I got this in an email and I just find this so interesting and want to share it with you guys. For those who can’t read arabic, I’m so sorry, I can’t translate the poem, and without the poem this post is meaningless to you guys.
You know the famous saying “ely yabeena 3ayat ilnafs tab’3eeh, wily nabeeh 3ayah albakhat layejeebah” ? I always thought it was just that, a famous saying, that has been used in songs, I didn’t know it was a verse in a poem, and that there was a story behind the poem. Here is the story:
There was a woman named Nora AlHoshan, who was married to Abod bin Suwalim. Nora and Abod had children together, but things went wrong and they ended up divorced. It was said that even after the divorce she still loved him dearly and longed for him, and that was the reason why she kept refusing the many suitors that came afterwards and did not accept any of the proposals.
One day, as she was walking with her kids near her Ex Husband’s farm, she saw him, and let her children go to their father to greet and talk to him while she stood far away waitingn. The kids came back shortly afterwards and they all walked away from the farm. Thats when she wrote her masterpiece of a poem.
I entered a toilet in Singapore’s airport and couldn’t help but notice how clean the toilet is and that the smell was pleasant. Then, and as I was washing my hands I noticed this screen on the wall where it featured 4 faces, the faces of employees responsible of cleaning the toilets, and the guy who was handling the cleaning that day was highlighted. The screen lets you evaluate the toilet’s condition and put in your feedback and the person with the best feedback results gets something.
Back in 1982 the usage of online bulletin boards were common and they used to communicate and discuss all sort of stuff on those boards. They used to have a problem understanding some of the posts. Some of the posts were intended as a joke, or someone was being sarcastic, but then some wouldn’t get it and start a whole fight and rally up against what was supposed to be taken as a joke.
Then, on September of 1982, a bunch of guys were at their computers typing away suggestions to help solve this problem. They came up with the idea of labeling a comment or mark it with something that would make it clear that the comment is a joke and isn’t intended to be taken seriously. Some of the guys suggested:
“I think that the joke character should be the sequence {#} because it looks like two lips with teeth showing between them.”
“No, no, no! Surely everyone will agree that “&” is the funniest character on the keyboard. It looks funny”
But then came along this one guy, who typed a message that would leave a lasting impact on computer users all over the world. And this is what he had to say:
“19-Sep-82 11:44 Scott E Fahlman
From: Scott E Fahlman
I propose that the following character sequence for joke markers:
: – )
Read it sideways. Actually, it is probably more economical to mark
things that are NOT jokes, given current trends. For this, use
: – (“
And just like that, it snowballed, and the computer smiley was created!
If you want a song in an mp3 format and it happens to be available on Youtube, all you have to do is copy the song’s url from Youtube, paste it in this site and it’ll instantly generate a link with the MP3 for you to download. Very useful!
If you haven’t set plans for tonight yet, you might wannna consider this:
“You are warmly invited to this public program which will be held at J.W. Marriott on “How To Empower Yourself” on Thur. 19 Nov. Mike George will be leading the evening. He is an International speaker, author of many books in self development. He is also a teacher of Meditation & motivator of the human spirit. The program will start at 7.30 pm and end at 9.30 pm. This is an open invitation. Please pass it on. The program is free of charge as a community service. Looking forward to a powerful evening.”
I received a message on my blackberry earlier in the day, it was about King Faisal and how great a king He was. It had this little piece of conversation between King Faisal & Henry Kissinger that went something like this:
When Henry Kissinger met King faisal to talk about the oil embargo issue, and in an attempt to go into the subject lighten up the mood, Kissinger said something about his plane sitting on the runway and can’t move because of the lack of fuel, and that he wished the King would be generous enough to sell him enough fuel to get the plane off the runway. The King didn’t smile, but instead replied with: “And I’m an old man who wishes to pray at Al Aqsa mosque before he dies, can you make that wish come true?”
I loved this story, and I tried looking around the net to read more about it, and maybe confirm that it happened, but couldn’t find anything.
While looking for a source, I came across these paragraphs that I liked:
And this:
“Prince Turki said King Faisal, who was in Jeddah at the time, received a telegram from Kissinger warning that if the Kingdom did not lift the embargo, the US would take all measures to protect its interests.
“The message was not specific about the measures they were going to take, but it appeared that they would use force. A CIA representative gave me the unsigned message, telling me it was from Kissinger… I went to the king and conveyed its contents. He received the message, read it and said: ‘Kheir insha Allah (Good, God willing).’
