Read on for the review and check the Storify feed for my experience as I have used it. Unfortunately I couldn’t pit it against the Lumia 920, so for the sake of camera comparison I will pit it against my Galaxy S3.

Build Quality

“WOW” is the first word that came to mind when I first held the phone (don’t forget I am coming from the S3 — a phone not particularly known for its wonderful build quality). It’s almost impossible to not be impressed by the phone. 

I have the black version, which I personally found to be the most elegant. The other colours I saw in the electronics shops were a bit too “pastel” for my liking, and the ear speaker grill on the coloured phones were a bit overwhelming against the black front. The Lumia 920 sports braver colours which are not overpowering as they only frame the front. Regardless, the HTC 8X  feels good in the hand. The back side feels like rubbery-velvet material — while it isn’t textured, it is as though you’re holding a phone covered in fine cloth. The front is entirely covered by beautiful Gorilla Glass, and other than an unusually wide ear speaker grill, the only other noticeable feature is the oddly shaped front camera, which I will come to in a bit.

The best feature of the phone design though is the size: it is just perfect at 4.3 inches. While I eventually got used to the S3, I needed two hands to type; the iPhone is just small, and with the new design it feels odd. The HTC 8X is in this sweet spot range of phone sizes which makes it comfortable for one hand or two hand typing. The device features absolutely no hard edges; everything about the phone is curved, making it an engineering marvel since there is even less room to pack in the tech wizardry than a phone which utilises real estate afforded by angles. 

How beautiful is the phone, really? Almost everyone who saw it with me had to ask which phone I was carrying and had to hold it and marvel at its beauty. It really is a work of art.

That said, my only gripe about the phone design is that the power button is at the top — and given that it does not protrude, it’s a bit hard to press, making index finger manoeuvring a bit of an exercise and habit. It would have been better had the power button been on either side of the phone: the phone’s right side (your left) has plenty of room for it.

The Camera

There have been a few reviews that criticised the camera as not being good, or even subpar; other reviews praised it. The phone’s camera is a crucial part of my purchase decision so I had to test out the phone for myself in how I go on with my phone photography to be able to tell. As a quick summary, it can produce some stellar shots as well as terrible ones; you need to learn how the camera works, so it isn’t as “easy” as an iPhone’s.

The camera works a little bit different than ones on phones I have used, like iPhone and several Android devices. The phone immediately tries to autofocus, and to be honest it does a very decent job in guessing what you’re trying to focus on. For standard image of streets, it’s fairly consistent. When it comes to macro focus, though, I was truly surprised with how good it was, often on par with the S3 and sometimes *just* beating it. The sharpness on the S3 was a bit better, though.

You can half-press the camera button to lock the focus and recompose.

The problem arises when you attempt changing the focus by tapping — something taken for granted on other phones. It calculates the exposure from that point and captures the image immediately. So you might end up going through a few shots as you try to get the focus on the point of interest before you capture “the” shot.

A way to circumvent this issue, which I haven’t seen people talk about, is that the camera shutter button works like a DSLR shutter button — you can half press to lock the focus, and then recompose the frame before pressing it all the way to read the exposure and take the shot. I found it to be a neat and efficient feature that photographers would appreciate.

The camera app provides less configurations than the S3 but way more than an iPhone: you can edit levels of saturation, sharpness, contrast, exposure, ISO, white balance, face detection, and resolution / aspect ratio. The auto white balance on the camera defaults to be a bit on the cooler side of white. There is also an issue with the white balance calculation in that you may run into instances where it is a bit too sensitive, making two consecutive shots to be of completely different tones by simply tilting the phone a hair up or down, as in the two images below. It does not happen often, but you can run into it more often than not on an overcast day.

Below are some comparison shots between the HTC 8X and the S3.

The macro photos are just BEAUTIFUL. I put it head to head with the S3 — which has amazing macro capabilities — and to be honest I loved the macro on the HTC 8X. Tap-to-focus is of course easier on the S3, but if you breathe in for a couple of seconds and let the HTC autofocus, you are likely to be pleased with the results. Below are some macro on the HTC 8X.

There is no night mode on the HTC 8X like there is in the Galaxy S3, so it was a bit of a bummer for me. I don’t know how it will fare against the Lumia 920 but I am sure the latter will do better as it is the talk of the century. That said, the photos did come out very decent, if a bit smudgy. Nothing for print, for sure, but good enough for phone, Facebook, and email.

Finally, the front camera sports an odd wide-angle lens. At first, it was awkward to use, but soon the awesomeness of having such a lens on the front made me wonder why no one has thought of that before. You can cram in a lot of people and scenery in the shot, elevating duckface photos to a new dimension.

So to summarise, you need to put in some effort into learning the limitations and capabilities of the camera. Welcome to photography.

The Windows 8 Experience

The most troubling issue of anyone thinking of buying the phone is the Windows Phone platform itself. To be honest, this was my first exposure to the operating system, so I had zero expectations other than that apps I use are either non-existent or look plain weird.

Honestly, though, while the OS has a long way to go, I was pleasantly surprised.

Now before I go on, let me explain how I use the phone. I decided to ditch iOS because I did not want a phone with screen after screen of apps and games on it; I’ve got the iPad for that and the iOS works great there, with my apps and games on a big, beautiful tablet. My switch to android a few years ago was driven primarily by customisation and usability; I don’t need to open several apps to save a photo and upload it or email it to someone — not to mention the ability to email something other than photos, and other limitations set by Apple’s sandboxing.

Having used the android platform for a few years. I have seen it grown into a platform that (for mobile) surpasses iOS in terms of functionality, yet the “feel” of both iOS and android has become similar thanks to almost identical designs of almost all applications. Windows Phone throws all of those out of the window, giving a truly unique visual element to all applications, which is truly sexy in my opinion.  The OS itself is absolutely slick, modern, and sexy. There is more swiping than tapping, and going from menu to another by swiping is truly a delight. The size of the HTC makes it extra comfortable, and Windows looks crisp on the screen. I can’t believe I am saying this but this made me like Windows again (as a note, the only reason I use a Windows PC is for gaming).  

The primary apps I use are Facebook, twitter, and WhatsApp, all of which are on the phone. There are several photo editing apps which I also installed, like Fhotoroom, Lomogram, and Picture Perfect. I found my favourite weather app, The Weather Network, as well as my travel apps: Skyscanner, Kayak, and TripAdvisor. Though there is no Google Chrome, the app MetroG does your search using Google instead of Bing while maintaining the Windows Phone look and experience, but opens the links in IE — which actually is not a bad browser but is far from Chrome (some websites will have odd rendering on it). I use MetroTube for YouTube and MetroPaper for my Pocket app. Gtasks Plus takes care of my Google Tasks, and gMaps is a very good Google Maps app (though does not use vector graphics, but does the job very well, including directions, traffic, and other map overlays). For Dropbox I use BoxShot until the official app is released. Other apps I have on my iPad and have removed from the android phone, so given my approach to mobile devices it does the job, but could do better of course. It’s a chicken-and-egg problem; developers won’t develop apps on a platform with few users, and users won’t use a platform with little development on it. I hope Microsoft pushes for changes.

Meanwhile, I absolutely love “People”, a built-in feature of the Windows Phone which aggregates your contacts’ feeds from their social networks even if you don’t have the apps of the social networks installed. You can browse their Facebook photos and check your email conversations from there without opening any other app. You can reply to tweets, post tweets, post images to twitter and Facebook and check-in into locations without installing or opening any app. The integration is great, and should your phonebook get too cluttered, you can choose to filter out networks without removing integration. Another thing I liked a lot is sharing: it isn’t as thorough as android’s but way better than iOS; I can share a photo across a few apps I have installed, for instance, and not limited to just Facebook, twitter, and email/SMS. Heck, I can even share to WhatsApp. 

Another surprise was syncing: plugging in the phone to my computer opened up a sync window that even reads iTunes playlists and music, which was great. First boot takes a while as it has to scan and index all photos and music on your computer (it can take half an hour), but after that it takes a few seconds to get everything going.

HTC-to-PC Sync

Honestly, I am absolutely in love with the OS. It has a fresh look which is completely different from the other major mobile platforms and the apps have a different look, feel, and user experience. For some, it might not work, particularly if you’re on instagram (I am not). There are many apps which are not present on the OS that can be deal-breakers, but for me (for now) it works fine. 

