Technology bites

I’ve learned what’s behind all those ads and promotions saying that technology helps us to communicate, connect, socialize and get closer everyday, earlier at work our team (4 people) was in a meeting with the process head at our company and then we needed somebody’s else opinion about something so the process head who was sitting beside us got him on the phone and started asking, our team leader wanted to get into the conversation between the process and the other guy to explain something.
So the process head used a technological feature in his HTC to make a call conference between the three of them and in order to hear each other clearly they had to keep a distance.
Eventually they were about 10-15 meters far after they were talking face to face and may be they had sentences in their call like “sorry I didn’t hear you could you say it again?”.
And that’s what is meant by “getting closer”.

IC – People

Those are photos of people I don’t know but I think that each one of them was thinking of something very deep – relatively – that he felt disconnected from the outside world (eh el kalam el kebeer dah ).
Sorry if the quality of the images wasn’t good as the digital zoom of my mobile phone camera sucks.

IC- Al Sultan Hassan Mosque

That visit took about 2 hours to reach the mosque and about 45 min inside it, those 2 hours were the worst in my life as it was extremely hot day, the streets were crowded although it was a Saturday and I depended on the people to get me there (I faced a lot of Fatawa), any way the 45 mins made the rest of the day.

Simply that mosque made me feel PEACE.

Pop Quiz

The world is full of unknowns, every time I watch a documentary about any thing in nature, medicine even wars they end up the movie by saying that there are a lot of unknowns waiting to be discovered by some genius “انا و ان كنت الخير زمانه, لآت بما لم يستطعه الأوائل”, for me there are some mysteries that I can’t find an explanation for and I don’t think I’ll be able to understand them one day “عجيبة عجيبة, عجيبة و مش عجيبة”, I’d like to share some of those mysteries with you and please if you have an explanation for any of them let me know.

1. Who the @:!#*& calls the TV ads of 0900xxxx to get a ring tone for his mobile, he can simply download the song and put it on the mobile without paying any thing, or does any one believe that he’ll get $1000…. for answering a stupid question that a 6 years old kid can, or what makes some one with a weight problem, psychological problem, … etc, believe that calling 0900 and listening to a recorded message will solve the problem. I’m sure that those people exist as the ads increase every day but I didn’t see any of them till today to ask.

2. Why is a 15 min or 10 min walk distance requires to get in a crowded microbus or waste your moeny on a taxi?? I’m not talking about old people I’m talking about youth in their 20’s and they are not late for any thing.

3. Again who the @:!#*& watches the Turkish TV series mohanned we nour, sanawat el daya3, ….etc, I found out that those series never end, every time I open up MBC 4 I fing one of those shows, one time I tried to watch some episode of mohanned and noor as I heared a lot about it and some news papers reported that women got divorced because of this series, after 5 min I switched the channel as there was so much naive for me. check  point (1) I think there’s a connection.

4. Why can’t I find a line infront of any outlet in any place (governemental. cinemas, parties, companies, …) there is always some “fetek” that comes from the side saying that he just wants to ask for something, I can’t understand him all the others in the line probably want to ask for the same thing,  why is he better than them??

If you knew the answer to any of those questions let me know and I’ll give you a special reward “اجري بسرعة يا واد يا حسين, هاتلنا منه باكو و اتنين”.

Es2al Megarab – Downtown

If you want to walk on “Kasr-El-Nil” bridge walk on the left side (the one at Shepherd and Casino El nil) as it’s usually less crowded than the other one (I got this tip from a friend), If you are walking on 6th of October bridge from downtown towards Agouza walk on the right sidewalk (the one at El Saraya boat and Maspiro building).

Don’t enter Rivoli Cinema and If you did DON’T enter Rivoli 2

If you were going to enter Metro Cinema I suggest that you enter Metro 3 (it’s tickets outlet is inside the cinema to the right) Don’t enter the Metro cinema with the outer ticket outlet

As for Oden cinema the best show screen is Odeon 1 it is the biggest one, one of the other 2 screens has a wall at the right so if you booked try to select a seat to the left.

try not to walk in the streets before 12 am especially talaat harb  and foad street.

it’s better if you don’t go there before 12 am in general.

For the food there aren’t much good shops/restaurants there, there’s “El Kazaz” restaurant at talaat-harb square, you can eat “foul, batates, baba ghanoug, tameya” from there they also used to have nice “sogo2″ and “meraba bel 2eshta” but I’m not sure if they are still good. Also there’s a “fatatrey” near Abdeen Palace I guess it’s called “Been el quasreen”.

