Intruders On The Windowsill

I found them this morning, two pigeons and an egg. The other one went, and this one stayed to protect the egg. Nature is beautiful, mashallah.

Every Single School Day

- Around 5:30 AM, time for salat al-fajir

Mum: Khaled, wake up.
Me: (Snores)
Mum: Khaled.... wake up!
Me: Why?
Mum: To pray al-fajr
Me: Oh ok. (Snores)
Mum: KHALED!!!
Me: Yes?
Mum: You're going to miss the salah!
Me: Ok, no problem. (Snores)
Mum: KHHHHAAAALLLLEEEED!!!!
Me: No.
Mum: Yes!
Me: Ok just a minute and I'll get up. (Snores)
Mum: (Drags me out of bed)

I get up, crawl to the bathroom, do wudu' then pray. I go back to sleep.

- 6:25 AM, around 5 minutes before school bus

Mum: Khaled! The bus will come in 5 minutes!!
Me: Ok I'm coming.

I get out and start wearing my uniform that needs ironing (but I don't really care) and then go back to sleep.

Mum: KHALED!!! WAKE UP!!

I drag my heavy bones to the kitchen. I eat my breakfast (which is oatmeal of course - yuck), and drink my tea. Then the dreaded sound comes - BEEP BEEP BEEP!

Me: Is it my bus?
Mum: YES!!!!
Me: Oh god, he's 10 minutes early, again! Is my sandwich ready?
Bus: BEEP BEEP BEEEEEEP!!!
Me: QUICK!
Mum: Go and tell him to wait!

I go out and try and signal to the bus driver to wait. He replies with a huge scowl and more beeps.

Mum: Here, take the sandwich. Do you have any tissues?
Me: Yes...
Mum: Ok, bye
Me: Bye

By this time I'm still half asleep. I get onto the bus, sit down and put my head back. Zzzzz...

- 7:00 AM, still 30 minutes till school starts

We get to the stupid school. I get out and drag my self to the cafeteria, were all my friends are. They're all frantically doing homework.

Me: What? Do we have homework?!
Friends: Yes of course, Biology!
Me: Oh no!

I get out my book and start copying from another student. From the inside of the the cafe I can hear Jamal, the seller, shouting to the Egyptian sandwich makers inside: "Wahad Falafel Suber. Khaleeha itneen!"

- 7:30, School time

And there we go, 8 periods, and after each one finishes I start counting how much periods left.

- 3:30, At home at last

1 down, 10 million days to go. (Sobs)

Chris Jordan

The Katrina Wake - Remains Of A Business


America's Consumption - Crushed Cars


America's Consumption - Cell Phones

Jordan University Mahjoob

Hahaha.

And this is the best ever made advert from Honda, you must see it. (from Youtube)

ATV to Shawerma

ATV Jordan, our country final hope of having a good TV show is still being delayed again. According to Jordan Times, ATV and the Audiovisual Commission are having problems, and ATV is going to result to legal matters (scary stuff). I hope ATV will open up quickly, since this really is the Jordanian curse all business's in Jordan are suffering from. I have to say that our country isn't really supporting development as it should be.

Just a few months ago half our city (that means our landlines, mobiles and Internet) was bought by a french company and now we've lost basically everything to an outside business. You don't need to hold your breath till you see schools from some European business. Orange Highschool.

Hopefully ATV will open up soon, maybe around the beginning of Ramadan and we can all enjoy whatever it will bring us (I think it was interviews and stuff). Maybe it will even get the interest of other countries, like MBC. Or maybe that's too big for a Jordanian TV, we should't go that far.

In other news, I'd like to lighten you up on Shawerma. It seems that mostly half the world serves sharwerma. According to my great friend Wikipedia, shawerma can be found in many countries, including the US, the UK, Russia - even our maids could enjoy shawerma in the Philippines and India! Its wierd how only Jordan was the one to discover poisoning cases. Maybe because its "Jordan". =)

And to finish off with, check out 101 ways to trim your budget, a great list of common sense things to do.

Blogging Addiction

I tried the quiz Bilal gave me, and...