There is one thing I have to say, though: the battery is the biggest drawback of the phone. I have had bad experienced with my Galaxy S2 when I had it, and the HTC 8X took me back to those days. If you’re a moderate to heave user like me, it’ll die in around 6 hours. The max I got out of it was a working day (9 hours) and the battery saver mode kicked it up to 10 hours, but throughout the past two weeks I will recharge the phone at around 3 PM every day and then at night. If I knew I will be out late at night, I would carry with me the battery power pack I used while I was on my trip in Nepal to power the S3 when I was in remote areas.

Buy it. You will definitely need it.

Bottom Line

The HTC 8X is a beautiful phone. It’s sexy, slim, light, perfect size, and elegant. The OS is fast, unique, and a delight to use. Apps are lacking depending on what you’re looking for, but it does the job for me. The battery is the biggest drawback, so you need to be close to chargers and make sure it’s on full battery if you’re going out. The camera will be frustrating at first, but you’ll be satisfied when you get the hang of it. Overall, though, I personally found it comfortable and great to use, but the battery will be a constant nuisance. 

My feet dangled in the air. A patchwork of farms and trees spread below me, carpeting the mountains and hills from the snowy Annapurna range in the north to Phewa Tal lake in the south. The sun was high in the sky at noon; the lake glistened, bathed in the warmth of the light. Up where I was, the air was chilly; the cold winds enveloped me and I was an eagle, high above the noise of the lands.

Back on the earth, I missed home.

My home, praised and sung to since time immemorial. A place I never lived in for too long, but always called it home. Where my grandmother wakes up in the morning and, despite her age, goes to the local markets to pick the fresh crops of the day to cook me my favourite meals. Where I would go every two days to the dairy shop with an empty, white plastic bucket and return with one filled with yoghurt. Often, it would be a blue bucket: that is for when I get goat’s yoghurt. The milk bucket was white, but large; the metal handle always strained my flimsy hands.

I remember my mother — beautiful and wearing a purple and white dress — on the balcony watching me cross the street on my own. I felt powerful and confident; a whole new world was out there for me to explore, beyond the confines of the street. I ventured into the wilderness behind the grocery store. Back then, it was a long stretch of meadow and patches of barren sand; now it is a sports complex. I had on me a water pistol to defend me from evil foes I would encounter. All I had encountered on my adventure was a tomato plant; it had sprung from the earth defiant yet lonely. My neighbour kept it.

Two decades later, I was walking through meadows in Pokhara, Nepal, with a backpack filled with crackers, cheese, a water bottle, a jacket, and two flashlights in case it got dark while I was still out. Bugs found their home on my legs (and a spider on my scalp); I carried them with me on my new adventure to find pieces of my soul I have been chasing. Dreams I have longed to be fulfilled. I found myself at sunset by the lake; the air was crisp and cold and the afternoon sun was breaking behind the mountains. I breathed in the realisation of a dream. For so long have I seen photos of lakes and mountains and longed to be there on sunsets or sunrises. And here I was, enjoying the scenery, bugs and all.

From my experience and from non-Muslims’ experiences around me, how Ramadan is portrayed is exactly like how any product is portrayed prior to its market debut: Phenomenally spiritual, wonderful, enchanting — and ultimately falls short on these promises. People have come to see Ramadan as a symbol that encompasses everything negative about Arab Muslims living in the Middle East: lazy, impolite, excessive in consumption (of edibles and non-edibles), and discriminating against non-Muslims.

In effect, what people see of Ramadan these days is exactly everything that is not what Ramadan stands for: discipline.

At some point in history, Ramadan joined the ranks of Christmas and Thanksgiving and other religious holidays in their notoriety for exorbitant consumption. The major difference is that Ramadan is one lunar month long, which effectively makes it the most expensive of months for everyone — be it brands, consumers, or just plain residents who are trying to make their way through the world.

I will borrow some of Christianity’s teachings of the Cardinal Sins to elaborate on how people these days make Ramadan the sad state it is in — what Ramadan is, in fact, not:

LUST

Forget about sex; this isn’t the sort of lust I am talking about. It is expressed moaning and griping for everything that is out of reach. Water. Food. Coffee. Chocolate. Yes, it seems cute and funny sometimes. But eventually the persistent nagging becomes worrying. The lust for that cigarette break. You’d see people experiencing withdrawal symptoms from everything they could put in their mouths. And good God, the accompanied bickering (and self-victimization. See “Sloth”). 

Worse than the relatively understandable moaning the first few days, what ticks me off the most is the lust for everything luxury. Brands (see “Greed”) just love how people want to consume in Ramadan everything that is “exclusive”. Countless “Ramadan Specials” and “Ramadan Promotions” that draw people in for that luxurious Iftar (breaking the fast; the first meal). People actively look for those Ramadan tents to indulge the rest of the vices in. And the greatest indulgence of all is….

GLUTTONY

That’s right. With the UAE trying to control inflation during Ramadan period because there is a “high demand for commodities”, you’d wonder if the world is coming to an end. Anyone who has been to an Iftar buffet can see exactly why people complain from gaining weight in the month despite not eating half the day. Stores run out of food items quickly.

Let’s pause for a minute here. The population is unlikely to double a week before Ramadan. And, in practice, when people go out grocery shopping for the week, they’re shopping for a two or three-meal-per-day week. And probably add in a few extra items for the sake of indulgence and maybe for the night when friends would come over. Come Ramadan, and the very same people who should shop for that one meal for Iftar and the other smaller meal before sunrise would now shop for what you’d think is either a family of 826 or for an average family which is effectively constantly eating.

Food becomes the primary form of entertainment and indulgence. And, sadly, the tonnes of wasted food that gets thrown away is probably one of the worst by-products of a fasting Muslim. 

GREED

This one goes out to all brands, hotels, companies, and institutes that feed on the lust and gluttony of people. Hungry? Come eat at our exclusive luxury buffet for only this much and that much. Why, you also get a nice view of Burj X at 90% humidity. Hey, check out our wonderful brand! See what we do in Ramadan! See how we play with your emotions so you can come purchase our products! Buy this bundle of electronics you don’t need in our EXCLUSIVE Ramadan offer! (also check back at our other “exclusive” offers every three months)

SLOTH

If there’s anything a fasting Muslim is ever good at, it’s this: “Hey… yeah can we postpone this? I am fasting you know.” Everyone is lethargic and no one wants to do anything. I sympathise because the lack of food and water will eventually hit cognitive abilities, but some people just push it way too far.

WRATH

So not only do people make Ramadan as an excuse to not do anything, but they get bitchy about it, too. And you haven’t seen wrath unless you’ve been in rush hour traffic in Ramadan.

THE DISCRIMINATION

Though Muslims and non-Muslims both get shorter working hours, from what I have seen in the UAE and KSA is that laws are enforced to “protect the feelings of fasting Muslims” such as having food courts in malls close or be obscured by a labyrinth of curtains. No one is allowed to eat or drink in public, lest a poor, hungry Muslim feels just awful for not being able to eat or drink or have that much needed coffee.

If that is the case, why is the law not applicable outside of Ramadan, too? I mean, there are plenty of hungry, poor people and labourers on the street all year round, right? It’s OK to eat in front of them while they drool? Isn’t “feeling for the hungry and poor” one of the many aspects of why Muslims fast? So how are you feeling for them if you’re not confronted with the temptations? If you’re in your ivory towers of law that forbids temptation during the day and floods you with it during the night, in what possible sense are you fasting?

And why should non-Muslims be subjected to it anyway? They need to eat. It’s their right. They go to a shopping mall and they can’t even snack without hiding behind curtains. Listen, if a Muslims really wants to eat, he or she will eat. And I admit I’ve done it before.

So, here you have it. Things what Ramadan is NOT about, but have become the status quo thanks to us.

Image Credit: Sarah Kujubu

And, here I stay. Delusional. Amongst strange streets and alleyways and foreign-looking buildings. A different culture. A different life. 

Only one stranger makes me feel at home.

I tried opening my eyes again; the outside world was too cruel I had to shy away and look towards the wall on my left. There, I had hung a frame of my father. A gentle soul. A person I never really knew. The most important figure in my life, elusive to me. Next to him was a frame of my mother. She has always been the reason to keep me going. The reason I wake up on gloomy days like this. A frame of my sister — looking all upset — was with the rest of the family. My eyes closed on me.

