Saturday, July 23, 2011

Amy Winehouse Dies at 27



I guess I was wrong

R.I.P Amy , the music world will miss you ...

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Weird Tattoo Dream

I just woke up from a weird dream

I dreamed I went to a friend of mine and asked him to draw me a huge angel wing tattoo on my right shoulder and back ... well , nothing weird with that , I've been wanting a second tattoo ever since I got the first one .. but the weird thing is ... this guy's place , it's like a hang-out pad ... there were lots of people there , coming and going , playing Play Station , drinking beer , talking , etc .. there was a leather couch and he was drawing tattoos on a big , big stencil paper laying on the ground, people were coming to get all kinds of tattoos, little kids even -one little kid got the number 8 inked on his side- and he told me to wait, because my tattoo was going to be huge and detailed, he needed time to draw it and he said he is tired from doing tattoos all day long, so I just waited ...

Suddenly a young guy enters and shakes my hands in a friendly way and asks me how I am .. he is dark and mysterious and he is wearing a black hoodie with the hood on and a long black monk robe. I look at him and say I'm sorry but do I know you? he says "what, you forgot me already? I'm the one who gave you these" as he held me my arm to show me a tattoo of 4 playing cards, lined one above the other, on my inner arm ... just above my wrist ... the cards were a red Ace and 3 numbers (I forgot which ones) .. I look at the tattoo and I was confused, I said I don't remember getting this, and he says "that's because you were drunk as hell" I say "and who gave you the right to do that? if someone is drunk they're not allowed to have tattoos .. he says "meh, you insisted and I couldn't say no, besides your friends were with you" .. I look around and I see a bunch of people I know (but in real life I don't know any of them) standing there so I yell at them how did you let him do that? they shrug ... so I take another look and I find out more tattoos covering the whole length of my left arm, most of them Arabic inscriptions of some poems and sayings (which I never heard or read before in my life either) with some weird calligraphy ... there were about ten of them ... I wish I can remember at least one of the sayings ...

Anyway, this guy leaves and I'm still furious about the tattoos when my friend says "are you ready?" and he shows me a gorgeous angel wing tattoo which I instantly approve of ... and he draws it on my back ...

There were times where the cards tattoo would just stand out and look so real and life-like (3D) ... and other times where it would fade to almost nothing like it's 100 years old ... I kept looking at it the entire time ....

The End

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

A Quick Word About The Egyptian Revolution

January 25 to infinity
a day to withhold
in the history of mankind
from Tahrir to the world
the free and the pure
said their word out loud
standing tall and proud
future is in their hands forever

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Strangest Day Ever !

