Moved

I won't be posting here anymore, I'm moving to www.sinan-hatahet.com/mfls.
Join me there :)

So long Blogger.

Tagged

Tagged By Asma’

Se7en things I want/like to do:

1. Graduate and leave KFUPM as soon as possible.
2. Visit Scotland.
3. Write a book.
4. Hike and take new shots.
5. Overcome my inability of memorizing.
6. Spend money and buy all the technology out there.
7. Have a daughter. (I’m more concerned about the daughter part than the mother :P)

Se7en things I don't want/like to do:

1. Attend boring lectures.
2. Listen to some sheikh who thinks he knows it all but he’s just a dumb ass who knows nothing.
3. Lying.
4. Get near any public restrooms.
5. Give up or throw a book.
6. Drink water!!!
7. Kissing men. (not sexually that’s of course for me at least, is out of the question :P)

Se7en things I say most often:

1. “Lek Yestor 3ardak” يستر عرضك لك or “Yestor el meme 3al becekleteh” يستر الميمة عليسكلتة .
2. F**k.
3. “Balla shou!!” بالله شو (I know that’s not really Testosterone talk)
4. Wohhooo.
5. “Bejah el naby Mohammad” بجاه النبي محمد.
6. “Eh Donia” إيـــــــــــــــه دنيا.
7. “Amanto be Allah” آمنت بالله.

Se7en people I want to pass this tag to:

Everybody I know is tagged. :P

Going to Mecca

I wasn't able to post lately midterms took most of my time, talking of midterms I got a 93 out of 100 in that open book exam ;). Anyway I am going to Mecca for one day and night to do an Omrah and hopefully pray the Taraweeh and Tahajod prayers, you know have the full package on the night of the 27th of Ramadan, my sin counter really needs to be reset, the last time I checked, it reached something E 79854 something. Anyway gotta go now won't be back before Sunday.

Weed – Part Two

Man A: They found me man.
Man B: Bummer… Who found you?
Man A: The f**king army that’s who… you gotta help me man, you work in the city council man.
Man B: I can’t man, you signed for the reserve on your f**king free will… You’re f**ked (chuckling)
Man A: F**ked!! (grasp of air), I’m not going to Iraq to fight in some bull shit war about oil money.
Man B: Bull shit war!!! What about 9/11??? Didn’t Iran hide the terrorist??
Man A: We’re fighting a war with IRAQ Doug!!! And both countries had nothing to do with blowing the world trade center.
Man B: Well they both have sand.
Man A: Bush invaded the defiance of the UN, he’s a war criminal, and now I am supposed to be one of his disposal thugs, and put a f**king target on my head in the middle of the desert, waiting to be blown up with a car bomb, wrecked by a twelve years old kid who used to love Friends and Metallica till one of our own missiles blow up his house… Na’ah I don’t think so.
Man B: They had weapon of mass destruction. (Shouting)
Man A: There was now weapon of mass destruction. (Shouting)
Man B: No!! There wasn’t?? (surprised) Anyway I gotta a lot of shit to do…
Man A: Name one thing more important than the cooperate take over of our Democracy??
Man B: I gotta shit man.
Man A: Ah ok, you gotta help me man…
Man B: I will, I will, I’ll put one of these yellow sticker on the back of my car… just for you. (a hug)
Man A: How can you be so blindly supportive of Bush?
Man B: I like his wife Laura… I used to buy weed from her at SMU..Good shit…Good Shit…

Weed – Part One.

What's Behind Lyrics?

I was chatting with Firas one of my blog’s reader the other and he told he was doing a research about famous rock songs’ lyrics and their meanings, and at the end of that interesting conversation, Firas asked me to make a post about it, so I thought what the hell.

1-Stairway To Heaven – Led Zeppelin:

Now that’s the greatest song ever made, great music, inspiring lyrics, and simply mystical, anyway here’s some interpretation of it’s lyrics:

• It’s about the Lord of the Rings. The Lady mentioned is symbolic of the elven woman Galadriel, and she is trying to bring light to middle earth.
  One verse mentions 'looking to the west, and my spirit is crying for leaving,' which is most likely Frodo before his trip into Mordor, looking west towards the Shire one last time before the trials ahead.
• This song was written by robert plant in front of his fire place, and Pagey, at his house. To figure out what this means you can start by listing to it backwards. From what I gathered it is the misleading powers of Satan.
  Backward lyrics: "Satan, sweet Satan. The one whose little path would make me so sad, whose power is Satan He’ll give those with his sex sex sex, there was a little toolshed, (Page's house) when he maid us suffer, sad Satan!!!
• It is all about a person that thinks everything is good "Theres a lady who knows all that glitters is gold" and is just trying to make sure she goes to heaven when she dies.
• It’s about death, the piper is god, and he wants us to "join him”. The lady is dying. She’s buying the stairway with her life. At the beginning, it says that "she’s sure all the glitters are gold" this means that she already sees the light, and she’s dying. "Your head is humming and it won't go, in case you don't know, The piper's calling you to join him, Dear lady, can you hear the wind blow, and did you know Your stairway lies on the whispering wind." this is god calling you, and your death. It comes like a wind, it happens that fast."As we wind on down the road, our shadows taller than our souls", shadows are tall when the sun is setting, and this is meaning that the sun is setting as we walk down the road, our lives are coming to an end. And the lady from the beginning is in white light, like an angel. "Listen very hard the tune will come to you at last." this means everyone will die. We are all as one and to be a rock and not roll is impossible, all of our lives will come to an end
• It’s about paths, the singer and the song bird are just there because it begins to paint a picture of heaven, the narrator or the singer is looking to the west, and "his spirit is crying for leaving" his soul as left already and he has died too. If we ask the piper, being god will help, sort of like a prayer, and god will help you through an other day. Two roads you can go by, and before you die, you can change the road you are currently on.
• Back to drugs, the part of the song about the stair way lying on the wispering wind is about a perfect drug. Like the wind it can not be retrieved. And this song to Led Zeppelin really doesn’t have much meaning. I quote "We were all high on the Morrocan dope at the time, so who knows" - Robert Plant on the meaning of Stairway To Heaven.

2-Comfortably Numb – Pink Floyd:

Another one of my favorite Pink Floyd songs.

• This song captures drugs very well. Synthetic happiness, escaping pain through substances, when you just get overwhelmed by emotions and you feel so hurt that you would rather be numb than to care.
• The beginning is the devil/god talking to him, coaxing him into taking what he offers. He accepts and is glorifying the feeling, like he was a happy child. All he wants is to not feel the pain. To be excluded from society and not hear anyone and to be alone is a comfortable numb for him, because the world causes him pain and numb is better.
• The line about the 'pin prick' is referring to when Roger Waters had to have a booster shot in order to go on stage during a tour once when he was suffering from hepatitis.
• This song is about a sick or dying man that was in severe pain. The speaker at the beginning is a doctor or medic of some sort. Hence the "I need some information, first/Just the basic facts/Can you show me where it hurts."Then the man in pain speaking, he is reliving a childhood experience, perhaps the first time he was hurt or sick. At this point he is becoming so engrossed in his feelings and the pain that it all just stops hurting. The only thing he can concentrate on is the childhood experience that he has forgotten but is trying to grasp now. The first time he says comfortably numb means he has lost all sense of reality and is just in his mind, completely lost from the world and engrossed so much into this memory from his past.The next time the doctor speaks to him, he is giving him a shot, or fixing him in some way. In the line "That'll keep you going through the show" I believe that the "show" is either life, or going with the theme of The Wall album and movie, war. And in the end, he’s recovering, but in a very different way. He still cannot hear the doctor at first, and is still in his memory. Slowly, though, the memory begins to fade and slip away from him. The second time he is "comfortably numb" is either because of the doctors drugs, the fact that he does not want to go on anymore, or a combination of the both.

3-Hotel California – The Eagles:

Every time I listen to this song which by the way I think is overrated, I always think what does its lyrics mean?? So after some search I’ve done on the internet I came up with these theories:

• The Hotel California is a real hotel located in (pick one) Baja California on the coastal highway between Cabo San Lucas and La Paz or else near Santa Barbara. In other words, the song is a hard look at the modern hospitality industry, which is plagued by guests who "check out any time (they) like" but then "never leave."
• The Hotel California is a mental hospital. One guy on the Web has identified it as "Camarillo State Hospital in Ventura County between LA and Santa Barbara."
• It's about satanism. Backward lyrics: “Satan hears this, he made me believe”.
• Hotel California is a metaphor for cocaine addiction. See "You can check out any time you like but you can never leave."
• It's about the pitfalls of living in southern California in the 1970s.
• There was this fireworks factory just three blocks from the Hotel California . . . and it blew up! Big tragedy. One of the workers was named Wurn Snell and he was from the town of Colitas in Greece. One of the workers who escaped the explosion talked to another guy, and Don asked what the guy saw. The worker said, "Wurn Snell of Colitas . . . rising up through the air."