Throb throb throb.

This is wrong, I told myself. You just can’t feel that way. You know it is wrong. My thoughts a little whirlpool of rose petals being smeared by thorny doubts. But it just feels right… by time I took a leap of faith. So what? Give it a shot. Give it your all.

But my other self disagreed. No, it said, this might be a dead end. Why would you put yourself through such a thing?

Throb throb throb.

You know what your problem is? You think too much, and feel too little. Maybe… but you can’t just take your banners and march through life and expect not to be the target of pitchforks and arrows.

Throb throb throb.

Throb throb THROB THROB.

Tried to open my eyes.. my head is throbbing.. or.. was that a knock?

Throb throb thnock knock knock.

Bright light… curtains… 

I make my way through the cluttered bedroom and out into the small corridor. The knocks are louder. Who else would wake up at this hour? I do not even know what hour it is. My hands were feeling the textures on the walls to know my bearings. I think I have found my way to the door.

It smells of… breakfast.

I could smell strawberries. Fresh, ripe, wet strawberries. A basket full of them. And I could pick up a whiff of something sweet… something baked. A cross between raisin bread and a currant bun.

It takes me forever to have the bolts undone. My mind cannot think of anything beyond strawberries and raisins. 

I open the door — and immediately become self-conscious of what I am wearing … or rather, not wearing. The gaped greeting expressed it all.

“My goodness!” I said and closed the door immediately. “I am so sorry!”

“Do not worry. I haven’t seen much… just enough.” A nervous laugh.

I grabbed a shawl and wrapped it around my shoulders. Opened the door ajar, allowing the sweetness of the breakfast flow inside.

That kind face. The warm smile. Everything melted away. My doubts. My fears. My purpose. It all became clear once again. As though the hours of agony I have spent that morning were for naught. I only had to see a glimpse of that face and have my faith restored.

“Would you like something to eat,” he said, lifting the basket of strawberries and raisin bread and butter in my face. “When you told me you liked some raisins, I took an oath to allow myself to—”

I cannot believe he is standing right here, in front of me, and I appear before him in this absolute mess! I’ve been telling this to myself for the past few seconds. 

“Are you all right,” he asked. “Marie? Are you OK?”

“Yes,” I replied, maintaining what was left of my dignity in my posture. He stood there, as handsome and dishevelled as he ever was. “It is a delight to see you.”

Image Credit: Strawberry Basket, Mosaic Wallpapers

After using it for a few weeks, I can say that while the phone has its quirks, it really is a very good to have. I’ll be addressing the phone in the point of view of someone who has an iPhone and is looking to switch (like iDid when iFirst jumped ship to Android couple of years ago), and in light of people who have the HTC One X in their consideration set.

You can also have a look at my Storify feed which lists the related tweets as I have been using the phone.

Build Quality

The first aspect of the phone you’d be exposed to is the build quality, which, I have to say, is not as good as I have expected. Its predecessor, the Galaxy SII, feels more elegant in the hand; the textured matte back and the shiny rectangle where the camera sits were beautiful; the S3, however, will have iPhone users in seizures and looking for the nearest iTemple to cleanse their hands. I am not saying that the plastic is phenomenally bad; it is just decent, and feels less elegant.

That said, the phone feels comfortable, which is important given its size. The screen has a nice bevel like the HTC 1X but not as pronounced; it certainly is better than the SII’s bevel (where it bevels down). The design sports a curved form and a slightly curved back, so while the plastic does not feel as refined, it feels comfortable. I was not fond of the white S3; the gloss made it look even cheaper. The pebble blue — the version I got — is pleasing and the metal-brush gives off a high quality appearance under the light.

To be honest, though, I managed to get over the build quality by the mid of the second week. If build quality is very crucial to your decision, then the HTC 1X and the iPhone are unmatched.

If there’s a tangible difference between the screen on the S3 and the One X — or any phone — is the coating. It feels sort of “oily” to the touch and the finger just “slides”. On the One X, you feel slight resistance from the screen. Some of my colleagues were able to tell the difference and others could not, so it is a subtle and subjective observation.

The Interface

As of this writing, the S3 is loaded with Ice Cream Sandwich (4.0.4) with Samsung’s TouchWiz 5.0 interface. Typically of vendors, the Android OS is bloated with their custom interface and apps that most people would not really care for. I have never been a fan of TouchWiz; it is just too colourful and seems to target a younger demographic (3-10 year olds). This version of TouchWiz, though, has “matured”, and looks quite similar to the stock Android OS, only replacing the beautiful blue hue with a green one as well as the toggles.

TouchWiz theme also applies to many of the default applications, replacing the blue on white stock colours with purplish-blue on very dark purplish-blue. I never liked dark-themed applications myself. The HTC 1X on the other hand is themed with the more elegant Sense UI, with a beautiful white, lime green, and grey interface that simply looks beautiful.

On the other hand, having used both phones I can tell that the HTC’s Sense interface consumes a lot of memory, slowing down the interface giving the HTC 1X the swipe lag Android phones and tablets are known for (iOS users know this too well). The TouchWiz on the S3 works perfectly. I have never believed that a non-stock Android interface can be this fast, but Samsung pulled it off with this edition of TouchWiz. The phone is just  responsive. No matter how many widgets I add and how fast I swipe, it never lags. I even played a video on overlay (more on that later) and not a hint of slowdown. Brilliant.

The good thing about Android devices though is that, regardless of whether you’re on Sense or TouchWiz, you can replace your launcher and some of the default apps like SMS, dialler, and contacts, so the colour theme is not a terribly annoying issue for me. For those who dislike HTC’s Sense launcher, you can try Nova or Apex for a stock feel. TouchWiz replicates the stock launcher elegantly, but if it still annoys you then the alternative launchers work just as well.

Another thing that annoys me about TouchWiz is the Arabic font. It is just… weird. You can replace the fonts though in the settings and you can download some Arabic fonts using this app. It’ll replace the Arabic font in most areas but would show the default font in other areas. It’s an OK workaround, but I wish Samsung would decide on a better Arabic system font.

You can also transmit the music and videos on All Share to your Samsung TV or hook up the devices in crazy ways to get files and play games and stuff. This video explains it all.

There is one important aspect of the screen that I need to mention, which is the white balance. The colours on the S3 are great (once you go to settings and tone down the display settings to “natural”), and it looks fine as it is. If you put it next to the One X, however, you’d notice the difference in colours; the One X is superior, having a more natural, warmer “earthly” look compared to the colder white on the S3. You will not notice the difference unless you have Facebook open on both devices and have them next to each other. Like with any screen, the eyes will adapt to the white balance and only after looking at another screen would you notice the difference. I took a screenshot of both but the underlying OS takes the same colour so both are identical (and my monitor is calibrated differently than both phones anyway).

The plus side, though, is that the S3 has a dedicated menu button whereas the One X replaced the menu button with the task manager and integrated the menu within the interface itself as a dickbar. While both screens are the same size and resolution, the S3′s screen appears to be bigger only because the dickbar consumes real estate on the One X.

Music and Video

Thankfully, the applications play music files and video files ^_^. iPhone users will be pleased to know that the S3 can play practically any video and audio format I have thrown at it, so it doesn’t have to be encoded into Apple’s iCantPlayAnythingElse format. You can download plenty of music and video players from the Google Play store if you have one you like in particular.

As for quality, the S3 has a significantly louder speaker than the One X. Playing the same YouTube video on both devices sounded better on the S3 but looked more or less the same on both screens (some minor colour differences). However there were two things I have noticed: (1) the video loaded faster on the One X, and (2) YouTube offered an “HD” setting for the video on S3 and an “HQ” setting on the One X for the same video. Not sure what the basis of this was as I am certain that the One X is more than capable of playing back HD.

There is a gimmicky feature on the S3 for video playback which is more of a display of processing power than it is for functionality, which is that you can “detach” a video and “dock” it on your screen as an overlay while you browse your Facebook or type in an email. Useful? Probably you’ll just try it once or twice, but it is mostly for show off.

As for music, there is the traditional “hiss” when you crank up the volume so if you’re connecting the device into your car’s aux or RF you will need to spend a few good minutes finding the right balance between the volumes on both the S3 and your car’s audio system. The One X has Beats Audio, so I will just keep it at that.