Part 1 : Renewing My Residence Permit

There's a man in the Public Relations (PR) Office at my University who helps me with official papers like renewing my annual residence permit. I gave him my passport and the documents needed in the end of December to handle them. He didn't apply right away because of the New Year's explosion in Alexandria and the turmoil that happened after. He called me on Thursday saying that the new rules now require I must go present my respectable self at the Immigration Department, and we agreed to meet Saturday (today) at 8:30 AM. I woke up today (well I can't say I woke up, I barely slept for an hour) got dressed, called him - he was already there and ran out. The door closed behind me as I went down the stairs. I took a taxi and got there in 5 minutes. We presented ourselves to the commanding officer who took one look at my papers and declined to renew the Visa, claiming that one sentence in the University statement is wrong. I won't get into much details here, because if you're Egyptian or you live in Egypt you know the bureaucracy here has no limits. So I swallowed my pride an went back to the University to change one little phrase of 10 words into 2 little phrases of 5 words each. YES! all what he wanted was to see this phrase of 5 words on a separate line so he can circle it.
At the University, in the department of Student Affairs, and after so much pleading, they changed the form and I got the 3 needed signatures. One particular woman, the middle of the command chain, was a total bitch. She wanted me to pay for the form all over again and almost changed the mind of her boss about making the change I needed. I ignored her and called that PR man who talked to the boss and convinced him of what should be done. After that I went to the office of the Dean of Student Affairs to get his signature. It was 10:30 AM. Naturally, he wasn't there. They told me to come at 12:30 noon. So I went out, bought a chocolate and a bottle of carbonated water, ate and drank while walking home. I arrived at my apartment only to find out my keys are not in my pockets. I was shocked. I never forgot my keys anywhere!! I was locked out. I knocked on the neighbors' door. The neighbor is my landlady's sister and owns half the building. Her husband is a very nice retired engineer. They said they didn't have a spare for my keys, but nevertheless they produced a huge pile of keys and we started trying them one by one. Finally one of the worked !! This apartment apparently first belonged to their mother and she left one of her keys with that huge pile. I was ecstatic and they told me "The Lord loves you." I was inside for not more than 5 minutes (enough to update my facebook status) when my phone rang and the PR office told me the Dean arrived if I wanted to meet him. I went back (this time double-checking my keys) and arrived there in 10 minutes. The Dean's office was a beehive. I never seen so many people coming in and out in my life. Papers, papers, and more papers being signed or rejected. I waited for 45 minutes. Finally I went in. The Dean was a very decent guy, but tough in the same time (??) and joked about me living illegaly. However, he refused to sign the new form (statement) claiming that it's written in a wrong way. He called in the head of the PR office, whom I know very well, and they discussed it for some time. Meanwhile there were loud noises outside and some guy was yelling and screaming. The Dean called him in and he was still yelling. He told him to lower his voice, to which he responded (I'm a resident doctor and my voice has a loud tone.) The Dean told him "you're a resident in your own home, not in my office. Respect yourself and other people especially that you're in my office"  then he pointed at me and said "why can't you guys be like Lebanese people, polite and respectful even in the most stressful of times?" Anyway his problem was transportation (I really lost concentration.)  Then the Dean told me to change the form (yet again) and the head of the PR office called the Student Affairs and told them to help me, so I went back, got it changed, got the 3 signatures again and went back to the Dean to sign it. It was already 13:30 (1:30PM) and the Immigration Department closes at 14:00.  I took a cab, photocopied the new form, and presented myself to the Officer again. The clock was 13:48. I was sweaty, my hair was a mess, and he took pity on me. He signed my papers and I went to Window number 2 to give them the passport and documents.  No one was to be found. I waited until 13:53 , and finally asked where is the person in charge. She was arguing with a French-Algerian couple, a bearded (Islamist) man and his Niqabi wife. They were objecting to her removing her Niqab in public so the Immigration people can recognize her face on the passport. After a few long minutes, she finally agreed. She lifted her Niqab and my first and only reaction was "wow. she is uglyyyyyy!!!" The man gave me a fiery look for looking at his wife's face, but I continued to stare. The woman in charge signed their papers and took mine, smiling, she said "did you know today was your last chance? If you came tomorrow you would have paid a $30 fine." I didn't know that, but I told her I did, and that I came in the morning but the Officer refused my papers. She signed my passport and told me to come back in a few days to finish processing my residence permit. I get another year. I left at 14:05 and called the PR office, thanking them for everything.

=

Part 2 : McDONALD's

Famished, sleepless and extremely tired, I walked for a couple minutes, and I found myself walking by McDonald's. I was thrilled to see them advertising a new item on the menu, the Mega-Mac, which is basically a double Big Mac, so it has 4 pieces of meat and 2 pieces of cheese. I'm not a McDonald's person as you know, but I wanted the Mega-Mac soooooo bad. I went in, and waited in line. The guy ahead of me was a huge teenager, who look just like that farm-boy, Thor, from Hannah Montana, only darker. He couldn't read the menu (I swear) and he was on a DATE! Granted, she was also a simpleton. The bulky teenager pointed at a picture (it turned out to be the McRoyale) , ordered two, and the cashier ripped him off by signaling the maxed-size combo. I ordered my Mega-Mac and went to sit down at a comfy table in the end of the place, when a 7-year old obese kid who was standing behind me in line broke free and came to me, saying "3ammo (Mister) this is OUR table." I looked at him, and he kept saying this is our table. I told him there are plenty of places, go sit anywhere you like. He continued to nag and I was about to get angry, when I looked up and saw his mother. She was very plump, and she looked like a country-woman as well. I wondered what the heck happened so McDonald's would be swarming with Falaheen and countryside people. Then I realized it must be something new to them on one of their rare visits to the city. Anyway, I continued to look at that obese woman, who had another obese woman with her other obese kid with her as well. I scanned the place, and registered that the 4 of them won't be able to squeeze into any of the empty tables, while mine was in the middle, spacious and comfy. I looked at the kid and then decided to move to one of the smaller tables. But before I moved, his mother came towards me, took the kid by the ear, and told me to stay. I told her I don't mind moving, and I like the kid's honesty. She said "he's my son, and he's bege7 (rude) , you stay where you are." I did, and they sat down at a table by the window. I finished and left McDonald's, heading towards the nearby Tram station.

=

Part 3 : The Tramway. A Wave of Paranoia.

Before I got to the Tram, I passed by my favorite pharmacist, a beautiful young woman with amazing green eyes, and bought the usual lozenges, then, I cleared my throat and asked for condoms. She produced them silently. I went out only to find the Tram moving. I missed it by a few seconds. I regretted bullshitting that pharmacist.

