks ago a friend tells me that last winter (yes the one with the -16C) was on of the warmest winters in last 200 years. So statistically, this winter is bound to be worse than last one, now that's a spirit booster? ughhhh... BRING IT ON BIATCH!!!!

*You have to imagine me as this crazy Vietnam War solider who lost his legs (and mind) in Forest Gump and he was battling with the storm on the shrimp fishing boat.

My 'Professional' Nickname

I don't think I am a pleasant person to work with. I'm a perfectionist who does not tolerate failure. You know all those motivational quotes and management styles that explain how you learn from your mistakes? yeah, I don't buy this bullshit. Mistakes ARE mistakes, you shouldn't do them. Comprende?

I try to mange this sadistic-side of my personality as much as possible, but the moment I start to see someone slacking off, it's showtime. A few weeks back, I locked on such a target. It was one of the vendors I work with, my ' global vendor'. They were slacking off and the service they were offering me was becoming worse by the day. So it began, I invested so much energy in tracking everything to the utter most detail. I then kicked-off the shock and awe campaign, where I waged war on all fronts, picking up all the issues and scrutinizing them. It didn't take long until the weakest links broke. Two engineers broke under my pressure and basically did some seriously wrong actions. Two managers then followed suite in two fully documented cases. My work was almost complete, I had to go for the knock-out. All of this was escalated in a cunningly evil communication plan, that targeted all the major decision makers. It was so beautiful. Major restructures are now happening, major interventions, people changing jobs ...etc.

I'm not a bad guy, I just don't tolerate failure. But if someone needs to be the bad guy to expose a certain failure, I'd gladly do it. Sources inside my 'global vendor' tell me that they gave me an internal nickname, it's: The Bloodhound.

I think I like it.

*EFPoC(tm) Moments

*EFPoC(tm) moments are all around us. We live thru them everyday, you just don't realize it. Think about the moments when you felt the whole world is conspiring to help your cunningly evil plan. This is usually when you imagine yourself laughing a hysteric, diabolic, loud laugh, in your secluded castle, thunder in the background and all. Off course, if you have your own secluded castle already where you regularly do that, then WOW, you're beyond help! But for the rest of us, who only imagine this, *EFPoC(tm) is the way to go. For fellow Simpsonians out there, simply said this is a classic Mr. Burns ' Exxxxxxxxcellent' moment. See life is a lot easier if you relate it to Simpsons, after all, whatever it is, the Simspons already did it.

So, here's two of my favorite *EFPoC(tm) moments:

• Boyfriend of Hot-girl-who-works-with-you-and-you-have-a-massive-crush-on dumps her. Now the coast is clear for you, she's weak and vulnerable. *EFPoC(tm).
  
• Your potential customers, whom you have been begging for the last year to consider using your service of a secure hosting facility for their sensitive data, just got hacked. Now they'll come crawling to you. *EFPoC(tm).

*EFPoC(tm) off course being: Evil Finger Pyramid of Contemplation. The (tm) is for FeshFesh Inc.

So tell me, what are your *EFPoC(tm) moments?

Feshtoid # 7982

How many mails does a healthy male African Fesh send at work per month?

A. Between 50 and 300
B. Between 301 and 700
C. More than 701

Bounce Fesh, Bounce Bounce

It's easy to taunt me, I mean with my nerdiness, pervyiness or my unfantabulous physique it shouldn't be a problem. But that on the side, my dancing skelz have been (and still are) an easy topic for taunting me. It's either that I'm THAT bad or simply my dancing is so ultimate, so uber that basically folks are intimated by it and they choose to mock or else it will control them. I like to think it's the latter, helps me sleep at night.

I don't think my dancing routine fits with any of the universally accepted definitions of dancing. I do little movements, keep my hands in my pockets and I occasionally nod while I sip my Żubrówka with apple. But don't get me wrong, I'm not that boring. Given the right level (read: 1.5 gallons) of alcohol in my blood and just the right hip-hop song and BAM! The Fesh bounces. During the few times I've been sighted bouncing, I couldn't help but wonder how I would look to the casual onlooker? With all the bad bouncing, the awkward moves, the jittery-hand movements and not to mention my massive behind; I must look like a cheep ho bouncing in a cheap New York club on New Year's Eve, 1999. Don't ask how I know this.

С Днем Рождения Спутник

*beep* *beep* *beep* *beep* *beep* *beep* *beep* *beep* *beep* *beep*
*beep* *beep* *beep* *beep* *beep* *beep* *beep* *beep* *beep* *beep*
*beep* *beep* *beep* *beep* *beep* *beep* *beep* *beep* *beep* *beep*
*beep* *beep* *beep* *beep* *beep* *beep* *beep* *beep* *beep* *beep*
*beep* *beep* *beep* *beep* *beep* *beep* *beep* *beep* *beep* *beep*

'Published' Fesh

As of today, I am a 'published' author.

*cheers* *cheers*

Thank you, thank you. I must say I couldn't have done it without your support. After the two successful rounds (Famous Fesh and Famous Fesh - Phase II) of trying to name my column to-be, we agreed that the column should be called: The Fesh Factor.

Today I came out from a meeting to find the uber newsletter sitting on my desk, I eagerly picked it up and searched all of it's pages, all 5 of them, and there it was:

The Fesh Factor: Homo Corparatus

You could literally see the angelic golden glow around the newsletter and clearly hear in the background: 'haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalelouya'. My first column was actually an 'edited' version of two of my posts (Behold, a New Species and Pyramids & Quadrants). Yeah they removed all the juicy parts :S But still I'm happy man, Now I'm a published author.