Lately there’s a phenomena going on which is cafe’s at the roof of some buildings, there’s one at talaat-harb street and another one at foad street,  I went to the one at talaat-harb it is good at summer as there is nice breeze up there but the drinks suck!.

3 years of cinema

Recently I was sitting with my friends at Ossama (“ahwa” at downtown) some one suggested that we go to a cinema, after some discussions we agreed to go to “El fara7″ movie and we headed to “Talaat-Harb” street to see what cinema is showing it, First we went to Odeon although it wasn’t shown but I noticed that  massive changes were made there. They put a metal bars at the entrance of the tickets area with one opening to allow people to enter (it could fit for two people to pass at the same time maximum), there were some “amn markazy” soldiers standing behind the bar and a kind of “mo7′ber” inside yelling at the people to buy the tickets quickly, stay in the line and If you are not buying the ticket get out of here and they let the people get in and buy the tickets on groups. When I saw this I felt that Odeon became a military site or a barrack that ordinary people can’t get into easily and they need “amn markazy” to organize them.

After that we went to Metro, the movie was playing there so we went to buy the tickets, amazingly it seems that the people at Metro found that audience is not mature enough to choose a seat number or perhaps they are out of papers showing the seats or the seats ran out of numbers, any way they decided to just give you a ticket without numbers and inside you select the seat using first-come first-serve (In Egypt it is Biggest-come First-serve )

After I got in there we found some seats at the back that seemed good  we headed there and while I was preparing to sit I found a vomit on the seat (I’m not kidding) and when the people at the cinema came to clean it (that was after about 1/2 hour when one of the audience sitting at the other side of the vomit called them to clean it) they guy just wiped it with a towel they he put some liquid soap on the seat and floor that just increased the “3ak” at the place.

The next day I went to Galaxy Cinema to watch “The Taking of Pelham 123″ although the audience was relatively small the movie was showing, In such case at downtown cinemas you’ll find the poster of the movie outside the cinema but when you want to buy a ticket you’ll find that the movie isn’t showing,  about the place it was clean, clear sound, clear image and of course we picked our seats at the entrance.

2 or 3 years ago when we decide to go to a cinema and some guy says that he’ll not go to downtown as it’s “be2a” and you can’t hear anything from the movie I used to make fun of him and describe him as “farfour”, at that time cinemas like Odeon and Cosmos were organized, not perfect but at least I can buy a ticket and watch the movie.

Also I remember that I went to Metro some time in the past when it had only 1 showroom I went to a movie with my father, The showroom was so big like a theater and they were showing cartoon movies (good ones) before the movie started.

I don’t know why did Downtown cinemas turn into this shape, may be because of Al-Fitr feast when there was harrasements at Dina’s movie or the increasing number of un-employed graduates that find nothing to do and those cinemas are one of the things affordable to them or may be that’s what Egypt is turning to in general.

Note: ticket price at downtown cinemas is 15 L.E (some cinemas like Miami, Rivoli have 10 L.E tickets) while in galaxy it is 30 L.E.

..ولا البرسيم بيخلص

ايه الزحمه اللي هناك ديه, خناقة؟ -
# مش عارف بس فيه عساكر كتير واقفه
- دي باين عليها مظاهره
# اه, أنا مش عارف الناس دي واجعه دماغها ليه
- يا عم سيبك منهم دول عالم فاضيه, ها هنروح القهوه ولا نلعب بلاي ستيشن؟؟

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الساعه 2, لسه راجع من بره و أبوه و أمه نايمين, فتح الجهاز و بص علي الميل مع فورورد لشوية حاجات. الدنيا حر و النت ممل ده حتي مفيش حد أونلاين غير الناس اللي لسه سايبهم من شوية.
Tools –> Folder Options –> View –> Show Hidden Files and Folders
أما نشوف الفولدر اللي خدته من الواد علاء امبارح بيقول فيه عربي.
الساعه 3, طلع من الدش و دخل ينام

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- ألاقي معاك سيجارة؟
# انتا مش كنت مبطل يا ابني؟
- مانا فضلت مبطل اسبوع بس بعد امتحان يوم السبت كنت عايز حاجه أنفخ فيها, و كمان لازم الواحد يحبس بعد الأكله دي

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IC – Al Ain Al-Sokhna

On the 1st of May I went to a fishing trip at Al-Ain Al-Sokhna at “Wadi Al Dom” port it’s in front of the new “Porto Alsokhna”. It was a great day the swimming, jumping, fishing, eating, … all of it and I want to thank Ahmed Almahdy very much for organizing this, he worked in silence :D
Those are some of the marvelous scenes there.