I waited for 10 more minutes until the next Tram showed up. Two of them *numbers 1 and 2* I can take either one because my place is only 4 or 5 stations away. They go in their separate tracks waaaaaaay beyond that. I got on the first one, and saw a man handing another man a big black bag. I got paranoid and I saw a mental image of the bag, loaded with explosives, blowing up. I then saw myself in the hospital, lacking a limb or two, unable to talk to anyone I know because I lost my phone, and unable to remember the names of any of my friends or family. I felt a panic attack approaching so I totally freaked out and jumped out of the Tram into the other one, that was luckily starting to move.

I got home at 15:25.

I'm going to take a very well needed nap now. When I wake up, I hope I'll have enough energy to STUDY. There's less than a day and a half left before my first exam.

Monday, January 10, 2011

my old Yahoo! account RE-LIVES !!!

IM REALLY HAPPY RIGHT NOW :)

Four and a half years ago, during the 2006 Fifa World Cup in Germany, Yahoo! Answers had been just launched, and was heavily advertised on the Yahoo! World Cup page. I entered the World Cup category and starting discussing football, but people were very aggressive and shit (like fuck you Italians , no fuck you Englishmen , etc.) I , as a Portugal and Italy supporter at the time , got into the fights and started swearing at some people, but of course, I'm neither Italian nor Portuguese, so I let the patriotic nationalists take the heat and I continued to answer football questions in a more civilized manner.

But then I got bored, and starting clicking around the site ...

The most random category was Polls&Surveys (like it still is to this very day) so in a futile attempt to gain points and levels, I also went there, clicked random questions and, bored as I was, started answering really rudely to people, like "fuck you" and such. I didn't know you could get reported.

Needless to say, I was reported and banned. Not only that, my whole Yahoo! account (including the email address) was deleted. I was very sad because I loved that email address, it matched my hotmail address. I also lost all my Yahoo! Messenger contacts :( When I tried logging in, it told me "this account doesn't exist."

I tried to re-create that account more than once but it always told  me "this email address is taken" although "it didn't exist." Over time I started to lose hope until I finally forgot about it.

But today, I tried to log on to my old LiveJournal account to look up an old friend (I remember she used to post her email address on her LJ account, and I want to get it and add her on facebook.) I haven't used LJ in almost 4 years and I forgot the password, so I tried to retrieve it by having it sent to my email, but then I remembered that the LJ account is linked to the non-existing Yahoo account. What a dilemma.

Anyway, long story short, I tried one more time, and I just was able to re-create that email address :) I think the Yahoo! people decided to finally free the address and it works just like it was never deleted (I just tried sending the LJ account password that I have linked to it and it worked) :) :) :) so now I have access to my old LJ account as well !!!

The sorrows and joys of technology !!!
Yuppie !!

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Another Tramway Experience

Rode the women's carriage ...
The tram was moving and the ticket man (komsery) told me to get on quick; and he stood me next to him casually =) ok so the women's only carriage is just like women's only beaches. Most of the women there are those who don't want to be seen by men. Mostly old, neqabi and obese women. Normal young girls want costant men's attention,and the possibility of a suitor. Another thing is that some women dislike the women's carriage because when it's crowded, it's survival of the quickest. No male chivalry there or pleading him to stand and let her take his place.

They are also weird and they stare rudely.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Speaking A Foreign Language In Egypt

Yesterday I went to visit my friend who lives on the other side of Alexandria , about one hour drive from where I live. I took the microbus like usual. 5 minutes later a girl and a guy climbed in. They looked like any ordinary Egyptian couple. A short, veiled girl and a tall, tanned guy in a pullover. She was talking on the phone and that is also normal, as 99% of girls call their moms to tell them they're coming back home. They sat in front of me, I didn't pay much attention to them, but then I thought I heard the girl speaking a foreign language, switch back to Egyptian, then foreign again. I listened carefully and she was speaking French !! Yes, Egyptians study French in school as a third language, and there are thousands of French literature students in Egyptian Universities, but they all can not speak a word of French!!
She must be majoring in it in university, but the funny thing is, she was speaking it in a very heavy Egyptian accent. If you thought Egyptian English is funny, wait 'til you hear this one !!! I could barely make a word or two. Anyway, she kept talking for a really long time, about 30 minutes, and people were annoyed with her. She was loud, laughed in a disrespectful manner, and was obviously showing off. Her male companion just sat there looking out the window. He paid the fee and here is where his role ended. Well not quite, he also signaled the driver to stop when they wanted to get off. She stepped out, still yapping, hooked up to his arm and walked away. There were not a few insulting comments from the drivers and his passengers later.