Blog7

The Mediocracy of the Middle

2011-05-29T00:01:00.006+02:00

Ah well, since every Egyptian is a political analyst nowadays

*Fesh throws his metaphorical hat into the ring and emerges, hooded and wearing the mandatory Egyptian flag-themed boxing short.

As happy as I am with all the dynamic politicking that's happening in Egypt, I'm very annoyed with almost all of the charters of the new parties being formed now. Almost all of these charters read like a Constitution would read: belief in human rights, equality of people without regard to religion, gender or race, etc. I get it, we are embracing democracy and those principles are ones we have longed for for a long period of time, but aren't they universal as well? Shouldn't these charters mention an Ideology that people can be for or against? Who wouldn't be for "equality among citizens of Egypt" or the "growth of Egypt" or "return Egypt to it's historic leadership position in the region"?

Interestingly enough, the only party that stands out now is the Muslim Brotherhood's party, the Freedom and Democracy Party, they clearly state that their ideologies are: Islamism, Conservatism and Islamic democracy. I respect that. The biggest party in the German Bundestag is the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). Of course the difference being the way you implement your ideology. The CDU has no problems with electing non-Christians in the parliament or females, something that the Muslim Brotherhood's party still needs to vindicate itself on. But my point stands. The German CDU has a different set of ideologies than, say, Die Linke, the left-leaning German party that has a democratic-socialistic ideology.

The Mediocracy of the Middle is nowhere most apparent than on the economic ideology. Almost 100% of the charters that I read mention something along those lines: "The group supports free-market capitalism, but without manipulation or monopoly" or maybe add a line about social justice, which I guess is code for: we'll get the benefits of the US's capitalism AND all the benefits that Socialism has in Europe.....riiiiiight and I have a chicken that lays golden eggs as well.

Maybe this state of ideological mediocracy is my opportunity to launch Egypt's very own Pirate Party, Sweden-style? I will ponder this thought as I listen to some illegally downloaded MP3's.

School Rivalry

2010-12-29T01:26:00.004+02:00

So here I am chilling with my HBS peeps bitching about career, life, the universe and everything, and I hear one them has "dropped the H-bomb". Not familiar with the expression, my mind raced through a surprisingly long list of all profanities that yours truly is aware of. However, none of them that started with an 'H' made any sense, but then I realized the expression means telling someone that you go to HBS.

I like a couple of things about that expression. First, it's catchy. You say that and automatically your mind brings the picture of a mushroom cloud. Second, it captures the equity of Harvard, a very strong and powerful institution. Finally, you have to like the fact that the 'H' works nicely for both H-bomb and Harvard.

Now, we all know rivalry is strong here, so if they have an expression for telling people which business school they go to, we need ours and we need it fast. After much thinking, I have decided that our expression should be: passing the Cardinal doobie, hear me out on this one. First, think the image this expression brings to your mind, you and your friends chilling and passing a doobie, nice. Second, a doobie represents the mellow, laid-back GSB environment and the awesome state of California. Finally, this expression also refers to the Stanford Cardinals, because we kick effin ass.

So next time you tell someone you go to the GSB, you've just passed the Cardinal doobie, you pothead.

The Ultimate Compliment

2010-12-22T01:20:00.002+02:00

As I elbowed my way today through elCairo's epic traffic, I noticed the last thing you want to see when traffic is that bad: high-ranking police officers. Those, of course, only appear on the streets when one of them Party Members--yes, I'm going with a 'China metaphor'--is passing by. Before I knew it we came to a complete stop on my side of the road while the other side was becoming eerily empty for that time of the day... ah, yes, the armada approaches.

I truly enjoy watching those caravans pass by. The motorcycles whisking by, the uncomfortable big security dudes crammed in SUVs and the trucks with really big jamming antennas, really big, as in big enough to the extent even Freud would be uncomfortable around them. I wonder if the dudes driving these jamming trucks ever worry about sitting very close all the time to those antennas that blast high-intensity microwave radiation? Based on a very credible Southpark episode, I'd say those dudes should worry about ball cancer.

But I digress, I caught myself thinking how needing all of this security is really the ultimate compliment one could get. Probably an international award is a close second. Sure, people are thrilled to recieve the Nobel prize, but deep down they know that a bunch of bureaucrats went through a tedious screening and filtering process that ended up with an envelop with their name, ugh, it makes me sick. On the other hand, needing nine motorcycles with bigass dudes with Uzis as part of your flotilla tells you that you're so important/dangerous that people out there are actively planning attempts on your life and that is the ultimate compliment.

I'd enjoy being a Party Member, I know it.

On Offending Argentines

2009-12-25T22:13:00.005+02:00

Well it's about time, I need to add another nation to my "must rip on" list and I think I got a head start on Argentina:

Overexcited Argentine: MAN! You have to try dulce de leche!

Fesh: uhm, what?

Overexcited Argentine: Dude, this is the REAL stuff a true Argentine desert which is AWESOME!

Fesh: Oh, wow, yeah I should try that!

Overexcited Argentine: Oh yeah, wait I'll order some for desert right now!

Fesh: Okay?

Three minutes later, waiter brings some ice cream, Fesh inhales it.

Overexcited Argentine: SO???

Fesh: What?

Overexcited Argentine: How do you like dulce de leche?!

Fesh: Do you mean this wasn't regular ice cream?

Unamused, but still overexcited Argentine: Not the ice cream! The sauce on it! That's the dulce de leche and legend has it that it was invented by mistake when an Argentine was mixing some milk and then something fell....

Fesh: Let me stop you here, wasn't that sauce caramel?

Visibly angry Argentine: NO IT'S NOT, it's dulce de leche, invented by an Argentine.

Fesh: Dude, even on the wiki page of dulce de leche it says it tastes like caramel, which means it wasn't invented by an Argentine, rather it was invented by a very hairy man, in his cave, right after he was finished with this new round thing he called The Wheel.

.....and that's how you trash a national desert. It's that simple.

Black Fesh 9.0

2009-11-14T10:13:00.004+02:00

"I know why you're here, I've prepared everything. I've used rabid monkey blood, really old blue cheese and snake teeth grind", said the creepy old man as he pointed to his dark and evil creation:

"Uhm....", hesitated Fesh.

"What's wrong?", asked the COM.

"Nothing, but actually I'm doing my MBA now and I'm wondering if you're hiring?", said Fesh as he handed the COM his resume.

The COM checked Fesh's resume, "hmmmm, nice, nice.... any experience in strategy?".

"errr... well, I'm a very quick learner and I'd love to join your fine institution here and learn more about strategy", replied Fesh nervously.

"Ouuuu, that's unfortunate, we had a position in our corporate strategy group that we were looking into filling. Wish you the best of luck in your job search.", concluded the COM.

[Yes, the blog has been in hibernation for the last 4 months, b-school side effects, I'm still alive, planing to watch the match here with the proud North Californian crowd, woho!]

Gender Roles

2009-08-26T13:14:00.008+02:00

The topic of the day on the radio was traditional gender roles and what people think of them. The presenter gave the example of cooking, which traditionally falls under the duties of the wife, and asked listeners to weigh-in with their thoughts. As I listened, I plotted the answers in my mind. The X-axis started with the conservative camp and the farther you moved to right the more liberal you get, until we reach the answer a Swedish wife would give. That would be, of course, close to positive infinity. On the other hand, the Y-axis represents the number of opinions at each point of the X-axis.

Statisticians would tell you that you should expect a neat bell curve, which means there will be a sweetspot in the middle where we have the most opinions and then the farther you go away (either more liberal or more conservative) the less number of opinions you should get. But interestingly, the exact opposite happened. An insane amount of listeners were extreme in the their opinions from the uberConservative declaring it's God's will that wives cook for their families to the ultraLiberal who preached equality. The moderates were puny in numbers and opinions with one of them thinking that wives should cook, but they should be asked nicely by their husbands. Morons.

To me, this wasn't an easy question to answer. You see, the typical liberal answer that states that husbands and wives are equal and therefore anyone of them can cook is flawed for two reasons. First, we need to factor in who is more qualified to do the cooking. Though I don't have the numbers, I'm pretty sure that more girls learn how to cook as they grow up than straight guys do, at least in our culture. Which automatically makes wives more qualified for cooking. A second important input is who is more available. What if the wife is working 18 hour days, while the husband is a writer who works mostly from home and has more free time?

Which presents a problem, what if you are a fellow liberal, but you aren't that liberal to start cooking? I feel ya, here's what you could do:

1. Marry the fat nerd. Chances are she didn't have a social life and spent her teen years baking cakes and stuffing her face with them. Get a high-profile corporate job and ensure you get a hawt assistant. Do the assistant and go back home for a fine, fine dinner.

2. Not a career man? Ok, marry a 50-year-old corporate executive, who will be your suga mama. She'll barely come home between her busy schedule, which will give you a chance to do the hawt Asian chiquita you'll hire as a cook with your wife's money.

3. Not into adultery? Hmmm... consider switching teams. As a gay man chances are you wouldn't mind cooking in first place. And if you do, your partner probably won't.

Problem solved.

"Social" Birthday Wishes

2009-08-21T22:00:00.001+02:00

Calling people up on their birthday is so yesterday, get with the program granpa. Now we have Facebook, which neatly reminds you that today is your best friend's girlfriend's sister's hot friend's birthday. So you race to her Facebook wall to pay your tribute. Off course when you get there you find a billion birthday wishes already there. So you quickly scan them trying to see if you can offer something original. Usually, you'd lose interest quickly and just spew your cliche: Happy Birthday! Maybe add a few more exclamation marks if she is really hot.

But why stop there? I can see Facebook's next feature: Automatic Bday Wishes. It's very simple, while adding a friend to your list, you add him/her to a birthday list. Each birthday list has a template message, those can be a simple: Happy Birthday [Friend's Name]! or a tad more evil, like: Why don't you go fuck yourself on this special day? Can you imagine the productivity gain out of this? Now you do not need to scroll or click or even think of which cliche bday wish you'll go with! Wouldn't that make your life a lot easier as a birthday wisher?

The downside, however, is that on your birthday you'll be flooded with a million of those cold, heartless auto bday wishes. Of course, you can't ignore them, we're not animals. Enter the even cooler new Facebook feature: Bday Wishes Auto-responder. This feature will be a bit more complex. First, it would change your status to reflect how humbled you are with the torrent of cold, heartless auto bday wishes you got. Next, this feature will relentlessly pursue every shmuck who dared to send you an auto bday wish and spam them with wall posts and private messages "thanking" them. The degree of persecution of your targets will be adjustable from your account settings, but don't worry, even at its lowest level this feature will annoy the crap out of those who thought it would be wise to drop you an auto bday wish.

Now that is social networking I like.

P.S: The farewell party last week was legend--wait for it--ary.

On Work, Life, The Universe and Everything

2009-08-13T01:33:00.004+03:00

As today was my last day in office after six or so odd years of corporate whoredom, I thought it would be in order to dispense some pearls of wisdom that I have accumulated over the years:

1. Never shout any insults at another driver if he/she cuts you off. First, it's rude. Secondly, what are the chances that they'll actually hear you when it's so noisy outside and they are chilling inside enjoying the AC? Instead, carry some talking bubbles with words written on them, they should range form an innocent: HEY! All the way to: For doing that, I'll chop your head off and make sweet, sweet love to your mama. This way is much more effective to communicate your frustration to the asshole who cut you off, me thinks.

2. It is no longer kool that the standard answer for: What's your favorite movie? is: The Godfather. Oh and it's definitely not kool to answer: The Godfather, the first one, not the crappy second and third part. Here's the deal, The Godfather came out 30 years ago, it's a great movie and all, but don't you think it's time to move on?

3. Always make fun of the Frozen Wastelands, it's un-natural not to.

But on a serious note, I am happy/excited/thrilled to be moving on with my life. A while back someone shared with me this speech that Steve Jobs gave, and the one thing that stuck with me was the idea of 'connecting your dots'. At first, I thought maybe only a few of us are the lucky ones who do have interesting dots to connect, but now I firmly believe that we all have our own interesting dots. You just need to look back at your past and by connecting those dots, you'll take control of your future.

Isn't symbolic, warm and cuddly that this speech that inspired me so much was given at a Stanford commencement? ....I think I need a hug.

P.S: Check the uber kwel poster that aku put togther for my farwell partAy! Me likey!

The Golden Rule

2009-07-27T00:50:00.004+03:00

I am starting to see so many kids wearing horrible things. Which parent in their right state of mind wakes up in the morning and thinks: Yes! Today my kid should wear a sailor dress, ou, and a hat! Yes, a hat would go perfectly with that! Are those parents constantly stoned?

Here's a radical idea to all parents and would-be parents. Have you heard of the Golden Rule? Or Ethic of Reciprocity as the Wikipedia entry is called? It's simple, before you dress your kids, ask yourself: would I be comfortable wearing this fluffy orange jumpsuit? Now, the answer to that question would tell you a lot about yourself. If you say yes then--sidepoint: wow, you need help--you should consider putting your kid up for adoption. I'm sure your kid's foster parents would molest him many, many times, but at least they wont dress him like that. If the answer is no, then, we're kool for now. But I'm watching you.

Of course some parents take the Golden Rule too literally. This happens when a parent decides it would be 'cute' for him/her and their kid to wear the exact same outfit all the time. If you are one of those stupid parents then let me break it to you, do you think Mini-Me from the Austin Powers movies is 'cute' or creepy? I pray to God that the answer is creepy. I seriously do. But then again, you might have a thing for midgets. Same advice applies here: put your kid up for adoption.

Finally, don't put your two year olds into a denim jumpsuit, ever. Makes them look eerily like Chucky. And I'll level with you, if your denim-jumpsuit-wearing kid makes a sudden move around me, I will axe it.

