Talal's World

2006-04-05T15:11:00.000+03:00

Apology for Not Updating

I apologize people for not being able to update my blog, but I'm spending most of my time finalizing a whitepaper I'm writhing as a prerequisite for being a speaker for the upcoming Storage World 2006 that will be held in Dubai from the 15th to 16th of May 2006.

I'll be discussing Data Management/Storage Consolidation and how it can benefit organizations. Once I finish my white paper I'll post it here and also on my recently created blog ( Enterprise Storage & Disaster Recovery Solutions) Thanks to Ahmed of Saudi Jeans for giving me the idea after he stating that the Saudi Blogosphere needed more specialized blogs.

I'll try to make my white paper as simplistic as possible so that everybody will get what I'm saying.

Wish me Luck My deadline for submitting this paper is the 14th of April.

2006-03-08T19:48:00.000+03:00

Living in Riyadh

(Talal's Perspective)

I'm writing this post based on a request from jorgee; who's interested in learning more about life in Saudi (Riyadh in particular). I would like to stress that my life in no way depicts the general life in Riyadh, this just how I live mine.

One thing to keep in mind is that the workweek begins from Saturday until Wednesday; the weekend is Thursday & Friday.

During weekdays I usually conduct a set of routine activities that begin with me and my wife going to work at 8pm. Both of us return back home at 6pm after which we have a "late lunch / early dinner" (yawn I know). At around 7:30 pm I usually conduct one of 3 activities.

1- Stay at home watching TV, sometimes taking a nap, just hanging around.
2- Sometimes I go out with friends and to a gahwa (a place that serves mu3asil (sheesha) and hajar (jurak)) this is a Saudi pastime that people are going crazy over. What you do is you have a bong like device (picture below) and you put this kind of tobacco with dried fruits and you smoke it. Anyway even though I never tried it and hopefully I never will all my friends are addicted to smoking it and thus 90% of our time we meet up in a gahwa.

3- Visit my parents' house and chat up with my Mom, Dad and Baby sister and sometimes my Brother would be back from University (KFUPM in Dhahran) and other times my second sister (who is also younger then me but older then my brother, if you weren't able to follow that we are 4 siblings me being the eldest followed by a sister, a brother and finally my baby sister) would be their with her husband and son.

It should be mentioned that I always conduct 3 activities in parallel to any of the activities above:

1- Chat with my amazingly gorgeous wife
2- Check up on my favorite blogs for any updates and check if I received any replies to comments I posted
3- Download TV shows off of the internet.

Now weekends are a different thing.
Thursday is what I like to call the global sleeping day; I usually sleep up until 4pm or 6pm. After I wake up I have lunch then usually do one of 3 things:

1- Go out with my lovely wife
2- Go out with my friends to yet again gahwa
3- Have a get together with my friends from college

Friday is family day, after the jum3a prayer (around 1pm) my wife and I usually go to either my parents' house or her parents' house and we have lunch and we spend a little time with them around until 4pm. After which we either go back home or go out for dinner or something, it differs from week to week.

Now this is only a basic overview of what I usually do, what should be noted is that my wife and I try to keep things interesting by traveling every once in a while either to Bahrain, Dubai or other places for our annual vacations, living in a routine regardless of where you are is bad no matter how you look at it. The thing is in Riyadh it is very hard to break your routine because there isn't anything else to do especially with your family besides going to restaurants.

2006-03-01T22:38:00.000+03:00

VOTE for TALAL
Campaign

As I have mentioned in my previous post I'm a nominee in the 2006 Rimyoleta & Dotsson Awards ( also know as the rim-dots) . The categories I've been nominated in are "Best New Male Blogger" & "King of the Blogosphere". Vote Here.

Being the competitive person that I am, I thought I would start a full fledged campaign and try to gain supports so that I might win. To effectively campaign I need to Advertise. I will be updating this post every once in a while with my campaign slogans and media spots.

