Video of the Month

My worst snow-throwing experience was throwing a ginormous snow ball at a taxi driver while he was driving. He got so upset that he drove his car onto the pavement and tried to run us over.

Do you have a bad snow-throwing experience?

Finally, We're in the Semi-Finals

And the top three will go to the World Cup
(damn it, whenever I google Jordan and basketball I get images os some tall black guy)

Jordanian Women Who Don't Work

More and more Jordanian households are starting to depend on the working woman's income. Clearly, Jordanian women are smarter and get much better grades than men. However there remains a big chunk of Jordanian women who do not work.

I like to classify them into certain groups.

1- The Born-To-Get-Married

Those women have no skills. They finished high school but they shouldn't have. Some of them got a college or a university degree afterwards and they shouldn't have, but they really have no skills. They have tried hard sometimes to learn something but they couldn't manage to be useful and no sane work place would hire them. They are the women who studied business but know nothing about business, studied English but can't speak it ....etc. They are everywhere. These women don't work and they shouldn't. They were born to find a good husband and be a great cook and raise children. Strangely enough most of these women end up marrying a loser, their kids go to jail and their cooking is awful.

2- The Marriage-Abused

Those women were working at one point and having a good time but they married a rich husband. He kind of forced them to stay home because the vast majority of Jordanians- men and women alike- believe a woman should not work unless she and her husband needed money. The man is usually kind enough to tell her she needs to stay home as a condition for marriage. Most women agree.

3- The Work-Abused

This a silent group but I believe it's a big one. It includes women who really work their ass off day and night and do very well at their job, but they're not appreciated. They're underpaid, made fun of, talked about in the office for whatever reason, and even sexually harassed. They try working at other places but they face the same difficulty everywhere until they realize they live in a society that looks down on women. When they try to speak up, they're 45 and single and pissed and people think they're pissed just because they're single. In Jordan they become angry and depressed. In the US they become lesbians.

4- Mothers

These women worked because they loved to work, mostly, or they just needed the money, or they just wanted to go somewhere to meet a guy, or they just wanted to work so people won't call them losers, or because their parents needed the money or because normally once you finish college you have to work. Once they got married and had kids, they voluntarily decided to stay home and raise their kids. Many of them have a part a time job, or join a Jordanian woman society, one of those societies that keep Dunes club from getting bankrupt.

5- The Scum of the Earth.

This group is getting bigger. It includes women who got married, usually very recently, who decide to stay home for no obvious reason and do nothing. They have a degree, they have a supportive husband, they even have a maid, and they own a car, and they have worked before and are very healthy, but they decided to not work. I feel ashamed when I remember that I belong to the same animal kingdom that includes those wastes of skin. These women are the reason we have drought, volcanoes, hurricanes, earthquakes and other natural disaster like Jad Chouari.

Work Embarrassment

I was at the mall. I stopped by Macy's and bought myself a nice shirt and a couple of great good old fashioned kalaseen. When buying a kalsoon I don't just sneak it in the bag, I open the packet and take out the kalsoon and raise it up in the air to see the reflection of the light from its shining cloth while nauseated people stare at me in utter disgust. I got the shirt and kalaseen and went home.


Next day at the clinic I saw Pam, our physician assistant.

"So Doctor, you were at Macy's yesterday?" She asked
" Yes!" I said
"I work there"
"Really?"
"Yes, I work as part time there."
"Great"
"I saw you bought yourself a nice shirt?"
"Yes.... I actually.... did.... buy a nice..... shirt"

That was followed by 10 seconds of silence.

"Ok doc, Mrs. Andrews is your first patient today, I'll check her in the room"

Dhaaaaa

An actual quote from CNN's website:

" A Pennsylvania man who walked into a gym aerobics class and opened fire, killing three women and wounding nine before turning the gun on himself, "had a lot of hatred in him," police said Wednesday. "

What was your Tawjihi score, and where are you now?

Share with us.

Share with us, especially if you sucked at Tawjihi but are having a relatively successful life now.

رسالة تشجيعية و إرشادية من حريقة إلى كل تلميذ راسب في امتحان التوجيهي

ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط ساقط

Facebook-iyyat

* Warning: Facebook has allowed third parties to use your picture.
But believe me narcissists, no third party want to see your picture, especially the 20 pictures you took of yourself while you were testing the new camera.

Also believe me, TRUST ME, even if nobody ever told you so, even if you won't trust anyone in anything in life please trust me on this- Nobody wants to see pictures of your kids. The ones very close to you know how they look like. The ones not-so-close are not-so-close for a good reason and don't care much about your kids.