“It was very clear that it had come from the American government… The king was very relaxed, cheerful, humorous and was in good spirits despite the threat… This reflected his high quality and determination. He was giving the message that the Kingdom would not bow down to a threat, as a result of a decision it had taken with other Arab countries. It was a great reply,” said Prince Turki.”
I find King Faisal very strong, wise, down to earth, blatant and honest.. an interesting mix that led straight to his assassination.
Five One Eight is one of my favorite destinations on the Kuwaiti blogosphere, and Ansam is for sure one of my favorite bloggers.
Q8 Black Market is managed by 2 guys, Mohammed & Salem, and they’ve both proved that they have what it takes to keep you entertained and up to date. Keep it up guys!
Frankom’s blog is diverse. He writes about everything, from politics to gadgets to the latest happenings in Kuwait.
Our friends over at Football Directa are almost done with their new look and it looks very promising! They’ve been working hard for the past months to put together a totally new website, and it is almost done.
A meesage from Football Directa:
“We’re pleased to inform you that footballdirecta.com has finally transformed.
The official launch will be in December and our readers can now join and see our ad (animation) which is a sneak preview of the new footballdirecta website.
I find this illusion extra cool. You can make your own little dragon if you want to, it’s supposed to be simple, click HERE and print the page you get then follow the directions.
Did you noticed this before? That if you look at the diamond icon on the left of the company’s name, you will see that it spells out Sun starting from any corner.
We were discussing the swine flu topic today and someone raised this question: Why does Kuwait have this high percentage of swine flu cases compared to neighboring countries?
A Doctor was present and he had this to say:
“Take the number of cases discovered in Kuwait and compare it to the cases discovered at country X, and then take the number of deaths caused by the swine flu in Kuwait and again in country X, you’d find the that Kuwait’s percentage is much smaller than the other country’s. This tells us that in Kuwait we have more “reported” cases than other countries because we are more able, financially, to test and discover those cases, whereas in other countries they don’t bother to test each sick individual for swine flu.
It costs too much to test for the swine flu. Actually it costs the hospital much less to treat you and provide the necessary medication than to just test you. The UK for example started treating patients who have the symptoms without testing them first (depends on the severity of their symptoms). But since we’re in Kuwait, every person with the swine flu symptoms get tested, and thats why we have a relatively a high number of cases discovered compared to other countries.
And to add something, the numbers will double soon, but that’s not because the outbreak just got worse or bigger (That’s what Kuwaitis like to say at diwaniyas), but the truth is, it’s because a new lab dedicated to swine flu tests just opened, And naturally this new lab will report more cases as the amounts of tests increase.”
I was invited by friends the other day to go to Jaber stadium, to take pictures of the first match to take place there. Ofcourse it’s an unofficial match between friends, but nevertheless, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity.
The stadium is big and beautiful (I thought it would be bigger though), plenty of parking space and many gates to let the cars in, and many ticket kiosks scattered around the parking area. I think they did a good job avoiding future congestions. Read the rest of this entry »
Our friend over at Circus designs sent the following pictures of the Freeze Club and the Bowl Room at 360 Mall. I think it’s a nice change that we have such facilities in the malls now.
I find this idea unique and interesting. Instead of flowers now you can send fruit baskets and a bouquets of fruits. It’s available in Kuwait next to AlMowasat Hospital. The company has a dealer in Kuwait, so you can choose the bouquet and get it delivered all online. I haven’t tried it yet.
A new blog has been addded to the blogroll a while ago, this new blog, re:kuwait, is about an “attempt at finding pragmatic and urgently needed solutions to the problems that plague the urban cohesion of Kuwait City.”
I like this blog and think it’s very different in terms of the subjects they focus on. For example in one of their posts they discuss Sharg’s mall. I don’t enjoy going to Soug Sharg and never knew exactly the reason why. It just felt depressing walking inside that mall, and in their post Soug Sharg, I got to know exactly why I felt like that, and the reason being: You can’t tell whether it’s day or night when you’re inside the mall, you’re cut out of the outside world, unlike the Marina, Avenues, and Fanar malls.
You’ve got to check this website, it has people from all over sending in funny text messages they got from people they know. The word funny is used loosely here, but they’re interesting for sure.
If you haven’t set plans for tonight yet, you might wannna consider this:
