Forgotten...

  Now that I arrived in Jeddah on the 12th of September, there seems to be alot of things that I miss about Istanbul and its people, and regrets are always by my side, that means that I was a bit oblivious about what going on there, and didn't care much for what will happen when I go back to Crapsville.

  So to clarify things I am gonna write a list of things I should have brought back with me, including souvenirs, pictures, and other miscellaneous.

- Penguin Comic Newspapers

  They are not actually newspapers, but those mini-newspaper like magazines that has drawings similar to that of the pages of comic books, those Penguin Newspapers usually give bad reviews of Turkish government and also portray Recep Erdogan.

  You might be wondering what I want of these, it might not be the fun of it, but mostly for me...not forgetting my Turkish and keep on reading.

- My iPod

  I am dying to know who stole my iPod, its priceless for containing tracks I don't even have on my PC...though there are many conclusions as to who or where it got stolen, those may include: class, Mosque, or pick-pocket masters on istiklal street...most probably being in the Mosque.

- Dating

  Now you know that I am not the type of guy who dates...I never did actually, and who doesn't get around with chicks alot, but before going there, I was hoping to get a chance from a good spot and from an interesting occasion (not from some random night club, hitch hikers or something shit).

  All in all, I enjoyed a hangout in a silent night that sees no moonlight with a girl named Pelin to Ortakoy and had some fried potatoe, playing chess with and American classmate and licking my own wounds.

- The Pamukcu Family

  My beloved Turkish neighbors, it was too sad for me meeting them at a late time and that is just 4 days before I went back, I really loved every family member and that was for there decency and there invitations to Iftar in my last day.

  Mustafa, being the root of all connections in the family, was the most religious teenager I came across in my stay, 24 years old, Chinese-speaking, was a good practice for my Turkish for the reason that he was unable to speak English, his brother's dream is to go for Hajj before he dies.

- Unfinished Business

  Nothing is more challenging than a game of chess with Fatih Ozcelik, ex room-mate and tourist guide, this guy is about my level in chess, our games go down to 30-40 minutes per game just to show how tight we play against each other... end score for all our combined games was 9-3 for my advantage.

  Fatih was also the center of fun in the first days of my arrival, until he got dismissed for some reason related to his tourism agency.

- Hacioglu & Taksim Lades

  Ever heard of Lahmmacun? it was my favorite dish of Turkish traditional food from Hacioglu fast food restaurants, cheap yet delicious...for Arabs reading this, it kind of resembles Safeeha...meat spread on a dough.

  Taksim Lades, the most restaurant I have visited in Istanbul...I had Iftar there every single day after being welcomed by the Turkish waiter who had a Cockney English-accent and later told me that he goes every winter to Nottingham *bending his head to his right*.

  These conclude all of the things I miss in Istanbul or the things I want them to be beside me now, I just hope to go there next summer.

Top 5 Achievement Hunting Games

  This is interesting to talk about, have you ever wanted to boost up that Gamerscore of yours, how does 400G or 500G for a game feel like?

  Well, it's as easy as a walk in a park, but there are certain games you should get your hands on...let me guide you and guide you and get started (note that these games are based on my own experience and point of view):

5) Halo 3

  Being one of the first games I bought on the 360, I started out with no hopes of getting any achievements, but indeed and without knowing, it contains a total of 1750G, one third of which are easy to achieve , it is with no doubt the #1 game in terms of achievement points.

  Whenever you complete one level from the campaign you get 20-40G. its a piece of cake, and you can do it on any difficulty as well, finish the game and you get 125G, however, it is not only limited to offline play achievements, there are also multiplayer achievements for online play.

  This is a must-have for achievement hunters out there, if you play this online you won't regret it


4) Prince of Persia

  When you first start this game, it gives you 10G like that, for "beginning your adventure" I kid you not, you also get achievements with a minimum of 10G for collecting light seeds, helping Elika more often,and speed killing enemies ontop of 20G for defeating every boss in the game, which you will eventually have to reach in the end., one of the reasons why this game is full of easy achievments is because it has a long campaign, and too many bosses.

  To make this easy on you, you have to get used to killing enemies before they spawn, collecting as much light seeds as you can, and not depending on Elika to save you, throwing enemies off cliffs, using the environment to finish them off, and using multiple combos when attacking...and the result is...achievements pouring into your account.


3) Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

  If your not a fan of FPS games then CoD 4 is not for you, if you want all the worthy achievements you have to play on Veteran difficulty which has the slogan "You Will Not Survive" and indeed you will NOT survive, if you managed to break the rusty locks and be up to Veteran difficulty, then you will get every possible achievement in this game, for completing one mission on Veteran difficulty you get 40G, and if you've never played the game before and started off with Veteran difficulty then I salute you because you will be getting 60G per mission completion.