Update #1:
Campaign Slogan: "If you want the best, you have to vote for the best, vote for Talal"

Update #2:
Campaign Song "Lene Nystrom - It's Your Duty (Shake Your Booty)"

Update #3:
Campaign Radio Spot#1 for "VOTE for TALAL #1"

2006-03-01T15:45:00.000+03:00

Riyadh Bloggers Get Together
Part Deux

I have recently been corresponding with Mr. Ahmed of SaudiJean and he suggested that we conduct a new Riyadh Bloggers meeting, which I think is a great idea (especially since the last one had only 2 attendees). So if your a blogger in Riyadh or just passing thought we would love it if you could join us.

Date: Thursday March 2, 2006
Time: 20:00 and onwards
Venue: Dr. Cafe, King Abdullah Rd.

Rayyan hope you at least come over and say hi this time ;)

PS. As you probably have noticed I have an ad on my page stating that I am a nominee in two categories in the 2006 Saudi Blogging Awards, Best New Male Blogger & King of the Blogosphere, please please please Vote for me.

PPS. if Dotsson and Rima inform me that they will keep the voting up for a little while longer, I will unleash my "VOTE for TALAL" campaign, so keep your fingers crossed people

2006-02-18T21:45:00.000+03:00

From there to here to infinity & beyond

I was browsing the web the other day and I came across an article that mentioned the medieval author Nostradamus, this was not the first time I heard of him nor his astronomical prophecies but I thought I would google him and find out more. Luckily I was directed to wikipedia (great site with a great concept) and found everything I was looking for.

What interested me while reading about his upbringing and the events of his life that lead him to author his famous "The Prophecies", was the fact that his life was a web of interact experiences that built up to a point where writing his book would gain wide acceptance.

Reading Nostradamus' history got me wondering about the legacy I would be leaving behind if at all I would leave one. What are the various situations that I have encountered and the ones I will face that will either write my accomplishments in history or let them fade with the wind.

Parents believe that their legacies are maintained by their children and lineage, but looking at my family tree I see the names of my ancestors and I know nothing of them all they left was their names and nothing else. Were they brave warriors that fought opposing tyrants, or were they blood hungry tyrants that stole and pillaged the weak?

Is it superficial to want to go down in history or is it a human instinct? If I get offered a job and I take it or reject it will it set in motion events that would eventually lead to my rise to greatness or my demise and downfall? It kinda puts in perspective how the little things you go though in life can have the biggest most profound effect on your future, maybe even the future of the whole of humanity.

I've always liked the sensitive dependence in chaos theory being described by the butterfly effect; in short the effect states; "a butterfly flapping its wings in Japan could cause a tornado in California." This theory states that actions no matter how trivial can some how have the most unexpected, unimaginable results. Kind of gives you a lot to think about? doesn't it?

2006-02-05T01:17:00.000+03:00

Why are you a Muslim?

I know people will try to associate what I want to talk about in this post with things that are happening with Denmark, but this is not the case. I've wanted to discuss this issue for quiet a while, mainly because I need to add more interesting subject matter to my blog and because this is an issue that I think people have neglected.

What I want to ask and this is not only a question to Muslims but to people of all faiths relative to their respective religions, "Why are you a Muslim?"

Are you a Muslim because you were born a Muslim or are you one because you truly believe in Islam and its teachings? Now this question might not be as clear to some people as you might think, the actuality is people in their nature try to follow the crowd they were brought up in; you will rarely see a stray sheep. What I see today are zombies that follow those they were led to believe are better then them. People have stopped thinking or claiming responsibly for their actions and opted to go with sayings like "khali bainak we bain jahanam mutawa" (keep a cleric between you and hell) a way of saying as long as a cleric says it's okay then do it because he is the one who will get punished if he is wrong come judgment day. This saying like so many similar to it indicates people don't want to acknowledge any responsibility or accountability for their actions.

People thinking in this manner raises a lot of questions:

Have they ever wondered if they are on the right path or not
HAVE they ever question if maybe just maybe they were not practicing God's true religion?

What I want to make clear here is I'm not asking anybody to change their faith or anything all I am asking people to do is what our forefathers the Sahaba the followers of Mohammed (PBUH) did when they were first introduced to Islam, they questioned their original beliefs they asked themselves why am I here what is my purpose in life is Islam my true salvation or is it something else? Is being a Sunni or Shi'i or even a Sofi the right thing? All I ask is for people to ask the question they need to ask to truly believe, instead of just blindly following what they were raised on.