Next Stop: Nobel Prize.

Interesting Reflexes

Yesterday I almost hit a car, and no I wasn't driving. You're wondering how a pedestrian can hit a car? simple the pedestrian just needs to be equally absent minded. I was crossing the street and after the car passed me slowly, I started to cross and I hit the tires with my shoe. It didn't hurt or anything, but I involuntarily pulled my leg back, which got me thinking about the interesting topic of Reflexes. You know, hitting your knee with a hammer gets your leg to move forward? What? it is interesting?!

So I wikied for reflexes and kept on reading and then I came across an intriguing piece of info, some human reflexes are only available in infants! As we grow up we 'lose' those reflexes. The grasp reflex in infants mean they usually grasp with very strong grip to anything put in their hands. The hand-to-mouth reflex however means infants tend to place anything in their hand in their mouth. This got me thinking about the immense practical-joke possibilities if those reflexes stuck around until we're annoying 8-year olds. For example:

Grasp reflex:
1.Place massive roach in dude's hand...and CRACK!
2.Place sleeping dude's hand around his balls...and OUTCH! (nice, han?)

Hand-to-mouth reflex:
1.Place slimy disgusting worm in dude's hand. (do you think it would taste like spaghetti?)
2.Place piece of poo in dude's hand. (mmmmmm....pooo)

Oh and don't get me started on the sucking reflex... too many mental images.

The Touchy-Feely Bill

I'm a very untouchy, unfeely person. Call me cold or emotionally crippled as you wish I don't care. Back in Egypt it's very common for guys to hug and/or kiss for hello. Not to mention that some folks in Egypt apply the European etiquette and guys kiss girls for hello or goodbye. And what's with all the hand shaking going around? I really don't get it, why do we have to be so touchy-feely? I can easily acknowledge seeing someone with a nice 'Good Morning, how is everything?', a nod and a smile while I am 0.5 meters from that person! I always hate it when one of them touchy-feely folks arrive and he has to touch all 15 people sitting around the table, that's just wrong.

Sometime I think about the Touchy-Feely bill, which will be the first piece of legislation that I'll pass during my first week in office. It will mandate the following:
1. Handshaking shall be restricted to formal and business introductions.
2. Kissing for hellos and goodbyes is completely banned, The exception will be family, where moderation will be required.
3. Hugging will only be allowed in case you have not met the other person for a period greater than or equal to 3 months.
4. All lame touchy-feely "coaching" moves like patting on the back, shoulder or arm shall be considered sexual harassment in the workplace and are banned effective today.
5. All forms of touchy-feelyness between guys will be banned, touchy-feelyness however will be encouraged between hot chikitas. Ideally with some Chocolate Syrup involved ...*ahm*... can we strike that last part from the text of the bill?

ahh... the world would be a better place when I become 'Big Brother'

A Good Conspiracy, Anyone?

I am a conspiracy theory buff. I appreciate good ones and I despise the half-breeds who believe really stupid conspiracies. The stupidest conspiracy theory of all time is the one that claims that the Moon landing was faked. This theory is SO stupid I'm always tempted to punch those half-breeds in the face whenever I see one of those weirdos.... GRRRRRRRRR!
*breath-in*....*breath-out*........ much better.

Let me take a step-back and explain, conspiracy theories are a result of missing pieces of info right? Think for example the Kennedy assassination and the deal with the 'Magic Bullet'. Now that's a good conspiracy theory because there so much missing information. While with the Moon landing, the fools forgot that this was a scientific mission with the sole objective of collecting information?! The amount of information, pictures, rocks, soil samples and even parts of former unmanned space probes that were brought back is immense! And all of that 'evidence' was not sealed in the CIA's basement, it was shared with the WHOLE international body of scientists from everywhere in the world (Europe, Japan, Russia...etc)!

My silver bullet for those half-breeds who believe this crappy theory is the fact that there exists a world-wide network of observatories that measure the position of the Moon (up to millimeters of precision) via deflecting light off retro-reflectors that were place on the Moon by the Apollo missions....ah...which have been used by the WHOLE world to measure the position of the Moon for the last THIRTY-FIVE years?! Again, this data was about the position of the Moon was not 'published' by NASA, this data was and is used by all countries in the world in a very similar way like we use GPS now?! It actually uses the same 'concept' as GPS. But you don't see anyone claiming that GPS was faked right? Stupid half-breeds.

The ultimate conspiracy theory for me is the whole 'Da Vinci Code' plot, that I like. Any favorite theories?

The Alchemist

I just finished reading the book, yes, I know, I'm ancient. I found it to be a very inspiring read and after reading The Lord of the Rings for the last 6 months, I found it conveniently short too. Interestingly, I loved the introduction and the 'topics for discussion' at the end of the book more than the book itself. Being an ultimate nerd, I love discussing books and since I'm not in any of the kool book clubs (they keep rejecting my application), I decided to discuss a very interesting discussion topic here. Here goes:

4. When he talked about the pilgrimage to Mecca, the crystal merchant argued that having a dream is more important than fulfilling it, which is what Santiago was trying to do. Do you agree with Santiago's rationale or the crystal merchant's?

The book wants you to walk away with 'Santiago's rational' as the answer. I would love to say that too but isn't what the crystal merchant doing what the majority of us do? Have a 'dream' to live for? Who from us doesn't have his/her 'Mecca'? But I would argue that very few of us are the ones who are actually working against this and trying to find their 'treasure'. The book actually reinforces that fulfilling your dream and realizing your Personal Legend is no easy task. I guess my point is: Isn't Santiago's rationale too 'ideal'? Can we live in a world were everyone has either realized their Personal Legend or are working against it? Too Utopian? And if you agree that it is too Utopian, wouldn't the crystal merchant's rational totally make sense?

