December 12th, 2008 / 11 Comments » / by KJ
Came back from Damascus… it was awesome 
I’m just exhausted right now - will post photos later on my photo blog. Sorry I won’t be catching up with your posts; there’s just too many of them! You guys are on a roll!
I hereby forbid you to post more than twice a week!
Anyhow I just finished mopping, I need to shave, shower and go get Peter!
PS: Anyone using wordpress 2.7 and not getting the sidebar with the links? It’s good I have the URLs memorized (geek) but it would be nice to have a working wordpress!
Posted in: random
December 6th, 2008 / 14 Comments » / by KJ
Alright folks, am off to Damascus for the next week. Finally I will get to hugglez some family members! And eat normal food! And actually eat that green salad stuff and those hideous fruits (vs vitamin pills)
Did anyone in Dubai get paid for last month? I didn’t! Am in such a good mood though I will bitch to the company when I get back. They better pay up before then! “Issues with transfer” my ass.
Anyhoo, December TTL launched so you can go have a peek.
See ya in a week!
Wow that rhymes. Am a poet!
You know the other day I wrote this amazing piece of art and I know I put it somewhere but then the oven had some food and the sauce was drying and I had to turn off the heater because I was doing the laundry but thankfully my car was parked close so I didn’t have to walk a lot.
I should stop smoking.
Posted in: random
November 30th, 2008 / 17 Comments » / by KJ
Finally! It’s here!
But… wait! Where is it?!
Well before I give it to you:
What you’re about to see is a mockup. In otherwords, all the content, is by ME. So yes, I get to butcher lots of people here 
But it’s dedicated to our one and only HANI.
Remember! The “chatbox” is to be read bottoms-up!
Remember! It was written with LOVE! Nothing to be offended about!
So go ahead and ENJOY! >>>>>>>> CLICK HERE!
And don’t forget to comment on this post
Posted in: humor, moogle thoughts
November 30th, 2008 / 22 Comments » / by KJ
Ever thought while watching a movie “what if I were there” or when playing a game “what if this thing happened?”
Well it did! Here’s the story.
Thursday night I was going out to pick up my friends and I stopped on the way over a bridge to take a photo of the traffic below. You know, for the upcoming TTL (which might be slightly delayed). I went down from my car and realized that I forgot the batteries at home. I got back into the car and drove off.
Little did I know that my wallet had dropped on the road right there and then.
I noticed the missing item within minutes as my internal clock triggered an OCD-checkup on all items in the car to ensure they’re all in their designated compartments. I went back to the site and searched to no avail. I went OCD on my car; nothing. I called up the bank to block my account and I went to the police station to file a report for my driving license and my missing wallet.
Sunday, 12:23 AM, I get a phone call from a local number. A guy who can barely speak English and no other language communicated to me that he has my wallet and I have to meet him. He decided to meet me in the mall parking lot (2 minutes from my place).
I went to the mall (which I knew is still open) and didn’t find anyone who looked like he was waiting for me. I called back, he didn’t pick up. After half an hour (and the mall closed) I went back home.
Then he called again, and told me he is leaving and will be there in 20 minutes.
My videogame-based mind started its permuations through my “history logs” and I picked up a possible threat. Empty parking lot behind the mall at 1:30 past midnight? It has GTA written all over it.
I called the cops, gave them the numbers I got contacted from and they told me they’d send some patrol to my area.
Meanwhile, I utilized the 20 minutes and made a tour around the mall to check all possible places where I can escape from (or get attacked from) if I am in or out of the car. I saw the police patrol and we discussed my concern. They had a list of gangs/criminals they’re looking for whom they suspect “do their business” in this area. They decided to conceal themselves.
mall with parking
I waited in the car, rolled down the windows only enough for me to get some fresh air, locked the doors, put the handbrakes down and gear on D for an easy escape when needed.
Three men approached. I made a quick scan of the surroundings for more people. There were some labormen. I tried not to be paranoid, but I remained cautious - ie not to escape through that route. I used EagleVision to check questionable portrudings in their pockets (weapons) and made sure their hands were always facing front.
The guy started talking to me, asking questions about the contents of the wallet. Fine, I thought. All is good. Their country of origin though is politically questionable.
He took out my wallet to hand it over. ie, I had to roll down my window. That was the cue for the cops.
Within seconds, they came out and grinded to a halt next to me. One of the guys was in total shock, one remained calm and the third rushed to the police vehicle. The cop talked to him while the second cop kept an eye on the other two. What upset me was that the police car blocked my escape route.
While I was mad at myself for not having put the police car into my escape formula (and mentally trying to load the “Load Saved Game” menu to redo the whole thing), the cops sorted out their business and I was given my wallet back, all items and money intact.
I went back home, thanked the people, and reminded myself that there are still some honest folks out there. Still, I will have my license replaced. You know, just in case I was wrong 
ZOMG am turning into Qwaider LOL!