An interesting feature which works roughly 80% of the time is the Music Square, which analyses your music and categorises them into various “moods”. You can then use the matrix to let the S3 pick songs that suit your current mood or variations of the mood; you can swipe across the board to have it select a combination between the moods. It is very interesting and a quick way to play anything that fits what you’re looking for without you having to manually go through your playlists or albums. It’s not perfect when you’ve got confusing music, but generally it works rather well.

Camera

The camera is probably the killer feature for me. HTC had a great campaign with their skydiving photoshoot, but they clearly had no clue of what Samsung had under their sleeve. The camera is GREAT, but not without flaws.

First, the good stuff. IT IS FAST. Launching the application from the lockscreen or the homescreen has it open in less than a second. There is ZERO shutter lag, just like the One X. Sorry, iOS users, but you really are missing out on a lot of moments. The burst mode is good, but not as fantastic as the One X (I hardly use it, but having the option is good). The HDR is much better than the iPhone’s. The front camera is of very high quality and the videos and photos that come out of it are really good. The camera sensor is very sensitive to light, so the scenes hardly look dull. The best feature, though, is the auto-focus: IT IS JUST TOO GOOD. It’s faster than the iPhone’s and the One X’s, and the macro focus is brilliant. I have never imagined I could get so close to a subject and maintain it in focus. The One X failed miserably when I tried to get it to focus on something within the same distance as the S3. The bokeh is good, too, and you can get more detail out of objects in the photo than the camera on the One X. The first row of photos are taken with the S3 and the second row with the One X (note that the lighting conditions were terrible in the cafe):

The not so good stuff: while the HDR is better than the iPhone (in my opinion), it is a bit too HDR-ish; almost everything gets a green tint. I don’t use it much but it in the few instances where I had to take an HDR shot, I was not too happy with how the colours turned out, but was quite happy with the exposure (which is the point of HDR). It’s a cell phone, in the end, so I am not expecting something like this out of it. Also, since it is more sensitive to light — it can go up to ISO 800 — you’d get a lot of photos with lots of grain on them if you keep your ISO settings on auto. So keeping it on auto is fine for most of the day, but when the lighting conditions are tricky, you may want to fiddle with the settings yourself.

That is from the default camera. The app I primarily use is called Vignette, possibly the best camera app I have used on any mobile operating system. You have more control over colours, borders, and effects, while retaining the auto-focus and macro capabilities of the camera. ISO and noise are more controlled as well. But regardless of which application you use, the sensor and focus system is the same, and they’re both great.

Other Functions and Battery

Other functions on the phone have a lot to do with “motion”, and there is a special settings menu just for that. With simple motions you can do things like make a call to the person you’re SMSing by raising the phone to your ear. You can swipe the screen for a screenshot (which I find awkward). You can mute the phone and music by placing your palm on the screen and do other funny things with motion that will make you look like a wizard with a wand in a café.

There’s also a “stay awake” setting which will have the phone track whether you’re looking at it before it goes into standby. It’s a good feature to have, but like car headlights that turn off on their own, you’ll eventually toggle it off. And it obviously does not work in the dark, either.

The battery is fantastic. It could easily last you 10 hours with moderate to heavy use, 16 hours on moderate use, and 26 hours on light use — also bear in mind that using it on WiFi or 3G will of course vary your results. For my uses, though, I unplug at 7:30 AM and come back home 12 hours later with some battery left. I am on 3G most of the day and my average “screen time” per day is 3 hours – 4 hours.

Wrapping it all up

To be honest, it is a tough choice between the S3 and the One X; where one falls short, the other excels. The One X has better build. The S3 has better camera. The One X has nicer UI. The S3 is more responsive. You can go on forever. It as as though both companies had a board meeting to decide on how to confuse people.

It ultimately falls on you on deciding what is important for your daily use. For me, the camera is a clear winner. The white balance aggravates me as a photographer, but as long as I don’t look at an HTC One X screen I will be OK. Though there are plenty of bells and whistles you can get on other phones (or custom ROMs, when they’re out), the camera, screen feel, and UI responsiveness were the features that won me over.

Pros: Camera, responsiveness, comfortable, sexy screen, battery life.

Cons: Build quality, white balance, TouchWiz theme.

Update [2012.06.11]: A few people have pointed out that I have not mentioned the S Voice anywhere in my review. This is because voice-recognition applications like S Voice, Siri, and others have a hard time understanding my heavy Arabic accent, so I can’t judge the phone’s performance based on my accent and an immature technology.

Update [2012.06.12]: @JoeAkkawi posted his review and tackled the audio/video and performance more. Go have a look!

“Well truth be told, I would really like to pursue photography,” I replied, a bit too arrogantly.

“No. Let me rephrase. What do you really want to do?”

I looked back through books of my thoughts, jotted down across various types of paper and ink (mostly black), and through characters I have left behind in the digital realm. In 2004, I quoted the late Alone Shepard – a remarkable woman who has shaped my approach to writing since I attended her “Media Writing” class that year – in the preface she has written for our college literary magazine, Realms:

“Writing is in its essence a speech act, shaped somehow into form, where it can become art. Poetry began as song.

“Why do we want to sing and speak our thoughts? And why do we want to shape them into the form of written language?

“Many might answer that we write to communicate, which is ultimately true. Strangely though, writers never say this. Writers will instinctively talk about a deeper level of impulse, more interior, and more invested with intention and need. Writers will talk about a kind of compulsion to write – even if no one ever reads the words. Sometimes, it seems, it is enough to have spoken to oneself. As one of our Realms writers, Kinan, says, the writer’s first impulse is “I desire.”

Desire. It is what drives the world. It is what drives us to do what we do, buy what we buy, say what we say, and eat and drink to our heart’s desire, as it were.

In 2005, I was given enough motivation to express my feelings through writing; I have been a pawn in a lover’s chess game of five. The fascinating days of college. When no one believed my narration of the events, I set out on a small crusade to fulfil a desire in me — a desire to be heard… by myself. In 2005, I was a completely different person than I am today. I was a different person two years ago. I was a different person a few months ago. In my core, though, I could see the little boy I have known all my life. The little boy who looks out from my right eye to look into the left as I face the mirror. My eyes chase each other, each yearning to talk.

Seven years ago, when my feelings had the better command of my language, I have written:

To write what we have suffered an enjoyed is to endow our memories with the duration of our existence. We write so we can read and reread, so that we can remember in secret, and then weep in solitude.

And today, this is why I am rewriting, again. Reading what I have been writing all the past few years shook my core. I am a different man, but the same man. The pages of my journals – digital and traditional – have been too empty. I chat away my years and never write something tangible. People dedicate their tweets to their children – something admirable, and cute, for sure. But my 40K or so tweets add nothing of true value. Not as much as a few pages of any journal entry I have been writing since I learned I could write about unicorns waging wars against each other.

We spend the days “fixing things” that need not be fixing. In an age that conditions us to have results now and deliver results within impossible deadlines, we lose ourselves to work that only benefits the pockets of a few, while we empty the pockets of our souls. My time has not been mine for the past few years, but now, I write this in the office, with emails coming in, and new deadlines and calendar appointments coming in and out. The best time to have a break is when we do not have time to.

And today is as good a day as any.

“You know what, Kinan,” Ms. Shepard told me as I walked her to the car after class, “I see you an old man, sitting in your chair on the porch of your nice little house, writing Hallmark cards.”

Probably not Hallmark cards, but when I close my eyes and see myself in the future, I do not see myself as an old revered photographer, or a market leader in whatever field I am in now or will change into; I see myself as exactly that: sitting in a chair, in front of  a little white house.

Writing.

Image credit: 81. pen and paper by geronimo89

After #EarthHour is over, it will be just like Iftar in #Ramadan: binge consumption.

— Kinan Jarjous (@jarofjuice) March 31, 2012

And herein lies the problem: we want to feel part of something that is much bigger than us; we participate, and when it is over, so is the participation. That is not to say that everyone will go back to heavy consumption, but through observation it is safe to assume that when Earth Hour is over, the majority of people will go on like nothing has ever happened. Unless the event coincides with a solar flare that will fry out the grids (and not just read on the news that they might), I hardly doubt many people will go beyond the hour. Just like when a large proportions of Muslims who observe Ramadan and fast all day end up binge-eating after sunset, missing out completely on the concepts of preservation and discipline. Dare I say that the amount of food wasted daily at Iftar around the world can feed a continent for that day? Food for thought.

