Owner: The Drivel of 2 Bahrainis URL:www.bahrainidrivel.com Join Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2007 07:21:09 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: This blog is where my cousin "Khalid Saad" and I "Munther Almudawi" air our thoughts, ideas, memories and day to day happenings to yous, which to the normal minded person would be basically considered drivel "hence the name of the blog" Both of us come fr Site statistics:Click here
British Comedy 2007-06-16 13:55:24 I’ve managed to skive blog duties for a while but I couldn’t escape the hot seat today, especially with my co-blogger “khalid” acting as lazy as ever; he is in it for the glory you see !!
Anyway, the main event in a very slow “writer blocked” weekend, was receiving a nice CD of a mate as a present titled “Scottish Laughs”. The CD; which I’ve converted into mp3s to play on my iPod; consisted mainly of Billy Connolly’s gigs. Listening to the gigs got me thinking of how different the material is to the stuff on American comedies. I’ve always preferred the British
material to the American; hold on ! Thats a lie ! I started loving British comedy while I was on my third or forth year of my studies thanks to a certain someone ! Compared with American comedy, I find it built around sarcasm which suites me quite well; while the american comedy builds its laughs on the actor being stupid “Joey is a very good example&rdquo Read more:Comedy
A Greener Bahrain 2007-06-20 12:47:20 As many of you know, Bahrain was once known as the “island of a million palm trees”. Unfortunately, that’s history now and what we have today is a concrete jungle instead. If you look at an aerial picture of Bahrain, you easily notice how yellow the place is as opposed to say Abu Dhabi, which you wouldn’t even think is a desert.
For a while, at least for the government, a garden meant having a few swings, maybe a basketball court, a café, few trees and plants here and there and loads of brick. Even the walkways weren’t green enough. The word green must have not been in their dictionary. I think the general complaint was that it’s too expensive to maintain those gardens, yet, you look at other cities and notice that they use sewage water instead and thrive in keeping their cities green.
I remember last summer, there were some serious talks about making the country a greener place, etc. and that this initiative would start with planting more trees here and there and with t Read more:Greener
Are You Getting Old ? 2007-06-25 11:56:55 A mate of mine sent me a sound clip a couple of days ago, it is a fairly interesting one and I thought that I’d share it with you all, basically it’s a test for your ears to tell whether you are getting old or not ! Now I played it at the office today and it drove several people mad apart from a couple of older guys who claimed that they heard something but it wasn’t as bad as some of the guys claim it to be.
powered by ODEO
The whole story behind this quite evil sound “depends on your age bracket” is a welsh security company which created a ground breaking invention “the sound” and marketed it as an ultrasonic teenager repellent, an ear-splitting 17-kilohertz buzzer designed to help shopkeepers disperse young people loitering in front of their stores while leaving adults unaffected. Hmmm … Welsh you say ? I should’ve known ! There is something about those welsh that freaks the living daylight out of me ! Give it a shot
Bahrain in 2030: Vision for the future!!! 2007-06-24 16:14:36 Looks like the days of the “Do now plan later” mentality are coming to an end, well, we hope so. Be prepared, these are the first renders of what Bahrain should look like in 2030. The master plan itself was developed by SOM (Skidmore Owings and Merrill), the people behind the Bahrain Business Bay and Burj Dubai, whereas the renders were developed by the local Muharraqi Studios (these guys are awesome).
My first thoughts were: Thank God, there is lots of greenery, green here, green there, in some areas, green everywhere. Am sure this vision was somewhat inspired by Singapore as it has always been used as a model for economic development and national planning. Having been there myself, I can see some similarities and that’s always welcome. After all, you want to emulate the best. Just as there is greenery here and there, there are now more islands, look right, look left, look ahead or look back, you only see more and more. If I was an environmentalist, I would have lots of white ha
Scary Hijab Trends 2007-06-23 08:24:25 What’s with this new trend regarding Hijab
s ? I barely got over the bandanna style which surfaced with the release of Pirates of the Caribbean 2 (last year’s trend) and now this ? Last night, I’ve been to Lilo’s Cafe and noticed that most of the girls who wore hijabs had this weird hump on their heads ! And man ! The conversations which this PHENOMENAL sparked was long and funny ! The whole thing mainly concentrated on the reasons behind this trend ? And on a lighter subject how do they get the hijab to do that ? And also if anybody considered this attractive !
