The Return of Citizen X

Being out of the Blogging circle for a while now, i've missed out on a lot of events that have occurred locally and around the world.....

On a personal note, my high point this year was when my second son, Daniel was born in May'08; my low point was when my estranged father, whom i had not talked to for almost four months (since he cut all ties with me) passed away in June'08. I will miss him despite the roller coaster relationship that we had; after all, he was, is and will always be my father. May god rest his soul.

I completed by Secondment to Oman in July'8 and returned back to my post in Bahrain. (Herein lies another blog topic for the coming days)

First and foremost, I was saddened to hear that the Blog-Father had hung up his keyboard indefinitely.... You will be missed, but your personal decision to do so will always be respected.

Now, the the F***ing traffic (here) in Bahrain is getting worse.... Road rage is rampant, showing the middle finger is a prerequisite for getting a driver's licence and never a day goes bye without another fatal accident.

I'v heard that our DREAM of a Monorail (Overhead Train) system in Bahrain MAY become a reality, sooner than we think (I will not hold my breath but I'm keeping my fingers crossed).

The illegal occupation of Palestine, Afghanistan & Iraq continue ... The false wars are still raging on ... The financial world is in turmoil ... there is a huge distrust in the Banking systems around the world...and behemoths are collapsing ... while others are being gobble up by their governments as a preemptive measure before the domino effect topples them too ... thousands of people will loose their jobs...Millions of American's will lose their homes because of the sub-prime lending debacle.

The Gulf states are not safe either, although the GCC Central banks continue to profess peace and order, that is far from the truth. Yes, there is a lot of liquidity in our markets, but some Financial & Investment losses may be too great to be borne and may (WILL) eventually lead to the deck of card to fall, tumble down. It is still taboo to tell the truth in the gulf....

The American public will shortly be running to the poles to elect yet another president that will further contribute to their down fall, running their country into financial ruins and alienating them even further from the rest of the world. Democrat or Republican, a crook is still a crook, no matter what side they are on.

Finally, as for what i intend to blog about; i will to continue write, be it a short foot note or a long essay type blog; whether it be about the mysteries of the universe, the divine and undiscovered secrets that should be known by all, or simple things in life; No matter how crappy my writing or pointless it may be.....

Oh Mama, Obama!!

The American presidency has always been for SALE, this coming term is no exception..

I first heard of Baraka Obama around two years back, on a CBS program about describing him as down to earth, a people's person who had not forgotten his roots even after winning a Seat in the Senate. He was paraded as a man who still visited his constituency, walking the streets of his old neighborhood, as though he never left the community.

I admired that, i thought, may be, just maybe this one could actually make a difference.

A few months ago, he was in the limelight again, this time he had just announced his intentions to run for the Demotcratic nominee and eventual candidacy for President of the United States. His speech pattern seemed to have changed, the way he carried himself too was different. It was almost as thought he was now WHITE. I'm not being racist here, but the fact is he was just talking differently, not in the same manner as before, he had lost his originality and uniqueness. Now, he actually sounded like one of the other political candidates who only cared about winning and appeasing the voters. I was hoping i was wrong.

A few days back, the other shoe fell.

(He has all but won the Democratic nomination, leading Senator Hillary Clinton to concede. )

It was Wednesday the 4th of June 2008, in Washington while addressing the influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

HE SHOWED HIS TRUE COLORS AS A BIAST AMERICAN SELLING HIS SOUL TO THE DEVIL. HE WAS, BUT IS NO LONGER THE SAVIER; he, like many other American Political hopefuls has bowed down to the biggest lobby in America, AIPAC; the biggest supporters of Israel AND ITS CONTINUING WAR CRIMES.

His speech said it all; he supports the right of Israel to have Juresalam as its Capital.

[I'm all for peace and prosperity, but only through a agreement that is (a) not biast, and (b) demands that Israel pay for all the war crimes, torture, misery, degredation and hardship (helplessness) that the Palestanian people have faced under the ON GOING & ILLEGAL OCCUPATION of their lands.]

People, i give you the next rightful PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA(NS without SOULS).

Lying your way to THAILAND!

This is rather funny; i've always believed that if you lie, for whatever reason, you'll soon find yourself telling another one just to cover your first, then another and another, leading to a chain that goes on and on until you get tired of lying & fess up.

Alas, there are also times where people are soooooo crooked that they will never confess, others may be even better, to the extent that sooner or later the lie becomes fact, even if they are caught red handed.