Famous Fesh - Phase II

In my last post I had only 7 proposed titles and ended up with 36 thanks to you. So I decided to get technical about my selection technique. As your typical Corporate Slut would do, I opened my beloved XL and copied all 36 in, then I started to populate the columns. I had a couple of columns:
Kudoses: How many readers have blessed this proposed title
Length: What’s the length of the title in letters. Later I got the average. 14.5 letters.
Catchy: A binary column either 1 i.e. Catchy, else 0.
Feshy: Another binary column where 1 indicate an uberly Feshy title.
Short: if less than or equal the average 1, else 0.
JSoA: Jade’s Stamp of Approval, if approved by Jade then 1 else 0.
I then assigned a weight to each of the 4 binary columns in the following fashion: Catchy: 20%, Feshy: 50%, Short: 20%, JSoA: 10% which resulted in the weighted average column ranging from 0 to 1. I then multiplied this column with the number of Kudoses awarded for each title and got the final scores as follows:


Now, you can:
A. Pity me for doing all this just to select a title.
B. Close the window now and NEVER read my blog again.
C. Pity me and then choose to vote for your favorite from 1-16.

What’s it going to be?

Famous Fesh

Last week I took the first step towards my glamorous career to-be as a world renowned writer..... you can laugh at me now, but you'll come begging for my friendship later. So we have at work a newsletter that is published quarterly, it's a decent publication and with around 200+ folks at the office it has a good readers base. I shared with the editor one of the posts I had here on my blog and I proposed I edit it out and offer him an article for every issue. He like the idea and offered me my very own column!

As a result I have been struggling over the last few days with the title of my column. Here's what I am considering about the title:

• Needs to be catchy
• Needs to have 'Fesh' in it. (yes my narcissistic instincts, sue me).
• Needs to be short.

So far I've but together a list:

• FeshFeshiyat
• FeshFeshy
• Chronicles of the Fesh
• Ramblings of the Fesh
• Fesh's Corner
• SIMPL Fesh (read it as 'simple Fesh' but the first part is a business inside joke)
• Fesh: Business Transformed. (again a business inside joke)

What do you think? Like any of them? All crap? Can you suggest?

Pyramids & Quadrants

Like all animals, we, Homo Corpratuses (Man The Corporate Offices Dweller) have our tools. We chose the Pyramids & Quadrants. We became so proficient in using them that no single meeting, presentation, document or training can be a proper one without the right mix of pyramids & quadrants. Take pyramids for example, they can represent any of the following: a 3-pillared strategy, a 3-pillared strategy with one objective (that's put inside), 3-pillared strategy with 3 goals (each put on the side) or my all-time favorite: the n-layer pyramid-pie; where n>=2. The n-layer pyramid-pie is usually used to spell out the priorities rising from the least (at the base) to the most important (at the top).

What we've done with pyramids is nothing compared to our systematic abuse of the quadrants. You name it: Time Management, Energy Management, Priority Management and even Vendor Management, they all have 4 quadrants. We use quadrants so much that quadrant-reading has become a natural instinct for us. Now we instinctively seek the One quadrant of them all. The One quadrant that rules them all. The Holy Upper Right Quadrant.

Drinking, As a Way of Life

I believe there are things in life that are really undervalued. Take drinking for example, most people would think it's just a social activity. Some would even claim it's unhealthy!*cough*blasphemy*cough*. But if you look at it this way:

"Well ya see, Norm, it's like this. A herd of buffalo can only move as fast as the slowest buffalo. And when the herd is hunted, it is the slowest and weakest ones at the back that are killed first. This natural selection is good for the herd as a whole, because the general speed and health of the whole group keeps improving by the regular killing of the weakest members. In much the same way, the human brain can only operate as fast as the slowest brain cells. Excessive intake of alcohol, as we know, kills brain cells. But naturally, it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first. In this way, regular consumption of beer eliminates the weaker brain cells, making the brain a faster and more efficient machine. That's why you always feel smarter after a few beers." - Cliff (Cheers)

This is so right, on so many levels that I can die peacefully now. Thanks Sensei Munqy for showing me the light. I am, again, forever indebted.

Could I Live Here?

Today I found an Internationale Herlad Tribune (dated 31st May 2007) folded and tucked under my couch! I was surprised to find it there, usually I pick an IHT on the plane and leave it there. As I opened it I remembered why I kept it. On page 5, Verlyn Klinkenborg wrote an article titled: Driving across America where he raised one very intriguing thought. He mentioned that as he drove into a new town, he found himself wondering: could I live here?

Two years ago when I was touring Europe, I remember stopping in a deserted street in Pisa, Italy and pointing to a 3rd floor balcony and saying to aku: I could live here, hell I even have a picture to prove it! Klinkenborg goes on to explain that what he is actually asking is not whether he could live here or not, but rather: who would I be if I did live here? although I never asked myself this question, I always thought how my life could look like, if I lived here. What would be my job? hobbies? how would my family look like?... this is very interesting. I always dismissed those thoughts as childish imagination, now finally I discover that other people do it too! I think I'll hang on to the newspaper for a little bit more :)

Sliding Feshs

Have you noticed how we are always trying to catch up with something? Be it just waking up a bit late and trying to catch up with your morning routine: shower, breakfast, news ...etc. Or maybe during work when one call runs over another one. And off course, the dreaded run across Frankfurt's terminal to catch your connection, classic. The thing I don't understand is how this became hardwired into our brains. Just yesterday I left work at 7pm and as I was on the escalator going down to the Underground I heard the sound of the train approaching. At that sound a couple of folks behind me on the escalator started running down to make sure they catch the train.

