Bleh

A. The eyes are no more.

My name is Bugs, king of Rabbits, Look upon my ears, oh ye mighty, and despair!

Why does a rabbit need gloves ?

B. Yellow Rubber Ducky

Why is the duck smiling ? Why is it yellow ? How does an infant know what to do with the duck ? What made bath time fun when you were a kid ? If you are asking yourself these questions, then clearly you are too old to own a yellow rubber ducky. What to do ?

Two words: Splash-proof Shower-Radio. For you sadistic ones, no it is not submersible, it can just withstand a small splash! Don’t just shower, dance………….. glllllllllllllide ……….sing!

C. Mixed Signals

Can the same facebook contact add an application called (The Latest Hunk) and within the same day join a group called (Proud to be a Muslim) ?

D. Women in the workplace

• I work at a company with 80 something employees including more than a dozen women. Recently a female colleague joined who comes to work wearing jeans as opposed to traditional Muslim female garb. Like all, she still wears a veil. Unfortunately some male colleagues objected to hiring someone wearing jeans, well women wearing jeans to be more specific. I wonder what chaos would ensue if a colleague came to work wearing a skirt! This reminded me of my English literature teacher in school. She once covered some literature from the middle ages and there was an odd scene by today’s standards (something about the gallant knight blushing when he saw the maiden’s exposed ankle!). Then again ankles are underrated. When is the last time you’ve seen a guy tell a woman she has stunning ankles ?
• One of the nice things where I work is that most employees sit together on different tables based on the project they are currently working on. The other day I was sitting at one of those tables, and female colleague sat next to our male colleague to answer some questions about one of our projects. I’ve never seen a human being change color so quickly. His cheeks turned a bright red instantly, and he was somewhat embarrassed when another male colleague asked him about it. Sometimes it astounds me, but there are still some men raised traditionally with little or no contact with any female that the mere sight of one no matter how modestly dressed is enough to produce this type of reaction.
• La Vie en Rose: The other day I also remarked that some male colleagues where wondering why a female colleague not only wears pink all the time (pink veil, pink traditional dress), but that everything she owns (mobile, pen, keychain etc…) is also pink!

E. Negotiation

When I’m on night shift (2 weeks per month), I always return home with the same cab driver, Abu Hassan. Abu Hassan is a nice guy, but loves to talk about anything. He can go on and on for hours given the chance. He also has the most remarkable stories (things like the people selling gum on the traffic light going home in taxis and owning entire apartment buildings, or stories about sexual mayhem in government offices). Tonight at around 11:15PM we stopped at a traffic light, and a government SUV stopped next to us and from the passenger-side window told Abu Hassan to stop on the right after the traffic light. Abu Hassan stopped.

The man who was wearing a uniform but not that of traffic police came out of the SUV and asked for Abu Hassan’s license and registration. Abu Hassan asked what was wrong, and the man told him, get me your papers, come with me, and then I’ll tell you what’s wrong. Next Abu Hassan (visibly distressed and very worried) got his papers, walked out of the car. The man told him that he changed lanes at the traffic light, and that he could have caused him to rear-end his taxi and end up in jail, and that he was going to give him a ticket for improperly changing lanes. The man proceeded to take out a plain-paper notebook, and was writing down Abu Hassan’s name, the number on the plates, etc… Abu Hassan started pleading with him. Everything from what did I do, I didn’t do anything wrong, you shouldn’t have been speeding, there was no one behind me why should I use the turn signal, it’s 11PM, I can barely afford to buy food, etc… Eventually the man decided to not give him a ticket and left.

Abu Hassan came back quite upset, he was humiliated at having to beg a man one third his age to not get a ticket. The truth is that 75% of the lane changes I see on the roads in Amman are illegally executed (no turn signal, no checking mirrors, speeding, swerving etc…). Poor Abu Hassan just happened to do it in front of the wrong SUV. Of course the SUV was also breaking the law by speeding and tailgaiting, and the man wasn’t really a traffic policeman. Picture an FBI agent stopping you for parking on the wrong lane in the US. Something not quite right about that. Still Abu Hassan managed to talk his way out of it.

F. Star Crossed Lovers

- Whenever I think of Romeo and Juliet I instantly flashback to the scene where they meet. As portrayed by the 1996 modern interpretation with Claire Danes and Leo Di Caprio (who was admittedly a bit of a boob back then)! I remember watching this with a friend who remarked “This isn’t love”.

Exchanging glances at the aquarium

Of course the first film interpretation I’ve seen was Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968 movie with Olivia Hussey as Juliet. I remember my English teacher hearing some cat whistles from the boys in our English class warning   us that the actress was now nearly 40, and that dwelling on women is a sin!

Palm to Palm is Holy Palmers Kiss

Posed

O happy dagger! This is thy sheath;there rust, and let me die.

G. Wherefore Art Thou Hani

Recently I’ve been writing one post per week, but this month I haven’t written in more than three. what have I been doing ?

• At first I was busy with a strategy computer game called Civilization 3 complete. Of course it wasn’t enough to play it, it comes with an editor that let’s you pretty much recreate entirely different reincarnations of the game. I decided to take a modern map of the world with accurate starting locations for each civilization and replaced the Barbarians with the terrorists, and for fun kept the old civilizations like Rome, Babylon, and the Maya.

The pyramids, the great wall, the colossus, in one city along with a rail system!

• I took a firefox extension called (custom Buttons 2), and started building my own buttons to do some things that will make my life easier as well as add some buttons that other users have created like one that instantly translates any page to English (automatically detecting its language).
• I was writing two blog posts that may never be finished. The first is on the 10 commandments, and the second is on the Modified General Theory of Kipple. I’m gonna set those aside until I can give them enough attention.
• Finally Windows Service Pack 3 was released on 21-April, and I was using a tool called nlite to setup a customised Windows XP CD with Service Pack 3 pre-integrated as well as IE7, Windows Media Player 11, and all the latest hotfixes. This required using a software called virtual PC to simulate a virtual new machine that can be formatted as many times as needed to test the CD until I’m sure it works correctly. It even automatically enters the license key on its own and auto activates. This is necessary since installing xp SP2 on a new machine leaves you quite vulnerable to attack, and by the time you install the security fixes, it may already be too late.

H. That time of the year

This is not a shoe blog! I only buy a single shoe each year and wear it every day. Normally black running shoes. I prefer Addidas. Of course I’m always reluctant to do it because old shoes (even with holes on the side) are more comfortable. This year my mom kept calling from Ramallah to ask me to go buy shoes! I finally got a boring pair, completely black, and here’s the proof to set my mom at ease.