So how are social causes any different? Yes, it is all nice and fun to be part of something — but where is the belief and the passion that go along with it?

Perhaps, then, wrapping the event around a challenge is actually a good idea; when you commit people to a challenge, they’re more likely to commit to the cause. And in the recent years with everything “going green” trending worldwide, all these green movements are starting to shape up. The fundamental reason behind this is what while the majority of people will go on with their power-hungry lives, those who go beyond the hour are making an impact. They’re spreading the awareness and are becoming role models for other people to follow.

The underlying principle here is not necessarily ”saving the planet”; it’s about discipline in consumption. Let it be power or water  or food or whatever resource. Earth is truly finite. Our lives are finite. Every single aspect of our lives is composed of fleeting moments. Why is it when the water is cut off, we manage to brush our teeth and do the dishes and other things with a bottle of water, whereas when it’s flowing out of the tap, we’re opening the tap all the way? 

Earth Hour — and most other things like it — are not just an hour-a-year social movement; they’re habits. So make conservation, and discipline, your habit.

And I won’t sit here and talk about how terribly hypocritical I feel about going to eat sushi in Dubai when my own parents in Syria probably have little to go by on (and they’d never say). I won’t talk about how many times I’ve cried reading the news and how many texts and phone calls are beings written and made to make sure my friends and family are OK. There is really little point in expressing how difficult it is to go to work every day, to study, to go to gym, to do some photography work, and pretend and live life as though nothing is going on, because life is going on for me as it is for everyone in Syria and Palestine and every place in the world where a rocket falls.

Complaining about how little time there is to get anything done and have time for myself is something I’ve discussed many times and still fail to grow the balls to say “no” to things and pay attention to myself. And talking about all the “inconveniences” of life is really just arrogance because there are a billion things I forget to be thankful for and all these “inconveniences” are imposed or self-imposed perceptions.

Saying “sick and tired” and being sick and tired of being sick and tired really will not solve anything.

Image Credit: window by ~stareater

 

Our story begins on a fine White Christmas morning in Nomsburg, a calm village cocooned between Mt. Nomsingheim and Mt. Table Nom. Little Johnny, like all boys his age, is being dragged by his mother, Alice, to visit the family. “Holidays are all about being with family,” she says, trying her best to keep hold of Johnny. “But where’s dad! He’s not coming! And neither are Charlie and Jen!” Sad little Johnny; he woke up late this morning.

 

Robert was busy with his choir, singing all sorts melodies in an attempt to instill a feeling of warmth in the bitter, cold day. Robert is no stranger to bitterness; he’s not leading the life he aspired to live, but has to. Often, he parallels his life with that of Alice whenever she comes to church, carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders. Everyone in Nomsburg knew of her marital problems; her husband, Tim, has pretty much been the catalyst in creating everyone else’s marital problems. Only problem with Robert is that he has to keep his problems to himself.

 

Meanwhile, Charlie and Jen are having a blast at the local fair, the only place in Nomsburg with a green patch of land. “Glad we woke up early,” cheered Charlie gleefully at his sister, “Imagine having to go see Aunt Betty.” Who would blame them? Aunt Betty is not exactly a role model for anything that’s good in the world; the only reason she’s not dead is because God doesn’t want her up there. “I know, good grief I would murder myself,” Jen replied dismissively. “Now give me that popcorn.” Fun times for Charlie and Jen. Sad little Johnny.

 

Stumpy (yes, the Gnome — you think I’d keep the little guy out?) has a nice life. Though everyone looks down on him — more than looking down at him — he’s actually a happy midget. He has no debt, he quarrels with no one, he has no Gnomette to make his life miserable, and more importantly, no one gives a shit about him so no one ever meddles in his life. Lucky midget.

 

Tim. Classy man with a refined taste in china, tea, tobacco, and hats — but not in women. He slept with everyone in Nomsburg except Alice… well of course he had to when Charlie and Jen had to be conceived. Not Johnny though; that sad little kid is a bastard. Poor little Johnny. Anyway, Tim had no intention of going to see Aunt Betty either; he believes she should stay in an asylum. Probably why she lives in Nomsburg.

 

In the bigger picture of things, though, Nomsburg is a charming, peaceful little place… until Johnny finds out who his real dad is anyway. But no one cares about his dad. He’s just a Gnome, after all.

After spending the first day sick in bed and the consecutive days uneventful (but wonderful in being so), the clouds rolled in and thundered their way into the Emirates overnight. Early morning, I woke up to the gloomy skies and damp air. True to the weather reports, it was going to be a rainy day.

I had a few errands to run that day — little things like laundry, cleaning, and some other “item fetching” from several malls and places — but decided to take the opportunity to set out on a journey to the Eastern Regions that I have been planning for quite a while now. I visited the area a few years ago during summer, but have since loved to go again in the cooler months. I knew that the sky would make the trip much more memorable, and so I packed in some sandwiches and some water, armed myself with my camera (which I did not use) and my phone camera (which I extensively used) and headed east.

When I stopped by the gas station to fuel up, I thought of documenting this trip — why not? It was a ride of contemplation; I thought about many things on my way and enjoyed the ride. When I arrived at the mountainous areas, I felt I was in heaven; living in flat-Dubai makes you truly appreciate other forms of landscapes. Even the desert was different, with dunes dwarfing the Land Cruisers trying to conquer them.

It has been a refreshing journey — one I have been looking forward to for months. My soul felt refreshed; I really needed this. The whole journey took me around eight hours before I headed to Ajman to visit my best friend, after which I headed back to Dubai for a well deserved sleep!

Here are the tweets and some more photos — enjoy! (might take a bit to load, and if it doesn’t, refresh!)

What I learned from the experience — other than the letters occupied wider space and have become more ornate since I stopped writing in my journal — is that not only is it rewarding (oh, the joys of handwriting a long essay!) but it is more personal, genuine, and full of soul. But more importantly, it gave me the time to think.

With a computer and a keyboard, and like the millions worldwide, I have become quite adept at typing fast. I won’t go into the whole identity dissociation with the fonts — that’s another topic; however, it gave me the chance to slow down my thoughts and communicate them more effectively.

In typing, I can type just as I would think out loud; indeed, some of my posts here or in my “digital journal” have been just that: an ad verbatim written version of my thoughts, unadulterated and often nonsensical. It makes sense then that, when writing an essay in college, I have been told to always “sleep on it” and re-read the text at a later time. 

While writing, however, my hand cannot keep up with my thoughts so my only option is to slow my thoughts down. By the time I finish writing the current sentence, my brain has already given the next four or five sentences another thought and has reworked them; in fact, often by the time I am done writing a single thought, I no longer feel the need to write the other ones as my brain has found no relevancy to the current subject or has resolved the conflict by the time I finished the manual work.

The digital age has created a generation of professional ranters — and I am one of the biggest, to be honest with myself — and I keep wondering how different and more insightful would we be had we given ourselves the chance to count to ten before writing something. Very often, this works wonders. I have had the urge to write something — be it a thought or a rant — and, instead of doing so, I have given myself a couple or so minutes to think it through before I post anything online. In particular, if I was on twitter I would write a lengthy tweet which, by the time I manage to paraphrase into 140 characters, ends up being scrapped because my brain has had the time to process the logic and the emotions, not just the latter.

And probably that’s the greatest learning from writing, and certainly from almost everything “old school”: patience. The patience to give ourselves and the people around us a second chance. The patience to ponder how things came to be and how the universe works. To enjoy a slow conversation that does not have to cover a hundred different subjects. The patience to spell out “fourteen” instead of writing the digits in a sentence. The patience to craft someone a gift instead of purchasing a mass-produced, soulless item. The patience to add a personal touch to our writing, our loved ones, our work, our hobbies, and whatever we produce, be it physical or an act of kindness or expression of the self.

A few days ago, I was driving to work and part of my regular route takes me through the formerly-dreadful roundabout on Al-Khail road, which was jammed in traffic. The culprit turned out to be dead traffic lights, giving everyone authority over the road and resulting in a semi-deadlock.

That scenario to me became symbolic of how we conduct our lives.

We love freedom. We fight for freedom. Many across this region have been, and many have died in the process. All of us want our voice to be heard; we want to share our opinions on issues that matter to us on a personal level and at the community level — without being thrown in jail for doing so. We all want to leverage globalisation and technology to propagate our ideas (conscious or subconscious) into the digital realm of this universe. We want to be liberated from shackles that have been limiting our movements, choices, and opportunities for generations. And we all want to do so because we believe we’re entitled to. As a matter of fact, we are.

But.

We love control. We are wired to compartmentalise, label, assess, assign, leverage, and conduct our lives in an “orderly, proper” fashion. We want to feel empowered and the way we believe we do it is by gaining control. We want to control how people correspond with us. We want to control our social aspects of our lives. We want to control our kids, how the family treats guests, how dinner is prepared, and our conduct. We want to control other people’s ideas, influence, power, resources, and habits. We want people to conform to our ideas — whether we do so through concious coercion or subconscious manipulation — because our ideas are just too damn good.

But.

We abhor being controlled. We want to be free from this “order”. We want to “think out of the box” and “liberate our senses” and “free our emotions” and “be tolerant” and “learn from differences” and and and.

And… what do you get when you give people freedom? A deadlock in a roundabout. Because not one goddamned person — myself included — would want to wait for others to pass by if I could squeeze in a bit to the right and wiggle myself out to the other side of the road. We are opportunists and we take the opportunity of this new-found freedom by trying to control it. It’s all ours. OURS! Freedom is finite and is to be exercised at the expense of others.

“The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it’s profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, pull back the curtains, and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.” — Frank Zappa

Has it always been like this? Most probably — but then there’s so much of it now, I have to stop and ponder why all of this is happening. There are some dimensions at play, but if I want to look back at history, there are only two constants: time, and discontent.

Indeed, being in a state of continuous dissatisfaction is what drives innovation and what drives people to break the status quo. That’s the good side of it; when the good rears its ugly butt, you get greed. Infinite greed, and that’s what is the core issue of many of our problems today. And time? Because of all of this more more more approach to living the world, we end up with stressed and highly fragmented minds. We want to reach our destination in the fastest time so we can do as many things as possible so that we have time to do even more things — most of which do not add any value. We labour during the day and moan after hours and hardly 5% of the population is truly satisfied with what they do and spend no more time than required to do what they do.

Here’s how it works: in the yesteryears, people had more time to do less things. Now, we have less time to do more things. What this results in is fragmented minds, fragmented lives, empty days and time lost. You get all sorts of books on the subject matter as well as numerous articles online. Almost every other day I come across an article with a new way to get things done or to better your “time management”. Sorry, but time is constant; it should be called “Clutter Management”. We end up discontent and we want to be free from all of this and we want to do it by taking control of what’s around us.

Unfortunately it doesn’t work. When we live in an age with a brief attention span, our lives jammed with deadlines (and what a dead, flat line life we live), and we are continuously dissatisfied and want to do something about it but can’t — because you know, someone else is exercising their freedom at your expense — we do not sit and ponder the interesting aspects and big questions of life.

We let scientists do that, and we google the results at one point. When we have the time.

Should have been.

Though in Syria I tend to spend my time completely offline, this visit was a bit different and more often than not I had an impulsive urge to share what I was doing with everyone, especially stories that my grandmother narrated to me on the balcony as we observed the streets and prepared Freekeh. Yet I was completely disconnected — and other than email on my mobile phone, I was completely cut off from the outside world.

The first week I suffered from severe withdrawal symptoms. I had dreams of shrinking URLs and twitpics. I created conversation scenarios in my head and lived them, whether they be on twitter or Facebook. Quite sad, right?

When I accepted the fact that I could not use social media, I was flown back to Dubai. Armed with my new-found self confidence that I can remain unplugged for a longer time, I deactivated my Facebook (quite a dumb thing to do as I use many services with the FB login, but that’s another story) and uninstalled all applications (twitter, G+, etc) from all my devices and browsers.

And I came to this conclusion:

• It is so w-o-n-d-e-r-f-u-l to be away and focus for once in my life! To have the time (shock) to read books and go out and do other things! To not have to deal with links about Google Plus on Google Plus! 
• Living without social media is d-r-e-a-d-f-u-l. I miss how enriching interactions are and how I felt I was part of a community.

An Indian Muslim vendor separates the seeds of a pomegranate at a roadside stall in preparation for Muslims breaking their fast at sundown in Mumbai, India on August 19, 2010. (SAJJAD HUSSAIN/AFP/Getty Images)

There are plenty of wonderful blog posts on Ramadan, including this one from last year by Mich and an updated version for this year here. Practically any news outlet is now talking about Ramadan, in any way or another, and marketing it as a product.

This is my concern.

Everywhere you will read something along the lines of “Ramadan is a time of reflection” and “it is a time of prayers, feeling for the poor, meditation, and sharing” among other things. Then in the next line you would find ill-crafted text that goes “Join us at our luxurious and exclusive Ramadan tent with open buffet for only AED 400 per person”. Then a little asterisk leads you to the fine print which mentions that your AED 400 does not include your shisha and the 15% tax. 

Right.

In case you are interested, this is an image of what feeding the poor is like, just in case the exclusive tent does not have charity envelopes for you to donate in:

A child sits with a plate of food that was distributed as part of the holy month of Ramadan, at a refugee camp in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Saturday, Aug. 14, 2010. (AP Photo/Mustafa Quraishi)

Here’s a list of things I do not like about how Ramadan is being practised these days (generally as well as locally):

- Marketing products you hardly ever needed with plasters boasting a Ramadan discount or something along the lines of “in the spirit of Ramadan”.

- The endless barrage of TV soaps and shows, most of which are pointless and have nothing to do with the “Ramadan spirit” or “time of reflection and meditation”. Unless you’re a mosquito that can’t avoid anything glowing, that’s hardly meditation.

- Speaking of glowing, what’s with the jewellery industry crafting gold and diamond necklaces specifically for Ramadan? Is it a status symbol that I wear a ridiculously priced (and usually terribly designed) piece of jewellery that shows my religious support?

- People storming markets and grocery stores as though they have heard that there is no more oil in the world to transport anything further and what you have is all what you would eat till you die from starvation. People should be eating less during Ramadan — you’re shaving off more than half of the day fasting — yet somehow gluttony has become synonymous with Ramadan.

- Ill-tempered people. Okay I understand you have not had your coffee and you have not had your cigarette. That’s the point of fasting: testing your temper and tolerance. Fasting is not an excuse for you to be bad tempered. It is a motive for you to control yourself. I can understand some random bursts here and there — we are human, after all — but to still be a crazed lunatic as Ramadan comes to a close means you have missed the point.

- Speaking of lunatics: people driving. I do not need to elaborate.

- What pisses me off the most: Non-fasting people should not eat and/or drink in front or close to those who fast “to protect their feelings”. I appreciate your concern but Muslims should toughen up and stop victimising themselves with fasting excuses. Again, it’s testing your temptation. If you’re not fasting, you should be able to eat and drink as you please. If you don’t want to out of respect, that’s your choice, but having a law that can put you in jail because of eating and drinking in public is uncalled for. In malls, you see food outlets closed with very few open and barricaded to hide those who are eating. Seriously? My friends in Lebanon and Syria thankfully report otherwise.

I can go on and on but that would bore you. So if you have any other gripes at how people practise Ramadan, please mention it in the comments. 

“It made us so mad. Such an injustice. We have decided, we will marry them,” said Ibrahim Kayyis, a 32-year-old baker from Jisr al-Shugour, a town that was stormed by troops.

To reclaim their “honor,” families in Syria have been known to kill raped female members. Even if families allow such women to live, they are not eligible to marry.

“We sat and discussed that we want to change this. We don’t want to change just the regime in Syria, but also this kind of stuff. So we will marry them in front of everyone,” Kayyis said.

Now, in all seriousness, this is 2011 for the love of everything you hold dear! How can anyone punish someone for being raped? Because they’ve been raped now the entire family’s honour is “stolen”!?!?! This is an ongoing topic of discussion over at Kinzi’s so you can read all about it there. I am not less flabbergasted today than I was a few years ago when it was a trend in Jordan. If there’s anyone – rather, anything – dishonourable it is the rapists in society and the social system that insists on propagating this idea of equating good women with virginity.

