For those planning to participate in the Gaza drive arranged by 7iber and the Action committee; but find themselves strangled with time, I'm dedicating two of my company's delivery scooters to collect whatever you intend to send and we'll make the arrangement for the drop-off at the Cozmo location before 8:00 pm free of charge.
Please call us at 06-553-5249, SMS at 07-4543-2101 or email as at scooterexpress[at]wi-tribe[dot]jo
Four years ago while i was still studying at university, i wrote this essay in an online forum i used to post in, I'm reposting it as-is to capture the true essence of it.
little did i know at the time that the thoughts manifested in it will perpetually echo with relevance until today, alas with even wider spread footprint, for we now have the affairs of Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Palestine among others haunting our minds with distress and worrisome.
At the peak of the Israeli assault on Lebanon, Jordanians spent well-over half a million JDs on fireworks on the night of Tawjihi results! Though some may justify shelling huge sums on an individual basis under the premise that people are gay-happy and they want to celebrate (after all, it's better than firing rounds of AKs around, no?), yet the cumulative expenditure is totally unjustified at wartimes.
It'll be another despicable highlight of our culture failure and defeat if the niche of our society decide to celebrate bonfires at our ends, were the unacknowledged resistance is striving to find the money to source firearm, while others are spending the money on recreational fireworks to celebrate others' engaging history
Enjoy the piece:
For those who don't know what bonfire night is -as I have only came to know it when I came to England few years back-, it is a night of which people shell out mad sums of money on fireworks, and blast them out all night long in a spectacular display of an urban tradition!
What provoked the following stream of thoughts was not the astonishing and dazzling displays I have witnessed throughout that night...
What triggered it was merely the background sound of that night...
As I walked back from university on a late hour, I was listening to all these fireworks exploding, some where close, some where echoing, some had thunderous explosions, other seemed to have this repetitive pattern of sound that tend to remind me of an automatic assault weapon. Slowly... my hallucinatic mind could not help but to drift in a stream of thoughts, visualising the west bank -and Gaza- in pursuit of capturing the anxiousness my fellow Palestinians live -or die- under... day by day!
The unexpected explosions that you tend to hear every other second did trigger a hint of anxiety, as I forced my self to believe that I was in an anxious situation, trying to capture the moment and have a taste of what its like to live under fire, and it does sound like anything but normal... they say a picture speaks for a thousand words, but tonight it proved the other way around, the continuous fead of news from Palestine could not squeeze a single tear drop... while a Hollywood movie might get many weeping over a fictional love story with a dramatic twist of some sort... Tonight I could not help but to keep my self constrained by the tangling stream of thoughts thrilled by an ever-lasting explosive echoes and sounds
Yet I live in a peaceful and quite town, and during my usual shuttle walk between my house and the university, the worst thing that I might encounter in my linear daily life is a drunk and or drugged-up homeless whom might ask for some change! building up from this situation, and with the help of my imaginative mind, I hardly managed to remind myself of those who live under the siege, how do they feel? I hear the thunderous explosion, with un-dismissible certainty that this explosion was 150 foot high in the air, indeed not worrying about if it was of a close proximity... which is certainly different from being in a situation where you encounter actually occupiers, geared up with M-16s, F-16s and apatches looming in the horizon, and every other explosion you might hear is in the next block, until one day you are in its proximity, yet they lead a normal life... they get married and seem to strive to survive and raise out of ashes time after time!
After a long day at uni., and with this imaginative journey to examine 'how it feels like' to be there, I shall lay down and sleep... to wake up for another English, gray and rainy day... certainly those anxious thoughts should evaporate by then... as for those on the front line back there... Allah Ma3ahum
Though I didn't have the endurance exhibited by Bakkouz and his long email skirmish with Amina the orphan and her
Intoxicated-to-death father, however I found this pilot scam email I received yesterday interesting.
Did he/she actually spent some actual human-time on customising such message, or is web-crawlers are now smart enough to relate a name, a theme among other info to the email they hunt!
At any measure, I did reply to him, and he was more direct than Amina by bluntly asking me for my personal details… he wasn't persistent though, he dropped it when I did, Enjoy…
Notice the Subject and the overall general context, things like "I got your contact from an Islamic search on the web when i was searching for who to entrust".From: AMAD UDDIN
To: ***************************
Date: Oct 10, 2006 1:13 PM
Subject: From your Brother Amad Uddin To Basem Aggad
Reply | Reply to all | Forward | Print | Add sender to Contacts list | Delete this message | Report phishing | Show original | Message text garbled?