Now take a step back, this definitely makes sense if were 8am and some of those folks don't want to be late for work. But it was 7pm and from the looks of those folks they all looked to me like respectable fellow corporate slaves who just got off work. I can understand that they want to make sure to spend more time with their family, but considering that the next train comes in 2 mins, do you really need to run and catch it, after some 11 hours of good old corporate whoopeshing?

Maybe it's just me, but you know what every now and then when I'm returning home, I 'miss' a train. It's my way of rewarding myself for all the other catching up I need to do everywhere else. What's the worse that could happen?

Smelly Fesh

So I have no hot water in my apartment since yesterday. Yeah, a pipe in the building broke and they are fixing it. It will take 2-3 more days to get fixed. If you see me and I smell funky you have been warned.

Oh, and this had to happen when it's already getting colder, so I'm already longing for a warm shower. Anywho, since I skipped shower today in the morning, I have to shower now. Cold water it is then, talk about ultra shrinkage :S

Shower Gel & Condoms

For years advertisers used sex appeal to grab our attention to the advertisement. Today I witnessed the next level, using sex appeal to make you buy their products. Today, I was buying a shower gel and I see an Adidas shower gel bottle, sleek and fully black, written on it:

TEAM FORCE

[Stimulating]

With Magnesium..

Needless to say, I bought it. Later on, I wondered if there is anything stimulating about a shower gel? Not to mention that instead of writing something like 'With Vitamin B5' they went with a more manly, heavy metal and probably poisonous metal like Magnesium. So yeah the big evil corporations finally broke into the complex male psyche, the golden rule is: Make the product you are selling sound like a lubricated condom.

...I guess it works.

The Bar Dilemma

A couple of weeks ago a friend of mine explained to me the Twelve Step program developed by Alcoholic Anonymous to help people get ride of their addictive habits. A key concept, he explained, is that the addiction is more powerful than you are and you have to admit this and basically try hard not to 'tempt or test yourself' when it comes to this addiction. This is very powerful, it's simply against everything else that you like to believe! Take smokers for example, most of them like to believe they can quite whenever they want, this program argues that they can't under their own will because they are weaker than the addiction.

This all came back to me today as I was brainstorming with a team on the preparation for a corporate training we are running. The corporate training aims at introducing some healthy habits in your daily routine like exercising regularly, drinking more water and drinking less or no alcohol. We were discussing the dinner and suddenly one person wondered: Does it make sense that we have an open bar, while we are trying to get people to drink less alcohol? Half the team agreed, while the other half argued that we are 'mature' enough to choose whether to drink or not.

If I had this discussion a month ago, I would have fully supported the 'mature'-side of the discussion, but if you apply this concept of not tempting or testing yourself, then we probably shouldn't have a bar, right? I know it's not an apples to apples comparison seeing that the folks we are running the training for are not alcoholics, but still as a principle, do you think we should:
A. Have the bar (since we're mature and therefore should have the choice)
B. Not have the bar (since we are weaker than our addiction and should not test or tempt ourselves).

The Mars Hoax

I must say I was evilly amused when I started seeing folks on Facebook signing up to all those 'events' that were created to witness the 'once-in-a-lifetime-opportunity' that's going to happen on the 27th of August. The so-called Mars Hoax which started circulating the Internet 4 years ago, about a close encounter between Mars and the Earth. This year it made its way as multiple Facebook events, instead of the usual email forward. Although the close encounter, back in 2003, is true, the hoax exaggerates the encounter by saying that Mars will be as big as the Moon in the sky on the 27th of August. Clearly BS.

What really amused me is the amount of people who are 'attending' these events. One event had around 15,000 attendees! It's amusing right? It's so much easier to accept an invitation and trust the random dude who sent it to you, instead of spending 2 seconds to Google it. After all, this dude is, for sure, more credible then NASA:
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2007/21aug_hurtlingtomars.htm

The idiocy of the Facebookians amuses me.

*You have to imagine me sitting on a big leather chair, looking at little Facebookians running around clueless like hamsters in a small glass box. I should look like Mr. Burns from the Simpsons.*

I Want To Believe

I wasn't abducted before, but I firmly believe that alien life forms exist. Why? Well on Earth we have life forms (e.g. bacteria) living in very hostile conditions like under kilometers of sea water or high-up on mount Everest. This, along with the fact that everyday we discover a couple of more "Earth-like" planets half the way across the universe is an enough proof for me that statistically it's very probable that somewhere on the other side of the universe there are some bacteria living in a water pond, maybe even as close as Europa!

The part with little green men in silver jumpsuits landing in secret is the one I hate. Let's be honest to ourselves, if aliens ever find us first there are only two likely outcomes: A. We build a very successful interplanetary economic relationship. B. They eliminate us. Let's take a simpler example, during the last couple of thousands of years we had very different civilizations on Earth come in contact with each other and the outcome was always one of the two above. China, Greece and Egypt have enjoyed periods of flourishing economic cooperation. While the Spanish empire managed to wipe out most several civilizations in it's conquest to colonize the New World. History doesn't tell us of "sightings" of Greeks in fancy white robes riding a circular horse-drawn wagon who regularly abducted Chinese people in the 3rd century B.C. and anally probing them later, right?

