STORIES, STORIES

RANTINGS OF AN ARAB MALE by Hakeem Jomah Unpopular opinion time!  I believe that man is a product of his environment.  I ALSO believe that, given certain catalyzing factors, man can regress or progress despite his environment.  The Arab male is molded to believe from day one that he truly is a king in his own right; with that comes the mandatory responsibility to provide for and nurture a family financially and emotionally, and play a part on the disciplinarian front.  And right off the bat, that's gargantuan pressure. They're ALSO bred and molded to believe in a mandatory self-entitled pride and unearned respect from his family, and it's up to the Arab male to figure out on his own how he goes about doing that. But he's so used to being spoonfed everything that he skips the "how to earn it" part, and jumps right into the "expecting to be respected" part. I'm an Arab male, I've lived this. A lot of people have th...

The Sad State of Modern Videogame Journalism by Tamim Kashgari I remember a more innocent time, a time when I could read a review and look at a score and feel both safe and informed about a game. It was a wonderful little world filled with rainbows and unicorns.  But now I find myself drowning in a sea of corruption, opinion and petty rivalry. Well, alright, it was never that good then, and it isn’t really that bad now either. Nevertheless, there is a real problem with modern videogame journalism. Some game reviewers – and in some cases, entire publications – have forgotten what a review is supposed to be and the weight that it carries. A review isn’t just supposed to be a description of a game, it is supposed to be a critical examination of a game as well. Aside from that, a game review is the tangible representation of the relationship between a reviewer and the public – a relationship that some reviewers don’t take very seriously.  This is an especially heinous...

"As newspapers and magazines become more obsessed with shorter, breezier stories and visual gimmickry, readers adopt that sensibility as normalcy. We are losing the ability to understand anything that's even vaguely complex."  – Chuck Klosterman, Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs As someone knee-deep in the publishing industry (I'm a publishing executive in the editorial department of a media group here in Malaysia, which, in short form, means that I have my nose buried in all aspects of publication), I nodded so vigorously at this essay by Klosterman. Here's a typical instruction given to our business- and lifestyle-magazine writers all day everyday: "Write smart, write the kind of articles that you want to read. Our audience is sophisticated, intelligent, and very discerning. State everything clearly so that you don't lose your readers. They don't want to have to read complicated sentences, or encounter uncommon words." What this means to...

So, yeah. Driving. First, I'd like to congratulate all the people who participated in the campaign for women to drive in Saudi Arabia, including those who didn't ostracize and throw eggs at (or hit with an  3egal ) those who DID participate. This is indeed a baby step, albeit a huge baby, towards the fulfillment of women's (and in fact, men's, too) most basic of rights: the right to think for themselves and to make their own decisions. And that's what we should probably remind ourselves of: what we are fighting for. What IS the point of all this? Driving, although very real and very literal, is really just a strong symbol representing our right to do things without having to ask permission from a male relative. What other areas of our lives do we have to constantly ask a man permission to do? Education? Our right to acquire knowledge and be brilliant? Marriage? Our right to find and choose the right person at the right time to ruin spend the rest of our ...

It's Friday, last day of the weekend. On Fridays, I like to make a point of phoning friends and family, or sending text messages or emails, especially with the ones I don't see or talk to often. I don't think we realize how much these things are appreciated, to be asked how we're doing, to be checked up on by the people close to us. But I also dislike Fridays. It's on this day that I hate living in Jeddah. I get the feeling that I could be doing so much more, that I could be a thousand times better as a person than I am now, that I could be meeting people and living life instead of watching or reading about it being lived  elsewhere. I have to put so much effort on very small things and only achieve very little. And it's exhausting. Running as fast you can just to stay in the same spot. Most Fridays, I question the decisions I've made; I question the purpose of everything, of this blog, of my efforts, of all the things I do, and I wonder if there's a...

Sometimes I'm a total douchebag to customer service reps just so they can rant about me to their co-workers later on while they have their cigarette breaks. Rep : "Ma'am, there is no need for that kind of language." Me : "WHAT KIND OF &%$&ING LANGUAGE ARE YOU @%#^ING TALKING ABOUT, YOU &@#$ING ^*&%?! FIX MY PHONE LINE NOW OR I WILL SLOWLY *&%$ THE *&^% UP YOUR (*&%ING %$#@." Rep : "..." (On a side note, email me your interpretation of my little rant up there. I'd like to know how creatively you have filled in the visually bleeped words.) I know, I know, I know, it's mean. But then this is probably how it went later on, at said cigarette break. Rep: Man, there was this *&^%$ that kept talking @#$%. I wanted to *&#%ing smash her #%&^ing face but what can I do, man, *&@#ing $%@# won't *&@# the *%$$ up and (*!@#$. Rep's Friend: *&@# her, man, you're better than her. Ignorant pieces...

One of the major causes of fire is leaving the stove on. Don't leave it on if you think you're gonna be distracted by a phone call, or the television, or whatever. And especially don't leave it on right before bed coz you just might forget to turn it off, go to sleep and then wake up dead. This happened to me just now. The stove-top fire part, not the redundancy of waking up dead. Thankfully, I managed to do what needed to be done as soon as I discovered the smoke that was steadily and very quickly taking over our apartment, coz I'm just fucking kickass like that. It's tough to act when there's an emergency like this one, especially stove-top fires, because our instinctive reactions are usually wrong. Here are some quick tips that might come in handy in the future. 1) If it's a grease/oil fire on the stove, in a pan or a pot or whatever, don't put it out with water. Water would only make it worse. If it's a small fire contained in the pan, try to smo...