The Day Shaking Ceased To Be Enough

2009-07-18T21:32:00.005+03:00

Scene I: A dimly lite bathroom. Fesh is standing at a urinal with his back facing the camera. As Fesh is wrapping up, the bathroom attendant approaches the Fesh, something is in his hand. Fesh notices the attendant and tracks him with the corner of his eye to ensure he doesn't get within penis-viewing distance. The attendant gets uncomfortably close and hands something to Fesh.

The attendant: Etfadal ya basha. [Here you go]
Fesh: uhm...shoukran? [Thanks?]

Fesh zips-up and turns around, he's holding a piece of toilet paper. He quickly uses the toilet paper to wipe his hands before throwing it away. The attendant is not amused. Fesh washes his hands and exits.

Scene II: A lively, packed open air nightspot. Shisha smoke fills the air and everyone is enjoying this breezy summer night. Fesh appears from the far left, coming out of the bathroom. He makes his way to the table, with a few friends laughing.

Fesh: The weirdest thing just happened!
Freind #1: What?
Fesh: This dude at the bathroom approached me as I was peeing and handed me a piece of toilet paper! What the hell?
Friend #2: and..?
Fesh: Don't you guys find this weird! I was going to wash my hand eitherway! So what's the use of the toilet paper!
Friend #3: err... dude, the toiler paper is for you to wipe the tip after you're done!
Fesh: HAHAHAHAHAHHAHA... no seriously?
Friend #1, 2, 3....7: Yeap.
Fesh: Oh.

The above actually happened, so, what the hell? Was there a memo that I missed or something? My understanding was that shaking gets the trick done, now it's no longer the case? When did that happen!

But let's not dwell on the past, seeing that the word will soon be out that I aint a wiper, I need to do some damage control. What kind of faux pas are we talking here? Is it the small, tolerable, he-used-the-wrong-fork kind? Or the bigger ones like taking a huge dump on your girlfriend's mother's cat (don't ask.)? And do you think the society will accept me as an openly non-wiper or I will need to live in fear of prosecution and have to fake-wipe?

It's always a shock when something so personal, like peeing, changes. Ahhhh...the good old days when I was not judged by bathroom attendants for not wiping. Why did shaking cease to be enough?

Scene III: It's raining. Fesh falls to his knees, hands stretched towards the sky. Camera zooms out quickly.

Fesh: WWWWWWWWWWWWWHHHHHHHHHHYYYYYYYYY?!

Swim Boys, Swim!

2009-07-12T14:50:00.013+03:00

I am going to go ahead and fully support this story.

I find it very flattering to our sperm pool. First off, you got to respect the fact that we have sperm floating in our pools, not pee and leaves like sissy countries. We're just too macho to keep our boys inside, so we spread the love all the time. Second, and most importantly, this story speaks to the commando-like abilities of the Egyptian sperm. While international sperm is used to swimming in warm, clean indoor 'pools' for just a few centimeters, our glorious sperm has no problem with fighting the elements, currents and treacherous waters of an outdoors pool. I love that fact! Hell, I would have wanted the story headline to read: Egyptian Sperm Defies Odds! Or: Egyptian Sperm Not affected by Chlorine.

But the complements to our commandos aside, how do you think they narrowed it down to getting pregnant from taking a dip in a pool? Aren't there a million other scenarios that range from actually sleeping with someone, to a heavy making-out session to even contracting a sperm from a toilet! All these seem much, much more probable then the pool-swimming sperm story!

But then again, this is the Frozen Wastelands, so yeah, I can buy that this weird theory made total sense to them.

Happy Feshday: 28

2009-07-07T01:32:00.000+03:00

The world celebrates today the Feshday. Did you know that the United Communist Party of Armenia was founded on Feshday, 2003? Talk about those damn Armenians trying to steal the limelight form me. I hate them.

A lot has happened last year, from wrapping up my three years in the Frozen Wastelands and moving out to resigning from the Evil Corporation after 6 years of corporate whoredom. I'm also excited about inching closer to 30. To me, 30 is really me turning into an adult and I can't wait! :)

Now rejoice, it's the Feshday.

The Fesh Diet

2009-07-04T16:00:00.000+03:00

Why is it that all the good-tasting foods are always bad for your health? It is a pity that the human body was designed to appreciate fresh vegetables, fruits and cereals and not the glorious processed sugars and deep fried anything. We all know that a fatty diet is going to clog your arteries and makes it harder for your heart to do its thing. That is understandable. But why is it that the human body reacts this way to fats and not fruit fibers? Turns out that over thousands of years, the human body evolved based on the basic diet of fruits and vegetables. But processed sugars and deep fried foods are relatively new to our diet (maybe few hundred years old?) and therefore our bodies are not used to consuming them efficiently at those quantities.

So here's a thought. If we stick to our guns and keep eating sugar/fat-rich foods then it's only a matter of time before our bodies adapt to it, right? Sure, humanity will suffer a few millennia of obesity and billions will die out of diabetes and heart attacks, but that's not important. What's important here is that we keep our eyes on the ball. If we consistently eat enough junk for the next few thousands years, our bodies will eventually become efficient at digesting those delicious, delicious foods.

I'm totally getting turned-on by that idea.

The Ideal Farewell Note

2009-07-01T12:36:00.002+03:00

I've read a lot of farewell notes, mostly from people I barely know. Thing is, 99% of those were utterly lame. This can't be a coincidence, I'm sure the Catberts of the the evil corporate world have added 'Send lame farewell note' to the termination checklist. Maybe it's their way of getting one final rush by, yet again, crushing that poorman's soul. Which is kinda kool.

But for the argument's sake, let's assume that sending a lame farewell note was not dictated by the evil directors of human resources, why then are those notes usually superlame? Those notes are usually a length, ugly creation, littered with exaggerated displays of overjoy for the years of corporate whoredom. Not to mention the creepy lovey-dovey emotional outbursts. Oh, and 9 out of 10 close with the cliche comment: Those were happiest years of my life. Ugh. I cringe.

Having resigned today (yay!), this got me thinking about my farewell note which I'll be sending out in a few weeks. I don't want to go with a simple, boring one. To me, the ideal farewell note is the one Eric Cartman would write if he was offed the CEO role for a company that specializes in torturing Jews, Hippies and Gingers. Come to think of it, it would be awesome to wrap up your farewell note with: Screw you guys, I'm going home.

Oh, it's tempting.

Geography 101

2009-06-26T22:46:00.004+03:00

Munqy, being the nerd he is, has been having wetdreams about watching Transformers 2 for the last two years. So when it came out he summoned the Carrot Dealers(tm) to watch what will probably be, according to him, the most orgasmic movie ever made. Since I am no Transformers groupie, I'll leave the detailed technical analysis to the inevitable uber-geeky post by Munqy and I'll focus on geography instead.

I would really, really like to know what kind of stuff was the director on when he decided to basically make the Red Sea, Petra (in Jordan) and the Pyramids all some 200 meters away from each other?! I get it is a sci-fi movie so they are supposed to get a little bit 'creative', but why then did they have to get out of their way to show us that the doomsday machine is inside the Giza Pyramids but first they have to walk the 200 meters to Petra to get the key?!

One possible answer is that they had this cute puzzle that was linked to the Red Sea and Petra and at the same time, the Pyramid made sense as a hiding place to the big-ass doomsday machine. Alright then, couldn't they have kept everything, but added a scene where they travel back across Egypt to the Pyramids? It could be one of those time-lapsed scenes which in 30 seconds they can show us that they have traveled the 9 hours or so from Petra to the Pyramids? With a movie that is 2.5 hours long, you'd think the director decided not to cut any corners to keep everything in. Except of course the 30 seconds that would have made the movie compatible with the geography of planet Earth. Dumbass.

Oh yeah, spoiler alert, don't read if you haven't watched the movie, yadda, yadda yadda.

Conformity on Casual Fridays

2009-06-11T15:06:00.003+03:00

For the lucky souls that have never been part of Corporate Whoredom, casual Fridays is a lame attempt by our Corporate Overlords to make us feel a little less miserable on the last day of the workweek, by allowing us to come to work in jeans. I never fully understood the concept of people showing up to work in formal or semi-formal attire. I can buy that if you work in a client-facing industry or function, like Sales, or maybe if you have some important external meetings. But if you are an accountant showing up at 7am for 10 hours of number crunching, in a tiny cubicle infront of a 10-inch black-and-white screen, doesn't it really border on torture to have you also wear a tie?

But I digress. Back to casual Fridays, the funny thing is how everyone, really, everyone is wearing jeans and t-shirts on casual Fridays. Which makes you wonder really, if casual Fridays is a way of letting corporate slaves out of the conformity of b-wear (yes, I'm trying to coin my own Orwellian vocab), then isn't everyone wearing jeans and t-shirts kind of defeats the purpose? Because, technically, if casual Friday is about not looking like everyone else, then you should show up in a suit and tie. Definitely you'd be the only one dressed like that on a Friday, you rebel!

Timeless elCairo

2009-06-04T23:27:00.000+03:00

Much has already been said about Obama's historic speech today to the Islamic world from, to borrow his words, the timeless city of elCairo. It all boils down to the fact that it was an extremely balanced speech, something that says alot about the man himself. Yet to an immature person like myself it was frustrating. A fifty-minute speech and I couldn't find one thing to crack a joke at? What the hell man? Didn't he ask himself what would Jesus do? Because I'm sure the answer to that would have been: stumble once or twice!

There was a close call with his closing line though, I felt he almost went with "God bless America". Could you imagine how funny that would have been! But he skillfully made it into "God...'s peace be upon you". Ugh, lucky bastard. And is it God's peace be upon you or just peace be upon you? Anyhoo, wi 3alikom ya khowya, nawart, mato3od teshrab 7aga?

Look Ma, We're Number One!

2009-05-29T23:42:00.005+03:00

The Economist Intelligence Unit just released the business environment ranking for around 80 countries. This is a comprehensive study that takes into account over 90 indicators for each country, around half of them are purely quantitative (i.e. GDP, inflation,etc), while the rest are more relative indicators like the possibility of an armed conflict. The outcome of the study is that each country is assigned a number (on a scale of 1 to 10) for its performance over 2004-08 and forecasted another number for 2009-13.

The amazing thing is that Egypt sits comfortably on top of the list! I knew that Egypt's economy has been steaming on for the last few years, but it's great to see that this is forecasted to continue during the the upcoming 5 years. I was also pleasantly surprised to see that Egypt's progress from its current ranking to the its forecasted ranking in 2013 is much bigger than other developing giants such as China or India!

That said, there are two interesting points in the report:

1. For 2009-13, the indicator for the risk of armed conflict for Middle East & Africa is 3.4. That makes sense, we have a very turbulent area. For Latin America it's 4.0, again, makes sense, they have Chavez. But for Western Europe, it's 4.7! Of course that's better than 3.4, but technically that implies that modern-day Western Europe (one of the the most politically stable areas of the world) has a 50-50 chance of an armed conflict in 2013! That is scary shit.

2. The US's ranking for 2004-08 was 8.4, that's extremely interesting. So, even though the US had a president who could barely speak English and a total economic meltdown, it was rated around 20% more than what Egypt is forecasted to achieve by the end of the next 5 years. An economic meltdown is easy to arrange, I know people. But do you think we could convince W. to go on the ballot for Egypt's 2011 presidential elections?

The iBox

2009-05-18T14:08:00.005+03:00

Having been a gaming junkie for the last few weeks, I think it's about time for Apple to introduce the iBox. A key hurdle for other gaming console manufacturers is price, Sony and Microsoft currently sell their consoles at or even below cost to get their consoles out there and recover some of the cost via licensing games. This shouldn't be a problem for Apple, the iBox will be manufactured in China for $200 and retail worldwide for $3000. This will enable Apple to aggressively support the iBox's expansion by one of those cute: "I'm a PS3, I'm an iBox" campaigns.

Apple will also sprinkle the iBox with those absolutely useless features that people love like a glowing fruit(tm Munqy)on the iBox's back or a sensor that will sense when your iBox is in freefall and stop your harddisk. The latter would be very popular with gamers, since when your $3000 console is freefalling you'd usually be worried sick about your saved games. People will not stop talking about those features and this will create even more word of mouth for the iBox.

Much like the initial iPhone missed some much-needed features (e.g. copy and paste), the first iBox will miss a few things, like a controller. Those marginal features will not prevent the iBox from becoming an instant success and eventually becoming the leading gaming console.

Stupid PS3, I want an iBox.

Note: A very interesting article about Apple's potential gaming console here.

Why You Shouldn't Watch Porn

2009-05-13T22:34:00.006+03:00

A few days ago, a court ruled that porn sites should be banned in Egypt. Now, I love my porn collection as much as the next guy, but I think that was a very wise call from the government. It is still not clear if this will actually be implemented or it will be appealed. But I think it should be implemented, three key reasons:

1. As per Google's stats, Egypt is the second country worldwide that searches for porn. Although I am proud with the silver medal, if porn was banned, around 90% of the bandwidth will be freed! Can you imagine the productivity gain from not waiting for your mail to download or pages to load anymore? I have crunched a lot of data and I believe, on average, you'd be getting back 30 mins per day. That's a 6% productivity gain! So, banning porn would increase the productivity of our workforce <= exhibit A.

2. Egypt is facing a sexual harassment epidemic. So, with 98% of foreign women and 83% of Egyptian women reporting that they were sexually harassed, do we really need folks to be getting more ideas by checking out porn sites? Banning porn sites will make people visit other sites, like wikipedia.org. In doing so, a lot of people will start to think about other matters and therefore become less inclined to harass anything with nipples. So, banning porn would decrease sexual harassment in Egypt, making the country more civilized <= exhibit B.