Imagine being born into another religion, what would your actions be? Would you be stubborn and not acknowledge you were on the wrong path? Because to find the right path you have to question what you believe is true; to find what is positively true.

I was once scared and terrified I couldn't sleep and I would always ask myself "am I on the true path of salvation?" If I'm wrong then my after life will be in eternal damnation? What if there is another path that I have neglected?

Asking these questions led me on a journey to discover myself and affirmed my beliefs in Islam but more importantly it opened up my eyes to how it should be practiced; in the end no one will carry your sins but yourself it is on your shoulders to find the path, if you fail it is your failure and yours alone.

2006-01-29T06:33:00.000+03:00

Hide & Seek

If you've been hearing the rumor then I will put your mind at ease, yes what you heard is true and I'm not proud of it but what can I do when in the game of hide and seek it is an eventuality just as true as death (I've been hanging around catch for too long). Anyway seriously I had this really interesting post that I wanted to write about but I guess I will delay it a bit (so as to give this post a little breathing room).

Now where was I ? Oh yeah before I continue just wanted to say that the gathering we had last Wednesday in Riyadh was a blast not only due to my gracious presence, but also because KMB graced the gathering , as for Rayan I still have my doubts that he wasn't there.

Now on to the main event:
I have been tagged by Rimyoleta & Ahmed

The rules of the game are:
1. The tagged victim has to come up with 8 different points for their perfect lover.
2. Need to mention the sex of the target.
3. Tag 8 victims to join this game & leave a comment on their comments saying they've been tagged.
4. If tagged the 2nd time, there's no need to post again.

Sex Target :Female

1- She has to be smart (I don't wanna have discussions with myself)

2- She has to have a strong personality (people don't push her around)

3- She has to be open minded (I think this speaks for itself)

4- She has to love kids (In the words of goldmember I wanna be a "Farzer")

5- She has to love to travel (I don't wanna travel alone)

6- She has to be understanding (I wont go as far as saying I'm weird but have my quirks)

7- She has to be patient (I aint the easiest person to live with)

8- She has to be able to take my breath away (not just because she's beautiful, but more important because she keeps me captivated by how amazing she is)

2006-01-21T02:03:00.000+03:00

Riyadh Bloggers Get Together

Hi everyone, a few of the guys and I had a little chat the other day and we were thinking it would be great to arranging a small get together for Riyadh Bloggers. The preliminary date is set to Wednesday the 25th of January so that the esteemed Son of Dot can join us. If your interested I would love to hear about it. Is the date okay or not? Also could you recommended a place to met up?

Thanks.

2006-01-19T03:09:00.000+03:00

Movies Galore

If you live in Riyadh you might have witnessed a strong light yesterday that has continued on to today, well there is no need to be alarmed because you will be happy to know that I'm Back in Town ;)

It was a great trip and I had a lot of fun, my wife is still there and will come back on Thursday (so I'm single for uno days), We did a lot of activities in this trip, but one of the highlights that we did was our 4 movie marathon where we would go out in a movie and then out and in to another.

1- King Kong

It's not really as bad as I expected it to be, the relationship building between the actress and King Kong was excellently done, but other then that the story doesn't have a lot of substance to it.
Now your probably asking why did I go see it if I thought it would be so bad, well that is because I saw the original a long time ago and was curious on how this will be done. (rating 5/10)

2- Elizabethtown

Quiet funny and thought provoking movie, got me thinking a lot about various aspects. Mainly my relationship with my parents, my career and where my life is headed. It is a love story at it's core but to a conventional love dove one, it's a good movie check it out. (rating 8/10)

3- Undiscovered

My wife and I went into this movie because it was the only free one smack dab in the middle of our schedule so we said what the hell. It's a little cliche'ic and you get bored with the sea-saw motion of the actors,boy meets girl, boy loves girl, girl not sure, boy leaves girl, girl is sure, boy is a rock star,girl is not sure, boy is not a rock star, girl is almost sure, boy is sure, boy does a wedding singer on the plane, end of movie. Saying that it does have it's funny moments, all in all not something I would recommend. (rating 3/10)