64%How Addicted to Blogging Are You?
Go try it out, and tell me how much you get (as a comment on this post).

Reviewing Two Films

Holes (2003)

Holes is about a boy wrongly convicted off a crime, which is blamed by a long ago curse on the Yelnats family. Stanley is then sent to 'Camp Green Lake', a juvinele camp that hides a great mystery. While digging holes, Stanely makes friends with Hector, who - when they choose to run away - uncovers the mystery of the camp and releases the curse.

This film is a great book turned into a movie. It talks that no matter how unlucky you are, you will find hope in the end. It all relates very well together, and the story/plot is a very interesting one. It also has alot of laughs, and is a good family drama well suited for those who enjoy films with interesting stories.

The Simpsons Movie (2007)

After the Springfield Lake is cleaned up, Homer and his Pig decide to pour thier 'waste' into the lake, making it turn black from pollution. The Enviromental Protection Agency decides to put a huge glass dome on top of Springfield, but the Simpsons family manages to escape and flee to Alaska.

They then get news that Springfield will be blown up to build a new Grand Canyon, but Homer refuses to go back. The rest of the family go back to try and save Springfield, but they can't without Homer's help. Can he save Springfield?

This great addition, from the almighty comedy cartoon The Simpsons, has lots of laughs as well as the drama needed to keep the story. It also has lots of sub plots, such as Homer almost losing his son Bart to his neighbour Ned Flanders. A great comedy, not neccessarily for the entire family, but its still good.

'Fake' Kidnapping

Brazil's kidnap phone con

In Brazil, criminal gangs frequently phone victims with fake abduction claims about their loved ones and trick them into handing over cash. As the BBC's Gary Duffy reports from Sao Paulo, being on the receiving end can be a frightening experience.

It was clear that someone was trying to make us a victim of the kind of virtual kidnapping that is one of the more sinister aspects of crime across Latin America.

Anyone with a phone can be singled out. The virtual kidnappers, if you could call them that, try to panic the person they call - often a mother or a father - into going to a bank and paying out a ransom before there is time to actually check if their relative is missing.

In most cases no-one has actually been abducted. Time and fear and the aggressive manner of the caller are the key elements of this type of crime.

A mobile phone is stolen and the criminals simply ring the pre-programmed numbers for mum or dad or home.

The voice of the sobbing victim is often actually just a recording, while the caller is working from a script. In a state of panic, the victims often give away details that allow the caller to pretend they know more than they actually do.

In 2006, in just five Brazilian cities, nearly 10,000 people reported that they had been victims of this type of crime, and this is just the cases that have been registered.

Laily Nhaary

The same ringtone becomes the craze, hearing it from the bathroom to the grave - and even from the beggers mobile (my favourite). A great video from Emad Hajjaj.

Note: Arabic Only

Download Ikbis Videos

I have been busy in my lab, adding H2O to C6H12O6, forming huge explosions and trying again. At last, I have found it - a way to easily download videos from Ikbis.

You'd see that many extensions will work on popular sites for video download, like YouTube. Ikbis however, won't. It seems it isn't as popular as the other sites and no extension has bothered to add it. Do not fear, this is quite easy.

Go to your selected video and scroll down, till you find this:

Since you can't highlight it, you'll have to write it down. Now just write the URL into your address bar and choose to save it. Or you can use a download manager to quickly download the file.

Once it finishes downloading, you won't be able to open it. Go download an FLV Player, such as BitComet FLV Player (the one I'm using). You should now be ready to go. Have fun!

UPDATE: If you use Internet Explorer, you can see the FLV files in your temp folder (C:/Windows/Temp/), after you seen them fully on Ikbis. Thanks Bilal.
UPDATE2: I am an idiot, no need for the stupid link - you can download it straight away. *bangs head on desk*

Stealing Unsecured Wireless

Is Stealing Wireless Wrong?

A man has been arrested after being spotted allegedly sitting in a street with a laptop using someone else's unsecured wireless connection.
The man arrested in a street in west London is at least the third person to be accused of breaching the law by taking internet service without permission.
The Communications Act 2003 says a "person who (a) dishonestly obtains an electronic communications service, and (b) does so with intent to avoid payment of a charge applicable to the provision of that service, is guilty of an offence".