3. Finally, we're not alone in this. We have other countries who have pioneered this revolutionary approach before us. Saudi, a leading authority on censoring the Internet, tried this and with astounding results. According to this article 70% of all material on the phones of teens in Saudi was of pornographic nature. Why is that good? Well, it's encouraging consumers to spend more by sending all of those multimedia messages to each other! It's a dire economic situation and we need people to keep spending and with no porn available online, all of Egypt will start MMSing! That's big money! There you have it, banning porn will help Egypt survive the global recession <= exhibit C.

So, all of you who thought this whole thing was as step back for freedom of speech and another push by the regime to censor the Internet, you're all fools.

Note: Munqy, for the hundredth time, I don't think they'll shutdown the bestiality sites that you love so much and visit on a daily basis. Stop asking me that!

The Great Skydiving Debate

2009-05-09T18:42:00.002+03:00

I can see why skydiving can be super exciting for some, I am sure it's exhilarating to freefall like that. However, I find the fact that almost all skydivers now carry a secondary chute, as a spare, a very interesting piece of information. I am almost certain that the secondary chute wasn't part of the sport when it started, but rather was added later on.

I'd resell my soul to the devil to have witnessed the debate that went on when the spare chute was introduced, seriously. I can see it going like this, a young skydiver comes up with the idea and is passionately trying to convince his fellow 17 century adventurers that too many folks hit the ground like a bullet when their main chute malfunctions and they need to put an end to it. Then comes the visual aids, a 17th century pie chart that explains that in the last year chutes have malfunctioned 20% of the time, which after a lot of data crunching means that the sport yields a 20% fatality rate. He then tries to quickly preempt their first objection by saying: Now, I know that 20% isn't at all a bad fatality rate compared with our other, more challenging problems (i.e. the Black Plague), but still, let's call it statistically significant. The really interesting part comes next, the community quickly is divided around the idea. The first camp, the pro-life camp, advocate the secondary chute. The other camp, pro-choice camp, doesn't.

The pro-life camp will explain that this is a much needed reform to ready the growing sport for the 18th century, the pro-choice camp will dismiss this change since it contradicts the basic values of the sport. The pro-choice camp will seek the endorsement of key skydivers to ensure that a secondary chute is not introduced. Pro-life, on the other hand, wont be able to enlist any ex-skydivers who were fused with the pavement due to chute malfunctions, this will hurt the pro-life campaign significantly.

The debate will not only wage between skydivers, Big Chute, the evil blood-sucking chute corporations, will also weight-in on the debate. For Big Chute, it's a thin line they have to walk. If they come out in support of the pro-life camp, this will automatically mean that the sport is so dangerous that you require a secondary chute, which will decrease their target market. On the other hand, if a secondary chute becomes mainstream, this is means Big Chute will be entering a new lucrative market and introducing new products with higher margins. Big Chute treads carefully.

When I imagine myself as part of this debate, I see myself as a pro-choice campaigner.There is something so deliciously evil about trying to convince people that: a. They need to skydive b. They don't need a spare chute and c. Yes, 1 out of 5 will die skydiving. I'd seriously get a rush from doing this.

The Financial Crisis & Traffic

2009-05-04T13:35:00.004+03:00

Here's my theory, if the global financial institutions studied traffic in elCairo, the current financial crises could, nay, would have been averted. It's a complicated theory, but bear with me. First, we have two astounding similarities between Western economies and elCairo's traffic:

1. Competition. Drivers in elCairo compete all the time with other drivers. This can be as simple as cutting you off since your lane has a few free, precious meters, or my all-time favorite: the self-regulating intersections; Those are intersection with no lights and no traffic officers and the idea is that you try to beat the other person to crossing. I love it, it's as close as I'll ever get to playing Russian Roulette. Equally fierce competition is the trademark of Western economies, in theory, this competition makes the markets more efficient.

2. Creativity. Lack of strict regulation in the Western economies inspired a lot of 'creative' financial products. First, credit was given to people who can't afford it and then this credit was cut-down, repackaged and sold to investors at the other end of the globe. Same for traffic here in elCairo, I get the feeling that drivers are constantly trying to think of new and even more creative (read: dangerous) ways of driving. All-time favorite? The genius driving on a highway, at night, with no lights on, on the right and at 45Km/hr. He's really begging for it.

Competition and lack of regulation were really working for the financial institutions. Between 2002 and 2007 the Western financial world was partying like a cheap ho, in a cheap NY club on New Year's Eve, 1999. But that wasn't true of elCairo's traffic, but the world wasn't interested.

You see, elCairo's traffic predicted the shortcomings of the system. It showed us that the system will eventually overheat and crash. elCairo's traffic even showed us how a ponzi scheme would rise in such a system. The Mastermind of such a scheme would zap beside 500 cars queueing to get on a bridge and right before the entrance cuts into the bridge's ramp. He promises excellent returns for very little investment i.e. you don't have to queue AND you get on the bridge in a fraction of the time! Of course, the scheme only works if a few followed him, but what happens when 10,000 drivers try that? Everyone is stuck. Something we face in elCairo everyday.

Interestingly, a much more strict traffic law was passed in elCairo last year as the financial crises kicked in. The financial world, having learned the lesson the hard way, quickly followed elCairo's lead with various new proposals on stricter global financial regulation.

You know what's the scary part? Even after the new law, traffic aint getting any better here in elCairo.

Hizballah & Traffic

2009-04-18T18:37:00.006+02:00

I have been avidly following up the news about the discovery of a Hizballah cell in Egypt. The issue has the Arab (and Muslim) world divided into pro-Hizballah, pro-Hamas and pro-Iran camp and then the pro-Egypt camp. The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a think tank, draws the bigger international picture of this issue and how Egypt might be trying to impact the way the US approaches Iran in a very interesting report.

Now, that's all scary and regional warsey and all, but it's entertaining too. You see, amid all of the rumbling in the Egyptian media, one cliche came to dominate. Everyone is now referring to Egypt's national security as a khat ahmar (a red line). I think we should have went with a totally different cliche and I'll tell you why. First, anyone who has ever been to the great city of elCairo knows that a. we don't have traffic lights b. when we do, they aren't working and c. if we have them and they are working, we don't really stop when it's red. That, in my opinion, takes away from the scariness of the color red. The cliche should have used black instead of red. After so many years of being waved to the curb by bodyguards of government officials whooshing by in black convoys, we fear black. There's always that urban legend of this one dude, who dared to get close by to The Black Convoy and was riddled with bullets. You don't want to be that guy, do you?

Second, what's with the 'line'? We don't like lines in elCairo. No one stays in their lane, no one queues and no one stops before the pedestrian crossing, you have to stop halfway thru it; that's how you show the pathetic pedestrians who's boss. But if we stay with the traffic metaphor for a second here, the cliche should have used the most notorious creature on the road: a microbus. We all fear the microbus and they know that we fear them, so it's their game, really. We know that you never cross a microbus, but a 'line'? bah.

So yeah, if tomorrow an official government statement said: Egypt's national security is a black microbus, a crazy, black microbus. I'd shit my pants. Seriously.

Black Fesh 8.0

2009-03-29T17:27:00.004+02:00

Don't disappoint me creepy old man.

(they are so owned)

The Stupidity of The Masses (Take III)

2009-03-14T12:07:00.004+02:00

It's really amusing to see how the world of some Facebokians has been shattered--to put it midly--by the new changes to Facebook's interface. I understand that as an addicition, you would want to get your fix quickly. But the amount of status updates that I have read about people begging for help with the new, confusing interface is really scary.

The hilarious thing is that some of the folks who put those status updates are doctors, engineers and businessmen. So I couldn't help but wonder how is it that some of those folks save lives for a living or deal with the uncertainties of the economic meltdown on daily basis, yet they were thrown off balance by the fact that now when FriendA writes on FriendB's wall it will appear in your news feed as: Friend A> Friend B: Message, instead of: Friend A has written on Friend B's wall.

The other entertaining thing is the whining. Few months back when Facebook's interface was changed, people revolted and established groups to fight the horrendous new interface--and of course nothing happened and the interface was not changed back. Now, the same thing is happening all over again! Don't the folks who join those groups feel a tiny bit stupid? I can understand users revolting to things such as privacy and terms (as was the case few weeks back), but to revolt about how your homepage looks now, really? That's the other thing, imagine if we can do this at work. If your boss changes anything as slight as where you sit in the office, you start bitching about it and print banners and put it above your desk. Wouldn't it be fun to work at a company where you can do this?

Note: for more ripping on the idiocy of Facebokians, please read this and that.

Conspiracy Theory #9

2009-03-02T00:21:00.007+02:00

I've been captivated by the whole global economic meltdown for a multitude of reasons. First, because I am an avid news watcher and for the last year it's been the second most covered story--the first most covered story being the second coming of the Messiah. Second, because the economic meltdown has rendered the Frozen Wastelandees Zloty (FWZ, or more commonly known as PLN) virtually useless. In case you were wondering, 1 FWZ went down from 50 Dollar cents to almost 25 cents in a span of 6 months. So, yeah, it's cheaper to burn heaps of FWZ than pay for heating.

Back to the to economic meltdown, last April I wrote this piece about how it seems that there are no winners in this economic meltdown. Today, I had a eureka-moment. I am no economist, but follow me on this one. With this economic meltdown, all governments are "bailing out" their banks and companies. Initially, I understood a bail out as throwing free cash at a bank or a company, in order to save the economy from total collapse. Turns out, this is not the case. For example, when a bank is bailed out, what the government is doing is basically giving the bank cash in exchange for stocks (i.e. ownership) of the bank. That's why there's all this buzz about socialism and nationalisation and all that. So the government passes tax payers' money to a bank, in exchange for the bank's stocks. Mind you that this transaction is happening at a time when the stock of any bank or corporation is trading way below its average because of the economic meltdown.

Let's take a recent example here, the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) reported the biggest loss in British corporate history and right away the UK government announced plans to back it up. I am not aware of the exact details, but I assume the deal will include the UK government pumping cash into RBS to enable it to continue lending in exchange for shares. Now, as you can see from the chart below, RBS's share is now trading at 23p. Just 6 months ago the share price was around 700p. So assuming the government ends up getting an extra 20% stake in RBS and in two years time we're out of this economic meltdown and the share is back to, say, 500p, that would be a pretty sweet deal for the government, right? It's the same concept that investors use when they buy stocks when the market is down to profit when the market bounces back.

What's really deliciously evil here is that given proper planning and the abundance of Machiavellianism, governments can engineer an economic meltdown. I can see it now, the G8 leaders bathing in a pool of undervalued corporate stocks in a secluded castle in Bavaria. Well played.

2008 Resolutions - Review

2009-01-10T11:50:00.000+02:00

I dug-up my 2008 resolutions and wanted to review them, here are my 7 resolutions and the progress I have done:

1. I'll pursue to completion one personal goal in life.
I did this one right. There was a reason I put this first in my resolutions because it was/is very important to me and I am happy that I exceeded my expectations. More on that later.

2. I'll read more, especially in new topics/areas.
I did this one right too. I went out of my way to read in interesting areas, I read more Arabic books, read about Physics and just finished an uber book that I'll dedicate a post to later.

3. I'll continue going to the gym to lose 10KG.
Ah yes, this one. *ahm* not good. Didn't lose 10KG. This resolution will be high-up on my 2009 resolutions.

4. I'll be a better son.
I am very happy with my progress on this one. Spent more time with the family, did more 'adventures' with the parents. I like to think that in 2008 I was a better son than in 2007.

5. I'll start conserving water and electricity where/when possible.
Didn't do it. Started with small steps but didn't pick it up as a habbit. Need to evaluate if I'll put it as a resolution in 2009 or not.

6. I'll continue to travel, visit 3 new countries.
Yes! did it! And visited a LOAD of new cities!

7. I'll do one thing about my interest in Stand-Up.
Nothing!

Overall I'm happy. I had my resolutions in order of importance and with the first 4 of them being the most important to me. I am glad that I pursued my goal and achieved it, glad that I read more, glad that I become a better son. Though I failed to reach my goal of losing 10kg, I sustained the habit of going to the gym regularly and that is something I am glad I did.

I will be compiling my 2009 resolutions in the coming weeks as I venture back to the Frozen Wastelands were temperatures drop to shrinkage-inducing -20C. Yay!

Cairo, 2080 A.D.

2009-01-06T12:52:00.003+02:00

Originally published in Alter Ego magazine, Jan 09

At the turn of the century, Cairenes marveled at the city Cairo was. As the biggest city in the Middle East, Cairo boasted more traffic, corruption and sexual harassment per dollar spent than anywhere else. It was the happening place if you were an average masochist who was into spending hours in traffic jams, had a relative in high government office or had unfulfilled “needs”.

The Second Great Depression (2007-2019) took a big toll on the world. The government, always on top of these things, responded via an array of hard-thought-out initiatives to combat the Depression’s impact on Egypt and on Cairo specifically. Curbs were painted, extra lanes were added to the 6th of October bridge and even cheaper high-speed internet was introduced! Surprisingly, those tried-and-tested techniques did not work this time. It was a time of confusion and in an eleventh-hour push, the government put together a fantabulous bid for Cairo to host the 2016 Olympics. Do I need to say more?

As that didn’t work out, change hit Cairo hard and soon the party was over. The danger that always lurked in the shadows was becoming a reality. A young, foolish government was elected. No one understood the new government’s radical ideas of focusing less on lavish Middle East peace conferences and co-chairing the fancy Mediterranean Union with France and focusing more on applying successful anti-corruption policies that were developed in ex-communist nations in the 1990s. Curbs were left unpainted for months. Ugh, they were barbarians.