4- The Family Stone

The last movie in the schedule, and by far the best, I had zero expectations going into this movie, thankfully I was pleasantly surprised with how hilarious it was, one of the funniest movies I've seen this year by far. If you have to choose one movie then this is it, you will laugh your ass off watching the interactions between the Stone Family and the eldest son's uptight girlfriend. (rating 9/10)

2006-01-14T04:04:00.000+03:00

Star Academy

First off Greetings from Beirut, those following my blog will remember that my wife went a few days before me and well now I have caught up.

I have been here 3 days so far and we are having a great time, my wife is taking driving lessons everyday while I snooze an extra 2 hours (which is great, believe you me), we’ve been to the Wael Kfouri and Elissa concert which was quiet interesting, dined in the Hard Rock Café’ and had lunch in khair aldeen in Bromana.

But, today I did something I never thought I would do, not because it was a distant dream of mine, no on the contrary but because I really didn't think too much of it, but my lovely madam convinced me otherwise. So today we went to the Prime for Star Academy 3 and I have to say being known as a party animal back in the day it was really cool. It was interesting how the whole atmosphere was so hyped to such a contagious degree, there was this little Kuwaiti girl around 8 or 9 that was behind us that was screaming and calling out all the contestants names I swear to god she has the cutest voice she was so excited it was like she got her biggest wish come true. I have to admit that our hands now hurt like hell from all clapping and our voices are sore from all the shouting and screaming but honestly it was worth it. Oh yeah if you get to read this before 4:00pm on Saturday the 14th of Jan try to see if you can find the madam and I on the rerun of the prime on LBC.

2006-01-11T01:54:00.000+03:00

What's Up with the religious policeman?
(http://muttawa.blogspot.com)

This is a comment I posted on Ms. Farooha's (http://farahssowaleef.blogspot.com) Blog:
Concerning my issues with the religious policeman

Comment - "I have been a reader of the religious police man for quiet a while now, being a Saudi I have my doubts about his origins but that is beside the point.

I have seen a few blogs out there that go under the guise of wanting to show Saudi for what it truly is but mostly their views are biased and filled with hate; hate of the country hate of the people and hate of its culture. The religious policeman falls under this category.

Now what I want to know is why the religious policeman is so hell bent on showing all the bad points about Saudi and none of the good. In the last few months Saudi has made important changes that will pave the road to better things to come. What reformer doesn't want to acknowledge change when it is really in the interest of the country, I'll tell you: one with an agenda. Now I believe that we still have a long way to go until we reach our goal, but "A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step". Today after so long that step has been taken and with hard work and persistence we can get to our destination.

The vibe I get off of the religious policeman is not reform but complete transformation, something I don't think anybody would agree with, we are a proud country with a proud culture and a proud religion we cannot and will not accept something like that. That is not to say that we donÂt need to rectify and improve things.

We practice a form of Islam that needs to make people love ALLAH again instead of just fearing him not to mention its need to be more tolerant of others, women are mistreated in Saudi that is true but that is a counter affect of the way Islam practicedsed not due to any miscommings of Islam (being the son of a working mother who is an executive in a Saudi Company I feel movement in this aspect is also going strong).

So in conclusion I would like to say to the religious policeman, I agreed with you when you opposed the Lashing and Jailing of the Teacher Al-Harbi, I'm with you that what happened in the school in Mecca is unacceptable and that the Hay'a should be dismantled, but when you wancriticizeicise Saudi and/or Islam for the sake of demeaning them or their citizens/followers then I have to ask what is your goal? Are you going for the shock affect to create more hatred for your supposed home land?"

2006-01-10T11:24:00.000+03:00

Hajj time is always the best time, for Hajj

Recently the religious policeman has been suggesting a change in the Foundations of Islam and for some reason I'm not able to leave comments on his blog. One of his most recent Posts was about how he proposed one of two things:

1- Make Hajj an all year round event
2- change hajj so that it is not mandatory
3- or both

Pope Benidict's was referenced with his views on the need to have a central figure to guide the religion to keep up with the changes of the times.

Now I don't agree with his statements in so many ways I don't know where to start. What I need to know is first off, if he is a Muslim as he so states what does he believe in and what doesn't he believe in? I have no problem if he wants to believe in 50% of the teaching of Islam or 10% or even 1%. But what he needs to do is highlight his beliefs by stating what different branch of Islam (Sunni, Shiy'a ....etc.) he is in or if he is creating a new branch.

Now if he is from Najd (as he has stated) then we would then presume that he is a Sunni Muslim (until he tells us otherwise), Now the problem with his recommendation is that he is stating that the act of Hajj itself is holy regardless of the when it is conducted, but as it is well know being a Muslim you are mandated to follow the timings of the months for several religious acts; Ramadan being the most apparent and other acts of sunna are also affected, not to mention the subject point Hajj. Now opening hajj up as a monthly action will then affect Ramadan greatly and Hajj Eid not to mention the fact that changing timings of months will open up the issue of changing the order of days and timings within the day, this will raise the question of of why not change the timings of the 5 daily prayers and so on and so forth.

You see what he is proposing is breaking up the structure of Islam and you can't do that because as any Muslim knows there is a time for everything and everything must be done in it's specific time, now that being said doing things this way might cause a lot of problems but it also creates focus, structure and a sight every year of people standing together in unison the rich and the poor, the young and the old putting all of their earthly worries behind them and coming together as one; what a sight it makes you reflect on GOD's Greatness and just how amazing he is.

Concerning the Recommendation of the Pope Benedict; who is no doubt a great man that has only reached the position he is in after a lifetime of dedication to God; he has a belief system that is structured around Christianity and the teachings of Christ (Peace be upon him). The thing is, being a Muslim my belief system is structured around Islam and as such the Teachings of the Prophet Mohammed (Peace be upon him). In our teachings we believe that ALLAH has brought down the Quran the way it is never to be modified or altered for all ages and that it will fulfill the needs of the followers of Islam till the end of time, because it is the word of GOD. That being said, the way Islam is being practiced today has nothing to do with how dynamic a religion it is, but it does shine a light on the fact that followers of Islam need to go back to their roots and reassess their methods of practice by being more like our Prophet and practicing Islam as it was intended a religion of hope, love, tolerance, progress and mercy.

2006-01-05T03:13:00.000+03:00

To Podcast or not to Podcast.

I'm sure many of you have heard about the sensation sweeping the nation known as "Podcasting", if not let me enlighten you: podcasting is the act of creating a small audio show that is transmitted as a file that is automaticlly updated on your ipod updating software then whenever you connect your ipod it is part of the songs that are added to it.

Now to get to my point, I've been seriously thinking about starting my own podcast where I hope to periodicly post new casts every 2 weeks or so. Now what I need is to see if you people think this is a good idea or not? would you support me in this endevor or not? and If you would what subjects would you recommend me to talk about? If you have any ideas or suggestions drop me a line.

2006-01-04T02:44:00.000+03:00

Zee Noodle

Okay It seems I'm gonna change my profession to food critic; today I yet again went to another restaurant "Zee Noodle" on Uroba Street, I went there with my friend Mahmoud as my wife has left with her family to Lebanon today (don't worry I'll catch up with her). So we go to this place and we notice it is huge from the inside and so totally empty, So we ask one of the waiters "what's up? Why is it so empty?" and he informs us that the men's section is almost always empty, and that the women's section is always over crowded.

Anyway, so this is supposed to be the Noddle heaven of Riyadh. They have these pencils on the table and they give you a menu to tick your choices (I assume they think it's cool), it actually reminded me of a restaurant in Boston where they would give you crayons and you would draw and color on the table mat; good times. So we order some appetizers, soup and a dish of noodles (for the life of me I can't remember what any of them were) the food was tasty not out of this world but good, it did however disappoint me that so much of the place's decor was going to waste on the emptiness, if the women's section was so crowded why not utilize this place?! Sometimes I just think that people don't have enough business sense. (rating 6/10)

2006-01-03T19:14:00.000+03:00

ENTRECOTE !

Finally Yesterday, My wife & I have dined at the Entrecote. First thing that comes to mind, way too fancy, really doesn't feel like the one in Paris. It has too serious a mood to it, and yet they still conduct the same serving rituals as they do in Paris. The sauce although not as good as the original was very good, another good point was we got a cool waiter named Haddadi that was unbelievably enthusiastic that we ended up ordering everything he recommended. Over all the experience was good and I most probably will visit the place again. (rating 7/10)

2005-12-28T00:58:00.000+03:00

Comments On other Blogs - Rewritten here

Recently I have been accessing a cool site called (http://nomadsnet.com/) the moderator Abu Bilal has brought up a lot of interesting subjects that I almost always feel compelled to leave a comment about, but for some reason my comments have evolved from quick replies to whole new posts, and thus I have concluded after careful deliberations with myself that I will not reply to when my comments can be considered new posts anymore, but I will only put links to posts on my blog to liven it up a bit (it is a little dull and I don't have much power to come up with new post ideas). Thus below I will post my most recent comment/post which I wrote on (http://nomadsnet.com/) in respect to "Which came first?"

Comment -
"I agree the Islamic image of the country should be maintained, but it needs to be revamped and it should shed off some of its more extremist views. This will only happen once it goes back to the roots of what Islam is all about, It should return to being a more acceptant more welcoming practice that calls for justice and the love of ALLAH (not the fear of ALLAH) it should hold on to it's individuality and respect the individuality of other societies.

That being said I think the most beneficial thing that needs to be done to move in that direction is the writing of a constitution that clarifies every person's rights. This will help in improving the country and giving the people a sense of belonging and unity. This will make a few unlawful organizations that hold no clear role in our society (al hay'a and almojahdeen) obsolete since the law will be so clear that a single system will be able to mange it, the judicial system (police enforcing the law and judicial courts mandating new laws, resolving disputes over existing laws and passing judgment based on laws).

Now on to the harder part of changing peoples' mentalities, I really have no clear idea about where to start in this, there are so many problems and I have only a few ideas. But I know that the way to change poor work ethics is with a simple concept, introduce the ability to fire people. Currently our job market is flooding with applicants and there are few jobs thus we have - the supply exceeding demand model - which should bring pay of these jobs down or at least improve the level of employees in order to hold on to these few jobs. But, we are not seeing that due to the concept I like to call "super job security" that is mandated on jobs in government and those in formally owned government companies (i.e. STC, SCECO ... etc. ). Having "Super job security" creates a carefree, unethical and unproductive work environment, most problems we are having with our current unemployment problems are due to people holding out for government jobs that offer them little or no work, where they are most likely to be redundant in their roles (especially lower jobs) and were they can never ever be fired no matter how bad or how unproductive they are, oh yeah and pay is great (relative to the job). This of coure is as opposed to private sector jobs where pay is bad (also relatively), only productive people are welcomed to stay, and people must work their behinds off to prove themselves. Now tell me how is the private sector ever able to compete?

To be honest I think that just talking about these issues and acknowledging they exist is the first step on our way to resolving some of the problems we are facing and it is the essential stepping stone for us to insure a brighter future for generations to come."

2005-12-23T02:56:00.000+03:00

EMPTY WELL.

Today sitting in front of the Computer I found that I had a hard time gathering any thoughts or ideas to put on the blog. Not wanting to break the tradition of continuously updating my blog (because I know once I slow down I might never pick up again) I thought that I should just open the editor and begin writing and see what comes out. I'm just dumping whatever is in my head, It's like I created a direct link between my mind and my hands, my eyes are just as baffled as you are dear read (no don't mind the spelling errors) we are laying witness to what my mind is pouring out. It's interesting how there seems to be no direction that my mind is going it's just processing and analyzing there's so much information my hands are just not fast enough to deal with this flow of data it just to faaaaaaaaaaaaads.fadsdfjas;ldsaglskjfgajslfl;kjdsa;lf.

.......

.......

.......

