Ramadan Is On Thursday

Shiekh Ahmad Hilailil announced that the day after tommorow is Ramadan, so tommorow you can enjoy your last day of eating! Ramadan mubarak to you all. ^^

And On The Brighter Side

Most of you must've heard about Husain and how he was stuck in the middle of Amman trying to search for his father with very little to think about. In the mean time, his father was literally dying in a hospital, where his medication and food wasn't given to him and the reception denied that the man was inside thier hospital. Read more.

If you haven't read the follow up on the story of Husain, then you're missing alot. After the publish of Husain's story, many bloggers decided to post his story on thier blog. This then spread to the local media, and even to the newly assigned health priminister, Dr. Salah Al Mawajdeh. He then assigned a investigation team to the case.

His father is now in a different, much better hospital - JU Hospital. He is recovering much better than he was in the goverment hospital, where he would've died if he hadn't been transfered. This is a great breakthough to Jordan, and - even though I don't expect it - maybe things will change after this. Be sure to read Husains actual update, and Qwaider's story (who visited the father in hospital).

Some Dabshaat (I+II)

Conversations In Men's Cubicles

I was barely sitting down when I heard a voice from the other
stall saying: "Hi, how are you?"

I = Me, M = Man In Other Cubicle

I: "Doin' just fine!"
M:"So what are you up to?"

I: "Uhhh, I'm like you, just traveling!"

M: "Can I come over?"
I: "No... I'm a little busy right now!"

Then I hear the guy say nervously...

"Listen, I'll have to call you back. There's an idiot in the other stall who keeps answering all my questions!"

The Advantage of being an Arab

An old Arab lived close to New York City for more than 40 years. One day, he decided that he would love to plant potatoes and herbs in his garden, but he knew he was alone and too old and weak.

His son was in college in Paris, so the old man sent him an e-mail explaining the problem: ” Beloved son, I am very sad, because I can’t plant potatoes in my garden. I am sure, if only you were here, that you would help me and dig up the garden for me. I love you, your father .”

The following day, the old man received a response e-mail from his son: "Beloved father, please don’t touch the garden. That is where I have hidden the THING. I love you, too, Ahmad."

After detecting the e-mail, the FBI stormed the house of the old man and took the whole garden apart, searching every inch. But they couldn’t find anything. Disappointed, they left the house.

The next day, the old man received another e-mail from his son: "Beloved father, I hope the garden is dug up by now and you can plant your potatoes. That is all I could do for you from here. Your loving son, Ahmad."

China's English Is Bad

These Chinese are worse than us! Thanks Who-Sane.

Pirate Everything In Jordan

Getting a pirate copy is easier than you thought. In London, you have those Chinese men with huge bags. They wait around malls, shops, they lurk around busy streets, even around cinemas. They don’t need to advertise or promote their business.

No policemen are around, so the coast is clear. People gather round, and – like selling drugs – they open their bags and present their goods. Pirate copied DVD’s, wrapped in plastic bags and a badly made cover.

Even though they have the worst quality films, everyone buys takes out their five pounds and buys a DVD or two. To the buyers, they find it better to bring the family and their friends round their home made cinema and watch their movie. Either that, or you pay five pounds to watch it in the cinema – by yourself.

The quality has no match, one is great, and the other one is fuzzy, filled with shadows of people going to the toilet, and the coughs and laughs of the others in the cinema. The picture usually is off centered, and as soon as the movie finishes you can see the camera moving, and the guy leaving the cinema. All this, or the cinema? This.

It may not be the best thing to buy a pirate copy, but getting one is well worth it. I would rather spend my well earned ten dinars on quite a lot of DVDs, rather than taking a friend with me to the cinema and finishing it all up. Most people will bear with the bad quality for 1.5JDs. I would say that everything has its price. I would prefer to buy a cheap copy of a film.

Although it may not seem right at first, but I believe that if cinemas had their price lowered to something like 1.5 JD, more people would go to the cinema rather than buy a DVD. The same goes for software.

An engineer would rather buy a cheap copy of AutoCAD, then buy a 300 dollar legal copy of the program. A boy, like me, would rather buy a game for a few JDs, than spend 45 JDs to buy the same game from Prime Megastore.

Jordanians have found something called pirate copy as a normal copy. They have nothing called legal software, nothing called copyright. Pirated DVDs litter the selves of the stores and they are always crammed full of people. Your local stationary shop has boxes full of PC and PS2 games, all of them pirated of course.

The real jokes are the popular ones that have to hide their goods. A store in Gardens Street looks perfectly legal. It has some NBA and Fifa games, legal ones, collecting dust on the selves. These aren’t for sale, these are just there so when the police come they won’t get caught.

There are catalogues under the counters, and when you choose a game, he writes it down and goes to the storage room (on another floor in the building) and returns with the pirated copies.

Another place in Amman Mall sells them. You’d expect somewhere as that to be safe and free of pirated copies, but it isn’t. Although the shelves are littered with the same legal tapes and CDs, when you ask him for a pirate DVD, he rummages under the counter and gives it to you. Almost like buying drugs. The DVDs are overpriced anyway, at 3 JDs.

The Middle East and Asia is a huge market of pirate everything. When will we change, or do we need to change, or should the vendors of the films and software change their prices? Comment, I dare you.

Goverment Hospitals...

So much for Prince Hamza hospital, I feel sorry for Husain.

Also read this interesting post on the topic by Bilal.

For a translated to arabic version by M Kilany, click here.

And, how you can spread the word, by 7aki Fadi.