Will the Fesh lose his luggage?

For a long time I was contemplating whether to blog about this or not. It's simple, if I blog about it I am probably going to jinx it............hmm..........no risk no fun I guess? Okay, over may many travels I have never lost my luggage. And I don't mean lost as in it never got back to me, I mean lost as in I never waited at the belt and the luggage didn't come!

Yeah I guess I'm lucky, especially that I travel quite often. So, this time when I was coming to elCairo I chose to fly Austrian Airlines although it has only 30 min connection time in Vienna. Most of my colleagues who flew Austrian to Warsaw did lose their luggage! Against all warnings, I decided what the hell, if I am ever to lose my luggage I want to know about it! (I am messed up in the head).

So here I am sitting at the lounge at Cairo Airport after I checked in my luggage, and just in all honesty I did ask the hot chikita at the check-in counter to put a 'priority' tag on my bag. So what do you think, let's get the voting going will it be:

A. I will get my luggage normally at the belt in Warsaw.
B. I will lose my luggage, but it will come on the next flight.
C. I will lose my luggage for good?

Leaving elCairo...again

It's been almost a year and a half since I left elCairo for Warszawa. In hindsight, I think it's one of those decisions that changed me forever. Before heading of to Warszawa, my life was very classical. Born in elCairo and studied there, lived with my family, worked in elCairo and had fun with my friends...uh...here in elCairo. Now with the move, everything changed, I needed to get used to living alone, making new friends, getting accustomed to a new culture, language ...etc.

Off course I learned a lot of things, and I am still learning but the one thing that really amazed me and still does is how my home sickness grows, exponentially, every time I come back. Everytime I come back, I dread the day I'm going to leave. The day I leave my friends and family and go back to leaving in my 'spacious' apartment back in Warszawa. The day I stop doing random non-sensecal plans, like heading to elfishawy cafe at 4am and start planing to attend house parties 2 weeks in advance. The day I leave elCairo, that is today.

SPIDER PIG

SPIDER PIG

SPIDER PIG

Does whatever a SPIDER PIG does

Can he swing

From a web

No he cant

He's a pig

LOOK OOOUUUTTT!!!!

He is a SPIDER PIG!!

(I have it as an MP3 too)

My 100th Post!

It's my 100th post! very exciting! It's been a year since I started blogging already and I thought of celebrating my 100th post by awarding some fake awards to my previous posts, here goes:


Most worrying post co-awarded to: Be afraid & The Orwellian Side of Me
Most Polska-specific post awarded to: Itdependance
Most ego-centric post awarded to: The Feshfactor
Most post likely to be featured as a motion picture awarded to: Angry Demons
Most weird post awarded to: The B.E.F.
Most funny post awarded to: Inferior Teristial Beings
Best psychotic series awarded to: The Simpsons Countdown (T-10/T-9/T-8/T-7/T-6/T-5/T-4/T-3/T-2/T-1/T)
Best Dilbert-style post awarded to: Behold a new Species
Best collaborative post awarded to: Battle Plans

This year's Best post, by popular demand, is awarded to: My Bed


Thank you and pls stay tuned for 2008's awards to be announced August 2008.

I Have Never..

...worn a bra.
* all girls drink, eh.. I kinda take a sip too.

...paid for sex.
*I drink, no one else does (yeah right!)

Since we apply a strict 'no details' rule for this drinking game, it was alright to share since no one would ever know the details. The night took an interesting turn however when we switched to Spin the Bottle, oh man there's alot of dirt on everyone by that time. Me likey :)

Fesh, I am Your Father....

So a friend of mine got just got this uber home theater and we wanted to put it to the test. We kept thinking about the ULTIMATE movie marathon to initiate the home theater with. Lord of the Rings came up, but I objected seeing that I am in the middle of the second book right now and don't want to spoil it. I pushed for an ultimate Rocky marathon, but surprisingly the idea was shot down. Finally we agreed to watch Star Wars, or as the nerdy dude at the DVD store called it: The Holy Trilogy.

It was very interesting that after a couple of beers and midway thru The Empire Strikes Back we were intrigued by Darth Vader's ability to choke people using the "Force" yet without touching them. Seemed like a very kool way to kill someone. Later we were blown away by the fact that Darth Vader could do the same remotely! One of the guys wondered loudly if having such a capability "Remotely Choking to Death" as a nice colorful button on our internal Instant Messaging tool at work, was a good idea. Off course we can tone it down like maybe make it send a 3-second electric shock to the other person or something, but other than that sign me up.

hmmm.... maybe nerdy sci-fi movies and beer is not a good combination after all?

Feshtoid # 5269

Today I learned that 80% of all women in Egypt wear the hijab (i.e. cover their hair with the Islamic head scarf). Seeing that Christians are 10% of the population, this means that 50% of all women without hijab are statistically Christian. I found that very interesting, because as a teenager all my Muslim friends used to tease me that I have 1 in 10 chance of the girl being Christian, now with the hijab factor in I have 1 in 2 chance!

I don't know why I'm blogging about this, it's not like I meet random girls all the time and I have a need to determine their religion! It's just something that I was teased so much about while growing up and I was happy to hear this statistic. Yes, teenage Fesh is still alive in me.