Posted in: ZOMG, personal
November 23rd, 2008 / 19 Comments » / by KJ
You must have noticed my absence.
If not, imbeciles!
I don’t need your pardon of course, but I’m quite swarmed with stuff at the moment and I have litte brain cells to spare - so I spend my brain cell leftovers reading “You Can Be Happy No Matter What” (as if I need someone to teach me psychology) concurrently with “Samarkand“.
And the other spare time I spend on weekends (given all my friends left town / got fired|laid off and left town / having exams / busy with their wives|girlfriends|fiances) is utilized by finishing up the stack of pending games. One of them is positively gory.
Not to mention am taking night classes three times a week 6:30 - 10:30.
And two weeks from now am going to Syria for another week to spend Eid with my family.
I cram my days a lot right?
Sooooooooooo as you can see I have little time to see if you passed your exams or have emptied your closets or had babies or killed said babies or are bitching about some browser privacy issues or contemplating the demise of the universe or having religious fevers or discussing Middle East prospects or debating Arabic music or feeling sad for the hungry and poor while Dubai has the extravagant opening to Atlantis hotel or posting the 20 year old email stating the differences between males and females or idolizing Michael Jackson or wondering what’s going on with Syrian blogs or or or.
BUT!
The good news is that the next issue of Moogle Thoughts is 70% done (yes it’s that much effort, Hani) and it should be out before I leave to Syria (so I can read your comments of course). So stay tuned!
Or not…
But I know you will.
I mean.
It’s Moogle
pata
Posted in: random
November 12th, 2008 / 28 Comments » / by KJ
إلي قرأتوه مظبوط، محسوبكم ملتهبه رموشه!
هي القصة:
مثل ما بتعرفو، عملت ليزك من شهرين ونص ورحت من فترة للمراجعة. اجا الدكتور وتفرج على شعراتي النهفة وحط المجهر وفحص عيني.
جميل جميل.. كل شي تمام الحمدالله. مبروك كنان عيونك ماشالله ممتازين.
منيح خبر حلو.
بس رموشك زباله!
مين؟
رموشك يا أفندي.. شي مقرف!
ليش؟ خير شبن؟
ورجيني تشوف… اع! ليش هيك يا كنان، شو ما بتغسل؟ ما عندكم مي بالبيت؟
يا زلمة بغسل وأنا عم نشف، شو فيييي احكي!
لازم نضف رموشك هلأ..
تفضل
كنان عيوني سماع، عيونك ما فيهن شي الحمدالله بس رموشك ملتهبين.
لك كيف رموش بتلتهب يا زلمه! كلن شعر!
اه مزبوط هو الإلتهاب بجفونك بس رموشك إلي أكلت خرى.
بالله شو؟
يعني بتاخد هاد المرهم ست أشهر
نعم؟ مشان رموش؟
بدك تصفى بلا رموش؟
طيب ماشي.
………………
فمثل ما شايفين، مين في واحد متخلف بالدنيا مفصوم بتلتهب رموشه؟ يعني بين كل شي متخلف بالدنيا، اجاني إلتهاب رموش؟
على قولت صاحبي، أجدب!
Posted in: humor
November 12th, 2008 / 7 Comments » / by KJ
Having missed out on Casino Royale, I was looking forward to watch Quantum of Solace despite the fact that I am not a fan of Bond films. However, that night my friend and I were seeking what every Bond film is about: absurdely ridiculous story with a cast of wonderful women topped with expensive cars being shredded and tons of humor and gizmos.
Sadly we were disappointed.
From the animated intro to the film I knew this wasn’t a normal addition to the series. The festive, colorful animations have been replaced by a an almost literal visual translation of the words Quantum and Solace. The oddly blue hues and purples already depressed most of the audience - and with sexy female figures not prominently featured, the male audience was disappointed.
she got nice legs, but she’s not hot enough for Bond Girl
Things turn to the better though when the film begins with an awesome, adrenaline-infused car chase. The incomprehensible story surfaces almost immediately, as I recognized from the get-go that this was a direct continuation from Casino Royale. Not that it really mattered to me personally - Bond films didn’t put much attention on story anyway.
Sadly, I was proved a tad wrong.
Quantum of Solace tries hard - for a Bond film - to focus its story on emotions. It really weakened the film in my opinion since you’re not expected to put in brain effort while watching such a movie. Not that the story was heavy in any way, but there were story elements that were carried from the previous movie. Moneypenny’s role as a moral advisor to Bond’s bewildered state of mind from whatever happened in the previous movie made me feel like I was forced to care about the characters.
Problem is, the cast is poorly developed. With the exception of Bond and Mon, the rest of the crew’s performance ranged from abysmal to mediocre. Camille’s - the Bond Girl here - story is a typical cliche you cannot care less about. The movie takes itself too seriously but it’s doing so by a weak, underdeveloped (and overly used) storyline while maintaining a gritty look and atmosphere. The storyline got overly burdened when it felt like a lecture about the current global issues - from water supply to Africa to oil. It’s tedious to squeeze all this into a two hour flick.
