Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Very Wrong

The wrong-est and funniest status yesterday, by comedian Doug Stanhope

"I have a very funny image in my head of being on ChatRoulette and stumbling upon the 33 trapped Chilean miners."

Monday, August 30, 2010

Too Harsh or Too Real?


In my opinion, it sounds a little harsh, mainly in suggesting that the poor in Jordan deserve what they're going through.

On the other side, when you are poor , you're not supposed to have many kids, because you spend a shit load of money just by raising one kid. This is a lesson that I hope Jordan will understand one day.

One thing for sure: الولد ما بتيجي رزقته معه.

If you disagree, you deserve the shitty life you're having.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

An Arab man beating a German woman during a football game, live on TV

This is Khaled Boulahrouz (you can't see him in this short clip), shooting a ball from the other side of the field, which hit the German reporter Jessica Kastrop right in the head.

So that's what we're having now, random Arab men beating women on screen and getting away with it.

Here's a clip of this horrifying incident



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(for those politically-correct people: it really doesn't matter that it wasn't intentional, and that Boulahrouz apologized later, and she accepted the apology, and that Boulahrouz is Dutch, born and lived there all of his life and represented Holland in the World Cup. What matters is his strange name and that he kicked that blonde woman in the head. I ask the honorable Dutch people to deport the browny. Meanwhile: WOMEN: listen to your husbands when they tell you to stay in the kitchen. They know better. I hope this incident teaches you why. You're welcome)

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

True Blood


It's been a while since my clothes were soaked with other patients' blood, especially that I haven't performed a lot of medical procedures recently.

But there's once incident that I will never forget.

It was a hectic day in the ICU, and just before going home a patient developed a cardiac arrest. Being the senior resident, I started running the "code blue", in which you run the show and start putting IVs in necks and groins and blood starts flying everywhere in the room.

As I went home (patient survived that night but died later), I have not noticed that my white shirt and dark blue pants were soaked with blood on the side.

I was about to enter my apartment, my neighbor was outside on his patio with his girlfriend watching the sunset , or just chillin after smoking Arizona's annual reserve of marijuana. He saw me going into into the apartment.

I heard him shout at me, "dude, are you OK?"

"Yes, what's wrong?"

"What issss dis on your shirts, is dat blood? did you hurt yourself?"

"No I'm OK, uhm, I'm OK"
then I looked at the shirts and pants,

I continued, "I'm OK, I don't think this is my blood, not mine, no, doesn't look like it ..."

I noticed a glimpse of semi-shock on his face, and shear terror on his girlfriend's. Then I realized that none of them knew I was a doctor.

I was about to tell them right away, but as the tension grew, as the frightened looks on their faces got more real, I forced myself to shut up. I even think I laughed a super creepy and low-pitched laugh that, if heard by them, would have been best described as spine-chilling.

I hate to say it, but that fear and horror I saw was very fulfilling! I totally get dictators and serial killers now.
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(message from hareega to the American Board of Internal Medicine: this incident, though real, does not disqualify me from doing my best to serve my patients and will in no way hinder me from performing my duty as a physician and I will never ever violate the Hippocratic oath. Please don't withdraw my licence. I also hate dictators and I'm not the biggest fans of Charlie Manson or other serial killers, at least not the other serial killers)

Monday, August 23, 2010

Attention Span, Interrupted



People underestimate the importance of discussions with other humans. These tons of meetings you go to everyday involve discussions about things that matter. A lot of decisions, some life-altering decisions like marriage, jobs, and which football team to root for come after lengthy and useful discussions with people who matter.

The reason these discussions are important, is that they bring in new ideas, and your ideas and beliefs may be challenged. Your knowledge is expanded, and your wisdom keeps growing.

As a very old man himself (30 years of age is like 88 in internet life), I have noticed the progressive disappearance of useful discussions on the internet.

I started using the (very slow) internet in Jordan in the mid-1990s. I remember exchanging a few emails with other people from other areas in the world, often debating different opinions and ideas, like politics and religion. These were good discussions, and I remember a few of them.

Message boards (the ones I used were arabia.com and mahjoob) were popular, and these discussions were actually very interesting at times. Then came blogs and everything else followed to allow any person with a keyboard to type in his own opinion.

Blogs often allow for some degree of civilized discussions depending on the blog itself. However most blogs are shallow. Worse, any comments can be deleted for whatever reason, thus making your voice unheard.

Facebook is worse, because you have very limited space to express anything. You may argue that facebook was made for people to stay in touch, but with every political activity or news coming around you'll find some discussions going around.

Twitter, Youtube, CNN, Huffington Post, Ammon News or any political/news website come on top of the worst of the worst because they almost entirely eliminated normal discussions. Comments need to be read first by the moderator, then edited if necessary, or deleted, then posted on the websites. They rarely allow for 2 people to interact and reply to each other immediately. Even if someone wants to express an idea like, "American movies are terrible" you don't have enough space to expand on your idea, or give reasons for it in a similar way you'll have while talking to normal human being on the street or in a cafe.

This might seem as a trivial problem in this day and age. But look around you and see how much time people (including Jordanians) are spending on these websites everyday and you'll realize that our attention spans are increasingly getting shorter. A lot of the knowledge that I have, a lot of the opinion I have formed in my life and a lot of skills in defending any action I have taken came as a result of thousands of discussions and debates I had with other human beings. It's a skill. Discussions reveal personality traits, passions, beliefs and intentions, and we seem to be losing focus in having them.

If you disagree, comment below in no more than 140 characters.

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(in the picture above Anna Kendrick b4 shooting Twilight OMG she's so pretty, and the picture below fireworks at Khalifah tower OMG they're so awesome)

Monday, August 09, 2010

Monday, August 02, 2010

How Movie Trailers Should Be

Mysterious. Exciting. Breath-taking. It doesn't tell you how the story will begin and doesn't give you an idea how will it end. It just impresses you enough to get you to go watch the movie once it's released.
This is a great movie trailer for Gamorrah, which also turned to be a great movie.