One of my mates who’s a considered the womenizer of the group claims that it originated in Saudi Arabia where girls uses this “fashionable’ method to tell guys that they are single and looking for somebody ! Wow I never thought that we’d get an Arabian version of Shag Tag Night ! While another mate “I call him the religious one” claims that its one of the “g Read more:Scary
, Trends
How To Revive An Airline!!! 2007-06-23 03:58:48 I came back from work yesterday and the first thing I do besides taking off my shoes and dropping my backpack is checking CNN International for the latest news, or whatever I missed while at work. There was the usual news (Mideast, North Korea, etc.) but this time, there was something quite interesting and it involved aviation. It’s not the story of the proposed space trips by several aviation bodies such as Virigin or EADS, but that of a struggling Ecuadorian airline.
Now I look at this stricltly from a business point of view and not from an ethical persepective. This particular airline suffered from sluggish sales i.e. very low demand for its services. Traditional measures would have been cost cutting, more focused marketing, introduction of even more competitive prices and improved services. This airline (Icaro) did none of the above, but just introduced one more service (they didn’t even upgrade any of their other services): Drop-dead gorgeous models in bikinis!!!.
Thi Read more:Revive
, Airline
Unemployed Fund = Slackers Fund 2007-06-22 09:28:01 OK, I’ve received confirmed news that the government will take THAT controversial % 1 out of my salary starting next month. Now, I am no scrooge but to have money deducted from my hard earned salary for slackers is just unfair ! People are talking about a women who comes from a well off family applying to the fund and; believe it or not; got accepted !
I don’t know which annoys me the most, the fact that MPs and Ministers are not gonna get that stupid tax deducted from their hard earned money, or the fact that those who work for the ministry of interior affairs and the army got a pardon so that they don’t get taxed either ! I wonder if that job offer at the army is still standing ?
So what do you all think ? Are you with or against this so called unemployed fund ?
Your two pennies ? your %1 ??: Read more:Unemployed
Where are we headed??? 2007-06-28 13:58:36 Looking at my previous thread and some of the comments that were posted and a converstaion that I had with Moe a few days ago about Bahrain in general, I thought I’d actually dedicate a thread to this.
Correct me if am wrong, but there seems to be a feeling of pessimism towards where this country is headed although we hear and read otherwise. I quote Moe saying, “We’re going to be the next Cairo”. According to many reports that I read, there seems to be loads of optimism and Bahrain is in what you’d call the phase of revival or regrowth. That is looking at the bright side of things. Obviously you read about the things that you don’t want to happen which is always not pleasing.
Everyone seems to be agreeing on the fact that the middle class needs to grow but not much effort is being exerted to actually achieve such a goal or to be more specific, genuine effort. According to governmental statistics, our unemployment was reduced by 11% from 15% to 4%
My top 10 80s Cartoons (English) 2007-06-26 13:03:35 I’m feeling quite nostalgic again tonight so what’s the best cure for such yearnings ? Well, a browse through YouTube is always a good option ! I’ve compiled my top 10 cartoons’ intro clips. You can watch them below. See if you can recall any of them.
The intros have an 80s feeling to them obviously but deep thought and great care was taken in composing them that you still can feel the complexity and quality of work done in such cartoons, unlike what we get in todays toons, not that I’d know though !
Anyway here is my list:
10 - Galaxy Rangers: RIP Saudi Channel 3 “Aramco”
9- G.I. Joe: My uncle got me a betamax tape “How retro, eh ?” and I was hooked ! My dad didn’t like it because he had to spend a fortune on action figures
8- Gummi Bears: See not all my cartoons were related to action ! Showing my softer side here
7- MASK: Ok back to action (proper boy stuff) The music is soooooo 80s”
6 Read more:Cartoons
, English
While Waiting For The iPhone 2007-07-02 01:49:40 I keep telling myself not to get dragged into the iPhone
craze; very hard for an apple fan apparently. But this is too good to ignore!
Good God !! What a div He almost had a heart attack !
