Egyptian Gaming Rampage

My friend's brother "Mustafa Fareed" has started building his own online gaming community website, It is indeed one of the most fantastic ideas to even see a 16 year old build such a community, the site is now under construction and is expected to open soon enough.

After being inspired by www.esl.eu , he decided to get a move on for himself and 2 of his friends, the description of the website is simple, it will include a typical VBulletin forum which is an interaction system for registered members and a place to discuss their gaming topics such as Cheats, Easter eggs, Glitches, Upcoming tournaments and events etc.

I recommend this however to anyone who is a gaming enthusiast despite the website's name being dedicated to Egyptians, but no, it's not only for Egyptians. I wish him the best of luck with his journey with all my heart. For more information about his website, you can reach him at mustafaronaldinho@gmail.com or his website's group can be alternatively be found on Facebook.

A Day @ The Dentist (R-rated!)

Probably one of the most feared moments in my childhood was going to a dentist, I remember my mom taking me their for getting rid of a cavity, I used to cry alot while my mom sits with me to confront me regardless that I was toothless until I turned 8.

Anyway, recently I was being told by my personal dentist that I have Dental Caries (ouch!) for those of you who don't know what is Dental Caries, it is simply when the cavity eats all the surface of the tooth(and if possible a bit from the side) reaching down to the root bursting into the nerve which results in a small surgery to pull in the nerve ending, this though happened weirdly, I had a filling in that same spot and unexpectedly the bacteria punctures the filling down (can the bacteria do that), now I don't know how exactly but my molar was wide open from the top.

The known effect of caries are pain, tooth loss, foul breath and in rare and severe cases, death.

Three appointments was the dagger-to-the-heart reply from my dentist telling me the brief explanation of each appointment's procedure...First appointment, drilling the whole tooth down until the gum appears and removing all the cavity with a scalpel that has a bent hook at the end so called "Dental Explorer". Before all of this I requested that I get a shot of an anesthetic in my mouth which indeed I got and god it hurts when injected, you feel your chin lingers in static electricity, Then he takes a metal pin like thingy with no sharp pointed end and drills the gum down to take small chunks of cavity, as for the 3rd, I still haven't taken it yet and was placed a white temporary filling which is half broken and seems to have been made in China.

Being in the dentist today for another tooth was another case, it was badly drilled down in the middle with a small crack on the side, I feared that it would be another dental caries, the doc didn't say a word, instead he bulged into starting the operation the usual way with the idea of an amalgam to be put at the end, it took 30 minutes and with some new technology put on some white ceramic paste into the drilled hole which then he brought a laser like gun into my mouth, he pulled the trigger which I noticed my mouth starts illuminating in blue color, I then knew that amalgams are ancient history, and the purpose of this gun was to make the ceramic filling the same color as my tooth which therefore doesn't show that I have a filling, weird technologies!

Anyway, I went back home while still on anesthesia that I can't feel my right hand side of my face, every time I tried to pop up my jaw, the damn thing reaches down my neck and hurts my throat like **** (I don't know if it was an overdosage, but I like my dentist anyway), I am actually still under the effect while I am speaking here now since 7:00 pm.

The Go of My 2nd Blog

Yesterday, I decided to put my thoughts on paper and create my new blog related to such paranormal activities and phenomena, some of you might not believe in such things, well, it doesn't mean that I believe in them either you know? it is simply of what I think of such things and the effort of trying to dig out as much proof as possible for hoaxes.

The blog will be updated every 2 or 3 days as I have many thoughts and things to write about in mind, so if you are the kind of person who doesn't give a damn about these this kind of topic then it's not for you, if you believe or don't believe and/or seeking evidence on such encounters that are believed to be hoaxes then it's definitely down your alley.

P.S. This blog is not to be viewed for people younger than the age of 18.

