Month: August 2004

Jordan Here

We’re in Jordan at last…
Our plane got here at 10PM last night, and my wife’s family were there at the airport to welcome us.
It was great seeing them all after such a long time 🙂

On the way back to their place in Daheyat El Rasheed, we didn’t really see much of Jordan and if much changed in it, so we made up our minds to get out this morning to start checking it out.

So, today we picked ourselves up, went to Gardens street to change some money and started by heading to Mecca Mall, which is the biggest mall in Jordan for the time being. I hear that bigger ones are planned.
I really liked it, especially Prime Megastore and the Grand Cinema Theatres. The Food Court is quite impressive too with every fast food place you could ever imagine, reflecting the typical favourite Arab pass-time, eating 😛
Anyway, I’m sure I’ll be going back to Mecca Mall to buy a lot of stuff from Prime Megastore and to watch a number of movies.

After having lunch at KFC there, we left and went for a drive around Amman. El Medina Street, Al Rabyeh, Umm Udheina, El Sweifiyeh, …etc.

We later passed by Cozmo to get some stuff we need and some chocolates and sweets then headed home.

Today was more of a “Hi Amman, We’re Back” tour, and soon we’ll be going to more places and checking out more stuff.

Something I noticed though is that Amman is more crowded now than 2 years ago. More people, more cars, more buildings, more shopping places, more life.

Anyway, I’ll get going now.
Will post more about our stay here and Amman as we go out more and see more in the days to come 🙂

And hey for you guys who are here or who know Amman. If there are any places you would like to recommend to us, please leave a comment 🙂

Jordan Today

In just a few minutes, we’ll be heading out to the airport, after having lunch at my parents’ place, to jump on our flight to Jordan.

It’s been 2 years since I last was in Jordan, and it feels like such a long long time.
I can’t wait to be there again, see what’s changed, what hasn’t, the family, the friends, the places …etc.

We have so many plans to visit places, eat at places, buy stuff and we’re lucky if we do half the things we want to do, lol.

This is my first real vacation in 2 years, and it feels great to know that I’ll have 3 weeks of relaxation away from the hectic everyday life.

I’ll be trying to hop online as often as I can to blog though, I’m too addicted to blogging to stay away from here for 3 weeks 😛

Anyway, cya all…
Next blog should be from Jordan 🙂

Israeli Spy in Pentagon

The FBI has evidence that Larry Franklin, a person who has been working at the Pentagon may be a spy for Israel, senior U.S. officials have confirmed to CNN.

The worker could have been in a position to influence Bush administration policy toward Iran and Iraq, one of the officials said on Friday.

CBS News, which first reported the story, said the FBI had developed evidence, including photographs and conversations recorded through wiretaps.

The network said the alleged spy has ties to two senior Pentagon officials: Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith.

The Washington Post and the New York Times both quoted unnamed officials as saying the analyst was suspected of passing classified documents to Israel via the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the powerful pro-Israel lobby in Washington.

This would not be the first case involving an Israeli spy in the US. In 1986, a navy analyst, Jonathan Pollard, was jailed after he was found guilty of spying for Israel.

Pollard is believed to have provided Israeli intelligence with names of important American agents inside the former Soviet Union and Russia.

A number of key CIA agents in the eastern bloc were allegedly executed as a result of Pollard’s spying.

[Sources: CNN, Al Jazeera]

Things Google knows about you

Ever wondered what Google actually knows about you?

First
– Everything you search for using Google
– Every web page you visit that has Google Adsense ads on it
– Which country you’re in
– Every Blogger page you visit, and the referring page

If you have an Adsense account
– Your full name, address and bank account details
– The IP address of everyone who visits your pages with Adsense ads on them
– The number of visitors to each of your pages with Adsense ads on them

If you use a GMail account
– Who you send emails to
– Who sends emails to you
– The contents of those emails
– The contents of all emails received from any mailing lists of which you are a member, even if they are private mailing lists.

Even if you don’t use a GMail account
– The contents of any emails you send to anyone who does use a GMail account
– The contents of any emails you send to any mailing lists of which any one member uses a GMail account

If you’re a member of Orkut
– Your online social network, interests and groups

Pretty scary, huh?
I actually use all of the above Google services 😛
Oh well, I don’t care, I’ve got nothing to hide.

[Via: HubLog]

Boyfriend Pillow

Man Pillow

Single women in Japan have been offered the ultimate bedtime mate: he won’t stay out late, he doesn’t snore and he won’t hog the doona.

Women of all ages have reportedly been rushing to buy their very own Boyfriend Arm Pillow – a snuggly alternative to the real thing.

Manufacturers say lonely hearts have been queueing around the block to snap up their own faux-boyfriend.

He comes with his own shirts for those who miss fussing over their man and one model has a vibrating alarm function to gently shake their sleeping beauty awake.

And for the boys who feel left out – a limited edition Girlfriend Arm Pillow is also on the way.

LOL…
Some people are just so creative, you have to admire their ideas…

[Source: News.com.au]

Failure

This morning, on my way to work, this idea crossed my mind:

Without failure, you’ll never really know what you need to succeed. Every failure shouldn’t be regarded as an end to current success but rather as a starting point for new success and greater things.

And well, it’s true. Without failing in something, you’ll never really know what it is that made you fail in it and what you need to have or do to succeed the next time around.

We often get annoyed and depressed by our failures, but we fail to recognize the fact that if we never failed we’d never know what it is we need to do to make ourselves better.

Whether the failure actually happens or if we just expect it to happen, what’s most important is the lesson we get from it and that we identify how to never fail again because of the same reasons paving the way for future success.

Falafel King

Falafel is an extremely popular meal in the Middle East, and actually one of the things I’m planning to eat when I’m in Jordan after a couple of days.

Anyway, this free flash game challenges you to become the Falafel King.

In the game, you are the person making the sandwiches and you have to be quick about it as the people in front of you multiply with different orders.
You’ll also have to deal with the angry customers and the flies 😛

A really nice and fun flash game.

[Via: Saudi Jeans]

Apple Seed 1.0

So my dear friend Dalia has given birth to a baby boy, and they’ve called him Sanad.

I just got the news a bit earlier today after checking my inbox to find an email from her announcing the happy news with some pics of the handsome baby boy 🙂

So, Congratulations Dalia & Duri, Alf Alf Mabrouk 🙂
I’m so happy for you 🙂

Internet Meltdown Today?!

A Russian computer security expert predicted yesterday that a large chunk of the Internet will be shut down by terrorists today.

Aleksandr Gostev from Kaspersky Labs was speaking at a conference hosted by Russian Information Agency Novosti. The cyber terrorists main targets will be the US and Western Europe, he said.

Oh well, everything seems to be ok up to now. And honestly I don’t think anything will happen.

Anyway, I’d truly prefer there be an online terrorist attack then a real world one. At least online we’re sure no precious innocent lives are lost.
Just a few websites going down and then they can be brought up again.

In the worst scenario, some money-making sites will stop making money for a while, but that’s about it.