Category: Everyday Me

Thysdrus tagged me with this meme, in which one has to list whatever is atop of his or her nightstand(s).

So, here’s what I have on my nightstand right now:

2 Alarm clocks, my mobile phone, a table lamp, a phone, a book (“The
Hobbit”), 2 DVDs (“The Aviator”, “Million Dollar Baby”), a bunch of
cds, a notebook, the AC remote control, photos, a stuffed little monkey
toy, anti toothache pills, 2 pens, a drinking straw and an empty glass.

Now that’s interesting…
I never realized how much stuff is lying around on the nightstand.

I tag the following people with this meme: Eman, Roba, Houssein, Ibrahim, Briseis, Jameed and Karim.

It’s been a whole week since Subzero Blue has been down. And what a week! It truly felt like long slow miserable ages.
I don’t know how I survived a week without blogging. It felt like something major was missing from my life. Almost like walking around without a brain.
I was itching to blog, and I couldn’t even surf other blogs because it made me miss my blog even more.

The downtime was because of some problems that my dear friend Houssein, the generous host of this blog and others, was having with his hosting company, who claimed some script was eating up too many resources, although I doubt it.

Anyway, Houssein is moving his blog and others to a new dedicated server, which is great. Congratulations.
As for me, I’ve moved Subzero Blue to a hosting account of its own that I’m testing out.

I’d like to thank Houssein so much for his kindness and generosity. I’ll forever be grateful to him for hosting my blog for over 2 years. He believed in me and my blog and gave me a chance to grow it to what it is today. It’s been a great ride.

The move should enable me to experiment a bit more with the technical side of things, so look out for some new ideas and stuff popping up here and there.

Thank you to everyone who emailed me asking about my blog, asked about it on my wife’s blog, or just wondered what happened and missed it. You guys rock!

On a day like today, 2 years ago, I started the blog that would become the Subzero Blue you know now.

This blog started on blogspot, even though I had some trials on other free blogging platforms before it, and then it moved to be generously hosted by Houssein. A big thank you to him for that 🙂

This blog started as a place for me to make fun of life and the world around me, somewhere I could bring out the sarcasm lying inside of me. Then at some period of time it became more of a diary detailing my everyday life. After that I started adding more and more topics and discussing more and more issues and well here I am today talking about a variety of things and enjoying every second of it.
And I still feel I have a lot more to talk about and do with it.

As for the blog design, it has gone through an evolution itself. From a crappy default template on Blogger or Movable Type, to this design that I’m quite comfortable with now and which feels more or less like home. I keep making little changes here and there every now and then, and I love it.

Where do I want to go with this blog?
I don’t want to put any limits on that, I want to go wherever my mind takes me with it and I want to write whatever I feel like writing in it.
I want it to become an online reflection of my mind, more or less an internet version of me.

I’d truly appreciate any feedback on what you think about this blog? what you think about the design? what you think about the subjects I write about?
Let me know anything that crosses your mind.

And as for me, just like last year, I’ll try to compile a list of my top favourite posts from the past year soon.

PS: I thought the blog would be 2 years old last Sunday, but then I checked and it turned out I was wrong and that today is its anniversary. The first post being about NDC 2003.

We’re back in Tunisia…

We just got here a few hours ago.
Nothing has really changed; Nothing I’ve noticed at least.

We found a bunch of letters from the bank, the phone bill (Yikes!), useless brochures, a DB2 Magazine and a notification that I have something to pick up at the post office.

It turns out that thing I have to pick up is “The Da Vinci Code” by Dan Brown, which I ordered online a week ago. Cool! Can’t wait to read it.

We’re going out for dinner at my parent’s place just after I take a shower for refreshment.

We’re expected back at work tomorrow morning…
That sucks big time of course!
I wish we could have a couple of days to get back in shape and mood for work, anyway I guess we’ll just have to manage.

Ciao…

Last night, we had the pleasure of visiting and spending time with a great, great friend of mine. If you’ve been to my blog often, you’ll certainly have come across some comments by him under the name Saqf.

He told me beforehand that he was going to treat us to a Japanese Tea Ceremony, but honestly I didn’t think that would be much more than us sitting around drinking tea; When I saw him wearing full traditional Japanese clothing, I knew we were in for a much bigger surprise.

He was totally serious about giving us a full traditional Japanese Tea Party in all its glory, splendor and spirituality: from his clothes, to his room decoration, to the ceremony procedures, down to every single detail.
And what we thought was just about drinking tea turned out to be a full meal and dessert, that reached their climax with the whole tea preparation and drinking rituals.

It was really funny seeing Saqf suddenly flip into his Japanese persona, but it was so cool and nice. We truly enjoyed ourselves and relaxed.
I also learned how to use chopsticks at last, although I ended up with a small cramp in my hand afterwards.

We drank a lot of different teas with different exotic tastes from Saqf’s tea cupboard, one of his priceless possesions.

After the ceremony, Saqf switched back to his everyday self and clothes, and we were allowed to talk about worldly matters at last. It was great catching up, talking and simply having fun together. Time just flew by and if it didn’t get really late we would’ve surely stayed a lot longer.

A huge thank you to Saqf for a truly fun night and experience, for the gift books, and for being the amazing friend and brother he is 🙂

Here are some photos I took from last night:

I got tagged by Roba to do this. So here goes.

What is the one word you would use to describe your appearance?
Hmmm…

Favorite body part?
My face or my hands maybe.

Least favorite body part?
Love handles. Although I see nothing lovely about them. Oh and this slowly developing belly of mine.

Most often complimented on?
How nice and sweet I am.

Most often criticized for?
How I hold back and keep everything inside me.

Your romantic relationship?
I think I’m romantic in my own special way. Nobody agrees!

Continue reading Tagged & Questioned…

I wanted to wait till it was broadcast, but well I couldn’t hold it any longer, lol, last week, I was interviewed by the BBC Arabic Service. Wow…

It was about Arab bloggers and blogging in the Arab world. The talk was about blogging in general, how I started blogging, how I choose the topics I talk about, why I blog in English, if there were any common characteristics between bloggers…etc.

It was really nice, although I was a bit tense, I mean it’s the BBC for God’s sake, lol…

The interview is for a new program called BBC Xtra that should be aired in early June.

Eman, my wife, was interviewed too, and so was Haitham.

It’s great to see that more attention is being given to Arab bloggers. I hope the attention continues to grow.