I can bet my balls that there aren’t many virgins out there left in this wilderness. I had a neighbour in Damascus who was finding it needlessly difficult to get married as she was married before. Society automatically believes that it is her fault and that she’s no longer a virgin. Oh, poor man’s ego,  preoccupied with the thoughts of whether her former husband is better in bed and that she won’t put hummus on the table next morning!

I’d like to say “go get laid” but most men – ironically – are. So I’d just say go get a life and a brain while you’re at it. They’re no less women after being raped than they were before; they’re still human beings and women are the pride of our nations and humanity as a whole. They’re our mothers, sisters, and they will raise our future generations. We should take care of them and go after the rapists. Otherwise, what kind of message are we giving our youth and the world at large? That we accept rapists in our society and favour them over our women?

My director asked me a few weeks ago: “What do you think is the future of social media?”. I replied with silence; I did not know what the future of social media is, because I believe it is built around a psyche that is adept at being delusional yet can be broken by an odd individual. I believe that that we are ushered into an era where we believe that we are empowered. We believe we have power because we now believe our voices are heard. We believe we can change our world because the rest of the world is now watching. Common folk like you and I and a horde of other people. Our ideas are becoming a by-product of the corner of the massive pool we happen to swim in. And, indeed, we have seen countless examples of this “empowerment”.

But we never stop to ask why we have been empowered, and where is this en masse cognitive process going – and who is driving it. We never stop and wonder that we are being heard in most cases because the recipients are exercising mob-control. We almost never consider that instead of being heard, we are being herded.

When there were little options and little opportunities, people knew what they wanted. People knew the market, each other, their needs, and their desires. Now, people have little knowledge of what they want, and, if they do, they need reassurance from their peers.

Here I am in an era with an infinite amount of options none of which is satisfactory. I am in an era which screams FREEDOM when everyone is a prisoner of their own mind. I am in an era where we juggle between many gadgets and services and our to-do lists get bigger and longer. We need tables and sheets and agendas and Excel and three hundred web-apps to keep track of what we’re doing and keep track of all the other apps we use to keep track of us. Every single aspect of our life has become a target for a service, and then we have services and apps which attempt to consolidate our fragmented lives into one “box”.

Our minds have become so fragmented that we fail to see how broken the system is.

There is a difference between riding the bandwagon and doing things right – though anyone at this point can still theorise at what is right and what is not. Every time I hear “social” I begin to imagine a group of silhouetted individuals in a grey, bland room with flashy rings and teeth and a projector displaying some random infograph (which have become a commodity right now and information unusable within days) plotting their next strategy to brainwash people en masse.

If I were the word “social” I would have killed myself right now.

And here’s the first example of double standards, coming from yours truly:

The content of this post is a personal opinion of mine and not a reflection of any bloody entity I have worked in, working in, will work in, studied in, serviced, or been serviced by, sexually or otherwise, metaphorically or in the literal sense, in this life or the next, in my dreams, be they wet or dry, real or fictional, in any country on this planet, terrestrial, aquatic, aerial or virtual.

credit: sh4hid

Now on to the main point: WHY DOES EVERYONE HAVE DOUBLE STANDARDS?! (including – but definitely not starting – with myself)

Here’s a prime example I have been experiencing since I lost my job in 2009: Almost every company I apply to is seeking a professional candidate (side note: please drop these stupid terminologies, HR) with a myriad of impossibly complex skills to perform tasks that a well trained monkey will be able to perform, eventually. Most notably are soft-skills such as your amazing ability to motivate yourself to move forward while the company closes all doors of hope in your face and subjects you to endless psychosomatic torture.

So the interview goes smoothly for a few minutes before the interviewer’s eyes widen at the blasphemous text which claims I am studying Masters. “Oh, you’re studying,” remarks the now-doubtful interviewer, “how will this affect your working hours and commitment?”

Seriously? You seek a person who is self-learning, self-improving, multi-talented, multi-tasking, multi-anus, and instead of commending their pursuit of self-everything you start questioning business impact? How about you change attitude and say “Oh wow, that is impressive. We would certainly put your skills into good use in improving how we conduct our work and bring in fresh insights to our dinosaur of an organisation.” A couple of friends abroad tell, and some here (from Abu Dhabi) tell me that their companies pay their tuition as an incentive to continue their education.

I lost count of the number of times me and my friends have been rejected or put on the sideline because we are trying to better ourselves.

If you just want to meet your bottom lines, then change the job descriptions and change your screening criteria. If you want competent people who have the potential of doing things differently or better – whether or not they eventually do so – then be more receptive.

I am not kissing ass here but I am glad my boss has so far been receptive.

Now, moving on: WHY THE HECK IS EDUCATION DOUBLE STANDARD? It feels as though the mediocrity of education is directly proportional to your investment. Wikipedia is the most comprehensive school you can ever find – and it’s free. I am not undermining formal education of course – but at least provide a service that is equivalent of how much money I am investing. The frustrations I have towards my college is enough to warrant a cardiac arrest; in fact, I probably will just drop dead on my graduation day – which, by the way, has been pushed six months because of a course offered only once a year (which is ridiculous considering it is a foundation course).

There is just so much I have to say – companies and brands which force their employees to only use their products (examples are cigarette companies and soft drink companies and probably condom companies). Brand loyalty? Through chronic exposure? Or how about companies which claim to be pro-free-speech and support global causes (such as uprisings and the such) yet at the same time ask you to remove any remarks made about clients? Are we now instruments to our organisations that we cannot voice our own opinions without consent? The same companies whose employees tweet and post about the backwardness of authoritarian rule will themselves practice such methods in their organisations.

I grow sick and mentally deranged every day as I read the same tired news all over the web, news outlets, and the only thing that’s noisier than a baby: twitter. So much bullshit going on and I have no idea what’s what any more. Almost everyone on this planet have become pawns and puppets of circumstances. The term “social media expert” has changed from “unemployed and tweeting” to “client bitch” instead of “on-line business enabler”. Whatever is “trending” or in the flow – everyone else flows the same way.

We are *all* striving to be unique and proudly exhibit our uniqueness yet we struggle with the sense of belonging with everyone else and become like everyone else. We all have different capacities in accepting/changing double standards around us – but the cardinal sin is to be in our own.

That’s how it has become post Web 2.0, and on some level I envy the “backwards” people who are content with the little things they have. At an era when reading a book has become a luxury, it is time to say no to bullshit.

What I am talking about here is my workaholism. The irony of things is that I love to relax and do nothing sometimes, yet I am addicted to work. I always keep myself busy. With my current financial situation I sometimes have no choice, yet I know a lot of the times I am being too hard on myself.

Discipline is good, but I am burning myself out. My priorities are jumbled up because everything is a priority to me. I haven’t seen my friends in a long time even. Aaargh!

I know I have to take a holiday and I know I have to mix some fun into my life. My brain is a bit exhausted and I am working hard instead of working well.

I’m thinking of giving a fresh look at everything I am doing, from work to daily habits, and see what I truly value in doing and filter out things I do for the sake of being OCD like, for instance, saving each and every photo I find on some sites and sort them by date, author, alphabetically, subject, or a combination (yes, I am that anal).

Time to get my mojo back!

Suicide rates worldwide range about 10-14 people per 100,000. That’s anywhere between 650,000 to a million people per year. People joke and say that we’re the best swimmers among the 200 million others when our parents copulated. But it’s much more than that. You’re 1:200 million of that specific mating session. Don’t forget the many times your parents have been trying – or not, for that matter. Add another layer of complexity by the odds of your parents existing because of their parents, and so on and so forth, and you’d find that the probability that you – as the person reading this – existing now is staggeringly impossible.

Yet you exist (and, if you’re a bit of a pessimist, so does Justin Bieber).

Want it more complex? Look at the friends you’re close with and the people whose life you touch and allow your life to be touched by them. What are the odds that they – just like you – sprung to life, and, against other odds, crossed paths with you?

People talk about finding purpose in life, a calling; a mission. Some people find it, some people make up something, and some others don’t. Others don’t even bother. Nothing wrong with any of those.

The point I am trying to make here is that everything around us that we come in touch with – right here and today – is against their own odds yet we currently co-exist.