The Inside Story of The Saudi Golden Arches

Working in McDonald's as a summer job was a worthwhile experience during the breath-taking 9 hours a day shift, especially going through all this and that, from dealing with the uneducated and talentless people your working with to cleaning after customers and dealing with the some of their rudeness.

This topic will include the following Subcategories: The Co-Worker Effect, The Customer Effect, The Hygiene Effect and The Health Effect.

The Co-Worker Effect: All the Saudi workers here are worth my bottom, they are mostly 23-29 years of age and all of them live in a cheap Bedouin area such as Kilo 2, and Al-Hendaweya , and are typically the most frightening places to walk in Jeddah, you are lucky enough if you found one or two of them having a high school degree because most are STILL studying in public schools and failing year after year. I always keep my distance away from them and don't get involved in initiating any sort of small talking and only seek help when it comes to doing my job, though I do confess that I got harassed more than once. That's my conclusion about Saudi crew, What About Filipinos?

Well, These are the people who are willing to teach you anything you need to know, though there are exceptions. I did remain on these people's side more often than the Saudi side, they are also more charismatic as well, you look at them and you see the well for working 9 hours a day unlike working just for money.

I remember an Indian guy called Nadeem who is the laziest worker I noticed in my shift. He oversleeps in breaks and fails to comply to his co-workers' advices (his Saudi co-workers'..well I don't blame him for not complying). He once came up to me and asked my if I could lend him 200 SR, I was like "OK buddy, we will see at the end of the month". Believe me or not, one week later, I never saw him again, which I was glad for not trusting him from the very beginning (typical Indians), I heard he got kidney stones, anyway that is it for The Co-worker Effect, not so good and not comfy as well.

The Customer Effect: From what I think, only people with few money or few time left on there schedule go to McDonald's, because it is the cheapest among other fast food chains and the most easiest to eat. Most people who come to McDonald's are employees from neighboring company's such as Safola and P&G in Al-Hamra district, and the busiest timing is between 1PM-4PM excluding Thursdays and Fridays, so in my point of view, it gets ridiculously busy at this time limit that I end up serving 4 customers at once, which I hopefully don't end up mixing between orders.

Anyway, there are some knuckle-heads out there who enter and ask for Grilled Fish & Rice (WHAT THE HELL!) and Kabsah! I was once in the same situation when some Saudi guy with sport pants and slippers came up to me and asked me the same thing, I tried my best not to explode from laughing at him but ended up giving him a smirk, he smiled and simply ordered a Big Mac. Bottom line, I never got insulted or shouted at from a customer (good employee I was :-) ).

YOU ARE ABOUT TO READ SOMETHING DISGUSTING ABOUT MCDONALD'S

The Hygiene Effect: McDonald's is by far the filthiest Fast Food restaurant among its competitors, I am just amazed why didn't it close down from its filthiness. First of all, disgusting Saudis working there chop off the fingertips of the plastic gloves they wear, so they end up dressing the burger with their fingertips (FU**!), the kitchen's floor is all oily that I slipped off at times. The trays you eat on are NOT washed by soap and water, instead the are just rinsed in cool water without any soap or any detergent from any kind, so someone who is Germophobic will surely commit suicide if he reads this. I also heard that the Mecca-Highway branch is the most contaminated of all branches that the crew don't even put on there gloves while dressing and that the kitchen has litters of lettuce and tomato all over the floor.

The customer side is no good either, a mom with her children is the worst thing you can come across, they through shit all over the place, fries all over, ketchup on the table itself and the wise dad's cigarette ashes all over the floor, it's by far the most tiring activity to do after a customer leaves, they don't even consider to empty the tray in the bin!, which leaves the place to become an insect-infested hive. Killed 17 flies in just 10 minutes compiling them together

The Health Effect: Some meals are OK, and some aren't, and by that I mean getting all sort of acne, and tongue spots or whatever you call them, it also feels that the frozen meat and chicken that they fry and grill is genetically treated in some way, you won't get the same effect if you try Burger King or Hardee's, it just doesn't feel the same and that is why Americans had the courage to sew the bastards (and they have a healthier McDonald's!) while we are left licking our wounds.