* If you're Jordanian and you still take a test that tells you what your Jordanian name you deserve and it gives you a name like Jarba and you like the name well enough to publish it on your profile, that tells me how much your real Jordanian name sucks.

* You don't get to send me a "BFF" request if you haven't called me in a year.

* After much thought, I concluded that nobody older than 50 should be allowed to join facebook.

* Never send me a "Mafia War Request" if your biggest adventure in life was taking a Sarvees to Sagf El-Sail.

* Facebook-Status Diarrhea: self-explanatory. It's a mental disease I believe.

Flight ObservationS

** I was looking up tickets between Cape Town in South Africa and Dubai and found a first class ticket for a direct flight for about 5000 dollars with Emirates.

On the same page on kayak.com I found another ticket with 2 stops for a third of the price, 1800 dollars, also first class. The first part is the flight from Cape Town to Dubai with Emirates, the same exact flight above, then from Dubai to Oman, then from Oman to Abu Dhabi which is pretty close to Dubai.

So what you have to do, is purchase the second ticket with the 2 stops to save 2/3rds of the price. Once you arrive at Dubai, leave the airport and do not take the 2 additional flights. If the airline asks you later why you didn't board on those flights, just tell them you had to take a big fat dump in the airport and were stuck there, which happened to me before but thanks to US airways which never leaves on time I was able to catch my flight.

** I looked up another ticket between Sydney and Buenos Aires. There's a 14-hour direct flight that takes off from Sydney at 11 am and arrives at Buenos Aires at 11 am on the same day! The explanation is that Sydney is 14 hours ahead of Buenos Aires in the timezone. Again, you leave at 11 am and you arrive at 11 am. That should work extremely well for you in the case you're thinking about murdering someone in Sydney. If you kill them at 11 am then take the flight, and the police later accuses you of murder, just say "I was in Argentina, how the fuck can I kill someone in Sydney at the same time?"

Disclaimer: I'm not flying anytime soon, just planning ahead for the 2014 World Cup. I also, in most cases, discourage homicide.

Do you want full freedom of speech?

Regarding my poll that is still active, I asked whether you're ready to give up 20 years of your life to get full freedom of speech.

It looks like a split vote.

Where does free speech end?

In the Sky

On the 40th anniversay of walking on the moon, the earth gets the biggest solar eclipse of the century.

Lesson to learn: never piss off the sun.

When a Photograph is not just a photograph

Some forward emails I get are great. Thanks Labib.

Estudiantes.... Campeon

Estudiantes... Champions of LA Copa Libertadores 2009

and World Champions as of December 2009... sorry Barcelona!

Taste of Treason: Drinking Disi's Radioactive Water

As I have mentioned a few times before, according to a study published at the Environmental Science and Technology journal in February, 2009, Al-Disi aquifer is contaminated with radioactive radium. (Click here for the abstract, published by scientists from Duke and Yale and other local universities). We've heard about an investigation that would talk place. Nothing ensued. Not a big surprise.

Today, it was announced that the contaminated water will be reaching Amman by 2012, six months ahead of schedule.

I am out of words.

Older Than Time: The Napoleon of Amman

A perfect example of grandiose delusions.

(Picture courtsey of my friend Rami)

Bruno, Briefly

Very vulgar
Very explicit
Very offensive
Very inappropriate for all age groups
and one of the best movies I've seen in my life

MiiiiKro- Blogging for Tamooz 2009: Ala Hobbi Bi Sa7niki Wasbi7eena, Wala Tubqi Khumoral Andareena... Andareena.. Noon

* It was sad to see Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett die on the same day. Things are not going well for white women since Obama became president.

* There's been a debate going on on whether Al-Hajj should be suspended this year because of the swine flu. Meanwhile, all Chinese mosques in Urumqi, China suspended Friday prayers because of political unrest. This shows the irony about China: their policemen are more fierce than a deadly virus but they still can't make a T-shirt that will survive past one-time laundry.

* The CIA announced that Mullah Omar of Taliban is now worth 10 million dollars. I'm afraid he'll be purchased by Real Madrid.

* Barack Obama visited Ghana. He was expecting people there to commend the US on electing a black president, but the Ghanaians said it's no big deal. So far they have elected 12 black men to be their president.

* If you're a doctor and you have patients who wake up after a few days of being unconscious, it's not cool to tell them it's 2013. Sometimes they might believe you.

* During a visit of Jordanian official to Mujeb, a citizen took off his clothes and started taking a shower in public in protest of water being cut off his house.