For example, a friend of mind told me of the following; he and his wife were at the airport on their way to Thailand, for a 10 day vacation when he saw an acquaintance. After saying their hellos', the acquaintance tells my friend that he is going to Australia to continue his studies. Well, fine and dandy, they say their good byes and depart.

When my friend arrives at the Bangkok airport he is surprised to see his acquaintance there as well. They smile at each other and my friend is told, by his acquaintance, that he was there on TRANSIT, before his plane departs to Australia.

Again, taking his word for it, my friend leaves the airport and spends the next 8 days sight seeing and traveling from place to place, when he and his wife get back to Bangkok, on the ninth day, he is surprised to see his acquaintance staying at the same hotel he is at.

They again say hello and then he asks 'How come he's (his acquaintance) still in Thailand', to which his acquaintance answers "THE PLANE GOT DELAYED AND I WAS PUT UP AT THE HOTEL UNTIL NOW BY THE AIRLINE COMPANY". What the hell do you say to someone like that?......

Alternatively, i have heard of even better (worse by nature) liars, note the following;
A man was fooling around with his maid when all of a sudden, his wife comes back early from her mother's house. Being in the bed room and having no way out, the maid picks up her clothes and runs into the toilet. The man is left sitting on the bed only wearing his underwear.

His wife walks into the room and demands to know where the maid is, he turns to her and squirts out the following in a drowsy tone, "SHE IS IN THE TOILET". The wife asks what she (the maid) is doing in the toilet, to which he replies, again in the drowsy tone, "HOW THE HELL SHOULD I KNOW, PROBABLY CLEANING THE TOILET, ALL I KNOW IS THAT I WAS ASLEEP AND YOU WOKE ME UP". The dumb twit of a wife bought the excuse her husband had given her.............

But this one takes the cake; a women walks into her bed room, which is dimly lit, only to find her husband on top of the maid. She screams out " What the Hell are you doing?", to which he replies "OH MY GOD, I THOUGHT I WAS ON TOP ON YOU"!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't know how the last one ended but you get the picture.................

Is a Dumb @ss quick Fix the solution?? I think not!!!

The current proposal to grant Bahraini Citizen (with incomes less than BD1,500) a monthly assistance (aid) of BD50 to cope with rising inflation & hike in the price of goods, is still being tossed around in the Parliament pending final approval. I think it is being limited to only one year.

By my simple calculations, only 66,666 Bahrain individuals will be eligable each month. What about the other 944,444 or so that are excluded?

Do the MPs believe this aid is going to resolve the crisis, curb it in any way, or dampen the effect on our pockets?
Prices will continue to rise, good will continue to get even more expensive, and the freaking cost of living will be more unbearable.
.
Yet Dumb Ass proposals are being made by our ""highly educated"" MPs, who are convinced this quick fix is exactly what the doctor ordered.

There's a saying that goes something like this "Feed a man for a day & you will have to feed him tomorrow as well. But, teach a man to GROW his own food & you will have fed him for LIFE".

Why is this simple concept not easy for our MPs to understand.

The proposal will provide an additional source of income for some famalies, the benefits of which has already being nullified by rising rent prices & increasing cost of goods, which will then dry out by the end of 2008..!!!!

Rent continues to sky rocket, Food is becoming more expenseive, I SUSPECT THAT FUEL PRICES WILL INCREASE AS WELL..........WHY THE HELL NOT??..

There's more, land prices are phenominal, construction material has sky rocketed, the purchasing power of our currency has decreased drastically because of the PEGGING to the dollar....

I suspect alot of the price increases are due to GREEEEEEEEDD, not increasing supplier costs or transportation expenses....

All the MPS are recommending is a fix that is short term, i guess maybe up to the end of their Term in office......!!!!!!!

I don't profess to know the solution to all our problems, but maybe MPs should consider a Rent freeze, maybe a pre-approval by Government agencies before Suppliers of Consumer Goods, Services & Raw matterial increased prices (to ensure no price fixing and increases are justified). The immediate ban of the sale of Land to foreigners (inclusing other GCC nationals), allowing them to only purchase into the special residential schemes being offered. A matirx for Residental Flat specifications and the legal rent prices applicable basee on the location to be published by the government and adhered to by Land lords. Any one of the above suggestons, in my mind, would be better than offering the BD50 bribe to citizenzzzzzzzzzzz............

Why i think women are much more tougher than us guys!

The fact is, i have a high threshold for pain; i've been this way ever since i can remember, be it paper cuts, splinters, bites, twisted ankles, EVEN A RUSTY NAIL IN THE FOOT, yet one thing i have never been able to withstand is hair removal using only tweezers or wax (the latter i have never used but am only stating to prove a point). I squint and tremble, then cry like a little girl (not a good example i might add, but you get the picture).