By the middle of the 21st century, Cairo had been transformed into a new city. Downtown is no longer the strange mix it once was of cheap clothing stores, beautiful 19th century buildings and ugly, ugly new buildings. Zamalek, unfortunately, no longer exists. No one saw it coming, with the global warming and the rising Nile and all. I am happy to report though that Zamalekites (mostly foreigners, diplomats and übercool Egyptians) have migrated to higher grounds. Most importantly, corruption is no longer with us. I too miss getting my driver license back with one phone call after I am caught speeding.

By 2080, Cairo did not become the political or economic center of the region. However, better education and better governance has given Cairo a commanding middle class and propelled the city once again into a league it was once part of in the distant past. But it’s not all good news. Cairenes, to this day, find it hard to queue – it is genetically impossible for us. Traffic is still horrible. While we used to run out of gas in traffic jams on the 6th of October bridge, your Toyota Hovercraft runs out of jet fuel over the Nile. You need to swim fast and stay clear of the super-intelligent race of evil fish that now lives in the Nile. Officially, the evil fish don’t exist, since they are a result of a military experiment gone horribly wrong. My advice if you ever face them, never to look at the third eye; it agitates them and God knows you don’t want to do that.

Ponder This...

2008-11-16T15:10:00.005+02:00

It is very interesting that researchers have found out that our predictions are, for the most part, either grossly underestimated or overestimated. Think about. Computers and the Internet? One started out as a way to speed up code-breaking operations and the other as a way for researchers and universities to share information. Both of those inventions have transformed the world we live in. On the other end of the spectrum is gross overestimations. The 'Space Age' is a good example. Right after the first human was blasted into space, the pundits started theorizing about a Moon colony by the year 2000. The only thing that we had on the moon by the year 2000 was a few pieces of space junk, flags and footprints. Unless they faked the whole thing of course.

This makes you think about current issues, take Climate Change for example. Some researchers hold the view that if no serious steps were taken in a hundred years the sea levels might rise by up to a few meters. This will have dire consequences on cities, world economy and natural resources. Clearly that's a very bleak scenario, the silver lining however is that this might be a case of overestimation (Space Age-style). But what creeps me out is what if this was an underestimation? What if just a 30 centimeter increase in sea levels will kick-off an unforeseen chain reaction that will tip the Earth into a modern-day ice age? Sure it's far-fetched, but I am pretty sure the dude who built the first 'computer' in a bunker in England to break ze German encryption didn't consider how in the future you'd use that very same device for porn.

On a totally different note, I hit elCairo this week. A game of uber risk is in order! AWOOO!

The Fluffy Post

2008-10-29T10:47:00.002+02:00

So yeah, I have been tagged by Daily and I am now required, by article 5 of The Unwritten Code of Bloggers, to comply. Damn you Daily.

See, I have tried so hard to make this blog about things that I find strange, entertaining or just downright stupid. Therefore a list of ten things I am thankful for, will be a diversion. Then again, I don't want to be the dude who violates The Unwritten Code... not after what happened to that Vietnamese blogger. It was horrible, I still have nightmares about that. But that's a topic for another post.

I am thankful for:
1. My family, my friends and my interests in life.
2. Girl-on-girl porn.
3. Ale-ke-hole.
4. The dude who invented Risk (the board game).
5. Shroooooms.
6. Regular porn.
7. Baba Abdou. (mmmmmm.... sodo2)
8. Girl-on-girl porn. (I know! It's too good).
9. George W. Bush.
10. World peace.

Okay, okay, you got me. I am not THAT thankful for world peace, I ran out of ideas and I thought that squeezing in another girl-on-girl porn was going to be pushing it.

The Blasphemous Post

2008-10-22T10:44:00.000+02:00

I wonder if God is kool. All religions do a good job painting a picture of God as almighty and all-knowing. But is he kool? Because you see, if he is kool, he'd be kool in a Godly way. That is: Kool.

Probably the best way to check for God's koolness would be, unfortunately, after you die. After God has gone through your short list of good deeds, he'll start reading the other, longer one. How he reacts to this list will be a dead (huh? huh? see it's funny becuase you are dead... get it? *nudge *nudge) giveaway. If he's like: well, you didn't kill anyone, didn't rob a bank and never intentionally hurt anyone so you're alright (maybe gives you fist bump? oh sorry, a Godly fist bump). Then he's kool. If he'll bring up that time in 3rd grade when you had an extra cookie that technically "was not yours", he's not.

I have a feeling that God is kool. Of course if he is kool, he would also have an interesting sense of humor. I imagine that after he lets me into Heaven he'll add: Wait. Do you see this uber hot chikita over there? The one next to the pyramid of free donuts? Yes, I reply. You can not touch either, he adds.

Three minutes later I would be roasting in Hell's eternal fire thinking: That was totally worth it.

Note: This post was brought to you in collaboration with Munqy, who has also not been posting for a while since Jade promised us a revealing video if we did post on the same day. You can find proof here. Jade, now you have to do good on your promise.

Goto 10

2008-09-13T00:48:00.001+02:00

It's interesting how personal websites are making a comeback now. You see, 10 years ago it was hip to have a personal website; there you maintained your pictures, contact info and you tried as hell to update it frequently. It never worked. A few years later and we suddenly have Blogger for your posts, Flicker for your photos and then Facebook for....hmmm...everything? So people abandoned their personal websites.

In a true Goto 10* fashion, more and more people are now bringing back their personal websites. It's retro and all. A genius came up with some scripts to import YOUR data from the various websites back into your new pimp'in (and dont forget retro) personal website. People suddenly realized the huge potential of those scripts. Suddenly you could have all YOUR data in YOUR personal website! That's gold! Of course, you need to keep maintaining your contact info on Facebook, your posts on Blogger and your tweets on Twitter. Not to mention that you need to implement all those tricky scripts that will import everything back to *ahm* your personal website?

errrr... don't you love it when technology makes our life easier?

*For the non-nerds, early programs used to label each line of code with a number. So the first line got 10 then 20 and so forth. 'Goto 10' became the equivalent of repeating or going back to where you started. So, next time you're out for a couple of beers with your kool non-nerdy friends, casually drop a Goto 10 comment. It's bound to make you -even more- unpopular.

Where is Kim?

2008-09-11T11:36:00.003+02:00

It's a shame when people fail to live up to their expectations. You see, Kim Jong II didn't show-up at the 60th anniversary of North Korea's foundation and he is rumored to be ill. I don't get that. So here's a true dictatorship that -might- have a secret nuclear weapons program and feeds Nazi-style propaganda to its citizens daily about how the West is conspiring against North Korea and then Kim doesn't show-up?! Rookies.

So, for you North Korean intelligence folks who regularly follow my blog, couple of tricks:
Cancel the event: Flood the newspapers and the state TV with stories about how the CIA had a plot to assassinate the 'beloved leader' during the parade. Kim would then be transported to a safe facility until the threat has been stabilized. That would buy you a week or two to figure something out.

Not in the mood for a dramatic story that can get you some heat from the USofA? (that's assuming the US is not actually trying to assinate him? ouuuuuuuu.. think about that) ....*ahm*... sorry about that, so, here's a solid one that's known to work:

The double: Let's be honest, the dude wears scuba diving glasses for sunglasses. And yes, Asians all look alike. So bring in a dude who would do nothing but wave and sit there and look pretty. That's how true dictatorships run their business. Panzis.

No time to find a double? Well, I don't know. I haven't given it much thought. But for God's sake, in a country where TV is controlled by the state, why would you video a close-up that clearly shows that Kim is missing? Oh, and please brief your diplomats on what to say. Claiming that this whole thing is a "conspiracy plot" only works if you have a credible story or a picture of Kim holding today's newspaper.... which technically you guys could Photoshop... ugh.. I'm too good for this shit.

My Interesting Friends

2008-09-01T22:01:00.004+02:00

This vacation, I spent some time with my creative friend aku. He works for an advertising agency and I was introduced to the fascinating, and at times chaotic, world of advertising. From designing a new packaging to coming-up with a TV ad story board. The most fun experience however was seeing the steps involved in coming up with a radio ad. First, finding the right jingle. A massive hunt across a monstrous music collection for the right song. When the song is located, the copywriter comes up with a variety of scripts that rhymes with the music and conveys the message of the ad. Then, demo time! Everyone in the office joins in a fun exercise of recording a rough version of the ad to preview with the client (note to self: voice modeling is definitely not for me, not with my fabulous 'r's). Finally, the fun part, the actual recording. After a demo is selected we booked a time at a professional studio and I watched as every track was recorded separately and later mixed. It's amazing how much work is involved in those 30-second radio ads! I have a new found appreciation for them.

Visiting the construction site that another friend manages was alarmingly fun too. Seeing the plans and the amount of thinking that goes into each and every detail. Also the amount of tests conducted to ensure that everything is done according to specification is just mind-blowing. I also got to learn interesting facts, for example, the sewage grid works by gravity! This meant that they had to design the whole internal sewage network with a slight tilt so that the lowest point is actually where the compound's internal sewage grid joins the main grid. And speaking about sewage, did you know that manhole covers can fetch three thousand EGP's ($600) a piece?! How I know? Well, I almost fell through an uncovered manhole near the construction site!

I have interesting friends.

Homosexual elCairo

2008-08-25T17:30:00.004+03:00

Reading Elaswany's Yacoubian Building, I was surprised with the way he portrayed homosexuality in elCairo. I always felt it was very uncommon, but as I looked into this and talked with people who have gay friends, I realized that the homosexual community is alive and well. I'm fine with that, except with one thing. I find it very strange that many young men chose their sexuality without even having a chance of a healthy straight relationship.

Let me explain, I understand that many feel that you are either born straight or gay. Though I am not totally convinced with that, let's assume that's true for the argument's sake. So, assume a dude living in a Western country is born gay but still is confused about his sexuality. This dude will have the choice to try a healthy straight healthy relationship and see how things go, if all is well, great. If not, then he knows he's gay. That is clear to me and I'd respect that dude's choice.

Problem is, you can't really map this scenario to elCairo. It's a very conservative society and my gut feeling is that more than 90% of the population never have the chance for a healthy straight relationship before marriage. And by healthy I mean a couple, who have feelings for each other, having a physical relationship. So, no, buying your friend a hooker does not count. Therefore, the majority of the dudes who 'think' they are gay, will never -eitherway- get a chance to try out a healthy straight relationship.

So in a weird way, elCairo is like a big all-male prison for many of the young guys out there.Weak-minded, sexually frustrated and with no viable option for a healthy straight relationship, many drop their soap and take a deep breath. Sad, if you ask me.

Battle Plans: War of the Heavyweights

2008-08-21T01:44:00.004+03:00

The uneasy peace that lasted since The Battle was finally lifting and the great Munqian, Ellcian and Feshfeshian arimes prepared for war. Much will be said about the epic battle that followed, but for now you can find Munqy's account of the War of the Heavyweights.

The Olympic Post

2008-08-18T02:01:00.001+03:00

I love the Olympics, especially team sports. With those sports there's so much happening: performance of individual players, the team's strategy, the other team's strategy....etc. Even with one-on-one games, like Tennis, you get to watch the athlete's talent and how he/she reacts to the other player he/she is competing with.

But you know what I don't get? Single-player games. If you, an Olympic athlete, can't run the 100 meter in +/- 5% of the Olympic record, tell me again why are you here? Seriously? Okay, true story. I watched weightlifting the otherday and I believe the Olympic record was 185kg, which is really impressive seeing that the weightlifters where like 60kg. The dude who got the Gold medal (a little feisty Chinese dude) tried to lift 186kg and failed in his last attempt. That, makes sense. But when you look at the bottom half of the "Olympic athletes" who competed with him, you see that most of them failed to even lift 160kg in their last attempt?! Can someone explain this to me? With team or one-on-one games you can always say that the other team/athlete was better. But if you can't even come close to the Olympic record be it in running, swimming or weightlifting... what the hell are you doing here?

Only in Egypt

2008-08-18T00:22:00.003+03:00

Why is it that 'Only in Egypt' became a cliche for backward things you find in Egypt? A few days ago I took a train from Alexandria to elCairo and I had a positive Only in Egypt experience.

The train was fully booked, so I got on the train and was hoping for an empty seat. As soon as I got in, I was greeted by 3am 3iesa who sensed I wanted a seat. 3am 3iesa is an employee of EgyptBahn and is basically the do-it-all-dude for the car I was in, from helping passengers with their bags and seats to opening the doors when we reach the station. 3am 3iesa quickly searched the car and then came back and sadly informed me that the car was full. I thanked him for trying and got my book out to start reading, but he quickly interrupted me and pointed to the makeshift seat he just put together for me. The seat was basically a greasy cylindrical train-part and ontop of it sat a small square piece of cardboard and it was propped-up in the tiny space between the door and the toilet.

For the next two hours, passerbys (who worked on the train) would greet 3am 3iesa and shake his hand and then quickly turn to me (since I was 'with' 3am 3iesa) and warmly shake my hands and welcome me too. Even the tea-and-coffee dude, who actually doesn't pass by the area I was sitting at, went out of his way to check if I needed a drink. When I asked for tea, he quickly asked: With mint?

That day I was reminded how in Egypt people are amazingly creative at adjusting. Propping-up a makeshift seat is a simple thing, but if you have lived in Egypt, you'd know how this mentality of 'adjusting to life' is everywhere. Be it the fact that cars and flats in Egypt are more expensive than in some parts of Europe, while salaries are but a fraction. Or the fact that Egypt has extremely modest medical and social security systems. Or the many other things.

Only in Egypt do people adjust to all of this.

elCairo BABY!