Immediately afterwards and as a sign of support, a gay group in San Francisco sent him an invitation for a vacation. The group wrote, "You'll be showering with all of us, and there will be enough water for everyone to have a good time."

* I really did enjoy our local Jordanian restaurant in Arizona. It's not only good, but very clean as well. In fact you can taste the authentic Yara soap in your mansaf dish.

* The movie Bruno opened yesterday. In the movie Sasha Cohen plays the role of a very gay man who likes to kiss men on the face and dance with them for hours occasionally rubbing his body against them, or as it is called in Jordan: a wedding.

* A Jordanian woman was raped, and as a punishment her brother killed her. He should have spent 15 years in jail, but the judge cut it to 7 because the man did something honorable by killing his sister.

My only wish now is for the judge to have a honorable brother who will kill him after being raped.

* Michael Moore's next documentary "Capitalism: a Love Story" trashes capitalism as a terrible way of living. The movie is produced by Paramount Vantage, which happens to be the film division of Paramount Pictures, which is in turn part of Viacom.

* 26 men were held in Egypt because they were planning on bombing the Suez Canal. I'm not exactly sure why they were arrested when the only dreaded consequence of blowing a canal is making it bigger?

* I decided to start eating healthy. I bought a big ass salad with an extra Blue Cheese dressing, and to reward myself with this success I ate a cheesecake. Tomorrow I'm giving myself a break from dieting.

* Important advice: whenever you're driving on the highway always make sure your window is closed just in case a bird drops a greenish poop on your windshield then you try to wash it quickly with the wipers but the poop, mixed with water, strangely flies in a semi-circular fashion into your window directly into the lateral space between your eyeglasses and your eyes, lodging over your eye while you're driving at 70 mph

*I'm a little upset that my race in the US is often labelled as "Other" or "Unknown", but I'm glad that at least my gender is not classified as such.

* David Letterman: "Anybody here from Minnesota? Congratulations, you have a brand new senator, our old friend, Al Franken. Al is an interesting guy. Went from being a comedian to politician. George Bush, the other way around."

----------------------------------------
the picture above is of my fiance-to-be Alessandra Ambrosio. She is a famous model (or singer, actor, not sure exactly). She recently surpassed diabetes and is expected to catch up to smoking as the number one risk factor for heart disease in men aged 12-99. I also would like to thank her for her contributions in the medical field: her urine is used to manufacture aphrodisic perfumes and her feces is used by Pfeizer to produce Viagra.

Four Years of Hareega

Busy but alive, stressed out but happy, exhausted but excited, indifferent but grateful to anyone who has ever clicked a button to run across the green, then brown, then blue, the orange-and-white blog.

Thank You

The Best Screw Up Ever

This 12-year old boy participated in the talent show Britain's Got Talent this year,
he performed a song for Amy Winehouse, but Simon Cowell interrupted him saying that he screwed up the song, and gave him one last chance with any other song.

The boy, Shaheen, chose a song by Jackson 5 instead. He did pretty well.

This earned him an invitation a few months later by Micahel Jackson's family to participate in his funeral, thus providing him with a worldwide exposure he had never dreamed of, especially that he had previously lost in the talent show.

Here's a clip of the audition, you can have to click here.

All in the head

I had a patient who went to surgery one morning. I went to her room in the afternoon to check on her.
I tried to wake her up but she was still sleeping, recovering from the heavy effect of anaesthesia.

I don't like to examine patients without them being awake, but since her surgery was in the head, I looked around. I had to take her glasses off then looked around the head and found a small wound dressing. It looked a little old to me, so I went to the nursing station to find her nurse.

"Did Jessica go to surgery today to remove her VP shunt?", I asked the nurse.
"Yes, she got back a couple of hours ago"
"Her wound looks a little old though!"
"hmm, I don't think you're allowed to look at the wound, I have strict orders to keep it covered for today"
"Ok, well it was not covered very well...."

Jessica was in room 220. However the nurse took me to room 232, and indeed Jessica was sitting there, awake and talking.

I pulled the nurse out of the room immediately, and asked her, "I thought Jessica was in room 220!"
"Yes she was, but after the surgery we moved her to 232"
"So who's in 220?"
"Adam, the one with the head injury. Just transferred from the ICU"
"Uhm OK...."
The nurses started smiling, said, "did you think he was Jessica?"
"Well they're both blond... and with the glasses I couldn't tell"

There's a good reason I didn't choose to become a surgeon. It would have sucked to amputate the wrong leg, or open up the head of the wrong patient, wouldn't have felt right....