ATTEN:Basem Aggad
Salam Alaykum......
greetings in the name of Allah, the most beneficient, and the most merciful
Dear Brother,
Compliments of the season. I know my letter might come to you as a surprise, but don't be surprise because it’s coming in good faith. I am Mr. Amad Uddin from ZINBABWE. But based in United Arab Emirate U.A.E. with my kid sister Fatima Uddin.
My father and me located to from ZINBABWE to London long time ago, after we where converted to Muslim by my late father's friend who was from United Arab Emirate (DUBAI). After my family welcomed the Islamic religion my country was no longer self for us to stay anymore, due to the Christianity religion over there we where wanted death to be killed by Christens that is why we left to London to stay.
My father was invole in the recent Plane crash in IRAN couple of days ago, when he was flaying from Bander Abbas to Mashhad. before we left to London my father deposited the sum of E28.2m Euros (twenty Eight Million Two Hundred Thousand Euros) With Me-bank International Dubai
( United Arab Emirate). Which he made it know to me as the only son. Part of this fund i mapped out to use for building a Mosque where children of ALLAH will be worshiping, the rest of the money i will use for a very lucrative investment to keep my life going because i can't go back to my country anymore.
My Christian name use to be Michel Andrew before i was converted and since then we have been happy in worshiping the almighty ALLAH our personal savor’s, I got your contact from an Islamic search on the web when i was searching for who to entrust before i saw your contact and decide to tell disclose my situation to you of which i know that by Allah grace things will work out fine for me and you. All i need is your assistance in helping me to retrieve this fund from theMe-bank International Dubai (United Arab Emirate) and have it transferred out side through your account to build this Mosque which my late father told me to do and which has also being my dream. I know i do not have much say in my country any more that is why i want to entrust this transaction in your hands. However, i will make shore i provide all the documents back up we will need for retrieving this fund.
After transferring these funds to your account in your country, we will bring out money for building of Mosque, the rest of the funds you will be in title of 15% shear for assisting me, and 5% will be for any expencies you made on the process of this transaction.Then i will use the rest for an investment in your country.
Finally, i will reside in your country because i will not be welcome in my ZINBABWE as a Muslim.
If you are interested in assisting me. Email me at amadudd@yahoo.se
I look forwards to hear from you.
Happy Ramadan.
Best Regards.
Amad Uddinamadudd_islamm@yahoo.it>
My avid readers, the don't-call-me-Sheikh site feed address was changed
from http://dontcallmesheikh.blogspot.com/atom.xml
to http://dontcallmesheikh.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/summary
kindly amend your aggregators accordingly.
A tip to all those who migrated to Blogger beta and are using the new templates, your old site feeds will eventually disappear, circulate the new one accordingly.
Blogger platform help. How can I upload AND place a JPEG banner instead of the one in the template? Please help, it'll be rewarding, rewarding I tell you (visually at least)…
A comment spammer(s) managed to lure me into clicking on what apparently seems to be yet another new Jordanian aggregator.
What seemed wrong right from the start was the statement made under the coming-soon banner, which clearly drives off all those who are already registered with another existing Jordanian aggregator!
Unless the creators of the two sites were fuming foes, I see no reason why the new site should be blunt in stating the above!
Better still, they could've been subtle about it and simply dismiss any applicants who are listed else where to avoid the bad karma and be more inclusive at face-value.
I must admit however, being listed on a credible aggregator (or gracious fellow bloggers rolls) is an important milestone.
If it wasn’t for Allah’s will and the good bunch behind the planet; I wouldn’t have had half the exposure I’m getting now, not that I know how many people visit my blog, but I like to think there are significant few to say the least.
I once stumbled upon a major Palestinian blogs aggregator, and found many JP blogs listed over there, not that I have an issue with it, but it got me thinking if it really matters? Does submitting my blog to another aggregator will do me any more good?
A bit of an unsolicited public advise to the folks behind the new site:
You're not offering anything new! You have JP incubating most of the "blogs" you're targeting, toot is hand-picking the good stuff (as they claim) and apparently they’re good at it, dwwen, tadween, dewanji and all other spelling variants are… will, I’m not sure what they are doing, but being just another "aggregator" will be self-defeating in a crowded market place.