For god's sake, who told the owner not to password protect his signal?!

Makezine On Youtube

Now, if only I was in America, I would definitely buy the Make Magazine. It talks about making unusual stuff at home, or your "garage" as they say on the site. Everything from small robots to jet engines have their own home on Make, as they give you step by step instructions on how you can make each one inside the magazine.

MAKE brings the do-it-yourself mindset to all the technology in your life. MAKE is loaded with exciting projects that help you make the most of your technology at home and away from home. This is a magazine that celebrates your right to tweak, hack, and bend any technology to your own will.

Not in America? No problem, for a person for Make called Bre Pettis exists. He presents you every weekend with projects straight from the magazine.

Hosted on YouTube, his entire videos are here. Be sure to leave a comment for him. There are quite alot of projects you'll enjoy. One of them is the jet engine 'candle', where he uses a jar, some wire, a diffuser and the methanol fuel (in the form of antifreeze) to make a cool 'blast'. See the video here.

Be sure also to check out the other videos he has, and also see the video on the faire they did. You should also download the videos to your computer so you can watch them later, by using something such as VideoDownloader or Unplug. Have fun!

Playing Runescape

RuneScape is the latest craze, and it deserves to be. In this online MMORPG, you have your own medival character in the virtual world of RuneScape. In it you meet other people, while training your skills or completing quests. Read more about Runescape on Wikipedia.

Right now, I'm training my hunting skill by catching green lizards deep in the swamps of Morytania, south-east of the city of Canifis. Ah, bliss.

Ikbis, an arab's Youtube

Ikbis (إكبس), is a word in arabic meaning "click". Now, it's a video portal, an arab's equivilant of Youtube. Ikbis is surprisingly popular, with quite alot of videos, and not all of them are arabic. Ikbis was released in 20 November 2005, and is running and gaining new people and videos everyday. What did you expect from the first video sharing website in the Arab World?

Ikbis is the first photo and video sharing service in the Arab World. Ikbis is part of TootCorp, a media company based in Arabia and founded in September 2005. TootCorp has special interest in citizen media and self-publishing. Other services by TootCorp include Toot and Toot Advertising Network (TAN).

With that said, let me introduce you to the Laughing Toy:

Back To Prison

Yes, school has started again. How I hate school, the worst invention on earth. Why, oh why, do we have to go to school. Grr...

So now I only had a few mere 2 months to enjoy, from 13/06/07 to 19/08/07. The summer was good, even though I had wanted to go to London, but I still had a good time.

Went to quite a few restaurants, my cousin came to visit from London, played games (as usual)... Now the summer holidays seems short. Ah well, I guess I'll have to get used to this torture.

In other news, I bought The Simpsons Movie (pirate copy, of course) and I'll be watching it today hopefully. I also saw Season 1 of Prison Break & some season of Lost for sale, but I'll get them later.

Laughing Guaranteed

Test Your Internet

OK, so to hit off the blog, as a start, I'd like to show you a great tool - Intel's Broadband Tester. It analyzes your internet's speed, gives it to you and shows where you are from normal speeds. This really shows how far away your speed really is, compared to what your ISP should've given you.

It also has a tool at the bottom, which shows how much time a certain file would download. 1GB would only take 4½ hours on a 512KB connection. Imagine how long it would take on a 8MB! Its surprising that there are so many factors affecting your internet connection speed:

Internet connection speed varies depending on your Internet Service Provider, modem type, time of day, browser version, operating system, traffic, and intersecting signals. Results are not a guarantee of true connection speed.

Try it out, and prepare to be amazed at how much your ISP is really giving you.

A Change Of Blogs

Now you may be wondering what this new blog is about. I hated the first one, it was somehow meant to be about programming, and fitting in personal stuff was somehow wierd. Therefore I've made this one, a personal one about me, me and me.

In a nutshell, this is a new blog. I hope it will grow, since this one will be easier to add posts to.