Author: Mohamed Marwen Meddah

Mohamed Marwen Meddah is a Tunisian-Canadian, web aficionado, software engineering leader, blogger, and amateur photographer.

Kerry’s “Top 10 Bush Tax Proposals”

So John Kerry appeared on The Late Show with David Letterman yesterday and joked (believe it or not!) about changes under President Bush’s tax plan.

His list went like this:

  1. No estate tax for families with at least two U.S. presidents.
  2. W-2 Form is now Dubya-2 Form.
  3. Under the simplified tax code, your refund check goes directly to Halliburton.
  4. The reduced earned income tax credit is so unfair, it just makes me want to tear out my lustrous, finely groomed hair.
  5. Attorney General (John) Ashcroft gets to write off the entire U.S. Constitution.
  6. Texas Rangers can take a business loss for trading Sammy Sosa.
  7. Eliminate all income taxes; just ask Teresa (Heinz Kerry) to cover the whole damn thing.
  8. Cheney can claim Bush as a dependent.
  9. Hundred-dollar penalty if you pronounce it “nuclear” instead of “nucular.”
  10. George W. Bush gets a deduction for mortgaging our entire future.

I’m betting someone wrote that for him 😛

Free Gmail Invites

So, I’ve got 6 Gmail invites to give away, and who better to give them to than you guys here 🙂

So, if you’re interested in getting a fast and cool 1GB email account, just leave me a comment here with the email address you want me to send the invitation to.

If your comment is lucky enough to be among the first 6, you’ll receive your Gmail invite asap.

Back in Tunis

So, the days flew by quicker than time has ever been and I’m back in Tunis now.

I wasn’t able to do all the things I wanted to do, nor visit all the places I wanted to visit, nor see all the people I wanted to see.
Sorry to everyone I couldn’t meet either because our schedules didn’t match or because I ran out of time. I really wanted to see you all.

My visit to Jordan was a great one and I truly wish I had more time to spend there. It was really a lot of fun and a great change.
Of all the countries I’ve been to and visited in my life, Jordan is truly my second country. It fits me like a glove.

I’m back to work today.
I’m still getting into the mood for that though, I guess I’m still functioning in vacation mode, lol.

Moving Photolog to Flickr

I’m currently in the process of moving my photolog to Flickr, as it’s friendlier and more feature rich.

So with time all the old photos will be moved there and you can expect a bunch of new pics to be added of my trips to Jordan and Syria.

Two Years of Marriage

Yesterday was our 2 year marriage anniversary 🙂
WOW, I can’t believe it’s already been 2 years. It’s like it all happened yesterday.

So what did we do yesterday?
Well, there was the usual life stuff, then my wife went to get her hair done, and I went to Abu Rmeilah bookshop and bought 2 programming books. What a geek I can be sometimes, lol.

After that we went on with the tradition we started on last year’s anniversary. We figured out that as we have birthdays to get gifts for each other in, then maybe on our wedding anniversary we should celebrate ourselves as a couple, a single entity instead of 2 seperate ones and so get one gift for both of us 🙂
So, we went over to Mecca Mall, and bought ourselves and our home some really cool stuff.

Then we went home with a psycho taxi driver who slightly missed about a 100 good opportunities to get us killed.

After that we got dressed and went out for a nice romantic dinner in one of our favourite restaurants before we got married 🙂

When we were done with that, we got ourselves back home and celebrated with my wife’s family.

In short, it was a really nice day 🙂

These past 2 years have been so great and full of happiness, surely the best 2 years of my life, and hopefully we will go on to make the coming years even better Inshallah.

Phone Booth

Now, Phone Booth has been out for quite some time now, but well, I only got to see it a couple of days ago, even though I’ve been wanting to rent it for a long time.

It’s a really good movie.
Joel Schumacher does a great job directing this movie and Colin Farrell carries it wonderfully.

The whole movie is shot around a phone booth. You wouldn’t imagine something like that to be much fun, but it’s great and it so sucks you in, you start imagining how it would be if you were in that phone booth.

This movie is a must see for anyone into thrillers. Very enjoyable.
I’ve actually seen it twice already.

Trip to Syria

So, where have I been these past days?
I haven’t blogged for 4 days. That surely doesn’t seem like me, does it now?
Well, no worries, I’m still alive.

September 10th, We woke up really early and headed to Syria. My wife, her parents and myself.
We decided we didn’t have enough time to go to both Syria and Lebanon as we wished to, so we thought, this year Syria, and next time Lebanon.

Damascus, the capital of Syria, is actually closer to Amman than Aqaba (A Jordanian city) is, it’s basically a 2-3 hour drive.

I visited Damascus only once before when I studied here in Jordan, and it was for one day only. And no it wasn’t for what some of you dirty minded guys are thinking 😛 Just simple and quick micro-tourism 😉

Downtown Damascus is very old, it looks like it got stuck in the last century, but as you go further away from downtown it gets more modern.
But one thing you’ll surely find wherever you go in Syria are pictures, statues and more of the current president, his deceased father the ex-president, and his deceased brother (the would-have-become president).

Anyway, we didn’t really travel much and spent most of our time in Damascus, but we got to go to places like Qasyoon Mountain, Bloudan, Bouqein, Seidnaya, Maaloula and other not so far away places.

I took a bunch of nice pics, and will be posting some in a photolog.

It was a pretty good visit and we had a very nice time.
It was great to be back in Jordan though once we got back here.

Life of Pi

Last Night, or to be more precise, early this morning, I finished reading “Life of Pi”, a great novel by Yann Martel.

I heard a lot about this book and read a number of reviews about it, so when I found it in Prime Megastore, I bought it right away and jumped into it immediately.

I was sucked into the story, and I loved the way it was flowing and how the writer was telling it.

It’s an amazing story, beautiful and amusing too.
It’s about a teenage Indian boy called Pi Patel and his journey with religion, his life in India in his father’s zoo and his survival after a ship wreck.

It’s a truly magical story that is very well painted for imaginations to build and live in.

If you’re a book lover and need a nice good book to enjoy, I suggest “Life of Pi”. I really enjoyed it.