2008-08-15T15:08:00.000+03:00

My belated bragging post. I'm chilling in elCairo, enjoying the weather, food, spending time with the family, meeting old and new friends. It's überkwel.

Pls expect the dismal blogging activity to continue till end of August.

The AntiApple Post

2008-08-04T20:18:00.001+03:00

*Fesh pets his überPod.

Have you noticed how over the last few years Apple Fundamentalism has been on the rise? Former PCians are being converted en masse by fundamentalists who preach how their new Apple computer "changed their life". I came across one of the pamphlets those hard-line Applians use to recruit lost souls. The pamphlet highlights the five pillars of The Applian Doctrine:

1. God intended everything to be Apple, some lost their way.
2. Apple's OS has been coded by God. Line-by-line that is. So it's immaculate and error-free. It's blasphemous to claim otherwise.
3. God will smite any virus or worm if it attempts to infect an Apple machine.
4. You don't need to know why you want an Apple machine. You have to trust that it's the right thing for you. (a.k.a. the "La Tonakiesh Wala Togadel Ya Akh Ali" argument).
5. If you accept the Applian Doctrine, you need to convert 5 of your friends or God will turn you into a mouse. A two-button PC mouse, not one of those sexy Apple ones. Your choice.

So, even if you're a follower of The Enlightened One and hate The Great Satan, you have to admit that this is überkool.

My 200th Post!

2008-07-31T04:33:00.000+03:00

It's awards season once more! As it is customary I will be awarding my last 100 post fakey awards. You can see last year's awards here. Here goes:

Most Visually Disturbing Post co-awarded to: Bounce Fesh, Bounce & Pickled Eggs, Anyone?
Most Worrying Post awarded to: Salam, Brother & My Evil uberPod
Most Condescending Post co-awarded to: The Mars Hoax & The Stupidity of the Masses
Most Inappropriate Post awarded to: Can't Help It
Most Useful Post awarded to: Let the Anal Probing Begin!
Best Psychotic Series awarded to: Black Fesh 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, 5.0. 6.0 & 7.0
Most Polska-specific Post awarded to: The Sand Nigger
Geekiest Post awarded to: Lord of the Fesh
Best Dilbert-style Post awarded to: Consider THIS!
Most Fesh-specific Post awarded to: The Touchy-Feely Bill
Most Potential to End Life on Earth awarded to: Wait For It..
Most Ingenious Concept awarded to: *EFPoC(tm) Moments

This year's Most Popular post, by number of comments, is awarded to: Blog Bitch! Blog!

Thank you and pls stay tuned for 2009's awards to be announced August 2009.

Grow Up, Will You?

2008-07-23T17:59:00.002+03:00

The best thing I like about the personal status (say on Google Talk or Facebook) is that you get the most unexpected comments. One time I had in my status that I was driving on the autobahn and an old friend, who I didn't talk with for months, got in touch and he told me a couple of interesting stories about when he was in Germany. That's why I always try to have my personal status as 'stand-alone' as possible, so that people can read it, understand it and if they choose act on it. Of course we've all occasionally felt a tat philosophical and had our status message as an old Chinese proverb, it's okay.

What I don't understand though are people on my list who consistently have those very abstract comments in their personal messages like "Oh, yes I will." Sure, it's their personal status, so they can knock themselves out, but really, what's the intent? I could think of three:
1. To send a specific someone a message, because some of those messages seem very personal in nature but they are abstract enough for the rest of us not to understand. If people are twisted enough to do this (instead of, say, talk to the person?) then they are sick, seriously.
2. To have people contact them wanting to understand their personal message. This is sad. Luring people to have some interest in your pathetic, pathetic life? Really?
3. To entertain themselves. Hmmm.. need I say more?

I think I should drop those folks off my list. No wait, maybe I should first set my personal message to "I'm removing YOU from my list" and then drop them? Afterwards, I'd change my message to "Ironic, isn't it?" so that I can have my other friends ask me about it and then I get to tell that story to them before they drop me off their lists.

Note: Zeez, if you still read my blog, this post is inspired by your recent personal status! :)

The USofE - Take II

2008-07-21T04:54:00.002+03:00

Oh I gloated when I read this article about Sarkozy saying that the Irish will have to vote again after they shot-down the Lisbon treaty back in June. Why? Because back in July I wrote this post.

Principally Sarkozy had no right to mandate that the Irish vote again, but I can't help but understand his position. Most of the reasons the no-campaign in Ireland used to reject the Lisbon Treaty were not actually valid concerns, but that's not the issue. The issue is that a big part of the no-voters actually voted this way for issues not related to the Lisbon Treaty. The fishermen wanted better terms and the farmers wanted more subsidies. So in essence the no-voters manipulated the system for their own benefit. And in in doing so they derailed a very delicate EU-wide process.

If a government abuses its powers, just like what the Irish no-voters did, it would be quickly called a dictatorship and everyone would rally against it. But what happens if the citizens abuse their rights? Nothing, they will eventually be asked to vote again. Ironic isn't it?

Wait For It...

2008-07-20T02:46:00.000+03:00

So CERN is getting ready to fire up its Doomsday Device in August. How do you think the thriving underground world of doomsday cults is preparing for this, obviously, very relevant event?

The Story Behind the News

2008-07-18T11:19:00.005+03:00

Whenever I read a piece of news, I always wonder the story behind it. So today I read this:

Russia reduced its oil supplies to the Czech Republic by half for “technical reasons”. The cut came just after the Czechs agreed to host an American missile-defence radar. Strangely, the technical reasons did not affect oil supplies to any of the Czechs’ neighbours.

Which, you have to admit, is really kool. In my opinion, it takes more balls to pull something like that off than to openly threaten another country. Open threats have lost their appeal. Iran is threatening the US and Israel and the West is threatening Zimbabwe and realistically nothing is happening. So in my head here's how Russia's oil stunt actually happened:

*Mr. Medevedev is sitting on a large throne in the middle of a huge hall in the Kremlin draped in a black cloak. He is at the rightmost tip of the scene. A Kremlin trooper enters the scene running from the left and the camera zooms in to always keep both him and Mr. Medevedev at both ends of the scene. The trooper stops a few meters from the throne and gets down on one knee, Mr. Medevedev does not move.

Kremlin Trooper: Ma'Lord, I have news from from the Czech rebel base.
Emperor Medevedev: Speak..
Kremlin Trooper: The Czech rebels have agreed to host a part of the American missile defense shield.
Emperor Medvedev: Putin, what do you plan to do about this?
*Putin, who was standing in the shadow behind Emperor Medvedev's throne, enters the scene as the Kremlin Trooper leaves. Putin is wearing a distinctive head gear.
Darth Putin: I'll take care of it. Maybe a "problem" would hit the Czech's supply lines.
Emperor Medevedev: Gooooood, Gooooooood

The Shameful Post

2008-07-15T20:53:00.005+03:00

So Munqy tagged me and I must admit the main thought running thru my mind while reading his list was that mine is going to be shorter.... ugh..... it's gym class all over again...*ahm*. So here's the deal, on those categories where my knowledge of the field is equivalent to my proficiency in the accursed Frozen Wastelandeese tongue I've left them empty because really I have no clue. On the other categories I picked the most recent work that caught my attention, so call it my 'current favorite'.

Favorite Author: Khalid Hosseini
Favorite Book: The Kite Runner
Favorite Artist: ---
Favorite Artwork: ---
Favorite Poet:--- (gay?)
Favorite Poem: ---(gay-er?)
Favorite Singer: ---(I love you Michael! AWO!*ahm* shut up)
Favorite Song: Bon Jovi's Welcome to Wherever You Are.
Favorite Actor: Homer Simpson / Stewie Griffin (screw you, they count as actors)
Favorite Director: ---
Favorite Film: Lord of War

Happy Feshday: 27

2008-07-07T14:17:00.003+03:00

The world celebrates today the Feshday. I have a very good feeling about this Feshday, I feel turning 27 is going to usher in a new Fesh! Oh and interestingly I did some research and seems the Feshday is celebrated elsewhere in the world! For example in Tanzania, Ukraine and Japan!

Islamophobia

2008-06-28T22:57:00.003+03:00

A few months ago I started working with our inhouse Catbert (all hail the evil director of human resources) on instituting a policy for foreigners working in the Frozen Wastelands to be able to go back to their home country and work from there for a temporary period. My rational was simple. Foreigners go back home see friends and family. So after the initial week off you start getting bored since all your friends are eitherway at work, hence my reco for having this policy.

Though I tried to be as logical as possible, still Catbert shot down most of the material and data I shared. Having exhausted all possible channels I decided to unleash the most potent of my weapons: Islamophobia. You see, we have one Muslim dude here who has been very vocal about having this policy since he wants to spend Ramadan in Egypt, which is a fair request.

So, we get into a meeting and this dude presents his case and I quote: "I can't spend Ramadan here, since Ramadan now is coming in Summer, which means I will have to fast from 2am till 10pm, which I can't do". Catbert politely asked a few follow-up questions to understand why so and then she understood that the fasting is linked to sunrise and sunset. And then Catbert's tone totally changed and she seemed to have developed an understanding for the need for this policy.

I was surprised how Catbert, a Frozen Wastelander, didn't object to the dude's claim that sunrise in the Wastelands is at 2am and sunset is at 10pm? Yes, the Wastelands is a northern country but 4 hours of darkness (in September?!) is more of North Pole territory! And just to be sure I did some surfing and here are the actual numbers:

1. For Cairo, and during September, the length of day starts at 12h 45mins and goes down to 11h 53 mins. Full listing here.
2. For the Wastelands, also during September, the length of day starts at 13h 35mins (only 50 mins more than Cairo) and drops to *drum roll* 11h 39m... yess ladies and gents..14 full mins shorter than the fasting time in Cairo! Full listing here.

Oh Islamophobia .... what can't you do?

The Age of Information

2008-06-11T17:37:00.002+03:00

Remember the good old days when all the statistics you got about a football match came after the match ended in the form of a simple table that listed four or five measures like: goals, cards, fouls, shots on goal? ah... I yearn for such days. Over the last few World Cups, I learned to accept that the statistics became more intrusive, often creeping into the screen in the middle of a good play, just to distract you. I also learned to accept how stalkerishly individual the stats became. Every now and then they'd show you how many shots a certain player did or fouls, it's cool.

Watching the Euro 2008 nowadays, I feel the organizers decided to take it to the 'Oh-yeah-we-can-calculate-THAT' level. Whenever a player is being substituted they'd show, along with the normal stats, those two annoying ones:
1. Passes Complete: 95 (79%). Why? Eitherway we don't see this stat for all the other players? And not to mention it doesn't tell us anything. He could have a low passing accuracy but passed a few brilliant passes that got the team their goals. And how are they calculating this? Is it automated or do they have a poor soul watching each player and counting (using an abacus) all passes and which of them is successfully completed and which is not?
2. Distance: 8.91km. Okay, for their own sakes, I hope that they have a GPS bug on all players that is reporting that because if they are calculating that any other way then they are truly showing off.

And if they have the technology (or the cheap abacus-using labour) why don't they put it to work on on some of those ideas:
For defenders:
- Untruthfully raising hand to claim last attack was offside (as %)
- Untruthfully claiming it's a goal kick not a corner kick (as %)
Midfield/Attack:
- Pretending it was a foul (as a %)
- Taking a dive for a penalty (as a %)

See the kool thing about those stats is that gradually they'll start to taint players who keep lying on the field. Not to mention, as more and more of those stats will be needed, I'll get into the abacus business and make billions of dongs! I'll then build a 3am dahab vault and swim in a sea of dongs....ah...that's the dream. And no, it's not gay. Not at all.

Give Us Their Heads! Or Their Balls!

2008-06-09T01:53:00.004+03:00

As it is customary, the Frozen Wastelands landed in the same group as Germany, just like in the world cup. The couple have an itchy relationship not only on the pitch but off it too. Like last year's comments by the, often comedic, Wastelands president at an EU meeting about how his country would have more voting power if it weren't for Nazi Germany... errr... I bet the room fell silent after what he said, well technically after what the translator said. So in honor of what this newspaper calls 'bitter nationalism' and ahead today's opening game for both teams, a Wastelandees tabloid published a disgusting article that pictured the Wastelandees coach carrying the decapitated heads(!) of Germany's captain and coach?! Under the picture it read: Give Us Their Heads! Well, I can understand the wastelandees frustration seeing that they never won any game against Germany. But decapitated heads, with blood dripping and all, is maybe, just maybe, taking it too far.

So, as it is also customary, the Wastelanders had their asses handed over to them by Ballack et al. But the real fun moments of the match were those:
1. A wastelander defender stepping on Germany's striker's balls (yeap with the football shoes that have the pointy-metal things at the bottom ..OUCH) and objecting to the referee's free kick?! Dude, you probably popped one of his jewels, the least you could do is let him limp his way to a free kick in peace?!
2. This "Polish" player coming into the field in second half-time...err.. initially I was like, wait that's the Euro2008, right? Not Champions League? But turns out he's 100% "Polish"... amazing! : )

Over-dramatizations

2008-06-05T14:40:00.003+03:00

I came across this video which was the highest rated video on digg.com for the last week, so I thought it's worth watching. I was wrong. Without ruining the video for you, it introduces this conspiracy to turn the internet to be run like cable (with packages of websites for a certain monthly fee) vs. the current set-up. I didn't do any research on the claims in the video, but even if they have some truth to them, I'm surprised how it's always easier, much easier, to blow any potential issue out of proportion than give it its right size. There's always something on the news about how Climate Change will wipe humans off the surface of the Earth or how back in the Cold War, a minor glitch can bring on a nuclear holocaust...etc. The most annoying part of those over-dramatizations is way they undermine what we, humans, are capable of. It's true that we have drove ourselves into a few pitholes, but if you look at our history those were the exceptions. Personally, I choose to have faith in our capabilities.