Will have to do with the YouTube until I get my hands on one Read more:Waiting
How long is my commute? 2007-07-01 12:37:44 Am sure as you all know, travelling time by cars has dramatically increased over the years and it seems that things are only likely to get worse. Well how bad is it really??? GulfTalent.co has actually conducted a survey of the following issue and the results were somewhat of a surprise. The study involved 5000 professionals from 14 different middle eastern cities and the results were as follows:
Average Commute Time Per day:
Total Return Journey (To and From work) by Place of Work
Dubai –> 1 hour 45 minutes (Sharjah to Dubai –> 2 hours and 44 minutes)
Cairo –> 1 hour 33 minutes
Sharjah –> 1 hour 8 minutes
Doha - –> 56 minutes
Dammam –> 55 minutes
Beirut –> 55 minutes
Kuwait –> 55 minutes
Amman –> 53 minutes
Riyadh –> 49 minutes
Abu Dhabi –> 48 minutes
Muscat –> 48 minutes
Manama –> 48 minutes
Khobar –> 47 minutes
Jeddah
The Fish Are Out To Get Me !! 2007-06-30 08:42:29 Yesterday, I went out on a friend’s boat. The only thing I wanted to know was my estimated survival time when I fell in the sea. Would it be faster or slower than Leonardo Dicaprio in Titanic? You see there is something about the calm sea that scares the living lights out of me ! I mean, there are no guarantees when it comes to the sea ! Catch my flow ?
Anyway, 10 minutes into the trip and suddenly… wooooooossssssshhhhhhh something flies at me from the sea ! Great ! Now the fish are out to get me ! Long gone the days of me worrying about getting hit by a bus, a car, or the classic airplane crash ! Now I have to worry about small, needle nosed fish jumping out of the water thinking that it’s a frickin’ cruise missile. The next time I go to the sea, I’ll be wearing full body armor. I sure hope it floats !
The guilty Party
I realize that these evil little things live in certain areas in Bahrain. But they are obviously determined. And what makes things even worse is
What An Odd Thing To Say 2007-07-05 03:45:18 Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies.
Gore Vidal. (1925)
What an odd thing to say ! Read more:Thing
Apu’s Shop (Simpsons) is for REAL 2007-07-04 06:03:33 Now that’s marketing ! As part of a promotion for the Simpsons
movie, a chain of American supermarkets turned its stores into Kwik-E-Marts “Apu’s Shop”. I love the fact that they are selling items which previously had been on the show like Squishees and Homer’s Donuts. Checkout the photos:
Innovative Marketing “Thumbs up”
Buzz Beer
Always wanted to try those
And those
KrustyO’s ? Looks so unhealthy “Good thing in my books BTW”
Checkout the rest of the galary !! [Linky]
As you must’ve noticed, I am a big simpsons fan. How I wished to try some of the stuff shown on the show when ever a Squishee, donut, etc.. is consumed by the characters ! Silly ? Well, I don’t bloody care !!! Wish “24hrs” would do something similar over here !!
Your two pennies lads and lassies
Glasgow Bombing 2007-07-03 05:30:28 I’ve been wanting to write this ever since it happened 3 days ago but everytime I set to do so, words failed me ! I am talking about the Glasgow
Airport bombing. What I don’t understand is why would someone do such a thing to the Scots ? I’ve lived there for 5 years and never in my life was I treated badly while there, to the contrary, I’ve been treated as if I was one of them and felt that I belonged there, felt at home and still do consider it my second country !
The cowardly attack was plotted by radical extremists who has nothing to do with the pure name of Islam ! These bastards are animals and shouldn’t be given a chance ! Execute them ! The animals ! How dare they attach the name of such a peaceful and forgiving religion to their barbarian acts ? And attack who ? Peace loving friendly people ?
I love the fact that these guys didn’t die, or they would’ve got away lightly ! Hope they suffer as much as possible ! These are the animals who d Read more:Bombing
Best Misspelled Sign Ever !! 2007-07-09 08:30:35 So this is where dangerous people have their hair cut
The thought of who might be there, scares the daylight outta me !