Okay Okay it's all okay I just severed the direct link, you will be happy to know that I am now in direct control no more dumping, pre-analysis and political corrective protocols are now in place, that was way close.

So now back to what I was saying , hmmmm, I don't think I will edit this blog once I'm finished I think I will just go and publish it to preserve the rawness or should I say the craziness of it. What is wrong with me today ? Usually I'm more collective, more focused! DO I continue to write or should I stop soon ? hmmm I wonder ? Pondering ...... Pondering .... I don't know what's up with me these days I used to love reading but I don't know what happens to me whenever I'm in saudi I can barely read one book , but as soon as I leave I'm so unbelievably fast at reading, I have this new book that I started called the Broker by John Grisham I've been at page 60 since the UK and I still haven't gotten the enthusiasm to continue reading , and I have this really cool book that I'm eager to begin called "Everything I know about philosophy I learned from TV" but still the enthusiasm to read is just not there ......

okay I better sign off now I think I said all I wanted to say and a few things I am sure to regret tomorrow.

2005-12-18T01:36:00.000+03:00

IL Terrazzo !

My wife and I recently took my friend and his wife to the IL Terrazzo restaurant in AlFaisaliah, this is probably our 5th or 6th time there and I have to say they are getting worse by the second, the food is not as appealing and the attitude of the workers is going from bad to worse. I remember back when my wife and I first got officially engaged or "mimalikeen" we had our first date there and it was so fun. The way they came over and read the restaurant policy with such enthusiasm and with glowing smiles, and then when they performed their dancing ritual, the whole experience made it so exotic so surreal it was one of my favorite places. Why is it that the level and quality of restaurants in Riyadh keep decreasing? Many people will skepticize that AlHay'a might be the reason, that their influence has degraded the performance of the top restaurants. I have no idea but I would probable assume that it is just a common side affect of things in Riyadh having high hopes only to be hit by reality thus losing steam.

Anyways, to be honest IL Terrazo was not our first choice we were actually hyped about going to the newly opened Interkod (or intercod or however it's spelled) the latest in international restaurants to come to Riyadh, to bad it was fully booked. It's sad but the only thing to do in Riyadh it seems is to eat, eat and eat some more. Oh yeah the other thing to do is to go out with the guys and watch them puffing hubbly bubbles (sheeshas) thankfully I'm smoke free, which is a bit annoying because as is the case in Riyadh all the hubbly bubbly places are located out side the city so I end up having to go all that way out of town just to spend some time with the guys( bummer right ?).

2005-12-15T00:31:00.000+03:00

Home Sweet Home

Finally I'm back home, Man I missed my family and especially my loving wife. I hadn't realized just how much I missed her, or how much I Love her. Settling in home again was so awkward at first, but the normality and comfort of home are a welcome return.

Getting back to work was weird as always but it's amazing how fast one falls into pace with work. Within one full day I was up and running and getting down to Business. Problems at worked seemed to be waiting for my arrival I received 33 phone calls within 2 days of work. But Man the adrenaline rush is priceless, I Love Work.

My sister was waiting for my return so that we could celebrated my mother's birthday, it was a nice family gathering that really surprised her. It got me thinking about what an amazing premise the concept of being a parent is (something my wife and I have been discussing). The undeniable urge of putting a being that is made from you ahead of yourself, I thank ALLAH for being blessed with loving caring parents, that showed me what it means to be a great parent. I've found that the song "With Arms Wide Open" by Creed states these overwhelming feelings so clearly, once you hear the reaction of the singer to the news that he will be a father and the inhumanly burden that he feels placed on his shoulders being entrusted with the job of raising his child and teaching him/her the lessons of life and the sum of all his experiences. No other song I know talks to the soul and conjures up feelings like this, it makes me look forward to being a Dad.

