who do you hate more?

if you had the choice to ban either the people driving too fast or those who drive too slow, who would you choose?

i would definitely ban all the very slow drivers.

laziness no more

i own a '97 opel corsa. i love my car but i do little to show it. little things keep getting worn out and i'm always too lazy to fix them. i always brag about loving my car despite it being the least classy of all five cars we own. whenever given the option to take any of our other cars to do an errand i always prefer taking my own car. because i love driving it. because i love hatchback cars. because i love how stable it is. because i love its control.

i'm the most lazy person i know. yesterday i woke up and decided to change that. i decided not to go to college and instead go to the mechanic and spend the day there fixing the millions of things i needed to fix in my car.

here's a list of some of the things that needed fixing:

• the cooling system was leaking
• the cooling system was all rusty and needed to get cleaned
• the wipers were worn out
• the water pump that supplies the wipers wasn't working
• the right rear-end lights weren't working
• the a/c wasn't working
• the cassette player wasn't working (only fm)
• the handbrake was weak
• the suspension system needed to be checked on

so after spending more than 8 hours with the mechanic here's what i did get fixed:

• cooling system fixed
• cooling system cleaned and changed coolant
  
• rear lights
• a/c
• suspension system
• handbrake

i didn't fix the wipers because there wasn't a near-by shop that sells them. the water pump needs to be replaced too but i won't do that anytime soon probably because winter's practically over and i could use the money.

the cassette player needs replacement too but i'm thinking of buying an mp3 player instead and hooking it up with the car speakers.

national champs

sorry for the slow blogging lately. after i came back from monofeya i had one day to rest then i started the National Chess Championships.

yes, you read right..the big event...it took place in nasr city and over 200 players participated, all very strong. The competition was 11 rounds in 12 days (1 rest day) and it just finished today.

its my first time participating in this event so i wasn't expecting any big results. overall i played some good chess but my results could've been better...i always had to do some mistake at the end of the game due to time trouble or just plain lack of concentration.

i ended up with a score of 6 out of 11 (4 wins, 4 draws, and 3 losses) which puts me in the the top 50 players of the tournament.

the tournament was very exhausting and i'm glad it's over. enough chess ba2a, two big chess tournaments in a row can't be good for my health. or mental stability.

3rd place

i spent the past week in monofeya participating in the universities championship. it was like an Olympics between the egyptian universities in all sports. i was participating as part of the chess team. team chess is no different than single player chess except that 3 players from each team play each other seperately and then the scores are added up. win = 1 point, draw = 0.5, and loss = 0. so the maximum score you could get in a match is 3 and if your team loses all its games you get zero.

before i went there i was expecting a poor city, bad bathrooms, small rooms and "prison" food....

i was optimistic.

the city sucks. the streets are a mess and there are more donkeys walking around than people.
the bathrooms were the worst i've seen in my life. there's no warm water and they actually have those "hole" toilets instead of the normal ones...these things are really disgusting and i'm yet to learn how to use them..whenever i would really have to use the bathroom i would come back home to cairo ( monofeya is only an hour away from cairo).
the rooms were tiny. 3 bunk beds cramped up in the smallest bedrooms i've ever seen...yes, that's SIX of us in a single room.
the food was terrible, serving badly cooked vegetables for lunch and potato chips with cheese sandwiches for dinner. breakfast was beans (fool) of course.

you'll be surprised to know that overall i enjoyed the experience. the competition was really exciting to play and it was a tight race for first. we were doing really good until we lost from our main competitor with a score of 2.5-0.5 which forced us to win our remaining games hoping that the first and second place teams would fall.

unfortunately they didn't and we finished up in 3rd place but only half a point behind them.

personally i played some good games, i remained undefeated throughout the tournament and i only conceded 1 draw. i wasn't playing in the match we lost as i had returned to cairo to take an exam in college that day. i think i would've made a difference since i am a stronger player than the substitute.

so like i said, i enjoyed the company and the whole spirit of the competition. we had some good laughs and i watched some beautiful chess games being played.

advertising competition

made me laugh

WOW!

wow.

i've just finished watching a documentary on the 9-11 events...i'm not going to go into any specific details but you HAVE to watch this...i downloaded it off Ares (a p2p program like emule and bearshare). i was looking for season 3- episode 7 of Lost and i found this camouflaging under its name... strangely enough, after watching it i looked for it under the names "september, 9-11, documentary, etc..." but found nothing...

to find it type "lost 7 in sight" in the search panel...the file size is around 510 MB, and it's 54 minutes long...

they're providing convincing evidence that usama bin laden wasn't the one who did the attacks...

this is a must see, really.


