Month: May 2004

Friends Ends

Last night the finale for the cult comedy show “Friends” was aired on NBC, bringing with it an end to the 10 years of fun.

I know a lot of people think that Friends is over-rated, and that it’s not really such a great comedy, but I honestly disagree.

Friends was so much fun, and brought this really cool humour to our screens. The chemistry between the actors was a great one and they rocked together.
I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed any other comedy show as much as I enjoy Friends.

So, it’s a shame that it’s coming to an end, although I understand that it can’t go on forever and that the actors want to move on to different things. I would do the same too.

Anyway, as only the US got the finale yesterday and that the rest of the world will have to wait to see it for a while (long or short depends on where the person is in the world), here are the major plot lines of the finale.

Ross and Rachel realized they loved each other and pledged to stay together “for good.”
Rachel initially brushed off Ross’ sentimental airport confession but fought her way off the plane bound for Paris to return home.
“We’re done being stupid?” Ross asked as the on-again off-again couple hugged. But then he added, “unless we’re on a break.”

A second story line followed Monica and Chandler as they packed their belongings to leave New York.
Monica and Chandler had been expecting to adopt a baby throughout the final season so it wasn’t a shock that there was a hospital scene and a birth.
But the twist came as the couple had twins — a boy and a girl, or “one of each,” as Chandler described it.

Phoebe finished the show happily married. She agreed to have children with her husband, as many as he wants.

The one character who did not find closure was Joey. Viewers know he must be going to Los Angeles to pursue his acting career because NBC has already added the spin-off, “Joey,” to its fall schedule.
And, so he did.

In the end, the “Friends” left an empty apartment and the show faded to black.

Coke Phone

Coke Phone

Coke has received FCC approval for a soda can-shaped GPS-equipped cellphone that they custom-made for a contest they’re running this summer.

They’re going to start putting a few of the sodaphones in 12-packs this summer in the U.S., and if you find one of them you press a button which instantly connects you to an operator who’ll tell you that you’ve just won a Chevy SUV. Another button activates the a GPS homing beacon on the can so that Coke can immediately deliver the prize to your location.

[Via Boing Boing, Via Engadget]

Extra Special Day

Everyone has their special days in the year, days when they feel happy and joyful, days when they celebrate and enjoy life, days when they feel like they’re floating above the clouds.

But no day is like today, no day can even compare to May 6th.

Because on this day, an angel was born, a beautiful wonderful angel that God created with me in mind, my amazing wife 🙂

So, Happy Birthday Honey 🙂
I wish this birthday brings you all you ever wished for and more and that I’m able to make you the happiest woman alive.

I’m truly blessed to have you, and I can never imagine my life without you.
You’re the reason behind every smile that’s ever drawn on my face 🙂
You truly light up my life.

I love you.

Happy Birthday Sweetheart 🙂

Disney Says No to “Fahrenheit 9/11”

The Walt Disney Company has blocked distribution of Michael Moore’s new film “Fahrenheit 9/11” simply because it is critical of the U.S. President George W. Bush.

The film — which links Bush with powerful Saudi families, including that of Osama bin Laden — is set to debut at the Cannes Film Festival in France later this month.

The reason?
According to today’s edition of The New York Times, it might ‘endanger’ millions of dollars of tax breaks Disney receives from the state of Florida because the film will ‘anger’ the governor of Florida, Jeb Bush.

It’s amazing how the U.S. teaches us new forms of democracy each and every single day. I’m totally awed.

Moore won an Oscar for best documentary feature at last year’s Academy Awards for his film “Bowling for Columbine.”

[More: CNN]

10 Golden Rules for the IT Services Sector

From the years I’ve spent in the IT services field, I’ve come to the conclusion that the following are the 10 golden rules for this sector:

  1. It’s always Extra Super Damn Urgent!
  2. Client deadlines are an illusion. Yours are painful obligations.
  3. Your one hour meeting scheduled for today will take place 3 weeks later on a weekend and will last all day long. What else do you have to do anyways?
  4. Final Client Validations are as valid as your wet dreams.
  5. A year long project starts today, is due next week and you shouldn’t expect any input from the client yet.
  6. You and your life are included with the sold service. Yes, “slave” is the perfect word.
  7. No project ever ends. once it begins you’re stuck with it forever and ever and ever and ever…
  8. No need to estimate how much time you need to finish a project. The client already knows when he wants it.
  9. Ever heard of that rule “The Client is King”, tattoo it somewhere and be prepared to literally live it every day of your useless life.
  10. The client knows your work better than you, so just follow the damn orders.

Well, ok, maybe it’s not that bad. It’s actually a lot worse!

God help me please…

Morfix


Melingo, Ltd., a company that has provided advanced search capabilities for complex languages, has just introduced Morfix CL, its English-Arabic-English Cross-Language Search with Embedded Translation (demo, IE only). What that means is that English-speaking researchers can search through Arabic material without knowing any Arabic at all ? and see a results page with a translation of each Arabic word or phrase.

Melingo, a subsidiary of Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., is carefully positioning its Morfix technology as a complement to other search engines. The company is concentrating its efforts on aiding the search process and not on highlighting the process of machine translation, which it says is still very inaccurate. Melingo claims that Morfix CL represents a breakthrough in Arabic language analysis and a boon to intelligence agencies and businesses, which today process growing amounts of Arabic data with limited numbers of qualified human translators.

Check out the demo of Morfix.

I think this is definitely cool.

Rising violence, harassment directed at Muslims

A report released yesterday suggests that harassment and violence against Muslims are on the rise in the US, fueled by pro-war attitudes, religion-based anti-Muslim rhetoric and lingering fears from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said it received reports of 1,019 anti-Muslim incidents during 2003 — a nearly 70 percent increase from the previous year and the highest number of civil-rights complaints from those of the Islamic faith in the nine years the group has been tracking them.

According to the report, titled “Unpatriotic Acts,” hate crimes against Muslims jumped 121 percent that same year.

So, where are the world leaders on this issue?
Too busy fighting anti-semitism?
Or is it ok to hate Muslims these days?

Google Drinking Game

So someone has finally come up with what looks like a fun Google game.

Google: A party game for three or more players.

Pick a player to go first. The player who goes first picks two words, which are fed to the Google search page. After this, play passes to the left, and each player adds a word. Words may be misspelled or made up. If a search turns up no hits, the player who added the last word is out and should take a drink.
The last player in the game, or the first player to reach a search with only one result, wins.
Play resumes with the person on the left of the previous winner. Count points however you want.

Fore more info on the game and it’s rules, go here.

Mirinda Sky Raining

The sky has suddenly turned Mirinda Orange and started raining mad bucketloads of water mixed wth red dirt.

All of a sudden, I feel like I’m living on Mars instead of on our blue Earth.

I wonder what the hell we have done to our dear planet to have stuff like this happening?
Is it normal or have we gone on and screwed things up big time?

I even hear some of my co-workers jokingly asking if it’s the end of the world.
Don’t think so, but well if we follow this same rhythm, believe me, we’re not that far away from it.

I’m quite sure some places will get flooded and that the street taking to my place will be even shittier than usual.
Our street is a really amazing one. They fix it and all is perfect. Not a week passes by and they’re back destroying the poor thing. Then they leave it like that for a few months until enough complaints pile up to start annoying them. That’s when they come back to fix the street again.
But, wait, the cycle goes on and a week later they’re back again…etc.
We’re currently in one of the ultimate destruction stages for the street.
And believe me, this rain isn’t going to make it any better.
I’ll just have to use the other way home today.