But in all fairness I think my calculation is biased, seeing that this number is over total population and my guess is that the hijab penetration is much higher with certain socio-economic classes and also in specific areas. So probably if you factor that in, probably folks I mingle with would be more at 50% hijab penetration, which means statistically I have a 1 in 5 chances.... ah crap .......back to square one :S

Hail Our Googilian Overlords

Someone is telling you about a movie and you want to check the reviews, typically you'd do the following:
1. Type www.imdb.com in your browser address bar.
2. Wait for main page for IMDB to load.
3. Search for the location of the search box (they change it every few weeks to confuse us).
4. Type the movie name you're looking for.
5. Wait for results page (Did you notice that there's always multiple results?... and NO I don't mean the TV series form 1950's called Batman!)
6. Pick the movie you are looking for from list.
7. Wait for page to load.

I've stopped doing that a few months back, thanks to our overlords at Google. I discovered the ultimate trio: a. Google toolbar b. The colon operator c. The I'm Feeling Lucky button. Those 3 if used wisely can mean you do not need to navigate to any site anymore, here's how:
1. Type into the Google toolbar: website name : keyword
2. Hit I'm Feeling Lucky button
3. Wait for exact page you want to load.

For example, if you want to look something up on Wikipedia you simply need to type:
wiki: WWII
A movie on IMDB?
imdb: The Simpsons
Check the latest weather?
weather.com: Cairo

This is very kool specially if you are a fellow nerd who longs to the ugly, incompetent DOS command-line or the seductive, all-mighty Linux shell....*PING*.

The Iron Fesh

So I started going regularly to the Gym as of the beginning of the month. You know, one of those very late New Year resolutions. On my first day, I show up early ready for some serious gyming. The instructor gives me the whole routine: 30 mins running followed by some weightlifting. I finish the running part feeling on top of the world and then I go to the instructor who hands me two 5Kg dumbbells and asks me to do two sets of 20 counts. I do 5 counts. The instructor seems to understand that maybe I am not ready yet, so he replaces 5Kg dumbbells with 4KG ones, same drill 2x20. I do 10 counts......

The instructor clearly amused now with my incompetence waits for a girl, who is literally half my size, to finish exercising with 3Kg dumbbells and then hands them to me. I do 15 counts.

I should be ashamed of myself... I know.

The Simpsons

IT. IS. HERE.
*Mental Orgasm*
*Fesh dies



I'll get to see it next week GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

The Simpsons-1

Question: What's the difference between a hardcore Simpsons fan and a psychotic fan?


Answer: A hardcore fan would anticipate the release of the movie and attend the premier, a psychotic fan would instead start a creepy, serial-killerish-type countdown on his blog that would expose many dark secrets about him. In doing so the psychotic fan would lose both his self-respect and his tiny reader base.


Still, IT WAS TOTALLY WORTH IT... it begins tomorrow: 27.07.07

The Simpsons-2

Question: What's the difference between a hardcore Simpsons fan and a psychotic fan?

Answer: A hardcore fan would have seen all 400 episodes of The Simpsons, a psychotic fan would have seen all of them, at least 6 times each.

The Simpsons-3

Question: What's the difference between a hardcore Simpsons fan and a psychotic fan?

Answer: A hardcore fan would have some Simpsons merchandise, a psychotic fan will have his very own own Homer doll, even if this psychotic fan is a 26 years old homophobic dude.

The Simpsons-4

Question: What's the difference between a hardcore Simpsons fan and a psychotic fan?

Answer: A hardcore fan would be familiar with a Flaming Moe, a psychotic fan would have tried to mix it at home (liquor + cough syrup + cigarette ash) and -probably- been hospitalized after trying it.

The Simpsons-5

Question: What's the difference between a hardcore Simpsons fan and a psychotic fan?

Answer: A hardcore fan would be familiar with the 400+ different characters on the Simpsons, a psychotic fan would have his own. I give you: FeshFesh

courtesy of http://www.simpsonizeme.com (thanks Aku!)

The Simpsons-6

Question: What's the difference between a hardcore Simpsons fan and a psychotic fan?

Answer: A hardcore fan would know that Homer was made an honorary citizen of Winnipeg, Canada on May 30, 2003, a psychotic fan would know his social security number.

The Simpsons-7

Question: What's the difference between a hardcore Simpsons fan and a psychotic fan?

Answer: A hardcore fan would off course know Moleman's lesser known first name: Hans, a psychotic fan would be able to distinctively remember at least 10 different situations when Hans was killed off the show, Kenny-style.

The Simpsons-8

Question: What's the difference between a hardcore Simpsons fan and a psychotic fan?

Answer: A hardcore fan would know at least 15 of Homer's jobs, a psychotic fan would be able to recite all of Homer's jobs in alphabetical order in under 2 mins. All 118 of them.

The Simpsons-9

Question: What's the difference between a hardcore Simpsons fan and a psychotic fan?

Answer: A hardcore fan would have read The Gospel According to The Simpsons, a psychotic fan would consider it blasphemous to contradict it at church.

The Simpsons-10

Question: What's the difference between a hardcore Simpsons fan and a psychotic fan?

Answer: A psychotic fan is sexual aroused by the mere thought of The Simpsons Movie opening up in 10 days, while a hardcore fan is not.

The BEF's Secret Wish

We BEF brothers spend a great deal of our time in airports and specifically in security lines, last time I was in Frankfurt I had to:
1. Pass my check-in luggage thru an x-ray machine before I even got my boarding pass.
2. Pass a security point where my cabin baggage was x-rayed, my laptop sniffed and turned on.
3. Pass yet another security point on my way to the gate. This check-point didn't have a metal detector so the security guard had to ask each and every passenger to spread their hands and legs and he scanned them with a mobile metal detector.