Where we take things from here is not only making a choice on our behalf, but possibly affecting the odds of a billion other things around us, current and future.

Many events have transpired in the past month that were more worthy of blog space and mental energy than a couple of movie reviews. Indeed, the Egyptian Protests are taking the Arab and most of the rest of the world by storm, as well as our daily, petty problems which, small as they may be, eventually force us to throw in the towel and hope for a better day when we wake up.

For long, I have had the urge to write about many things… things of seriousness and love and humour and nonsense. I kept them in my head instead, until this very moment as I write these thoughts down.

What makes us careless to attend to ourselves? The more I observe twitter, or Facebook for that matter, the more I see people trying to find themselves amongst a crowd. That is not necessarily a bad thing, of course, however, I do feel that perhaps taking some time off to find myself without the crowd is what I need. I’ve put many friends and activities on hold as I pursued the unnecessary, online and offline. I got caught up in my busy schedule that I visited my best friend on the second day after his major operation.

I have so much to write about that I forgot why I started writing this post to begin with.

Gulliver’s Travels 3D

The movie is less than decent and effectively ruined the story I loved back in my childhood days. There were some moments of dry humour but the overall production values were a jumble; some scenes looked good enough and the rest were disappointing. It’s 2011 and somehow camera manipulation between giant and midgets is inexplicably disastrous. I also fail to see why the movie advertises itself in 3D as apparently there is nothing 3D-ish about it. As for the story… a used condom has more interesting travel tales to tell. View trailer here.

The Mechanic

Movie is average; better than the one above for sure but has an uneven pace. It starts off slowly, a prominent guy gets killed without much character development for you to care about, and eventually picks up into lots of explosions and shooting. Story is predictable with absolutely no twist whatsoever. View trailer here.

Blogging truly has become a luxury, hasn’t it? It is no fault but my inability to properly manage my time; there is always a distraction around every corner and my mind is addicted to distractions. Perhaps out of general boredom, or out of inquisitiveness, I am not totally sure. However, what I am sure of is that I need to earn my minutes back.

In any case, our wonderful Dina tagged me in an interesting post; a small interview that I would usually avoid but not this time. I will not tag anyone so you are free to write up a post if it tickles your fancy.

I have some posts coming up as well and will be in the process of writing them in the duration of this weekend. In the meantime:

If you blog anonymously, are you happy doing this? If you aren’t anonymous, do you wish you started out anonymously, so that you could be anonymous now?

I have another anonymous blog that is on private and it serves as my online diary in the case where I don’t have access to my notebook and a pen. However, I don’t write there much, and I don’t regret what I write here (and I cleaned up many posts already). “Jar of Juice” started out as a fun-filled, humorous blog and the paradigm is slowly shifting towards personal thoughts and writing. I don’t regret the change of direction and the blog should always be a reflection of who I am.

Describe an incident that shows your inner stubborn side.

Any hopeless romantic is inherently stubborn and persistent in the matters of the heart. In other areas of life, though, I am quite easy-going.

What do you see when you really look at yourself in the mirror?

Someone lost but happy to be so; great things are bound to happen even if they take their time.

What is your favourite summer cold drink?

My favourite drink of any season is water.

When you take time for yourself, what do you do?

Write.

Is there something that you still want to accomplish in your life?

I still (hopefully) have many years ahead of me and there are many things I would like to accomplish. However, the centre theme of accomplishments is tangible change on the human-level. I don’t believe I will be a Bill Gates or a Steve Jobs and not because I lack ambition or talent or opportunity, but because my definition of success does not have a dollar or another anonymous value. Yes, a nice sum of money won’t hurt anyone, but it is not the only defining factor for success in my book.

When you attended school, were you the class clown, the class overachiever, the shy person, or always ditching?

Started with shy, then over-achiever, then back to shy and then ditching. Now it’s a mix of the three.

If you close your eyes and want to visualize a very poignant moment in your life, what would you see?

The moment you realise that “there is chemistry”.

Is it easy for you to share your true self in your blog, or are you more comfortable writing posts about other people and events?

I have no shame in admitting my faults and defeats and mistakes and in sharing my joys and laughs and sorrows.

If you had the choice to sit down and read a book or talk on the phone, which would you do and why?

I’d rather be writing a book… but for that there would be many books read and many phone calls, conversations, dinners, intimacy, hardships, and life experience to happen. But strictly between the two – reading a book, if I am not having a phone call with a loved one (is that not, on one level, like reading a book?).

The baker, Gustav, is a wonderful gentleman. Stocky built and a heart of gold, he recently opened shop in the district and gathered a cult following in a relatively short time. Though he was not there that morning, his minions have prepared everything for me: Croissants, bagels, sourdough, hot-cross buns, viennoiserie, and panettone, though I would never be particularly fond of raisins. But Marie liked them.

By the time I finished with nonsensical business transactions (I would always have to spend an inordinate amount of time insisting to pay for the bread), the streets were slightly warmer and the sun was breathing life into the district. Some early risers were already on their way to work. Slightly envious, but grateful to what I have, I made my way back to my building.

Marie was already eating bagels.

“How dare you?” I snapped with a pinch of humour. “You know it is a Thursday and breakfast is on me!”

“I must be getting old, then,” said the disappointed Marie, as she placed her cold bagel in a bag. For the birds I presumed.

“Never worry, I brought panettone for you!”

“That’s is so LOVELY! What a fabulous way to start the Christmas spirit.” She grabbed the bread and dug her fingers inside, emphasising that she would have it all for herself.

“Don’t worry, raisins are too morbid for me.”

“I don’t belIEVE you!” aghast, and I never wondered why. “When I become Queen I will order nothing but raisins to be served!”

“And I would then have to dethrone you.” I sat down and admired the viennoiserie collection. I concluded that the Gods themselves ate nothing but baked products.

“So tell me so-” she was interrupted by an overflow of bread in her mouth. After she swallowed: “oh excuse me, but the bread is just too good! – ” and I thought of what the bread felt like between those lips – “so tell me something, did you manage to find work?”

“Yes, in loose terms. I am working part time now.” I indulged in the viennoiserie.

“You need to tell me more as I make tea.” She stood up and headed to one of the forgotten corners of the building I never adventured in. “I can hear you don’t worry!” she continued as she disappeared from sight.

“I should be getting an OK by January!” I yelled into nothingness. I could hear her trying to find spoons in what I assumed to be a metal factory.

“Oh that’s great!” she replied with a few moments’ delay.

“I do like the work; it is quite interesting!” I was running breathless with being loud and made my way into the labyrinth corridors, hunting for the little kitchenette. “I believe I have good chances on this one!” I continued, while looking left and right into empty hallways.

“That’s good news! Better than your old job then?” Her voice was clearer. I was heading in the right direction.

“Yeah I think-” and I had to stop in my tracks as I was an inch too close to bumping into her she was trying to make her way back.

We were both startled, and for a long minute I looked at nothing but a little piece of crumb on her lips. Our eyes met. I glanced back at the lips. Swallowed. Looked into her eyes. I don’t recall either of us breathing. I don’t recall the tea settling in the cups. I could hear nothing but my head throb.

I regained my breath. Slightly lifted my hands -

“Here’s your cup!” with the most wonderful blush I would see for years.

Image Credit: Morning Tea by ~aksicnn

Like most other short story books by any author, you get a mixed bag of good and not-so-good stories, but the positive side of things is that you can always skip the ones you do not like. With M is for Magic, unfortunately, I did skip many stories – many were already included in previous collections I have read, and others did not trigger my interest.

However, there were three notable stories I particularly liked. The Case of Four and Twenty Blackbirds is quite an interesting take on Humpty Dumpty, turning the whole story into an in-depth criminal investigation. The second story I liked was Troll Bridge, which tells a tale of the relationship between a kid and a troll. At face value it is a decent enough story, but with a little bit of a creative effort on your part you can project the scenario into your adult life.

The piece I particularly loved the most was Sunbird, primarily due to its nature: food. It is the story about a group of very rich friends who have eaten everything possibly edible (with over zealous descriptions), except the elusive Sunbird. I found the story particularly fascinating. Again, I was probably hungry.

Overall, M is for Magic is a good book, however, if you want a better collection of short stories I would recommend Fragile Things by the very same Neil Gaiman,