Update: It seems the same people are behind both sides, but I still think they should get rid of the statement.
Qwaider from the Memories Document blog has put together a very interesting piece, which I obviously didn’t agree with, so I wrote a comment which is worth a dedicated blog entry of its own.
Links: The entry & the comment (in case you’re more interested in what I had to say)
Shameless egoistic self promotion? Indeed…
I was intrigued to write this after a stream of entries by fellow bloggers that talked about their customer-experience with certain companies and establishments in Jordan.
I’ve spotted the coffee house “Cups & Kilos” during my summer holiday, but only tried it during my last trip to Jordan; I went there a couple of times, the last of which was with my fiancée with a minor related incident!
Here's my humble analatical self's two fils take on the venue with a bit of scruitny: The place definitely fails in terms of location-location-location, but then again, many ventures have opened in remote areas miles away from their targeted customers (e.g. Books@) yet they managed luring & locking them in! Still, the place is not in the route of any typical journey, and punters have to purposely u-turn from 3rd circle or navigate the maze of the undefined area between Abdali, Weibdih & Jabal-Amman to arrive to their location!
Sticking up to a single –I assume so- coffee beans and flavors supplier meant that their offering would be almost consistent, and utilizing the variety of syrups their supplier offer stimulates a gourmet variety and specialty, nice trick.
Another nice trick is how everything was smartly branded at minimal cost, cheap sticker tags holding the logo was tagged to almost everything, it works just fine!
I find it an extreme turn-off when a coffee place uses a typical takeaway cup that is not branded and used by every other place; they however got their hands over blank takeaway cups that seem to be readily available, got the branded sticker tags, and gave their cups this distinctive & professional feel.
The layout of the shop is also neat, the decoration and the excessive use of wood gave it a warm feeling, I particularly liked the neat back-office with glass partition! I also noticed the ceremonial over-the-counter serving technique that starts by laying a napkin along with a mixing stick & stashes of sugar servings while the drink is being prepared… good stuff until now, but here comes the buts…
But their coffee is cold! Really all their espresso-based drinks are served warm, possibly due to wrong thermostat setting in the coffee-maker or this is the best it can do! I like my coffee warm by the way, but I like it served boiling hot and then warm-out while I’m flirting with it!
But their customer service is inflexible, dry & lack product & servicing knowledge! if you happen to be a regular or “experienced” with their menu offering, then you’ll feel welcomed, but if you happen to be a new punter with undecided or coffee-ignorant attitude, then expect only to be either pushed to ordering something obvious that you don’t like or stay mystified gazing at the menu & the flavor list and walk away muttering your dismay without a purchase!
Then comes the issue of unconventional customer requests, which my fiancée is good at, she orders Turkish coffee; such a small serving typically requires a small cup, but my fiancée rightously wanted her coffee in a larger cup, so its easier for her to hold it from the lid, the lady waiter did not know how to deal with this request, simply because she was only taught how to make coffee and go through the serving ceremony in an impassionate & autonomous manner.
My fiancée was sticking with her request and the waiter kept repeating her objection in a very artificially must-be-friendly fashion, and as the situation stagnated, a more experienced waiter who seem to have self-enforced intuition recognized the situation, apologized to my fiancée, elaborated that because of the small serving of Turkish coffee, its content will mix when poured into a larger cup and hence the taste will not be as good. He then took the cup, emptied the content into the new larger cup carefully and served the drink again…
The place have allot of credentials to become successful, but they should look into the tiniest of details, as well as orienting their people to be more customer-centric, genuinely friendly and more knowledgeable with what they’re selling…
I finally did it... I am now officially a "blogger"
I've been intending to start blogging back in September (when I stumbled upon the first blog I saw which was Ahmed's Humeid 360east), so I started writing publishable entries ever since but thought of a home grown blog (to have my own site that is), alas... it was technically too demanding and time consuming, so I retired to the click-click-click-and-there-you-have-it service from blogger.com like everyone else! Effectively enforcing a disciplinary measure upon my elitist tendency!
Now that I am a blogger, am I suppose to feel any sense of belonging to a greater entity? Or am I just too late that the aura surrounding the cozy blogging bunch is now consumed as the numbers of people catching up with the trend grows by the hour? Is it wrong to already feel obliged to blog about something in a timely basis? Is this yet another commitment I have strangled my self with...