One of the dishes I really detest is Spicy McChicken or McChiken in general, you eat this and your tongue start growing fungus in just 3 hours that is if not around your lips also. Seriously, this is garbage!

That sums everything up at the end of this post that McDonald's is the worst ranked fast food restaurants in my opinion and that I don't eat there except on emergencies. (contact me should you require additional details).

One Hell of An Attempt!

What you are looking at here is something from out of this world, very rare, very unnatural and EXTREMELY DANGEROUS.

In a sweet and spicy Tabasco sauce, you would fill one teaspoon and apply it to your favorite dish...and still you would be like "shit, I really over did it"...think again baby. In a Scoville scale the common Tabasco would hit 800 Scovilles as the level of spiciness, and you would probably think that it is the spiciest liquid on this planet.

Welcome to the Mad Dog 357 Hot Sauce, and it's not child's play, trust me when I tell you this. It will quite literally melt your whole body down. I tried this sauce back in Switzerland on the summer of '08, I was challenged by my brother-in-law to try it out, and I was like "this is just another wannabe sauce". so I made a mistake of underestimating it...really, I went to open a Sardine can as a breakfast (I love them as my daily breakfast, don't go YUCK!) and that is when I opened this masterpiece and applied one drop to my dish no bigger than the size of an index fingernail, closed the bottle with absolute confidence and started mixing up my dish so it spreads throughout, and by the way, it was black in color (don't believe the picture above being dark red in color) because it is no ordinary chili extract, you will know the ingredients when I list them below.

Anyway, I started eating my bloody sardine dish with a loaf of bread, and in a matter of 15 seconds I started to feel something stinging my tongue continuously as if it was a bee in my mouth, and that was it as a result of underestimation, I hardly was able to continue the rest of the dish but indeed I did so just to feel the blast of a fingernail sized black drop, I wasn't feeling my head, it felt so cold outside and so stingy from the inside, I went grabbing a 1 Liter Evian bottle from the fridge in hopes of extinguishing the lava, I drank about 400 ml and with each sip I felt the heat growing more and more, and that was it, I gave up trying to calm the Mad Dog down, it took about 1 hour and 45 minutes for it to end, and I was wishing I could get sleep just to not feel it anymore.

No matter what you have tried before: Wasabi, Red Chili, Green Chili, Mild or Wild Tabasco...This is in a different league, it actually has the words "Use this sauce at your own risk!" written on the bottle. Let me give you a comparison between a Sweet & Spicy Tabasco and this so called Mad Dog 357, as I said, Tabasco's heat level is 800 Scovilles...Mad Dog's heat level is HELLFIRE reaching 600,000 Scovilles as written on the bottle and is considered to be one of the hottest 10 sauces ever made on this planet...you do the math. DAMN!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Take it as a word of mouth, this sauce is not to be used to prank somebody as it has alot of symptomes, I got a severe Diarrhea afterwards, and spots on my tongue that lasted a week, thanking God Almighty that this was enough for me....all that from just a tiny drop. YOU DO NOT WANT TO MESS WITH THE MAD DOG!

Ingredients: Vinegar, chili extract, evaporated cane juice, fresh Habañero peppers, garlic, onion, 160,000 Scoville Cayenne peppers and spices.

Book Review of The Month: "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini

This is Hopefully my first book review on my personal blog for the month of April, and I am excited to tell how much I like writing book reviews and recommending them to my friends and family.