P.S.
the documentary wasn't done by arabs, it was done by this american production company called Power Hour Productions.

thanks Deeee, this is my first tag ever..



ok, five things you don't know about me:

1. i love tea (especially Earl Grey) but hate coffee...nescafe is ok....my favorite potato chips flavor is Vinegar.

2. i hate science fiction movies...i'm a realist.

3. i prefer samsung over nokia mobile phones but my current phone is a nokia because my samsung one is getting fixed (and has been for the past 2 months)

4. my favorite sitcom is Mad About You.

5. i have been listening to Om Kalthoum daily for the past week after a friend of mine made me listen to "amal hayaty"....now i'm hooked on "enta 3omri, amal hayaty, fakaroony, and my favorite: seeret el hob"



sorry i'm not in the mood to do the handwriting thing now.

i'm tagging: palo-girl, jannah, zee puppette, egyptiandust, and anyone else who feels like doing it.

the police incident

this is the disturbing incident that i was referring to in a previous post.

a few days ago i was working on a group project with my colleagues every day for more than a week. we used to stay at the girl's house from 8:00 am to around 1:00 am every night with the exeption of the last night where we spent the whole night there.

when i arrived there in the morning i found the perfect parking spot...under a tree and right infront of her house...and everyone knows how hard it is to find a parking space in heliopolis.

after a long and hectic day, i finished work at around 1:30 am... when i reached my car i found that some dude has parked his car next to mine (raken saff tany) blocking the way for me to get out...and he had the handbrakes pulled..

what really pissed me off is the way he parked his car...it wasn't parallel to mine, it was rather slanted towards the front end of my car completely ruling out any chance of me squeezing my way out.

then i realized he had broken my left mirror.

i originally thought there were 2 possible reasons for him to act this way:
1- he was pissed because i took his spot even though there were no signs showing that it belonged to him...and he wanted me to suffer for that.

2- he/she don't know how to park the car in the first place...they suck at driving and they don't know that when ur parking in the second row you leave the handbrakes down so that ur car could be pushed.. and they don't have the manners of leaving me a note apologizing for the broken mirror.

i was more convinced that it was reason 1.

i live in the 6th of October city..more than an hour away from heliopolis and taking a cab to home would cost too much and besides i didn't want to leave that guy without any punishment for what he did to me.

i started asking around for the owner of the car and no one knew who it was...then a man in a nearby shop told me that there was a 60% chance that it was the guy living in the first floor of the building in front of me.

i wasn't ready to go knocking on strange people's doors in the middle of the night asking for something they might have done..if i was sure it was him i would've done it instantly but i personally wouldn't want to be woken up in the middle of the night for something i had nothing to do with..

i then decided to call my cousin who happens to work for the police and i asked him if i filed a complaint (3amalt ma7dar) at the police station, would they send a tow truck to remove the car....he replied that it's a possibility.

so i took a taxi to the nearest police station and the minute you set foot there you find all these nosy men that demand to know what your complain is about before leading you to the way of the officer...really pisses me off..i didn't want to satisfy their curiousity so i just told them my cell phone got stolen.

after finally reaching the officer i told him what the real story was and i added that all i cared about was to go home and rest. the officer said "sure thing, we'll just finish up some paper work, ask you some questions, then see what we could do about it"...he then pulled out a pen and paper and began the "who, what, when, where, and why" questions...he then asked me this incredibly stupid question: "is the car with you now, outside the station?" and my face immediately turned all red and i could feel a little smoke coming out of my ears.

anyways...after signing on the paper he went inside the room for a few minutes and came back telling me that he's sorry there's no one with the authority to send someone and go make a report about the incident now ( ya3mel mo3ayna) ...