On the bright side of things, Daniel Craig’s portrait of Bond and Judi Dench’s of M is superb. They fit the roles naturally and even when everyone else was trying hard to be serious, they delivered a solid dramatic performance when needed. The movie’s pastel color tones and subdued hues added to the grittiness in a good way, and in fact made the film seem more “classy”. Whatever action sequences were there were choreographed well, despite some “crazy camera” issues at times when the producer tried to convey a sense of action by throwing you mind-boggling amount of scenes per second.
Overall, while I think it is a good thing if a Bond film is a film you would want to care about, the lack of (or little of) trademark Bond aspects made this film less like Bond and more like a Borne flick gone awry.
Whether that means anything it’s up to you.
Posted in: movie review
November 11th, 2008 / 14 Comments » / by KJ
It’s funny when you spend 3-4 hours a day alone in the car, arguing with yourself.
Yup you read that right! That’s me.
I’m undiagnosed but it’s safe to say I am pretty much OCD. If it ain’t symmetrical, it ain’t right. Although I LOVE spontaneous events and days… I have to be mentally prepared for them. When I went to Amman for instance I have mentally prepared myself that the week would be unorganized chaotic fun.
But take for example yesterday. Punctuality is something I worship. My technical architect told me he would be meeting me at 4:30. He knows I leave office at 5, because there is a long chain of events that follow that depend on me leaving at 5.
At 4:27 I was panicking.
He came in at 4:42 and we finished up at 5:18. In Dubai, traffic-dependent schedules are pushed by an exponential factor per lost minute.
Knowing from experience the traffic load on the roads, I went through an alternate route that’s longer but less congested. However my brain just could not get over the fact that I had to take such a long route because my fuel tank had been filled under the assumption it would be enough to get me to my sister’s work and back home through the normal route.
Which meant I had to stop by to refill at a petrol station which cost me more time and threw my OCD thought patterns out of the window - because I had calculated I would be filling it at the petrol station next to the supermarket where I’d be able to purchase some goods by the time the tank is topped.
With that out of the window I wouldn’t be able to purchase from the supermarket, with the time lost factor multiplier I had to cancel the supermarket if I were to complete my other pending tasks I had to finish before 11 PM.
But that meant something else and the list really went on and on and on.
And that’s how I think, most of the time, most of the day, every day!
Of course, I mentally typed this post while I was driving to office, complete with the typos and with this paragraph informing you about it
I know my problem, which is a great thing. I am aware of almost all my problems. I just am not able to fix myself - because my brain is so awesome it knows the solutions and therefore renders itself immune to them.
Which is why I have been coercing my colleague at work secretly without my brain’s subconscious awareness to help me over the past few weeks, so he got me a nice book which I would be reading.
Now of course the issue is - to find the time to read it!
Posted in: humor, personal
November 9th, 2008 / 21 Comments » / by KJ
Dubai is a reasonably safe city and prides itself in that. And frankly, it is - considering the amount of people you find on the streets at any time during the day/night.
Daily homicides and maid suicide stories notwithstanding of course.
Dubai isn’t too worried about terrorists flying through their well built and marvelously engineered works of art to bring them down.
They’re doing a pretty good job getting people killed without any external help. I don’t have the exact report but if you’ve been keeping track of construction “incidents” related to poor health and safety protocols you’d get a formidable sum of labourers who lost their lives.
Just this morning, a monolith crane (yes, crane) tumbled down on unsuspecting people in the middle of Sheikh Zayed Road - arguably the most commuted road in the whole country.
WTF? Yup, wtf as much as you want at the following photos.
Posted in: dubai, wtf
November 3rd, 2008 / 10 Comments » / by KJ
I was reading a news story today about a Finnish woman - in coma for five years - who finally headed back home to Finland, still in a coma.
While stories of people in coma on the news is not uncommon, what shocked me the most were the series of archived articles related to the main story.
I went through all of them to discover that this woman, who had a stroke while shopping in 2004, has been abandoned by her husband and her family, and has been taken care of at the hospital’s expense for five years.
First off kudos to the hospital for treating a patient like any hospital should.
Secondly, WTF?!
This married woman was abandoned by her husband and her family! Several Finnish people in the UAE have tried contacting the embassy but the woman was also abandoned by her government.
Outrageous!
The news made it to Finland a couple of months ago where people shared more than what’s on their mind. The woman was finally taken back to her country where she was (while in coma) reunited with her (obviously) not too happy husband.
How could someone just abandon their wife, mother, daughter, heck… citizen!
In related coma news, a mother whose daughter is in a coma is asking the government to help sponsor a care taker for her (as she cannot afford it), and the government is refusing - even though Gulf News readers donated enough money to afford a care taker.
WTF!
Posted in: wtf
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