So, Let's start with one of the books I have read in February of 2009; "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini... a fiction novel about an Afghan Pashtun boy named Amir who experiences the last peaceful days of the Afghan Monarchy in the late 1970s, just before his country gets invaded by Russian forces, and his best Hazara friend named Hassan who gets separated from him before the invasion. When Amir turned 18, his father and him migrate to Fremont,CA, where Amir goes to medical college and writes his novel about his struggle and experience in the Afghan-Soviet war, during his stay, he gets a call from Rahim Khan, his father's best friend, who tells him that his best friend, Hassan, has been executed by Taliban forces, and that Hassan left a message for Amir that contains an objective which is to go to the post-war Afghanistan and retrieve Hassan's Son, Sohrab, from the hands of the Taliban forces trying to turn him into a Hazara Slave.

That was a small brief summary of the novel, now let me give you details about this novel and what I think of it after I've finished reading it. The novel consists of 401 pages and each part of this novel is divided to different time eras (ex. 1978, 1981, 2001). The storyline was great and easy to comprehend and follow throughout the book, characters are lively and have multi-personalities which is a great approach that Khaled Hosseini did and is one that we can't find in other novels.

So, the characters are realistic, the storyline is charismatic, what about the pace of the novel...well, its not slow and its not fast which is the only drawback that I've noticed in this novel, I am not that of a fast reader, my average reading rate per day is 30 pages and it took me about 2 weeks to read it, and believe me when I tell you that this book dragged me thorugh sleepless nights, it was so irresistable and full of intensful moments that keep you hanged on to it. This book is especially dedicated to the homeless children of Afghanistan that live the daily life of horror and tragedy and will teach us several things including Afghan culture, Afghan names, The life of pre and post-war Afghanistan, The Taliban Terror and even small phrases and words in Farsi scattered throughout the book.

End Result: This is one hell of a book after all that deserves all of your precious times whether you like reading or not. Personally, I give this book a 9.5/10 for the only drawback of having a normal-paced read (not fast, not slow) other than that, it's pure class. For those who would like to see the movie of the same name I also recommend, The movie basically is 2.5 hours long and has Persian (Irani and Afghan) actors, The main language is Persian with english subtitles...As I said dear reader...If you haven't read this book yet, then you are cheating yourself.

(for more information and personal quote about this book please don't hesitate to get in touch with me).

"CS:Source" Addiction

I am a very big fan of Counter Strike game and I confess that I have been playing this game for more than 5 years, since the first 1.3 version came out, however, there are limits, and by limits I mean the actual continuous time spent setting in front of the screen getting...umm, what term shall I use?...mmm....yes, ADDICTED!

I am not in any way addicted to this game and never will be, I mean for someone as old as I am will feel ashamed spending most of his time playing Counter Strike. In Jeddah, there is a game networking place called Golden Entertainment Center and it's where you are most likely vulnerable to people infected with CSSAS (Counter Strike Source Addiction Syndrome), I go there almost every week since November 2008 and my limit for playing Counter Strike is 3 straight hours, I CANNOT last more than that and what I am trying to clear here is the way other people last for hours and hours and hours...I am not talking about 3 or 4 hours weekly like my case..but for 5 hours DAILY! yes DAILY!!

One of My friends (better not mention his name) I meet there every week who actually wakes up at 4PM (not having a socialized life) and goes there at 5PM is infected with CSSAS and his beginnings was spending EIGHTEEN HOURS DAILY playing CS and that is exactly the working time of Golden Entertainment Center (7am to 1am), for me trying to cure him was one big approach I made towards this poor filla, it's just hard for me to see someone throwing his own future away, because if he was 10 or 11 years old I wouldn't have cared but he is 21 for god's sakes, and that includes all the familiar faces I see in that place every week, on the same chair, playing the same game, repeating the same map over and over again, but anyway, my advices were useless and I am glad he had learned the hard way at last.

Let's take a look at how much an average of one CSSAS-infected individual spends on this addiction per time period.

1 account preloaded with 16 hours= 50 SR
1 hour for recharging your account= 5 SR

Assuming an individual spends 6 hours daily, and that means that 16 hours will finish in 2.75 days, so...