"the head officer is at home and i can't give that order myself"
"so what am i supposed to do now?"
"come back in the morning, we'll be more than willing to help"
"in the morning the guy is gonna be gone without being punished...and how am i supposed to go home now??"
"no we already have the guy's car number, we'll bring him here and interrogate him"
"ofcourse he'll deny all this and there's nothing to prove what i'm saying"
"i'm sorry, i feel sympathy for you but i really can't do anything about it"

i then called my cousin again and told him what happened...he asked to talk to the officer.
they chatted for around 5 minutes on the phone and then the officer immediately sent a small police guy to go make the report...

"why didn't you say that (A) is your cousin from the beginning?? da 7abeeby men zaman!!"

i thanked him anyways (but i really felt like beating him up) for his efforts, got on the motorcycle with the police dude (yes first time on a motorcycle in my life...kinda fun actually, but freezing) and when we finally got to the "crime" scene i found my cousin there waiting for me..

ofcourse the police guy filed a report that was very much in my favour just because my cousin was there...and after that we started thinking of what to do with the other guy's car since unfortunately there are no tow trucks available in the middle of the night.

my cousin suggested we brake his mirrors and front glass because he caused me financial damage too...i was surprisingly in a less aggressive mood than him, despite all that's happened..

we ended up dragging the car and blocking the road with it so that no other cars could pass through..the next morning at 7:00 am i called the police department and told them that a car was blocking the road and i can't get to work...two hours later they came and took it.

i didn't get to meet the guy unfortunately, i wanted to find out the real reasons behind his stupid act.

small things that make me comfortable

here's a list of some of the small things i keep at home that make my life easier to handle:

1. My Ugly Mat

its colours are hideous i know, but man its comfortable!! its made of this spongy material that is soooo soft...sometimes in the summer i prefer sleeping on it instead of my bed. also the blue praying mat is the one i prefer praying on ever since i bought it last ramadan from Mecca...its the small kind, made for children, but what the hell...whatever keeps me comfortable.

2. The Slippers

everyone's got slippers i know...but i just wanted to say that whoever made these black egyptian Onda slippers is a genius...not only are they made in egypt, but also they are as comfortable as any slippers can get...without any "fazlaka"..

and the brown ones on the left are the ones i bought from El Madina el Monawara last ramadan...also very comfortable but i prefer the black Onda slippers when i'm at home.

2. Transparencies & Red Coal Pencil

nothing is more irritating than having a nice idea for a building and forgetting it later on because you forgot to draw it when you had the chance... these transparencies have made life much easier for architects because they enable you to improve your work without completely re-doing the drawing, you just add another layer of transparencies and fix the previous errors...

and the red pencil just runs on the transparencies like no other pencil can...it pulls ideas out of your head by being so smooth on the paper (because it's made of coal ofcourse, not because its red :p)

3. My Chess Bag

consists of the following (clockwise starting with the black bag):

black bag - carries the rest of the stuff obviously

scoresheets - when playing official games you have to write down the moves in these scoresheets, i keep them for the record and they're helpful when trying to learn from my mistakes

clipboard & pen - useful when analyzing games with a friend or solving chess puzzles

photocopy of a chess puzzles book - useful when practicing for a tournament

digital chess clock - i have two chess clocks..my other analog one is broken and i can't find anyone that fixes chess clocks in cairo. chess clocks are used to time games so that players don't use too much time when it's their turn to move...it's basically used in official tournaments only

large portable paper board - good because it's portable and big, bad because it's paper and doesn't live that long...there are other leather ones but i'm waiting till this one's done before i buy another one

old brown leather bag - perfect size to fit all the chess pieces in.

4. The Little Red Cup

costs only 1 LE...and can carry the exact amount of water that i need to drink any given time...i hate it when the glass is too big, plus i love the color.
also water coolers are much more comfortable than normal bottles...we stopped using the normal tap water after the janitor (in our old home in maadi) found a dead cat in the water reservoir of the building...that incident had a bad psychological effect on us and we started using bottled water until we got this cooler.

5. Heat Insulated Cup

i bought this cup 2 years ago when "On the Run" had this offer that i could save 20% off the hot drinks from there as long as i buy this cup from them and use it...and since i stop by that shop every time i go to college to drink the morning nescafe, i thought of it as a good deal....i think i'm the only person still showing up there asking for a discount with the refill.

