Month: August 2003

Aaaarrrrgghhhh !

It’s unbelievable, totally unbelievable how a nice place and great shopping experience can turn into a nightmare and somewhere you avoid going to. That’s what’s happening (or i think already happened) to the Tunisian Carrefour.

A year ago, it was the best place to be for shopping, you’d find anything you need, have a good meal, enjoy your time and go home waiting for the next time you’ll be there, but now it’s something totally different, it’s a place i just can’t stand to go close to anymore, it’s so full of people at any given moment of any given day of any given month, it’s so noisy, it’s full of chaos, in short it has become a bad shopping experience.

Now i hear some people thinking, well go shop from somewhere else, well i do whenever i can, but there are certain things i need that i can only find in Carrefour, so i have to drop over there every once in a while to get that stuff, and believe me, it’s turning into hell whenever i do.

I’m hearing they’ll be opening a new Carrefour somewhere in the Center of Tunis, so i’m hoping it’s true and that it opens quickly and that most of the load moves to that branch, giving us our great shopping experience back.

Saving (or NOT !)

Before an hour or so, the power went off in the whole area (i can just hear those lazy guys at the electricity company going like “Come on, the power went off in New York, and you’re complaining cause it went off in Charguia 2, give us a break !”), and we guys at work ended up waiting for the electricity to come back on in the Recreation room talking about a load of meaningless crap as usual, lol.

Anyway, some of the guys used the chance to have an early lunch, in an effort to optimize their time (as management puts it, lol), and that triggered a talk about how some were trying to save on Soda cans and on other stupid small stuff by buying them from this place or the other, which made me think how weird some people are, they try and save pennies on some small items while they don’t mind it at all to go for a night out and spend really big money on a meal at a luxurious restaurant or to buy an over-priced something they don’t really need.

Thinking about that, only makes me look more at the human nature of our days and see all the other weird contradictions it has, lol.

It’s so weird and funny how a creature so complicated and advanced as a human being can contradict itself time and time again without realizing it.

It all makes me kind of wonder how developed we really are, and whether we really do think enough about the things we do in our lives or if we just go along with whatever dumb thought that crosses our mind first, lol.

Blasted, and now secured…

Yes, i was blasted, i have no idea how, but my pc had all the symptoms of the MS Blaster worm: shutting itself down and stuff.
Anyway, i was able to clean it up yesterday, and life is back to normal again 🙂

The key to fixing it i found was to not open Internet Explorer, so i used Opera to go to the Microsoft website and download the patch, and then everything went on great.
But with all the hatred between Opera and Microsoft, and how they both try to screw each other up, you can imagine what an experience it was surfing the Microsoft website using Opera 😛

I tested earthstation5 yesterday, and well it has all the functionalities of a P2P program, but it still needs more and more people to move to it and start using it and sharing stuff on it.

I’ve also been playing around with eMule, trying to find a substitute for KaZaA (which annoys me with all its ads and hidden spyware), and eMule seems to be quite cool. It also has an IRC client built in, which reminded me of the old days when i used to chat on mIRC.

Good Laugh

Yesterday afternoon was nice, after going home from work, then going back to fix a stupid error the client created by overwriting their database, and then going home the second time, i had time to play more “C&C : Generals”, which was cool, more of me crushing the terrorists with the Chinese Army…

At about 8PM i remembered i hadn’t eaten anything all day long, so i went out for some fast food and returned the DVD i had & rented a new one in my way.

After eating i went out with a friend of mine who’s in Tunisia these days, he studies Information Security in Russia.
It was really fun, as we had a lot of catching up and laughing to do, talking about everything from us and our lives to our friends and our friends’ lives, lol.

We had to leave the caf

Stuff

The past couple of days i’ve cut back on the number of movies i’ve been seeing, as i was afraid i’d soon run out of movies, and that wouldn’t be a good thing 😛
So i’m basically seeing only one movie a day now, and spending the rest of my time out with friends or family or sleeping, lol.

I finally caught “Harry Potter : Chamber of Secrets” at the DVD rental place, and jumped on it right away, as i’ve been wanting to see this movie for a while, i saw some of it yesterday at 2AM, but got too sleepy i couldn’t finish it, so i’ll finish it today after work.