I hate DOCTORS

Last week I got sick, thanks Allah I’m good now, I had the usual cold, flu with my temperature rising and a little pain in the throat, any way I remember that I used to get this disease when I was young (till preparatory period) at least 4 times a year at each season change- back when there was more that summer and winter- all of this brought back the memories of doctors and dealing with them, here is some of it

A Doctor may write a medicine for you and say take this “every 8 hours” and another one would be “3 times a day” what’s the difference??? 3*8 = 24 so when I’m taking it 3 times/day it’s the same as every 8 hours.

For me going to the doctor is always the last decision, I don’t like them at all so I try to have warm drinks, akl maslok, stay warm and other stuff to get the cold away, when I fail in all of that I go to the doctor. Now when any one decides to go to the doctor that means that his life stopped and can’t continue unless he gets well so at its time that’s the main event of his life so you expect other people to understand that but Doctors don’t. To the doctor you are just a piece of work he sees hundreds like you daily and they may have the same case so your just getting him bored.

Why doesn’t the doctor tell you every thing as soon as he finish checking, you have to ask “what do I have, how did I got it, what’ll happen now, …” he finish checking and goes directly to the prescription without telling you any thing as if you know it all but just came to say HI.

I don’t understand what is it with the handwriting, is it a code between them and the pharmacist, I’ve never been able to read or understand a prescription.

This post can’t end without mentioning the dentists that I pray not to deal with any again, I spent over 2 months going weekly to the dentist just to make “7ashw” and “tarbosh” (they call it crown), first you have to wait for 30-60 min to enter and when you do you might only spend 5 min in there and you get an appointment next week, every little thing he does the next appointment must be next week I don’t know why? does the dentist’s calendar advance by weeks only?? at the second month I got the feeling that I’m engaged or something and Saturday is when I meet my fiancée from 9–>11.

The three P’s

Life is full of bad stuff, things that can bother, annoy or make you out of your mind, as for me there are a lot of those and among which there’s what I call the 3P’s POLICY, PACKAGE and PEOPLE.

Policy
At work if you want to come casual a big no will be waiting, why because this is a big company and it must maintain a good image in front of the customers, what if I don’t deal with customers most of the time actually the place I work in doesn’t receive any customers at all…etc., after a few arguments the usual answer will be “It’s the company’s POLICY”.
At a bigger scale, why don’t we cut all the relations with Israel? “It’s the country’s POLICY”, why don’t the people feel the economic growth that we hear about in the papers? “It’s the government’s POLICY”.
And usually when the conversation comes to this point it means STOP you won’t get any further, my question is WHY? who set’s those policies, why can’t they be wrong and needs replacement, things change that’s the nature of life any thing that’s right today may be wrong the next hour, why can’t the larger policy have a place for the smaller one’s.

Package
I want a VISA card but I don’t want the internet account, “Sorry yafandem deh PACKAGE”, I want to replace items that I don’t need in some offer and replace them with others, although it may be more expensive for me than the original offer but I can’t as “that’s not the PACKAGE”.
Why do I have to pay for something that I don’t need, I’ll just keep it without usage, why can’t I replace this with something I really need. And every time I hear the “PACKAGE” I feel that I’m being cheated and “bat2artas”.

People
Not the people themselves, it’s the phrase “Zay malnas bete3mel” “Like the others”, I called it people to match the third P, what makes the thing agreed upon by the people the right thing?? can’t they all be wrong and I’m right, what about the different circumstances, in my opinion it’s never the same, there’s no correct decision that matches the needs of every one so when I have a situation I must take it as the others did. Prophet Muhammed (sala allah 3aleih wa salam) told a hadeeth with the meaning “If all the people agreed on something good for you, you won’t get it until Allah wants you to and vice versa” so at the end it’s Allah’s will and what you want to do, this doesn’t mean not to listen to any one, experience is important it will benefit you a lot but always remember that it’s was some one’s else choice and what applies to him might not fit you, also it’s very rare that some one will tell you his experience as-is (as it actually happened) he’ll add his flavour to it so you must learn how to separate.

What really annoys me about the 3P’s is that I reach “7eta sadd”, every thing that’s told after would be useless.