6. Cappuccino Maker

this gadget is a work of art! i got it as a gift a couple of days ago and i've been hooked ever since...it makes the nescafe all foamy like cappuccinos...what's the difference between nescafe with alot of foam and cappuccino by the way?? anyone know?

KOL SANA WENTO TAYEBEEN:)

happy eid to all you bloggers out there...enjoy the fatta!

also, today its ahly vs zamalek... GO AHLY!!!



bad news: i just found out that they executed saddam hussein this morning. maybe he deserves to be executed for his crimes (allah a3lam)...but why today? i think its on purpose. they're treating him like a sacrifice as we do with sheep on this special day.

everyone has a thing

so exam season started, and for the next month or so i "should" be busy. the reason i have the word should in quotations is that yesterday was my first exam, and you'd expect me to study for it at least for a day. my exam was at 8:00am, i started studying at 4:00am. the fact that the subject was an easy one is irrelevant...its a FINAL EXAM for God's sake. and i already failed 2 years, ya3ni mesh na2sa...ok, i'll walk you through my day and you can judge for yourself how irresponsible and lazy i've become.

the previous night i had slept at 11:00pm (much earlier than my usual bedtime) so that i could wake up early and therefore sleep early the next night (exam night). so far so good, right? well i woke up at 2:00pm...that's alot of sleep. after waking up i knew what kind of day it was gonna be. the lazy, irritating, and yet guilt-free kind.

i didn't start studying immediately because i always convince myself that i can't study while i'm hungry...so i had to wait for lunch which was at 5:00...after lunch ofcourse i had to rest because the food made me feel all heavy and stuff.

suddenly its 8:00pm.

i started fooling around with my new digital camera...its 9:00pm.

ok this is when my addiction started to reveal its colours. chess. like i said in a previous post i enjoy the game alot...i started playing online chess for almost 4 hours...yes FOUR long hours down the drain, playing a stupid game on an exam night.

no guilt, nothing.

..went down to walk Kiki(our pet dog - rottweiler) and then i started to feel a little bit worried that i might not finish the whole curriculum in the next 4 hours...yes, ridiculous.

thank God i started studying at that point, because it was just about enough time to finish up what i'd missed from lectures i attended throughout the semester.

funny enough, i did pretty good in the exam. it was just that easy i guess (not something i'm used to in this college).

ok so this incident supports my theory: everyone has a thing. every single one of us. there's mainly one thing that everyone spends time doing or thinking about more than anything else. obsession is too strong of a word, but its close to what i mean.

that thing could be your love life, outings with friends, watching tv, praying, blogging, or just your job. whether you like it or not, that thing has some control over your mind.



mine's chess....what's yours?

newspapers

I've been wondering lately why we (internet users) still buy newspapers everyday. Newspapers contain both facts and opinions about different events from around the globe. The internet does too. The advantage of the internet is that the news in it isn't biased. All of our daily egyptian newspapers are pro-government and you always find the headline saying something about our president no matter how unimportant it may be to 99% of the public. That really annoys me.

Recently the blog world has covered everything the newspaper does when it comes to reading different opinions and such. Ofcourse the blogs are much more diverse and there are much more writers on the internet than there are on newspapers.

The newspapers have more advertisements, but that's not a reason to buy them daily. Maybe when i'm looking for a new apartment, car or job it would be a good idea to buy the newspaper, or maybe just the ones made exclusively for advertisements like "el waseet".

man i'm bored.

ok so i tried to get the highest and lowest scores possible in this test...

...yes i do have a lot of spare time...and i'm bored.

This Is My Life, Rated
Life:	9.9
Mind:	9.5
Body:	9.8
Spirit:	10
Friends/Family:	6.7
Love:	10
Finance:	9.7
Take the Rate My Life Quiz

This Is My Life, Rated
Life:	0.1
Mind:	0.6
Body:	0
Spirit:	1.4
Friends/Family:	3
Love:	0.7
Finance:	0
Take the Rate My Life Quiz

my real scores are in an earlier post.

this is so annoying. my real "love life" score is really close to the one i tried to make bad on purpose, and my "friends and family" score is worse.

apparently my personality is close to hitler's

What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com