P.S: The sign was meant to be spelled “Eiffel” as in Eiffel Tower
Funny, Only in Bahrain
Twisted Toys 2007-07-08 12:20:32 It’s been a rather interesting week, ups and downs as usual but it’s been very positive towards the end, which is always great. The weather definately helped, suppose when you have monsoon style weather for 3 weeks in mid summer and long days, frustration is your shadow in a way. Anyways, all this sun has been keeping me lazy mentally so I won’t be writing anything groudbreaking or arguing constructively, although am physically very active, good 3 hour walks for the last two days.
Now you might be wondering what on earth does this have to do with “twisted toys”???
Getting to this point, well during my earlier siesta, one where I just drifted off to some other weird world, probably partly influenced by Die Hard 4 yesterday (good movie btw especially if you love high tech stuff) and somehow started thinking of “Bride of Chuckie”. Don’t ask me how, if it was a puzzle, I would never be able to complete it. This brought to mind the work of Read more:Twisted
Addicted To Blogging 2007-07-07 17:13:09 Ok people I am officially addicted to blogging ! Hold on, if I wasn’t I wouldn’t be up at this hour, posting THIS !
74%How Addicted
to Blogging
Are You?
Give the test a shot and find out how addicted you really are
Blogging, Fun
Blog Updated Again 2007-07-07 14:09:26 Ok, the blog have been updated yet again, but this is here to stay I guess !
I owe a big thank you to my friend moody from Zainal Bahrain for helping me with the coding and rectifying a very buggy theme !
Cheers mate, I believe that I owe you a Starbuck’s !
Blogging Read more:Again
New 7 Wonders 2007-07-07 06:04:55 The day is finally here, the 7 new wonders of the world are going to be unveiled in a declaration ceremony tonight in Lisbon, Portugal. The event is also available via live streaming. But sadly you can only watch if you voted so booohhhhoooo for those who didn’t vote ! Shame on you all, erm I never voted actually and I hang my head down in shame !
One thing really caught my attention, most of the candidates failed to convince me that they deserve to be considered a wonder, why ?
Because in my humble opinion I define a wonder as something which can’t be duplicated. Something which you can’t help but feel admiration and respect towards its creators. While some of the candidates satisfied my description most failed to do so, a good example of that is:
The Statue of Liberty
The Eiffel Tower
The Oprah House of Sydney
No offense, but how on earth did these lock horns with the likes of The Lost City of Machu Picchu and The Great Pyramids of Giza ? I mean thank god the Read more:Wonders
Words of wisdom 2007-07-12 18:03:18 Life is like a pack of chewing-gum; I’ve yet to figure out why
Drivel, Personal Read more:Words
World’s Richest Man: An Arab!!! 2007-07-11 14:10:00 Probably most of you have never heard of him and yup, he’s of arab decent. This guy has come up the ranks like the speed of light, from complete anonymity to a hero. Put it this way, if we look at arabs, he’s worth nearly 3 times Alwaleed, that’s how big the gap is. In 2 years, he increased his wealth by $37.8 billion, that would make him the 3rd richest man, surpassing IKEA’s Ingvar Kamprad. After all those years (13 if am not wrong) on top of the pyramid, Bill Gates finally moves one step down.
Well, without further due, meet 67 year old Carlos Slim Helu, the world’s telecom guru.
A bit more about Carlos Helu:
Son of Julian Slim Haddad Aglamaz, a Maronite Lebanese from Jezzine who moved to Mexico City in 1902 and started a dry goods store “Star of the Orient” (La Estrella del Oriente) in 1911 then purchased real estate in the heart of the city and this spelled the beginning of what is set to become Mexico’s and ultimately Latin America& Read more:World
Timekeeping ? 2007-07-11 07:10:39 What’s with Bahrainis and poor timekeeping ?
I mean really ! What does it take to leave your place 5 minutes earlier to be on time ? Bahrain is not exactly a vast country, yet still we fail to keep time.
Enough bloody said !
Bahrain, Personal, Rant
When NOT to hyphenate your name 2007-07-16 16:08:24 How on earth did these people see nothing wrong with joining their names together for their weddings. No offense to the people concerned !
Funny, Humor
Golden League ‘Freak’ Accedent 2007-07-15 17:31:18 The guys today were talking about this but I didn’t believe it until I saw it !