4-Master Of Puppets - Metallica:

Ummm I just love its music and solo, an energy boost.

• Drugs again and again:
  "End of passion play, crumbling away"
  "I'm your source of self-destruction"
  I = drug will kill you
  "Veins that pump with fear, sucking darkest clear"
  The darkest = heroin ...
  "Taste me you will see"
  "More is all you need"
  Become addicted
  "You're dedicated to"
  "How I'm killing you"
  "Master of puppets I'm pulling your strings"
  
• The song isn't even about drugs or a drug addict. Yes, that is what it is saying on the surface, but it is saying that we are all being pulled by the strings of fate (or being toyed around with by god), with absolutely no power over ourselves. As humans, we enjoy our destructive behavior, no matter how much it makes us suffer, and in a way our dark nature is like a drug that we simply cannot get enough of, or come to terms with and overcome.

My Conclusion:

• All rock\metal songs can be about drugs, satanic believes. :P
• Rock songs have a lot of symbolism in then, the cool thing about symbolism, is there is no wrong or right answer.
• Here is a link where you can find cool reverse records of famous songs.. link

Clash Of Civilization- Part II Hegemony

Note I: This doesn't represent any of my beliefs about the whole subject, you still have to wait to read my conclusion about it, this is just the beginning of a series of observations I had in addition to some related articles I read in the past.

Note II: Please refer to the first post regarding this topic first.

In any society, certain cultural forms predominate over others, just as certain ideas are more influential than others; the form of this cultural leadership is what Gramsci has identified as hegemony.
Throughout history, cultural and political power in any arena has rarely achieved a perfect balance, but hegemony results in the empowerment of certain cultural beliefs, values, and practices to the submersion and partial exclusion of others. Hegemony affects the perspective of mainstream history, as history is written by the victors for a sympathetic readership. Theories of hegemony attempt to explain how dominant groups or individuals (known as hegemons) can maintain their power.
In very simple words, hegemony causes clash of civilization, How? For example; efforts by the West to promote its values of democracy and liberalism as universal values and its military dominance is going to have a reaction, this reaction mostly takes shape of conflicts, which are as I said in the first post a form of clash of civilization.

Midterms

Like my friend Omar I have midterms too, but you see in my university, whenever this period begins it doesn't end till the finals, see we have profs whom like to give tree midterms, others two, some one and not to forget mentioning project dead lines, so it's really like a loop there is no way out of it, till someone press Control+Z (UNIX joke, if you're not a computer geek don't bother and try to understand). Anyway I'm taking this shitty course which I should've taken two years ago according to my curriculum, but I postponed it cause it's doesn't open any other courses to me, actually it's not even a CS course, it's a computer engineering one which even makes me hate it more. So, that shitty course is Computer Architecture and Design, and today we took the first midterm, but the special thing about it in particular is that its "open book", and ppl believe me that's not a good thing!! Open book exams or as I like to call it open **** (you figure it out and you'll get my special surprise, and those who know the usual Sinan prize don't spoil it :P) it usually means it's challenging, actually the prof usually implies "Even books won't help you suckeeeeeeeeeeeers" by it. Anyway as you should know by now or at least from my blog banner, I am narcissistic which also implies that I am over self-confident, so I studied as usual, got the material in my mind, and only took my notes to the exam, no books what so ever just my notes. The exam was really hard, it really lived to its reputation, the prof even extended the time to 3 hours, just so you can see how cruel they are a 25%-weight-grade midterm in 3 hours, what will it be in the finals a get-away-weekend package!?!? Anyway to sum it all up let's say I really do have the right to be narcissistic time to time, because I totally rocked in it, I never did that good since long ago, and even though I hate to admit it but if the challenge continues I may end up loving this course.

Childhood

I uploaded some childhood pictures to flickr.. Some of my favorites :) It's me and my bro Kinan above, and Kamel is the kid who seems to be walking. I miss you guys. And dad is on the right... It's scary how we look like each others right??