I have to go thru this every time I am traveling, so technically I invest around 4-5 hours a month, each month in security lines. I do this gracefully and I never ask for anything in return. Yet deep inside me, and deep inside every Brother we all wish for this one time, just one time...

It's a crowded European Airport, crowded security line, it's raining outside. Appears like there is some disturbance at the front of the line, one passenger is refusing to take off his shoes. There is some yelling, can't make out what they are saying, suddenly the passenger hits the security guard with his carry-on bag and dashes to the nearest emergency exit. All at once the hall is flooded by security guards who are running after the alleged "shoe-bomb" terrorist, they are yelling something, seems they are giving him a waring ...*BANG* *BANG* the pursuit is over.

We BEF Brothers carry this dark and terrible wish within us every time we fly. Wishing that one day, all the time we invested in the security of the planes we fly in will pay out. The feeling that maybe today is the day this scenario unfolds keeps us going from Plane to Gate to Plane....everyday.

You've Been Tagged

I have recently begged my way into being tagged by nilegirl to complete this Sports Meme. Basically the way it works is that you answer those questions about yourself and then tag a few of your friends and they do the same. So here goes:
1. What is your sport?
This is a tough one, since I'm your standard issue couch potato. But in the Elder Days I used to play different sports:
School: Football
University: Badminton.
Work: Foosball.
2. Why do you like this one?
Well specifically for Badminton I think what I love about it is that it's very much like Tennis on slow motion. So whenever I watch those Wimbledon matches I am really amazed by how those dudes are running over and changing the ball direction and all that. Since in Tennis I can't do that, I opt to play badminton so that I CAN.
3. How long are you doing this for?
I played Badminton in University for around 2 years with my buddy: Pigeon. (I know, but that's another post).
4. Most painful experience.
This one is from my football-playing days, actually it's your typical football story: Free kick, not looking at the ball, ball approaches the speed of light and *BAM* .... sheer pain... and yeah it didn't hit me in the face if you were wondering...
5. Most memorable experience.
Well I guess the ball in the nuts is definitely memorable but on a more happier note 2 years ago I organized a Foosball Summer tournament at work. I had 14 teams participate, each composed of 2 players. My most memorable experience is that we made it to the FINAL game and the way we played it is that we played best out of 5 sets. So basically the team that got 3 sets won. So we lose the first set and then we have an amazing come-back winning two consecutive sets. So at the score of 2-1 the other team's captain called for a break and we never continued this game. Strange right? BUT if you consider that the other team's captain was my boss AND that after he called for the break he -probably- went to bathroom and cried like a 6-year old girl and later on avoided to continue the game at all costs it becomes very interesting :D
(6. Add tall tale or new question to Meme. So I guess I'll add a question)
6. Worst sport ever?
Wrestling, something about a dude in spandex trying to pin another spandex-claded dude to the ground in what seems like a popular sexual position is just not right. Yes I'm a homophob.
7. Tag 3 or 4 people.
hmmmm... okay so seeing I don't have a lot of readers here I'll start with tagging Forsooth and Munqy and anyone else who wants to be tagged just yell: I'm a little piggy oink oink.

How to Make a "Bomb"

Ingredients:
1 water melon
1 bottle of vodka
10 crazy straws
10 tea spoons

Instructions:
1. Slice off the top of the melon, just enough to have a hole 4cm in diameter.
2. Use a spoon to cut the reddish part of the melon into little pieces.
3. Empty vodka inside the melon, stir lightly.
4. Put sliced top back on.
5. Put back in fridge for a couple of hours.

Serving Recommendation:
Remove top, insert crazy straws and encourage guests to eat the melon pieces with the tea spoons. The "Bomb" is most potent if severed when everyone is already drunk.

Dose:
Adults are encouraged not to try the "Bomb". It's a Machiavellian device that first lures you to suckle on the sweet juices and the sugary melon pieces that have been dipped in the best vodka there is and then 15 mins later hits you.

Disclaimer:
If it's your birthday and your friends offer you a toast and you don't have a drink at hand... do not, I repeat do not pick up the "Bomb" and drink from all 5 straws. Serious hang-over...ugh...

Happy FeshDay

Historical speaking, The Day of the Fesh has been first celebrated by the ancient Egyptians in the year 5007 BC. Now, almost 7000 years later the whole world still celebrates the 7th day of the 7th month of the 7th year of every millennium, in pop culture it became known as: FeshDay.

If you ask me, I think the whole thing is just too much publicity. I don't need all that attention at the time being..... I know, I know... it's very flattering that the ancient Egyptians foresaw my coming and prophesied about it and kept on celebrating the day for thousands of years, but at the end of the day I'm just an ordinary man. Maybe with a very kool birthday (07.07.07).... but still an ordinary man just like the rest of you ordinary mortals.

Anyways Happy FeshDay.

The Culture of Busyiness

In any corporation right now, there's only one rule: If you ain't busy, you aint kool. So for you unkool people here's a quick 5-point guide:

1. Whenever someone is passing you in the corridor and says: Hey, how's everything? always answer: Busy, busy!
2. Don't answer mails on time, and when someone asks you about the mail they sent you, complain for 5 mins about the 700 mails you get daily. They don't know you get 10 messages half of which is spam.
3. Don't get back to voice mails, you will sound very needy if you answer back, and what are you going to say: I'm returning your call! That's just a reputation killer.
4. Always block your calendar even if you don't have meaningful stuff to do. For example: 9:00-10:00 stare at the screen mindlessly; 10:00-11:00 think about my happy place ...etc. Makes you seem very busy for people wanting to book you.
5. Most importantly, always, always show up late for meetings. Come in with a pill of papers and spend the first 5 mins explaining how today is a "crazy day".