  Other Achievements include breaking some TVs that has Al-Asad's images, collecting Intel info, completing the first mock-up in seconds, and rescuing a squad mate in some level, and as such the list continues, all achievements are easy to earn except the ones that require the Veteran difficulty setting, but that's good for us, so that we can be up to the online multiplayer level.


2) X-Men Origins: Wolverine

  My point of view, the best hack n' slash game of the year no doubt, Achievements are infested in this game, really easy to get, and fun to do, these include combos, killing 1000 enemies, throwing off cliffs and edges, and using feral senses to strike.

   I think whomever wants a good start for achievement hunting should pick X-men up, and play at normal or hard difficulty, on top of that, you also get achievements for finding easter eggs in the game, and thats all about it...if you want to do so, you should look up a video in youtube. As a start, you would easily accumulate 500G in your first game finish, play it again and see what you have missed by reading walkthroughs.


1) Bioshock

  Although being stupid long, achievements are worthy to earn but not hard, upgrade your weapons, kill bosses, buy tonic slots, and fully research enemies, this will do the trick.


  Out of all the games I played, I earned the most achievements in this game, more than 50% I guess, the game is long but you won't feel how long it is, just play and enjoy those points.

  The only thing I don't understand however is the achievements that say "Fully research the..." , but regardless of that, this will definitly be the #1 on my list of Achievement Hunting.
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And this concludes my list for this post, I hope you like it, and I promise to come back with more interesting stuff in the near future.

The End of The Road

Today, as some of you might know, was the last day of my Turkish language course, to be honest, I have learned alot in 4 weeks to the point that I can communicate in restaurants or shopping centers, it was also entertaining...didn't feel bored at all, my classmates were friendly (more than I expected) ...
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And here I will list each and everyone of them and a glimpse of their personalities (just for the fun of it) :

1) Senim (Germany) : a talkative girl who flirts alot with us guys, aged 16 and the youngest of all.

2) Selim (France) : a non-English speaking guy who flirts with Senim at times, considered to be funny by his idiocy, was once kicked out after having an issue with a substitute tutor, aged 17, currently resides in Paris.

3) Han-na (South Korea) : Super-Friendly, Super-Generous, seems to have a problem controlling her voice's volume, I rely on her to send me our pictures and that is because she has a 999999 mega-pixel camera, those ones with a big scope. Aged 25, currently resides in Istanbul for 2 years of University.

4) Kemal-Jan (China) : a peaceful guy who has audio Koran in his mobile and likes to listen to the azaan although he is a non-Muslim, aged 21, resides in Istanbul for University.

5) Ishak (China) : Kemal-Jan's close friend, and his sister's boyfriend, an entertaining guy in all means, I had a good time exchanging my Saudi Riyals with Chinese Yuan, aged 23, currently resides in his country.

6) Maria (Russia) : a mysterious girl who doesn't like to get along with us, provided she didn't attend the last day which was the big and final uniting of us all, aged ?? , she resides in Moscow.

7) Luda (Ukraine) : being from Ukraine, she gets along with Maria pretty easily, likes to shre her opinions with us, has 9 cats , one of which is 7 kg (according to her). Aged 39, and is the eldest amongst us all, Resides in her country.

8) Kimberly (USA) : Outgoing, Clumsy, she is the only native English speaker in class, aged 20, currently on exchange, but lives in San Francisco.

9) Nadya (Ukraine) : with no doubt, she is the most fluent Turkish speaker amongst us all, I dont know why she attends the Level 1 course, preparing for her marriage soon, aged 28, resides in her country.

10) Deniz (Germany) : an English speaker, the funniest person you will ever come across, I enjoyed hanging out with him along with Kimberly, aged 27, studies photography in Bochum, Germany, and resides there.

11) Zahra (Iran) : I don't know much about this girl, she attended only for a week, she disappeared under unknown circumstances, nobody knows anything about her, and nothing has been heard of her since then, age is unknown, residence unknown.

12) Myself : Being the only Arab, and Muslim in class, felt weird fasting among the others, but everybody acknowledged my case, usually acting as the human dictionary for Deniz.

Our Teacher...

Ms. Elif (Turkey) : a bright, young woman, speaking English and Russian, very outgoing, aged 24, lives on the Asian side of Istanbul.

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On the last day, we all had this unification party before everybody goes his own way, was alot of fun... I also had the pleasure to write there names in Arabic after I was forced to by them, I will sure miss these guys alot.