Death & Life

With the publication of her first novel, “The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter”, Carson McCullers, all of twenty-three, became a literary sensation. With its profound sense of moral isolation and its compassionate glimpses into its characters' inner lives, the novel is considered McCullers' finest work, an enduring masterpiece. At its center is the deaf-mute John Singer, who becomes the confidant for various types of misfits in a Georgia mill town during the 1930s. Each one yearns for escape from small town life. When Singer's mute companion goes insane, Singer moves into the Kelly house, where Mick Kelly, the book's heroine (and loosely based on McCullers), finds solace in her music. Wonderfully attuned to the spiritual isolation that underlies the human condition, and with a deft sense for racial tensions in the South, McCullers spins a haunting, unforgettable story that gives voice to the rejected, the forgotten, and the mistreated. And through Mick Kelly, gives voice to the quiet, intensely personal search for beauty.

The characters don't speak to themselves, they act, react, feel, struggle, and are incapable of reflecting on their own thoughts and feelings. It is obvious that people who won't try to know themselves cannot expect to be recognized by others. Some people would say it’s a weakness in the book, but I see it as the whole idea behind the novel, it needs a hell of a writer to express such feelings. I enjoyed reading it a lot cause if I learnt something out of it, I learnt to appreciate my relationship with my folks and friends, and to never seek loneliness, cause it could simply turn my life into a living hell.

When Veronika decides to commit suicide it is not from profound depression but from boredom and emptiness. When she wakes up from her overdose she finds herself in an old fashioned literary "asylum" where the treatments are--to say the least--unorthodox. There she learns that she has damaged her heart and will in fact die in little more than a week. And from there, the parable unfolds.Faced with the real possibility of death, Veronika begins to appreciate life. The author develops his theme artfully. Follow your vision, he says, live in the moment, make the most of your fleeting time. Do not waste your life trying to meet the expectations of others, but do what you have always dreamed of doing.Unfortunately the author is just a bit heavy-handed in making these points. The story of Veronika's commitment to a mental hospital is a very personal issue with author Coelho--indeed he himself makes a brief appearance in the story to underline this point. I wish he had been more subtle and let the readers draw their own conclusions. Still, the book is readable, lucid and charming.

This was a very interesting book to read. I kept thinking what I would do if I had no more than a week left to live. You see, like Veronika, we will always be more interested in making the best out of our lives if we had an appointment with the end of it. Paulo Coelho described the yearning to death and the struggle to live in a beautiful way, but in my humble opinion if Coelho also discussed the after life issue the book would be a masterpiece. Live your day as if it were the last!

P.S. If you are depressed or in a bad mood, and what you want is a little peace of mind and happiness, don't read these books at all.

Clash Of Civilization- Part I Definition

Note I: This doesn't represent any of my beliefs about the whole subject, you still have to wait to read my conclusion about it, this is just the beginning of a series of observations I had in addition to some related articles I read in the past.

War and Conlfict - David Sieh

Differences among civilizations are not only real; they are basic. Civilizations are differentiated from each other by history, language, culture, tradition and, most important, religion. The people of different civilizations have different views on the relations between God and man, the individual and the group, the citizen and the state, parents and children, husband and wife, as well as differing views of the relative importance of rights and responsibilities, liberty and authority, equality and hierarchy. These differences are the product of centuries. They will not soon disappear. They are far more fundamental than differences among political ideologies and political regimes. Differences do not necessarily mean conflict, and conflict does not necessarily, mean violence. However, differences among civilizations have generated the most prolonged and the most violent conflicts.

The supremacy and the dual role of the West has caused a growth in civilization-consciousness, in other words, the West being at a peak of power contributed in: a return-to-the-roots phenomenon, which is happening in non-Western civilizations. For example the "Asianization" of Japan, the "Hinduization" of India, the failure of socialism and nationalism and therefore the "re-Islamization" of the Middle East…etc

In the past, the elites of non-Western societies were usually the people who were most involved with the West, who studied at Oxford, Harvard, the Sorbonne… and had absorbed, chanted Western values. Now, however, these relationships are being reversed. We see anti-western figures on national TV more, their words are constantly reviewed in local papers, and the majority of the levy view them as heroes and saviors, whom would release them from their government and their allies (the West in most people eyes)grip.

The clash of civilizations has two levels, the level where states fight for territory, and the level where states fight over the control of international institutions and third parties, by promoting their political, economical, ideological and religious values.

P.S. Stick around there is yet more to come..