2005-12-12T17:15:00.000+03:00

Dubai Airport

There is something terribly wrong with dubai international airport I find myself destined to spend many endless hours in this place. At first i thought it was cool and liked their whole duty free stores but after a 7 hour trip from London to dubai with some guy snoring on your right and another guy that keeps on shoving on your left, compounded by the fact that you got on the airplane at 10:00pm after waking up at 9:00am, and DIA (Dubai International Airport) becomes this vortex for nothingness. The next available flight to Riyadh on emirates is at 6:30pm emirates time and they almost have one flight everyday(they don't have flights everyday) but it just makes no sense to me ?!?!?! Why would Emirates not run 2 flights daily (like they do between Dubai & NewsYork) Dubai is growing based on Saudi investment (recent calculations are at 62Billion Dollars in investments spent from saudis in dubai in 2005 alone) which means that a grat investment oppertonity would be to try and simplify access for saudis. But what you see is that they have the worst Riyadh to Dubai flight schedule of the day (leaves Riyadh 9pm arrives at dubai 11:30pm) forcing people to spend a night in the crappy millennium Airport Hotel (ironically it's 10min from the airport) and you end up with the situation that I am in right now all because I'm on this stupid emirates skywards frequent flyer program.

I admit I'm pissed but man I've been in dubai from 9am until now 6pm (9 hours)and I am so tired. I've been awake now for around 30 hours and I have 2 huge bags so excuse my whinnying, anyway the flight is boarding now so I'm off to KSA, hopefully we will leave on time.

2005-12-11T03:31:00.000+03:00

The Producers.

I just saw the Musical "The Producers" today, It was funny as hell given it was mostly under the belt humor but man I laughed till I was blue. I was heard that they are making a movie for it and to be honest I doubt it will come close to the live musical. My reasoning behind this is that once you see the interaction of the actors on the stage the signing the dancing all that jazz, you wonder how the hell will they be able to put it in a movie, then again they were able to do it with Chicago ( which I think was done quiet well). The thing with Chicago is that it was a dark set tale funny at times but mostly dark, The Producers on the Other hand is a comedy before it is a musical and what they do is they fill the time with the singing and dancing. I don't know maybe I'm right maybe I'm wrong, all in all it will be interesting to see how it pans out. Let us hope for the best because it is a truly original and hilarious piece of art. (rating 9/10)
http://www.coventgardenlife.com/places.asp?PlaceID=259

On another note, I also checked out the movie Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, I have to say it is funny but not nearly as funny as it could have been or as funny as I would have expected it to be.(rating 6.5/10)
http://kisskiss-bangbang.warnerbros.com/

Oh yeah, as you might have noticed I will be giving rating on things I read or watch out of 10 so stay toned because I watch a lot of TV & movies, and read a fair amount of books too.

2005-12-08T18:36:00.000+03:00

STATE OF FEAR

Just finished reading State of Fear by Michael Crichton. I must say it really got me thinking about how we perceive environmental issues. I always thought of myself as a passive environmentalist who would do what he can like putting cans in the recycle bin and things like that. I was also a person who was mad about the pollution levels and how we are putting back into the environment and how our progress was affecting life around us and how we should do more and discontinue our efforts of deforestation. But after reading this amazing book I have to say that my views are changing it's like I have had a paradigm shift in my evaluation about things. My recommendation please go out and buy this book it is defiantly worth it and you will find it challenging and thought provoking.

check it out: http://www.crichton-official.com/fear/

2005-12-08T17:03:00.000+03:00

Last Day for Course

Today is the last day of My course in the United Kingdom. The 4 day course (Dec5-Dec8) entitled EMC NAS Networking was quiet entertaining but I didn't feel I learned as much as I had learned in the previous course which I attended last week (Nov28-Dec2) which was called EMC Symmetrix Performance Analysis (taken in Amsterdam) , which much like it's name was complicated as hell but I left felling I learned something new. This is my first submission after the introductory post and I know I've put you snap dab in the middle of a pool of confusion, so as always bare with me.

2005-12-08T03:02:00.000+03:00

The Begnining !!!!

Having read several interesting blogs over the vast blogosphere I must say I am quiet impressed whit the quality of things out there, that being the catalyst for me to start my very own blog. To be honest I actually thought I would have started my own blog quiet a while back but I guess being the lazy guy that I am I kept delaying it. But Here I am now putting pen to paper , or should I say finger to button. What I hope to talk about? I have no idea. I guess I will probably just blab on about a mesh of thoughts, ideas, views and complaints.