Talking about work, i shouldn’t even be at work today, it’s “Woman’s Day” or something, and it’s an official holiday, but well, since when do we tech people know the meaning of holidays, especially when the word “deadline” is involved, often preceded with another nice word “Tight”…

Sunday Time

Sunday was actually quite similar to Saturday, lol, more of me filling my time with anything. I watched 5 movies, played “Command & Conquer : Generals” using the Chinese army this time, visited my parents and surfed the net a bit.

The movies i saw yesterday were:
– Friday: at last i got to see this one, but i was dissapointed, i mean it’s a good movie, but with all the hype it had around it back when it was released, i expected something better and funnier.
– Tomcats: This was better than i expected, quite a good movie, was fun watching it.
– The Hot Chick: I love Rob Schneider, he’s hilarious, and this movie is so cool too. keep them coming Rob.
– Jawbreakers: This one was ok, but not that good, didn’t enjoy it much.
– Dracula 2000: This was better than i expected too, at least at the beginning, as it kind of loses you half way through the movie. it was quite good though all in all, compared to all the shitty vampire movies coming out these last years.

Now back to “Command & Conquer : Generals”, i just got this game a couple of days ago, and it’s really cool. It needs a bit getting used to, as it changes how some things were done in Red Alert, Red Alert 2 & Yuri’s Revenge, but it takes you to a whole new level of strategy gaming.
There are 3 main sides you can choose from: US, China, GLA (Some terrorist organization).
I’m still in my first stages playing and enjoying the game, and will most probably talk about it more on here in the future as i uncover it’s features more.
What i find a bit annoying though is how the terrorists are made out to be like Afghan Muslims or something, it kind of reflects the reality of the world today, in which by just being a muslim you’re branded a terrorist, which is the total opposite of how things should be. Oh well, i guess you can’t blame EA for that.

Passing Time

Ever since i came back from work late yesterday, i’ve been trying to fill up my time with anything so as to not feel lonely, i’ve watched 4 movies already, listened to a load of mp3s, played “Command & Conquer : Generals”, burned a new music cd to play in the car, gone out shopping, rented 4 more movies, and now i’m back home, with more time in my hand to waste, lol.

The 4 movies i saw were:
– What Dreams May Come: which was an ok movie, the special effects were good, but it was bit boring.
– LXG (League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) : which was quite good, but not as good as i hoped.
– Soul Survivors : ok, they tried to make one of those complicated movies were they want to keep u not knowing what’s happening till the end, and it’s true u don’t, but by the end u don’t really care, lol.
– Dog Soldiers : Special effects sucked, looks like it came out from somewhere in the 80s, but it was ok, not too bad as a movie.

I’m thinking of starting an open source project on SourceForge.net, but i’m still undecided about the idea, as usual, i have a ton of ideas, and instead of putting them to work, i waste all the time choosing and thinking, lol.

I haven’t eaten much today, so i’m starving. I’ll go have dinner now.

Alone :(

Well, my wife has gone to visit her family in Jordan, and due to work obligations i wasn’t able to go too, and so i’m left all alone in Tunisia.

This is not the first time i’m alone in my life, but this time it’s so different, it feels like i’m the only person left on earth.
It’s the first time we’re not together ever since we got married last year, it sucks big time, and it actually feels really weird, as if some part of me is missing, a part i’m so attached to.

I’m kicking myself in the head because i was the one who convinced her to grab the occasion and visit her family.

I can’t wait for her to get back, so we can do everything together again just like it’s supposed to be, just like it makes sense and has a meaning and taste to it.

Anyway, i’d better get going now, i’m so sleepy and exhausted after last night and working till 6:45PM today…

Calypso

Last night was a great night out, we went to a club called “Calypso” in Hammamet (which is one of the best clubs in Tunisia) with some friends, and we partied like crazy and danced till the break of dawn.

The music was amazing, the beats were hypnotizing and the bass was out of this world, in short it was impossible to even think of sitting down, your body simply wouldn’t let you.

Everyone was jumping around and dancing like there was no tomorrow, kind of reminding me of the rave party scene from “Matrix Reloaded” 😛
Damn, i’ve been watching too many movies lately, lol.

We had dinner there too, which as you can imagine, is served in a big plate with a tiny portion floating in the middle, but with a big number showing up on the bill later on in the night, when you’re too exhausted to ask why, lol. Anyway, at least the food tasted good 🙂

We left at around 4AM, and got home at 4:45AM, with only a couple of hours left for me to try and get some sleep before i get up for work. Of course that would never be enough, and that’s why i’m now at the office, looking like a retard with psycho red eyes who is high on some weird crap, and raving about this in my blog, lol.