One of my earliest posts was about how oil will never run out. It's impossible for me to believe that we will sit there and drain the last droplet of oil with a big straw. Just equally impossible for me to buy was that Y2K was going to destroy us or that the Internet, as we know it, will end in 2012. Why? Well, specifically when it comes to technology, the world has seen this before. The operating system monopoly Microsoft had in the early 90's? It just took one man to start the Linux/open source revolution that changed the game. How about when Yahoo/Hotmail started squeezing your email inboxes and trying to make you pay (maybe like cable?) for higher capacity? Along came Google and changed the game and now everyone offers free 5GB-10GB email accounts. Why should we assume that the millions (or is it billion(s)?) of people who connect to the internet daily will sit there and let some corporations, however big they are, tell them how to use the internet? I read somewhere that Google has been buying alot of unused fiber and constructing a network across the US. Can you imagine the amount money Google can make if they offer "free" access to this network, in case those other evil providers implement this doomsday scenario explained in the video? Everyone will switch to the Google's network (Gnet, if you wish) overnight. And if Google didn't do it, someone somewhere will and that person will be the richest man on Earth. It's that simple.

Yes, I choose to have faith in our collective ingenuity. And I loath those who think that without them, and their armature videos, however hawt the anchor's cleavage is, the world will end.

Let the Anal Probing Begin!

2008-05-31T11:00:00.005+03:00

I'm sure you've heard about this. A hunter-gatherer tribe discovered that has had no contact with the outside world! Technically speaking the majority of the world was at this (and I'll use the wrong word here, for lack of a more expressive one) "evolutionary" stage before the rise of agriculture. We're talking pre-6th century BC! I'm sure anthropologists worldwide are organizing bitchin' parties now to celebrate this find, though the article says that NGOs are trying to keep those tribes uncontactable. I can understand that. Bringing them suddenly in contact with the world can threaten their way of life.

But how about if we ease them into a 'contact' with us? For example:
1. We get the best and brightest of Hollywood directors to stage a UFO landing near the tribe's camp. A silver spaceship lands at nigh and three humans descend from it claiming that they come in peace ....from the future!
2. We then experiment on how could two very different civilizations can communicate? Should we use pictures? exchange tools? music?
3. We analy probe some of them. I'm not sure why, but since aliens keep doing it to our abductees, then I'm sure it's the 'hip' thing to do now when it comes to making contact and all.
4. We offer to take their leader to our World Headquarters on the Moon. Then we release him (with his bow and arrow) in the middle of Manhattan. I'm sure that would be a killer reality show that one of the major networks would totally sponsor.
5. Finally, we destroy their camp with big laser guns! No, no... of course I'm kidding. We keep that for Iraq.

Amen!

2008-05-29T18:21:00.005+03:00

I came across this quote by Neil Gaiman:

"It does help, to be a writer, to have the sort of crazed ego that doesn't allow for failure. The best reaction to a rejection slip is a sort of wild-eyed madness, an evil grin, and sitting yourself in front of the keyboard muttering 'Okay, you bastards. Try rejecting this!' and then writing something so unbelievably brilliant that all other writers will disembowel themselves with their pens upon reading it, because there's nothing left to write. Because the rejection slips will arrive. And, if the books are published, then you can pretty much guarantee that bad reviews will be as well. And you'll need to learn how to shrug and keep going. Or you stop, and get a real job."

This should be every writer's prayer. Writers want people to read what they have to say. They even want their writing to influence how people perceive the world around them. So it's no wonder that writers (and other creative professionals for that matter) take a lot of pride in what they do.

Personally, I must say this quote summarizes exactly how I feel after writing a good post or article. The overinflated ego, the feeling that this is the most brilliant piece of writing ever and even the evil grin! Hell, if I could afford a thunder/lightning machine, I'd install one at my place and turn it on right after posting/publishing anything and hiss:

Exxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxcellent.

The USofE

2008-05-27T00:49:00.003+03:00

I've always been a fan of the EU and I continue to be impressed by the progress it has made in such a short period of time. So a few months back I started reading more about the EU and it's history. To be honest with you, I was looking for the catch. Nothing is perfect. So I came across the common things you hear in the news: expansion hiccups, domination by big nations (e.g. Germany) and no unified foreign policy (e.g. the Iraq war).

The EU constitutional treaty, a treaty that was supposed to place a common constitution in Europe and instead was rejected by French and Dutch national referendums, caught my attention. Something about it seemed fishy. Reading more about it, turns out it was pretty comprehensive, the Eurocrats wanted to go for 99.9% but that was too much so the voters rejected it. What happened next was an elaborate plan, the EU leaders signed the Lisbon treaty which is basically 80% of the constitutional treaty (calling for a permanent EU president among other things), but did it in a clever way that makes it ratifiable (if that's a word) by the national parliaments, except in Ireland, so that they don't risk another No.

Here's a story from Egypt: our constitution didn't have popular vote for the office of president. The way it worked was for the national parliament to nominate and vote for president. If the nominee didn't get a certain majority, I believe they had to repeat the procedure and if it's still the same issue then they go to popular vote. Growing-up I always saw the president getting 99.9%. In 2005, this changed due to various internal and external forces and the presidential vote became a popular one. The president won by 88%, after he had to run a campaign and explain his 6-year plan and run commercials in the TV. Something which didn't happen before.

See, it would be wrong of me to compare the EU to Egypt, clearly Egypt has a lot to learn from the EU. But it's a disturbing thought that wherever you live, even if in some of the most democratic countries in the world, all votes can be equal but some will always be more equal than others. Be it the Eurocrats or the ruling party's old guards.

Wastelandees Cultural Evening

2008-05-25T23:55:00.003+03:00

So yeah, a friend took me to a Wastelandees Cultural Evening and it was really interesting. I sat thru my first Polish movie, which was without subtitles, produced in the 70's and "funny". I know. That was like a goldmine, tiny blog postlets kept popping-up in my head every 10 seconds! But unfortunately we didn't watch the whole thing. Pity. Oh and I listened live to the Wastelands' equivalent of Led Zeppelin! They had some nice music going on, I must say. The weather wasn't that great, but overall was very interesting experience!

By the way, did you notice how virtually all 70's movies, doesn't matter where they were produced, look exactly the same? Men in pale-colored suites and those thick-rimmed eyeglasses, women with those pointy eyeglasses and the same white/black/blue Chevys? This Wastelandees movie I watched looked exactly like any Egyptian or American 70's movie I've seen. Weird, han? I don't think it's the same for say 90's movies. I don't know why.

The Baker

2008-05-17T18:34:00.005+03:00

Unlike cooking, which I knew I'd be horrible at, I somehow knew that I'd be a good baker (maybe it's because I'm addicted to the scent of freshly baked bread?). So I always wanted to try and bake bread. But in a second thought, I decided that my first baking experience should be a cake and not bread. See, with cake you could always claim that this "charcoal aftertaste" is your signature in pastries, but with bread that would be hard to sell. So after several trips to the supermarket and a lot of online articles there was only one thing to do: call my mother. My mother is my cooking guru and I'm her slowest apprentice. She is always trying to give me tips on cooking that I always forget and I end up calling her when one of my failed cooking experiments go horribly wrong. So after calling her and getting some pointers, I was ready, let the baking begin!

I give you the one, the only, the uber gingerbread cake:

...oh and in case you were wondering, it tastes as good as it looks! YEAH! Hail me, for I am The Baker*.

*I highly recommend the movie by the way!

Obama's Appeal

2008-05-13T08:34:00.008+03:00

I'm sure this was noted elsewhere before, but today I realised why Obama is so appealing as a presidential candidate. And no it's not his message of hope, charisma or the fact that he's a historic candidate. It's what he's not.

The current president was born to a wealthy family and a father who was himself a US president. Though a privileged child, I'm going to take a wild guess and say G.W.Bush was not a bright student. Just a hunch. Also as president he led the US into an extremely unpopular war and secured a historic low for himself when it comes to approval ratings as a US president. Enter Obama who was born into a simple family, with his father as a Kenyan immigrant. Though not as privileged as elpresidente currento, Obama turned out real good. A law degree from Yale, a place in the Senate and a couple of bestselling books he authored under his belt. As a politician he is against Bush's unpopular war in Iraq and he is for dialogue with nations that the current administration decided to pretend they don't exist, something that worked real well for G.W. when he was in 4th grade and couldn't get along with a gang of Syrian, Iranian and North Korean bullies.

So in short, Obama is simply the exact opposite of the buffoon who currently resides in 1600 Pennsylvania avenue!
*Fesh pauses for his dramatic revelation to sink in with the crowd... nothing.

Okay, okay, let's try a different approach, he's the one to bring balance to the Force?
*crowd bursts into cheers.

The Smalltalkers

2008-05-09T19:01:00.003+03:00

I stopped smalltalking a long time ago. Just because we are waiting for the water to boil in a kitchenette does not justify someone asking me how my weekend was, at least for me. Of course, the smalltalkers would claim they are being nice and thoughtful and caring...bla bla bla. You know what I say? They lack self-confidence, the thought of standing there for 30 seconds with someone they don't know that much and NOT exchanging pleasantries is terrifying for them and they'll do anything to break that silence.

So, if your office swarms with the annoying smalltalkers here's the top 3 rude ways to get them to stop or at least to annoy them a bit:
1. Develop a short, cold reply for the typical smalltalk questions. Mine is: Good, Good.
2. Develop a gesture that is equivalent to 'Hi, how are you?', but since it's non-verbal it is not inviting for a conversation.
3. And that's the hardest one to do, never ask the same question back to the smalltalker. Smalltalkers, like parasites, are opportunists and if given the slightest chance for a conversation they'll jump on it and babel-on, until their coffee is ready and then they'll run of course.

Note: This post was inspired by Dipty's

Really?

2008-05-01T12:49:00.002+03:00

I read this story today and I had some mixed feelings about it:

I was happy that environmental awareness is alive and well in Egypt.
I was sad that a chemical plant was 'discovered' after the construction already started? I am sure in Egypt's bureaucracy that there's a billion and one documents to be signed, didn't anyone discover that this plant can't be built that close to the city?
I was also sad of this selective environmental awareness, 90% of the cars in Damietta (I know, I was there once) leave behind them this black smoke cloud becuase their exhaust system was last checked in 1968. Why is it so easy to come out and protest others with a 'noble' message such as protecting the environment and not care about your car's impact?
I was deeply disturbed that for any issue to be resolved, the head of the Egyptian Parliament (and I assume the President too) need to get involved?! Isn't there a hierarchy of 13 trillion bureaucrats under the head of the Egyptian Parliament who could defuse such issue? Has the government turned into a crying baby who has to run to mummy whenever there's an issue?
I couldn't help my skepticism. Really? so Egyptians left the fact that Egypt's cities are one of the most polluted, the sectarian violence that is tearing us apart, the messed up economy, the skyrocketing unemployment, the "democratic kingdom" we have, the fact that ordinary people can't afford bread anymore and decided to marched against a petrochemical factory that's being built by a Canadian industry leader?

I'm not saying they shouldn't have come out to protest that factory, they should, they stood up for what they believe for and that's great. I'm just skeptic that the first protest I hear about from Damietta is about that and not the ever-increasing list of horrible things Egypt is facing.

Pickled Eggs, Anyone?

2008-04-27T15:31:00.002+03:00

I haven't tasted pickled eggs yet, but I have a very strong feeling that the first time I do they'll taste horribly bad. When I say horribly bad I mean two orders of magnitude more horrible than eating a piece of your own liver. Which has been rotting in the sun for 12 hours. And a dog peed on it 4 hours ago.

So today as I was having my breakfast, that surprisingly didn't even include eggs in any shape or form, I wondered how would be the experience of eating my first pickled egg? Is it possible it could be as horrible as I think? And if it was, will I be happy with my newly acquired skill of predicting the taste of a food? Or would I be traumatised by the thought that a rotten piece of my liver that has been peed on would have probably tasted much better than what I just ate? What if I actually liked it? How would I be able to look myself in the eye everyday and tell myself that I can't possibly eat a rotten piece of my liver? I misjudged pickled eggs, didn't I?

Evolutionary Fesh

2008-04-17T07:34:00.002+02:00

"Evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts do not go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's, but apples did not suspend themselves in mid-air, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape-like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered"

I'm a fanatic evolutionist, I believe life, intelligent or not, exists elsewhere in the universe. So it's no surprise that I usually get into hot debates with people, educated people, about evolution and sadly they almost always voice pathetic objections to the theory of evolution, here are the top two:

1. Evolution is at odds with religion.
I respect people choosing to believe that the world was created as explained in the Holy Books: in 7 days with humans created directly by God. What I don't respect is people claiming that the theory of evolution is wrong because it claims that we evolved without having God in the picture. Evolution is just the tip of our understanding of how we got here. Our current scientific understanding begins with a single moment, the moment of the Big Bang. There's no time before it and there is no explanation of how this moment came to be, sounds familiar? Yes, that's the creation moment according to science. Science and Religion do not disagree on whether there was a creation moment or not, they simply differ on when it was! Agree with whichever version you like, but don't dismiss science as Godless.

2. If it is true, why are we not evolving anymore?
The short answer is that we are evolving, just slowly. You need to factor in that based on fossil evidence humans started evolving from chimpanzees around 5-8 million years ago. Mind you that currently the difference in DNA sequence between a chimpanzee and a human is ONLY 5%. Think about that, it took 5 million years for 5% change in DNA. So of course you can't spot OUR evolution because our total documented history is little less than 10,000 years. But to answer your question in insects like the fruit fly, where the average generation lifetime is a lot shorter, evolution has been spotted in various lab experiments. Google it.