Remember the scene in the movie ' What women want', where Mel Gibson, calls women MAD, crazy or something like that, for using products to tear off /peal away excess hair.

So, being quite a rather warm blooded individual, i tend to require a little cleaning up performed on my eye brows, else a Uni-Brow matteralises below my forehead (Note: Uni-Brow, NOT UNI-BRA).

And so my kind, loving, caring and ever forgiving wife generously volunteers to pluck the critters off of the face of her simple minded husband, before he (I) is overcome (you'd think i'd know better).
NOOOOOO, nothing of the sort, in fact i'm such a dope that i sit through the whole ordeal, taking it literally like a woman, only, well, JUST, so my wife does not take me for a sissy.

WHICH I AM NOT.

But it does hurt....sooooooooooooooooo much......I'd rather take a bullet in the @SS.....

Women, give birth, bare most of the burden of child rearing and for some reason or another, sheer off the excess hair on their body without even a sweat......

MY HATs off to you women...

Tough as nails yet soft as a baby's bottom

Is there a sign stuck to my back?

I swear, today i felt like someone had stuck a sigh on my back.

It started off 5 minutes in to my afternoon jog when a man turned towards me and started making gestures with his hands, as if to indicate that he was looking for someplace or thing, and then he began to shout at me in an un-comprehendible dialect, I shrugged my shoulders, waved with my hands to so he would know i didn't understand and continued jogging.

Further ahead, i was waved to a halt by a woman in a car, who asked for directions to a Garden that i had never heard of; i just explained that i too was a foreigner in OMAN and did not know the location.

Later in the evening, while i sat at a coffee shop and was having my grilled Hamour dinner, a young guy comes up to me and asks me where to get a packet of cigarettes.

For god sakes, is there something written on my forehead that i'm not aware of. I don't mind helping people but this is just absurd. Is there a camera around that i'm not aware of....?

CX movie review - RAMBO 4

I did not have a good selection of movies to choose from so i settled for RAMBO 4.

Walking into the movie theater, i was unsure of what to expect; I had grown up with the original movies and loved them all, even with his messed up accent & lame acting.

The hype going around is that Silvester Stalone is old; he can't act and would probably be holding a walking stick throughout the movie .

The Plot
From the start, i was immediately shocked by the scenes of murder, genocide, torture, mutilation, rape and plunder that befell the Burmese people.

A group of missionaries hire RAMBO to take them to the outskirts of Burma where the villagers requireing aid, are deprived from basic necessities of life, living in fear of the Burmese military leadership and are prevented from worshiping their prefered religion.

The initial drop off goes well, with a little hick up that RAMBO takes care of in seconds.

The real story starts when the missionaries are captured by the Burmese military and a group of mercenaries + John RAMBO come to their aid.

There is a lot of VIOLENCE.

What I really thought of it:
This movie is absolutely disturbing; but one good it does is bringing the plight of the Burmese people and what they had to live through for the world to see. THE DEPTS OF EVIL WITHIN HUMANITY IS ENDLESS.

The CX Rating
The plot was OK and the acting wasn't bad, but just for bringing up the subject of Genocide and depicting the atrocities i'll give it a 7.

So go and enjoy the movie, learn about the happenings around us, but just make sure you don't have a week stomach, even i had a hard time watching some of the scenes.

Final note, i salute Silver Stalone on a job well done in Directing the M ovie......

What is in the name SHAIKHA?

In general, the salutations SHAIKHA or SHAIKH are used to call upon a female or male with some degree of respect.

Others use it to point out that a person is rather daft.

Me, i use them to cover my shortfall; where for some reason or another i cannot remember names of people whom i have just met, or have known for some time.

This is no joke, i have gone for weeks directly dealing with people but never knowing or remembering their names. I know it's rude but hey, the brain cells must be rapidly deteriorating in the area of my brain used for recalling names.

Once, during my secondment in Qatar, my colleagues and i went out with an employee of the bank who was gracious enough to offer, WHICH WE GLADLY ACCEPTED. After arriving at the location, he excused himself to go to the little boys room. Foolishly i turned to my colleagues and asked them what the guy's name was, i was met with blank faces, then grins of despair; the bastards could not remember his name either. So for the remainder of the evening i continued to call him 'Yesh Shaikh'.