ROME (Reuters) - French long jumper Salim Sdiri was not seriously injured despite being impaled by a javelin at a GoldenLeague
meeting in Rome, the stadium announcer said on Friday.
The incident occurred midway through the evening when Finn Tero Pitkamaki slipped at the end of his run-up, hurling the javelin to the left of the landing area and spearing Sdiri in his right side as he crouched in the long jump warm-up section.
A medical crew and ambulance were quickly at the scene to attend to Sdiri and then take him to hospital.
[read more]
Any news on Sdiri’s injury ?
Golden League, Javelin Accedent, Pitkamaki, Sdiri Read more:Freak
My Web 2.0 Obsession 2007-07-14 10:11:06 OK ! I have a confession to make ! I’ve developed an unhealthy obsession ! The whole thing started some 6 months ago, when the whole world went ape shaped for everything web 2.0. Yes, here you go! I’ve admitted it, I am a web 2.0 tart
Before anyone asks me “what is Web 2.0?” I have to warn you all that unfortunately it’s a little tricky to provide a straight answer. Every time I find a neat expression for summing the whole Web 2.0 thing up, I immediately think of an exception, or three, or ways that the definition doesn’t really get us anywhere.
So I’ll give the names of my favorite Web 2.0 sites, in hope to make things clearer:
wordpress: [Linky]
Do I need to say why ?
last.fm: [Linky]
Described as a smart-radio station, it learns of your previously played music “on your PC” and suggests/plays music depending on your taste
youtube: [Linky]
We are all Youtubetastic by now, if not, well, you must’ve been living in a cave !
odeo Read more:Obsession
Playing Swapsies 2007-07-18 15:23:35 If the title doesn’t make sense to you, take a few seconds and think about it, what would people love to swap???
You hear a lot of people saying I can give you this for that, typically for small things or at times cars or football players. But how about house swapping, doesn’t that sound cool?
It’s actually not a new phenomenon, this has been going on for many years but only city professionals and retired people did it. Now it’s becoming quite widespread and more people are embracing the idea. The basic idea is that you can swap houses for a short period of time, up to a few weeks, mainly for holidays. Now this is a brilliant idea, it’ll cut your accommodation costs big time. You might be thinking though, how secure is this?
This is where the added brilliance comes into place, what I tend to call “entrepreneurship at its best”. Agencies were created to help bring people together and house-swapping contracts were drafted, which not only facilitated the whole process but
iPhone’s Father 2007-07-20 17:03:53 Guess what I’ve bumped into while doing my usual rounds on the net ?
Apparently Apple’s been thinking about this whole phone thing for a long time. Here is an Apple smartphone design concept from the middle ages (wait, I mean 1983).
Seriously, for 1983 that thing looks pretty cool, doesn’t it ?
80s, Apple, iPhone
, Old iPhone Read more:Father
Free at Last 2007-07-22 15:33:56 Free at last !! I have handed in my resignation today ! That’s IT no more teaching ! No more working with difficult teenagers and best of all no more working with people with old fashioned ideas and ways of thinking !
Now don’t get me wrong, I did enjoy my time during the past 3 years teaching. I loved the spark students had in their eyes after understanding the lesson, especially with % 90 of them being under achievers. But the time had come for the shackles to be taken off, a new challenge is due and boy am I ready for it !
I’ll say this for the LAST time: wearing gloves while gas welding is NOT ALLOWED
So long Shaikh Khalifa Institute of Technology (SKIT), the memories you have given me are priceless
Resignation, Work
Filipino Inmates Do Thriller 2007-07-21 16:20:28 Honestly, I’m speechless: this is one of the greatest things I’ve ever seen on Youtube. This clip is taken from what is supposed to be part of a rehabilitation service that inmates in a certain Filipino
prison must go through. Every single inmate in this prison did Michael Jackson’s famous Thriller
video.
1,500 Filipinos stumbled upon each other like zombies, then broke into the infamous dance when they corner “Michael Jackson” and his erm, transvestite girlfriend.
According to the YouTube page, this isn’t the final article. And if that’s not enough, they’ve done dancing routines from other movies too Clicky.
Filipino Prison, Micheal Jackson, Thriller, YouTube
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