The Return of Das Iron Fesh!

2008-04-13T07:40:00.000+02:00

Yessss....
I've been off my weight training for a while now mainly because of back trouble. But I'm back baby! Last Friday I marched into the gym with my work-out playlist ready on my uberPod and all!

Of course I spent yesterday, sore like hell, in bed. But I'm off to the gym again now... woho! Oh and I revisited my new year's resolutions and I'm doing quite well on 4 out of the 7. Another woho!

An Old Friend

2008-04-10T17:08:00.004+02:00

Today I caught up with an old friend. I always enjoy talking with him, he is everything that I am not, yet on some level we are similar. We talked about a lot of things, I updated him with my news and he did the same. I hogged the conversation more and subconsciously tried to impress a person I admire and look up to. When we were almost done he shared with me one piece of advise, he said: Remember you can revisit your choices as you want, but never regret them.

It's amazing how an old friend not only can see right through you but also can give you the advise you need the most. I needed this advice badly and he knew that. I'm the kind of person who regularly revisits his choices and always obsesses about 'what if?'. I try to quantify costs of my wrong choices believing that by doing so I am learning from my mistakes. While in fact I am regretting something that I can not change, something that I should learn from rather than regret. It's amazing how stating the obvious can make you stop. And think.

Thanks old friend.

Game Sa3ayda

2008-04-09T14:00:00.003+02:00

I used to play Estimation alot back during school and university days. It's a card game for four players and the objective is that each player estimates exactly how many hands they'll get depending on their cards. The interesting thing is that you lose if you get more or less hands, the only way to win is that you get exactly the number of hands you asked for. And since there are 13 hands in total, the sum of the hands that the four players will estimate can't be 13. This rule is there to ensure that at least one out of the four players will lose. Every couple of weeks or so we'd get a game that we called 'Game Sa3ayda' (loosely translated: Fool's Game). This game meant that all four players lost, so some ended up with more hands they asked for and some got less.

I'm no expert on global economy but couldn't help but notice the resemblance. Consumers are screwed, companies are screwed, big banks are screwed, governments are screwed, the American economy is screwed and the European and Asian stock markets are in the red? Is there anyone gaining anything from this? I can understand that one country would have a recession and its currency and economy will plummet. But how could we have designed such an elaborate global economic model that simply allows everyone to lose? That's one hell of a Game Sa3ayda.

Leave It Alone...

2008-04-07T15:34:00.004+02:00

I'm appalled by all the assaults on the Olympic torch during its relay in the name of human rights in China and/or Tibet. Though the Olympic games is an international apolitical forum, it was used in the past to make political statement in much more appropriate ways. Athletes and governments have historically boycotted games and of course there is the infamous Black Power salute of the '68 games that continues to be a moving memorial to the civil rights movement.

So why violently attack the torch bearers and try to extinguish the torch? Isn't it ironic that those violent acts are committed in the name of Tibet, a notoriously peaceful nation? With the world as messed up as it is today, do we really need to sabotage one of the few last reasons to celebrate humanity?

The Challenge of Communication

2008-04-06T14:44:00.000+02:00

I'm not one of them anal folks who constipate when they read a grammatically incorrect sentence or a misspelled word..

*Mean look at Munqy.

That's because I suck at both spelling and grammar and more importantly I value 'the big picture'. I don't mind a misspelled word here or there if I can clearly understand the writer's intentions. The language, to me, is only a means of conveying the more valuable concepts and opinions. I do cringe though when people just pee all over 'the big picture' and here's a good example, the English is a bit Frozen Wastelandees but bare with me:

[...] is the company caring about the environment every day. Every day for our sheet of papers dies many trees. Due to this fact we would like to recommend you how to economize this losses in better solution of printing your documents. Step 1: First, before printing think about the trees, Step 2: [...] Step 3: [...] Step 4: If it is possible use douplex printing. Additionally, less printed papers- lower costs and less paper on your desks and in your bag.

The 'big picture' here is that now we have double-sided (duplex) printing at the office and we should use it. But the message does everything to lose the reader on an idea that practically sells itself, for example:

Starting with the guilt trip about how for our paper many trees die is too cliche. Those who care are already not wasting paper and those who don't won't read this line and have an epiphany, quite their jobs and join Greenpeace.
Moving from a pointless rambling introduction to bullet-point is great. Having the first bullet being 'think about the trees before you print' is...err.. Goto 10?
Keeping your main point (duplex printing) to the last point doesn't make sense. Everyone is busy (or acts like it) so hiding your main point wouldn't help.
Finally, keeping probably the biggest advantage of duplex printing (less paper on your desk and in your bag) as the last line in your 1-page message... hmm... Goto 30?

Communications, especially in The Corporate Dens of Evil, should cut to the chase. This message could have the same effect if not better if it were sent like this:

All, now we have duplex printing (i.e. double-sided printing). It's fast, it's simple and it does not waste paper. That means less mess on your desk, less weight in your bag and less damage to the environment. Please use it.

The Band's Visit

2008-04-04T10:56:00.004+02:00

I watched 'The Band's Visit' yesterday and was extremely impressed. The anti-Israeli propaganda is alive and well in Egypt with Israelis, who have to be named David or Cohen, always portrayed as evil. And although I haven't watched Israeli movies, I assumed it would also be littered with anti-Arab messages.

The Band's Visit, an Israeli movie about an Egyptian musical band that travels to Israel, was a pleasant surprise to me as didn't go down the path of the cliche mutual hatred or the cheesy political symbolism like most movies, of the same kind, usually do. On the other hand, the movie is a take on what's common between a typical person from Egypt and another from Israel. I remember reading about a speech by a US president, probably Reagan, during the Cold War where he talked about how if a US citizen and a Soviet one met, they'd find a lot more in common between them. Watching this movie gave me the same feeling. It's a pity that very few people in Egypt, and the Arab world, would see it thought. As you might have guessed it's not showing anywhere I know of in the Arab world.

I just hate it when a much-needed step, however small it may be, towards mutual understanding is ignored like that.

P.S: Kudos to Dipty for recommending

Random Fesh

2008-04-02T21:12:00.003+02:00

I've been tagged by Munqy and Nora to do this 10 random things you might not know about me. Here goes:

1. I don't appreciate hand-shaking for the sake of hand-shaking. If we are friends and I saw you yesterday, I wouldn't want to shake your hand when I meet you today. The concept of hand-shaking should be restricted to formal introductions. Oh and to top it off, I'm highly untouchy-unfeely.

2. I have the weirdest turn-on: dark pants that have thin white stripes. They drive me crazy regardless of whether the chickita wearing them is hot or not.

3. You know those drying machines in public toilets that have a roll of cloth and you're supposed to pull them, dry your hand and then leave them to be automatically rolled back in? I'm positive there is something sinister about them, don't know what it is, but I assure you I'm onto them.

4. I have an evil uberPod that regularly taunts me by its sarcastic music choice.

5. I FIFO everything in my kitchen: water bottles, fruits, yogurt...etc anything has to be consumed in the order it was purchased.

6. I have a tendency to 'fight the system' when I'm treated unfairly. I do that even if I don't have the slightest chance to win, it's not wining that matters to me, it's causing the most harm as I go down that does. Some say I'm stubborn others say I'm plain stupid. I like to think I'm a pain in the ass if treated unfairly.

7. I worship the number 7 and 2007 was MY YEAR.

8. I once peed on someone, and no she wasn't bitten by a jelly fish.

9. I consider Mojito a gay drink.

10. I have watched every episode of Simpsons, Family Guy, Futurama and South Park at least twice.

Next I tag Dipty and Eureka.

Two Years of Solitude

2008-03-31T20:51:00.000+02:00

Two years in the Frozen Wastelands today!

In the Year 2525..

2008-03-17T11:53:00.003+02:00

...If man is still alive, If woman can survive, They may find...". Did you know that this song by Zager and Evans was on top of the charts when Neil Armstrong was landing on the moon in 1969? Very interesting. Anyhoo, I don't know why this song jumped to my head when I first got this event invite on Facebook the other day.

Before I tell you about this invite, let me take a step back and tell you about the Frozen Wastelanders obsessive-compulsive need to plan everything well in advance. It's really extreme here, I'm talking "booking-your-wedding-date-and-time-2-years-in-advance" weird. I can definitely see the upside of extreme planning. Your week becomes very organized since you know when you're going out and with whom. Personally, I have been managing projects for the last 5 years and I managed to keep the majority on track over the course of months and sometimes years thanks to planning. But I chose to do less planning when it comes to trivial things in life like going out for a movie or a house party. A life that is planned 5 days in advance is one too boring for me, I prefer more spontaneous people and plans.

But of course you can't be spontaneous on your own here in the Wastelands, believe me, I tried. First few weeks here, I called people up on Saturday evening to check out what we'll be doing. Nothing. People were already booked for extremely simple things for the next few days if not a week or so in advance! So I learned that in order to get on people's calendars for a movie night, I probably need to contact them a week in advance. You live and learn.

Which takes me to the Facebook invite I mentioned earlier. I got used to getting invites for house parties 1-2 or even 3 weeks in advance, which is okay. So the other day I get an invite 2 months and half in advance. Yes an invite that is 10 weeks in advance. An invite that gives you 20% of the year as a notice. And no, it's not an invite for a wedding in Hawaii, where the lead time would be needed to try and fish for a bargain ticket, it's an invite for a birthday party on a Saturday afternoon at a dude's place? I didn't know how to process it. I couldn't accept or decline it, unlike everyone else I don't know what I'll be doing for the next 10 Saturday nights.

I know, I'm pathetic, don't look at me.

Salam, Brother..

2008-03-05T13:24:00.001+02:00

I despise trend-whores. You know the ones who'll jump on anything new and pick it up whether it suites them or not? In the two years I've spent here in the Frozen Wastelands I've noticed that as a percentage of the total population, the trend-whores are a very big chunk. Actually they are such a big group that there's a slang term to describe them. It's choco. Unfortunately, turns out it's not a derogatory term like I hoped, but rather meaning how hip and kwel you are. Ugh.

One of the more interesting trends that caught on here is wearing a keffiyeh (in Egyptian-Arabic it's more of a koffieyh, but I went with how WikiGod has spelled it). And not any keffiyeh, the trademark checkered one. It's interesting because in the last 40+ years the checkered keffiyeh was made famous by the late Palestinian leader Arafat and became a worldwide symbol of the Palestinian cause. More recently with the Intifadas the keffiyehs made their way to universities worldwide and came to represent a political statement: solidarity with the Palestinian cause. It's very sad to see such a powerful symbol turned into a kwel trend and none of the trend-whores prancing around wrapped in it understand its real meaning.

But on a more practical note, tell if I could pull this off. I let my beard go, put on my keffiyeh and my kaki pants and a black shirt. I also stuff my alarm clock (which has this big digital red display) into my backpack and put it on countdown mode. Then, I roam the streets here till I find one of them trend-whores, I approach him and speak in a very broken English, with a heavy Arabic accent:

Brother Fesh: Brother, Salam... I see you are one of us?
*point to his keffiyeh
Wastelander Brother: Przepraszam? (Frozen Wastelandees for 'Excuse me?')
*hold his keffiyeh and mine and explain
Brother Fesh: We, together...BOOM! BOOM! *throw my hands in the air..

If he still didn't pee his pants or run away, I'll open my backpack very slowly and give him a peek at the bold red digits slowly counting down.

2008-03-01T10:49:00.000+02:00

Hello World.

Gifts

2008-02-25T22:46:00.000+02:00

I hate gifts, they hate me back and we have this thriving mutual disrespect. I overthink gifts, I keep thinking about the pros and cons of every gift idea and at the end I can't decide which is really the best one. This issue only happens when I'm giving gifts, with me I know exactly what I need *Fesh pets his uberPod*.

So, back in December we were having this traditional Frozen Wastelandees Christmas dinner at work. As the Wastelanders enjoyed their cold fish, coated with gelatin and smothered with pig fat, I imagined myself at my happy place (Burger King) and tried to kill time by trying to guess the gender of the person from the present they got. We were doing this secret Santa thing where each person gets a gift and then we redistribute them randomly. Here are my observations:

Two small Christmas tree decorations put in a small paper bag. => Guy present.
A Festive paperbag with a mug (which in turn was wrapped in a different gift wrapping) inside and then inside the mug a little plastic bag with 3 small Christmas tree decorations. Oh and the dead giveaway: the paperbag was sellotaped-shut. => Girl present.
50ml bottle of vodka not wrapped in anything. => Guy present.

I know. I'm good.

Random Conversations #59123

2008-02-19T17:22:00.005+02:00

I got inspired by Eureka to post some of the weird conversations I have with my friends. I decided to post this one, which happened on the Walls of Facebook:

Fesh: HEY! I demand some lovin'. Leaving a bruder freezing like that in the Frozen Wastelands with no lovin'... SHAME...SHAME!
Beco: *Beco stands next Fesh looking down like emperor penguins
Fesh: *Fesh lays an egg.
Beco: KHEYAAAAAAAANAH!
Beco: hey did you ever wonder how birds do it? I mean with dogs its doggie style.. what about birds?!?! Birddie style?! and how does that look? Not a right conversation to have on a wall ey?
Fesh: No no.. it's the perfect conversation to have... so in my mind the Birddie-style entails the use of the wings... so they are hovering in the air and the wing flapping is moderating... you know...*ahm*.. the rhythm?
Beco: hmmm.. interesting look on things.. have you noticed that everything is kinda doggie style?!? cats - dogs - cows - deer.. why was it attributed to the dog?!?
Fesh: pffffff... pls.. that is so simple... why do we call things Feshfeshy though they might be Fesh-related or not? It's the same reason really... think about it...
Beco: touche.. I am not worthy to be in the path of your infinite wisdom! Thank you sense
......but if you really think about it.. anything called Feshfeshy, usually is fesh related.. puny, hairy & questionable!!
Fesh: ...and the student becomes the master. You are ready.