I fear this is also happening to me in Oman, i have not been invited out much and am keeping away from such invitations for fear of being exposed. Today i was asked by a lady, 'how come i call her and three others SHAIKHA', i lied through my teeth and told her that it was out of respect for all of them...if only she knew the truth.....

Now faces, are another matter; i never forget a face, the name that goes with the face is an utterly different matter.....

Sometimes I use a name association gimmick where u link the name of a person u've just met with someone u already know, but if the name is not common, then basically u should know that i'm F*ed, and have no choice but to fall back on my old reliable aids; the honorary salutation.

MY POINT being, if you ever meet me in person and i greet you with SHAIKH or SHAIKHA, then you should realize that i have already forgotten your name....don't take it personally......and i apologis in advance.

Another Year waisted....another year gained

Another year wasted, another year gained age wise, and nothing to show for it.


Well, not really, Yes i've gotten older, my joints now speak to me more frequently; athletic abilities i once took for granted are now cumbersome, BUT i'd like to think i've also gotten wiser, doe things i'd once throught impossible, met more interesting people and made even more friends; and lets not forget having seen the world, ok not the whole world, but there is still time for that...

I spent the last day of the year at work, so it should not surprise you that i continued to work at home well into the late hours of the night and into the new year thereby ensuring i began the new year the same way i ended the last....

At one point of time in life i was the youngster at work, now i'm one of the more experianced, but not the elderly so that is something good to look forward to.

Life, my friend has its ups and downs, and all we can do is wait it our and try our best to come out unscaved OR we can try and be one of the few who can take the bull by the horns and actually make a difference, who live how we want to and do what we love, LIFE IS GOOD. Think about it, there are things that happen in this world that we have no control over, so why bother yourself, rather, concentrate on the things that are within your control.

I believe i'm in a good place for now, life is hard but it's going in the direction that it should.....

And just for the record 17 seconds into the new year, my new years resolution was over... so now i assign little tasts for myself rather than Gigantic impossibilities.

Of the many small tasks, here are two that are within my grasp;
a) Drive all the way from Bahrain to Oman, in my 2002 Mitsubishi colt...(read about it in my blog soon)

b) Loose as much weigh as possible by my 34th birthday, which is on 23rd February.... (i will write about that on the B day.

Enjoy 2008, and as always i'm late but.............HAPPY NEW YEAR..

Fart-a-Thon

...you know where this is going......so prepare yourself.

Farting comes naturally to us all, call it flatulence, breaking wind, letting one go, passing gas, or any other work in the English vocabulary that catches your fancy.

The fact of the matter is, most of us have done it and will continue to do so, some willingly and by choice, other just because the pressure can no longer be contained within.

So it should not surprise you when i say, FOR GOD SAKES GO TO THE TOILET, DUMP THE MOTHER LOAD BEFORE YOU WALK OUT THE DOOR.

I've been a victim of soo many bloat and run incidents that its reached a level of National Security.

Whether it be the Cinema incident where the guy in front just continued to churn out loads of Gas, his chimney put the local dump to shame.

Or at the airport when i was about to walk the stairs up to the plane, behind a woman who had her rump in my face, and JUST had to let one go....It was silent but DEADLY...I KID U NOT.

Another time i was talking to a colleague who was discussing something or the other and, FART, right in the middle of his conversation let an ear popper out, yet he continued as though nothing had happened....WOW..

Once, some friends and i were driving around in my car when one of them let go a radio-active waste of a fart, No Sound, Butttttt ooohh mummaaaa, the smell was unbearable....I slammed down the break, put the car in park and got the hell out of the car, pursued by the other two innocent guys. While the FARTIST just sat there laughing his head out, 5 minutes later we all got back into the car, drove on, and all the way home, i had my head stuck out the car window.

Alas, one must also consider the importance of a well placed release, MY friends can vouch for this, but i'm told that on a cold winters day, when you've gotten into bed and are desperately trying to get warm, by immersing yourself completely under the blanket and letting a couple of stinkers loose, you can either knock yourself out or warm up the surrounding air, but you just need to learn to live with the SMELL.

I'm not so innocent myself, my biggest weakness is when i laugh out loud uncontrollably, i lose control over my body and occasionally let one RIP. To date, i can recollect this shameful accident has happened to me no less than 4 times, but with sheer dump luck my laughs have always been able to muffle out the FART noise, so I was safe as no one was the smarter; until now since i'm exposing myself to the whole world.

NOW, what would be the point of writing this; well, just that the only gas one should let go should be in the sanctity of their own home NOT in other people's faces or cars or elevators......AND FOR GOD SAKES GO TO THE TOILET BEFORE LEAVING HOME.