3rd day 2x5= 10 SR
4th day 6x5= 30SR

and so the list goes on...that sums it all to be about 840 SR for the first month...what a shame and what a waste of money...that of course excludes extra drinks, food, and obviously enough, packs of cigarettes, because the majority their are smokers.

Pathetic, Pathetic, Pathetic. I am unable to describe in words the way these people take life as if its a CS game, and I am sure that doesn't happen anywhere in the world.

Driving License Lag

OK,Lets be honest shall we, we all had troubles in Dallah Driving School (unless you got it via the famous UNDER TABLE Saudi method of getting things done), and based on the ideology of Saudi people...well, you know what I am talking about.You might think that the school still has that old system of Succeed (you get the license) or Fail (you don't get the license), but that old system is history.

However, now, there is a new system, which I rather call...unnecessary. Simply by going to the reception (and that is if there is an officer in command there) and ask for an application, you fill in your details just like the usual, and pay a fee of 425 SR...and you still haven't entered the test, so you go to the registration dude and give him your application, he signs on it and stamps some weird blue block with the initials A,B,C and D.

So, you have your papers, your pictures and every document you need, and your finally down to the driving test motorway (perhaps not the most appropriate word to use),anyway, you wait your turn in the blazing heat of the sun, you wait while you see groups of 5 people entering a 2005 Toyota Camry...and when I tell you 2005 don't go "mmm... these guys must have finally bought new cars that replace the medieval Toyota Cressida" no, because firstly, Cressida's will exist in Saudi Arabia for a thousand years to come, and Secondly, the Camry isn't that healthy looking from the outside (the car looks like its fought WWIII)...and that concludes my guess about the Camry before I've ridden in it.

Our turn Comes, and I get to set in the back seat with 2 Filipinos and one 35 year old Egyptian in the front who took the first turn, and beside him was one middle-aged officer with the rank of 2 stripes on his shoulder.

The Egyptian wasn't that bad at driving the car, especially and cornering and shifting gears, but he had forgotten to lower the handbrake before he'd set off, and he was awful at braking, he dubs the brake with such a fast and strong pace continuously, which made him get on the officer's nerve, which then made the officer take his file and write something on it...the guy left and now was the Filipino's turn.

Both of these guys were the same, everything seems to have gone smoothly with them, no faults...nothing at all, they parked on the officer's command and took there folders and also wrote something on their folders. Now it was finally down to me, I was fidgeting,the officer saw from my pares that I was saudi so he was acting all friendly and shit.To be brutally honest,I don't why in God's name did I even attempt to get in a manual transmission test (that is if I even get to have the automatic transmission test), Well let me tell you something you don;t know dear reader...I DON'T KNOW HOW TO DRIVE A MANUAL TRANSMISSION CAR...yes, I don't know...I know the basics and what I had to do but I never tried it practically, I lowered the handbrake, dubbed the clutch down until your foot bends 45 degrees upwards (god bless Honda cars, little clutch effort), put it in first and let go of the clutch...vroom...vroooooom, the car was idle..I rechecked again then...vroooooooooom...vrom vrom vroooom...it was revving but wasn't budging until i applied the full throttle down the pedal which let the rear tires squeal

He took my papers and it was right then that I was able to Figure out what the A,B,C,D initials stand for...they were level of experience in driving, A the best and D the worst, obviously enough like an amateur in a manual car...I got a D, So i went down to the registration window and asked to be registered in the D class session...The young Saudi employee told me that D class sessions start in 2 sessions at 2 months only during the year...August and on October,and when I heard him murmur that...my blood pressure hit 140.

I mean seriously, I am 18 years old and I am an idiot at driving a manual stick, how do you expect me to stay until August and we are in April now? and ontop of all that he told me that there is an additional fee of 435 SR so that sums up to 860 SR for the whole cursed license thingy, I grinned and requested my papers back and left unsatisfied...and this concludes my protest about Saudi governmental agencies...a pain in the nick and in the end you will get...umm...better not say.