Bloggers Anonymous

2008-02-15T11:13:00.005+02:00

I don't get it. Why does everything have to be so anonymous on the Blogosphere? Most bloggers refrain from using their real names or real nicknames. Some bloggers even live their alter ego online. Why is that? Why is it that the bloggers 'real' friends are always reduced to capital letters like 'K' or 'H' or 'M'? or fake descriptive nicknames like 'AngelEyes'?

One explanation is that the blogger is considerate of the privacy of their friends and don't want to mention their real names/nicknames. But, when you tell such a story in real life, you either don't mention your friends (if their role is not important) or you mention them because it's important to the story. I never recall having heard a story from a person, even if I JUST met and I know nothing about him, that went: So I was with my friend, let's call her "B". Right? So why is it that when this same story is being told to the same random people but now on the Blogosphere suddenly it has to be riddled with Capital Letter People?

You can argue that, unlike a story to a random person over a drink in a bar, the story 'sticks' on the Blogosphere. That is, it will be there for years to come documented and neatly indexed by Google (all hail our Overlord). Which is true, but then again, why doesn't the blogger opt for not mentioning who exactly from thier friends, I don't see how knowing that this friend can be refereed to as "K" adds to the plot line? Do you think it's just to feel that they are still in control? An internal power struggle in the blogger's head since they are exposing SO much on thier blog that they want to feel they are still in control and holding back on something? Like their real names or their friends'?

Coffee HIGH

2008-02-12T10:03:00.000+02:00

MUST.
NOT.
INDULGE.
IN.
ITALIAN.
COFFEE.

*Fesh dies.

Vote For Your Favorite City!

2008-02-11T11:19:00.000+02:00

Came across this today, Monopoly is asking people to vote for their favorite cities to include them in the next release of Monopoly. So kool! Vote!

Black Fesh 7.0

2008-02-09T22:18:00.000+02:00

(We Will CRUSH Them)

Black Fesh 6.0

2008-02-07T18:58:00.000+02:00

When Fesh left the creepy old man's dungeon, he wasn't smiling. There was no familiar smoke figure above the chimney either. The old man leveled with Fesh, the Ivorians have reached him before Fesh did. When Fesh offered to double or triple whatever the Ivorians were paying, the old man explained that it was too late. Fesh understood when he saw on the old man's desk the familiar figure:
There is no way they can overcome the spell cast against them now. It's almost impossible.... yet miracles happen.

Olympic Fesh

2008-02-05T13:55:00.000+02:00

When Wikilink makes it to the Olympics, I'm going to be Egypt's (and probably the world's) first nerd-turned-Olympian. I might not be the fastest on the pitch or the best with those freakishly fast tennis/ squash/ basketball/ volleyball balls, but damn it I have the excellent motor skills for Wikilink. I have trained all my life for this! As soon as the race starts I become one with the keyboard, the mouse and the scroller wheels and I fall into the reality of ht Wiki, a reality I like and feel comfortable in. It's true that I might not know all the ways of the Wiki that Master Munqy do. But I will learn.. and mark my words, when that day comes I'll be right there on the podium.

Black Fesh 5.0

2008-02-04T09:31:00.000+02:00

So are you sure this time? Asked the the creepy old man as he added the dented golden hoof to the mix. Oh, yes, I'm sorry about last time. I must have confused you. Explained Fesh. Confused me?! Repeated the old man. Your weak soul is not capable of this. NOW... take this and microwave it just before the game starts. Should do the effect.

Fesh put the stinky package into this microwave, turned the knob to high and set the timer for 5 mins, as the old man recommended. At around 4 mins and 37 seconds the cover popped open and the gooey matter stained the glass with this pattern:

(oh, I forgot to ask the old man for a spell for Cameroon, but I'm confident Tunisia will send the Lions home tonight)

Black Fesh 4.0

2008-02-03T13:50:00.000+02:00

The creepy old man went into his small room and closed the door behind him. As he turned on the lights a cold voice came from behind him: I've been expecting you. The old man turned sharply to find Fesh sitting on his desk petting a white chihuahua. A pale smile came across the old man's face as he approached Fesh: Look, regarding the last spell, after you left Jade showed up and she.. Fesh interrupted: The sick sick things you do for Jade do not interest me... and I haven't come here for an explanation. Then why did you come here? Your game is tomorrow? Fesh threw the chihuahua away and walked towards him saying: Our game we'll talk tomorrow. Now, I have put a lot of money on today's games. I want to be sure there will be no surprises.

After Fesh left, the old man opened the the envelop he left for him. Inside were two small postcards. It is going to be an easy spell, thought the old man.

The Fesh Factor: Jan 08

2008-02-01T17:38:00.000+02:00

I give you The Fesh Factor article for January 2008. Proudly sponsored by Twinings Green Tea.
(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.

Black Fesh 3.0

2008-01-30T12:43:00.000+02:00

Fesh watched as the creepy old man mixed a combination of black beetle concentrate, green monkey testicles, golden scorpion legs and dried-up red rat eyes. A small hunchback figure emerged from the corner of the dark room, with the last ingredient: a bold eagle's unhatched egg. Fesh, now a regular client of the old man, knew that he doesn’t like to be disturbed as he works. So Fesh left the payment on the desk and quickly left the underground dungeon. As Fesh walked away he suddenly realized that if they win today they’ll qualify as first of the group and thus meet Ivory Coast in the semifinals! A highly unfavorable situation especially considering Ivory Coast's performance this tournament! But if they lose today, they would qualify as second of the group and they’ll –probably- have a much easier team in the semifinals! In a way, by losing today they might book their ticket to the finals! Fesh realizing the huge mistake he has done quickly turns back, only to find that it was too late. A familiar smoke figure hung above the old man’s chimney:

My Evil uberPod

2008-01-29T21:09:00.000+02:00

I've always believed that my uberPod has an evil sense of humor, maybe it's the way it silently mocked me when I wasn't looking. Maybe it's my ever-growing inferiority complex. But yesterday I think I got the hard evidence I was looking for. Here's the story:

I arrived at elCairo's International Airport at 2am and for the next 6+ hours, as I journyed via Budapest to the Frozen Wastelands, I would be listening to my uberPod's exquisite selection of songs. I have kept it on 'shuffle' for all those 6 hours and exactly 2 minutes before landing at the Frozen Wastelands Madona's 'Frozen' starts playing! I looked at its screen in disbelif thinking only one thing: touché.

Frozen Wastelands, Here I Come!

2008-01-27T17:30:00.000+02:00

Yup, my days in sunny elCairo passed like a blink of an eye! I'm feeling lucky about my luggage this time. I feel it's going to arrive safely at the belt there. I guess we'll see! :)

Black Fesh 2.0

2008-01-26T13:10:00.000+02:00

The return to the underground dungeon where the old creepy man lived was not easy. Fesh knew he needed the old man's services once more. Fesh reviewed what he'd say to the creepy old man word-by-word as he went down the stairs. The old man looked up, his face pleasantly surprised: So although they are no match for you, you still come to me? Fesh quickly sat down and recited the answer he has been practicing all the way: I haven't come here to ask you for a spell to win. I have come to ask you for a spell to humiliate them, they need to lose so bad they'll regret sharing a border with us for the rest of their lives! ....Fesh hesitated for a second and added: I'm talking of a 5 goal difference win. Can you help me?

The old man nodded and got to work mixing a red liquid with a black one in a pot over the the fire. Fesh not sure if he should leave now or not hesitated and quietly stood up. The old man quickly looked in his direction and barked: BEGONE! As Fesh stumbled across the room he saw, with the corner of his eye, the old man pulling something out of a jar labeled: Green Monkey Testicles and throwing it in the mix.

Fesh breathed deeply as he stepped outside, trying to clear his lungs of the dungeon's stink. Looking up, he could see the creepy old man's chimney and above it hung an eerie smoke figure:
Fesh smiled, assured that They are under the old man's spell now.

Can't Help it...

2008-01-24T12:14:00.000+02:00

Me: is it too soon to take a shot at this Frozen Wastelandese military aircraft that crashed after the officers on board just completed a conference on flight safety?

ViH: you're a sick sick freak... people died!

Me: I know, I know.. I'm sorry, maybe in a couple of month? Like a joke with the 'flight safety conference' bit as the punch-line?

ViH: you disgust me.

Me: okay, OKAY... fine.. I'll shut up.

Black Fesh

2008-01-22T18:13:00.000+02:00

The creepy old man removed a drowsy bat from a jar and slit its throat; its highly viscous greenish blood oozed out on the table. Fesh flinched at the disgusting sight and didn't notice as the old man threw in some red dried-up rat eyes and some golden scorpion legs. The mix, now stirred by the old man, strangely looked like this:
The old man looked up and whispered in a frail voice: Fear not, they are under my spell. Fesh hesitated as he drew out a small sack from his pocket and asked: Are you...uhm..sure? The old man banged his hand on the table with one quick move that seemed to be at odds with his worn-out looks and yield: DON'T EVER QUESTION ME! Almost falling over from his chair, Fesh quickly got on his feet and handed the old man the sack. As Fesh left the underground dungeon he had a grin on his face, quickly looking at his watch he knew it was only 30 mins away.

My uberPod

2008-01-18T01:39:00.000+02:00

I have always been loyal to the Party. I joined the Party back in the golden years. Ah, the year was 1995 and we have just introduced a new way of working with computers. Clearly, the future was ours. Some thought we were becoming more evil, but we believed we're doing what's best for everyone. There were setbacks along the way, some have succumbed to the Open Source Revolution ...disgusting failures. Yet we prevailed.

The biggest threat came form the capitalist fruits. We watched them enviously as they built their empire on the other side of The Wall that came to divide the cyberworld. We could see them swaying the hearts of millions. And then it happened, they introduced the miracle machine that could actually run their operating system along with ours! Then it was clear that the end was insight. I knew that if there was any chance of defecting, it was now....

[1 year later]

... it's so beautiful. The elven script on it's shinny back glows in elCairo's sun and reads:

Fesh pets his uberpod:
my preccccccciiioooooouuuussssssssssssssssss

It's true, I have been lured to the Dark Side and now I'm one of them fruits. I am now one of the millions of zombies that roam the earth every day in their own little bubbles. I am a slave to The White Earbud. I am a proud owner of an uberPod.

The Stupidity of The Masses

2008-01-10T18:07:00.000+02:00

Facebook usually exposes to me how stupid the average Facebookian is. Few months back I stumbled across the Mars Hoax and recently I came across a new phenomena. Groups and applications surfaced asking people to sign-up so that they could finally put the Six Degree Separation hypothesis to the test. You've probably heard about it, the hypothesis claims that people are connected via an average of six links. Links being friends or acquaintances. Around 12 million people signed up on Facebook to try and help the 'research' to prove this hypothesis.

Maybe it's just me but if I were to wake up tomorrow and the headlines would read: Six Degree Separation A Proven Fact! First, I'd be amazed by how the glorious 21st century research has just proved beyond doubt that, on average, I could be linked to a random dude in Boston over six links. *gasp*. Let me take a second to absorb this shock.............. ok, much better now. Second, I'd ask myself, so? What is the real reapplication of this 'discovery'? For sure there will be need for it in a weird sociological research about an extinct aboriginal tribe, but apart from that, how would this 'fact' help those 12 million people who are actively trying to prove it?
It wouldn't.

In the meantime, real distributed computing projects like: http://folding.stanford.edu or http://setiathome.berkeley.edu are suffering from a much, much smaller user base (as small as 200,000 users in some cases). Those projects only ask for some spare CPU cycles from your PC when you are not using it in exchange for trying to understand and solve real-world problems. These efforts have tangible results that will help make life better for all of us, yet the stupidity of the masses prevails.

2008 Resolutions

2008-01-06T14:50:00.000+02:00

After my initial draft, did some thinking and adjusted my final resolutions for 2008:

1. I'll pursue to completion one personal goal in life.
2. I'll read more, especially in new topics/areas.
3. I'll continue going to the gym to lose 10KG.
4. I'll be a better son.
5. I'll start conserving water and electricity where/when possible.
6. I'll continue to travel, visit 3 new countries.
7. I'll do one thing about my interest in Stand-Up.

Recovering...

2008-01-02T17:25:00.000+02:00

Dangerously high al-ke-hole levels are subsiding...
I'm recovering quite nicely, weather is a fantabulous 19C...
Must go out tonight...

P.S: Frozen Wasteland @ -14C ....hehehehe... the suckers...

Reminiscing About 2007

2007-12-31T18:23:00.000+02:00

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

The humble starts of my stand-up comedy career.
Me give-up coffee.....mmmmmm...coffffeeeeeeee.
The end of my long-haired, gay, Mexican pool-boy look.
The Rise of The Lord of The Fesh
The unsociable Fesh succumb and join Facebook.
Me break my bed due to ..*ahm*... my highly active and athletic sex life.
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.
Me expose my sever case of untouchy-unfeely-ness to the world.
The rise of Iron Fesh
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

2007-12-28T11:55:00.000+02:00

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

2007-12-25T15:00:00.001+02:00

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

2007-12-24T19:51:00.000+02:00

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.

2007-12-22T03:12:00.000+02:00

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!

2007-12-16T20:37:00.000+02:00

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

2007-12-13T20:04:00.000+02:00

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.