But seriously, why do people do this? I can understand that as you go up the corporate ladder your responsibilities increase, but this does not mean you become less efficient at your basic time-management skills, right? I work with senior people and some of them are usually very prompt in: getting back to mail, answering calls or attending meetings, yet others are not. Some would argue that some positions attract a lot of mails or calls versus others, but again isn't the ability to filter thru and identify really important messages, calls and/or meetings a skill you need to acquire to climb the corporate ladder? The way I see it, we should be promoting people who can coupe with the increase amount of mails, calls and meetings and not we promote people and hope they could.

Finally, please feel free to do any of the above first 4 points with me, it's your choice. But please, please when I ask you: How's everything? spare me ANY statement that has "busy" in it. I get it the whole world is BUSY and I'm the last person on earth who has some spare time to say: Fine, how about you?

The Fesh: Defeated

You attend that many corporate trainings and this introduction piece (name, current assignment, hometown, expectations and one unique thing) becomes fairly easy. I have developed my standard answers for those and for the unique thing I usually say:

My passion is traveling...*pause for dramatic purposes*...so far I have visited 36 countries out of my personal target of visiting a 100.

It has always worked for me, usually I get some interesting comments... until today. The trainer, a dude in his early 50ies, looked at me and said: How many countries?

I smiled and said in a confident tone:
THIRTY-six

He replied in a cold tone:
FORTY-EIGHT.

.....I have been defeated in my own game.
*Fesh dies.

My 7-Minute Meditation

As a spin-off of my last post, here's an interesting habit that I developed due to my travels. I can now rate how easy/hard it is to get into a country (i.e. the immigration part). So on a scale of 1 to 10, here goes:

The Swiss (1/10)
They don't even look at my passport, they just look at my residency card and let me go, one of the few countries in the world that doesn't even stamp my passport. Me likey.

The Schiengen States (Germany, France, Italy ..etc) (3/10)
They usually ask one question: How long are you planing to stay? I always like to confuse them by answering: I'm leaving next Thursday. I then pause and watch the officer trying to do some quick math to understand how many days is Thursday from today. It's very entertaining.

The Americans (6/10)
Very detailed, lots of questions: Why are you here, how long, where are you staying...etc. They are however very professional and the whole process takes under 3 minutes. I don't joke there, not after 9-11.

The Polish (9/10)
The mother of them all, basically I live and work there but still anytime I am entering OR exiting Poland I go thru a 10-minute process. This is how it usually goes: after the initial exchange of documents and Good Mornings, the immigration officer would then type in EVERY single detail of my passport and residency card into the Communist-era computer system. Then comes the dreaded 7-minutes of awkward silence, during that time the immigration officer would be mindlessly tapping on the keyboard until the Orwellian Central System would blurp an ACCEPTED or REJECTED on the screen. I haven't seen the screen but I'm assuming they'd go with the cliche big red/green bold letters.

Initially (the first dozen or so times) I was extremely annoyed by this wait, but later I started to appreciate this wait, it started to be my own little time where I meditate. It's as close to an Out of Body experience as I have ever gotten. Every single time I am waiting I am imaging the different scenarios of how I'm gonna go koko on the one immigration officer's ass who's going to make the fatal mistake of stopping me from passing based on a glitch in this crappy Communist-era system. Oh I pity that fool.

99 Cities in 36 Countries

As the end of the Fiscal year approaches, I am restating my balance sheet of countries visited. Previously, I was using a list of all the countries that I got off a website and based on that I had visited 37 countries. Now I found this ultimate Facebook gadget from TripAdviser that uses Google Maps and let's you put little pins on the cities you've visited and then it automatically calculates how many cities/countries. Based on this one, I have 99 cities in 36 countries.

My personal target for countries visited by retirement stays as 100 (amazingly tough, I know :S) but the interesting thing is that I never either counted the cities or had a target for them. Statistically, I've visited 3 cities per country. But practically a lot of those cities are either in the bigger countries I've been to (e.g. US) or Egypt, where 2 years of working with our Distributor network took me to the final frontiers of Egypt. So I have decided to set my target for cities at 200.

This means 64 countries and 101 cities to go, which is 1.8 new countries and 2.9 new cities per year as of this year and till I'm 60...... and yes I have put a lot of thought into this.

My Name

So I have my "special deal" comedy club tickets, right? It's the same night I got booed, in case you're a die hard fan. Turns out those tickets basically make you sit in the first row, or as it later became known to me: The you'll-definitely-be-picked-on-doesn't-mater-how-hard-you-try row.

It all happened so quickly, suddenly the guy started to ask all the people siting in the first row about their names and what they do. He then picked out something and made fun of them. So here I'm sitting there waiting for my turn to be picked on, my mind racing on how not to give him any leads to pick on. This turned out to be harder than I expected:
1. I'm Big (shut up)
2. I'm Arab (...*ahm*....and proud of it?)

So I'm thinking: do I really want to tell him my full first name and add a 3rd reason for him to pick on me? .... too little time, he's approaching .. I panic... and I hear:

What's your name?
*I'm sweating..
ahh... Al...

... So he ignores the fact that I'm big (maybe it's not that noticeable :D) or that I'm Arab (who am I kidding :S) and he exactly knew what I was doing with my name .... damn those telepathic stand up comics, he went on and on on how I was giving a short name because I am thinking if I give my full name, no one will understand anything and the whole club was laughing at me.

You might have won this battle Random Stand Up Comic Guy, but your time will come.