The difference between Jeddah and Not Jeddah is never more apparent than when you find yourself home alone in Jeddah. If I were suddenly home alone in Not Jeddah, I would not have been posting a blog entry. I would, instead, have been suddenly Not Home Alone, or Not Home at all. Home alone in Jeddah, however, I find myself Not Gallivanting On The Streets In Mayhem Fashion, and Not Not Posting A Blog Entry. It's pretty difficult to be Not Home in Jeddah, see. There's the issue of Not Having Transportation, there's also the Not Having Anywhere To Go To But Cafes and Restaurants, which leads to more problems when the issue of Not Having Much Money is present. You might also have problems when your friends aren't able to be Not Home themselves. When you're Not Home in Not Jeddah, you can't Not Take A Walk, or Not Play Some Kind Of Sport, or Not Go For Drinks, or Not Meet New People. When you find yourself home alone in Jeddah, perhaps the most excitement you will ge...

You know how you know it's summertime in Jeddah? A) Your ACs get busted. One by one. Even the new ones. Sometimes. B) It gets so hot that you forget what "normal weather" is like in Jeddah, even though "normal" really means SUPER FRIGGIN HOT.

So there's this guy on my Facebook friend list who's really annoying. Classic fuckface behaviour. He makes uneducated hypotheses, calls everyone stupid (except himself, it's hilarious if it weren't so annoying), and makes all these really fucking stupid generalizations and arguments. Very offensive guy. All of this on Facebook status updates. I know, I can just easily delete him, and move on and stop complaining about how offensive (and stupid) he is. It would save me from seeing all his comments and just shut him up. He can exist somewhere else beyond my hearing (or my feed). But then what about Freedom of Speech? Does he not have the right to voice his own opinions, just as I fiercely defend mine? Would I not be stepping on his rights or freedom by deleting him, shutting him up? Could I not give him his little FB space to stage his little rants and beliefs? I do not have to accept his views, but I must respect his right to have them and say them out loud. So what if t...

We all know that pivotal scene mid-montage in "Pretty Woman" when Julia Roberts' character goes back to Rodeo Drive to shop after she was very basically kicked out for looking like a prostitute who couldn't afford to buy anything there. She triumphantly goes up to the saleswoman who judged her before and she says, pointing at the woman with her hand that held all the shopping bags, "You work on commission, right? Big mistake. Huge." Yeah. That's right, bitch. The prostitute who couldn't afford to buy anything from your snooty, high-end shop struck gold and got an extremely good-looking, quietly tortured, wealthy man to give her some shopping money in exchange for her service. And all that money isn't going to your shop. Coz you suck ass. Seriously, I hate salespeople who can't do their job. I don't think it's part of their job description to judge their customers by their appearance, but please correct me if I'm wrong. I mean, com...

I'm totally used to naysayers. From as far back as I can remember, people have been going against whatever I believed in. I've been made fun of, I've been laughed at, I've gotten all kinds of comments, I've gotten into so many arguments, I've fought fiercely for my beliefs. Yes, I'm talking about the Backstreet Boys. They ARE REAL MUSICIANS, OKAY? In the past few weeks that I've been helping out my friend Sharifa with the Earth Hour event in Jeddah, I came across the naysayers again. It's been a while; I had to get reacquainted with dealing with them. There were two kinds of people we had to deal with. 1. The genuinely curious. People who really didn't think Earth Hour was good for anything maybe because they didn't know much about it, or they had misconceptions, or they didn't believe it would work, or whatever other reason. Yes, they might have been harsh with their questions and comments, but one could tell that these people were reall...

In the grand scheme of things, nothing much really matters. Not those petty problems. Not the fact that you hate coconut. Not the small arguments with your friends that you think you "win" at. Not your weekend plans. Not the little things that irritate or annoy you. Not what people think about you. Not your age. Not your career. Not your possessions. Not your weight. Not your online library. Not your Facebook account. Nothing.

Hi, this is me reporting live from my High Horse. I woke up today to at least 3 messages on my Blackberry Messenger about writing the color of my bra as my status to confuse the men on my friends list. "Let's watch and see how confused they get when they notice that all women have colors as their status," said the message playfully. Haha, funny, but I'll pass. Later on, I received more messages on my Facebook with a similar suggestion. At least 200 of the people on my list had changed their status within the day. It wasn't until much later that I received one more message like it, this time, with a "P.S. This is for Breast Cancer Awareness." A great cause. This is serious. Everyone should know more about breast cancer, its symptoms, its prevention. I admire people's dedication to spread this awareness, their loyalty to the cause. But bra colors? Is it Breast Cancer Awareness, or just plain BREAST AWARENESS? How many men are now smiling and/or jerking...

I don't tell my mom everything. But I especially don't tell (or show!) her when I get a tan. You see, a tan on an already dark girl is apparently one of the reasons the aforementioned girl will never get married. There's quite a few things on that list of reasons. Like: - being overweight - being too loud - being too loud when you laugh - hanging out with too many boys - staying out late - not going to family-oriented functions/dinners - keeping a pet cat - being too independent and so on. If I go by this list, HOT DAMN, I WILL NEVER GET MARRIED. *loud laughing* You see, that would be okay, if society didn't always fuck us up. All the questioning about "OMG you're 23* and you're unmarried?"; one is bound to ask the same thing. That's not the only question society asks, either. All of them either prepended or punctuated with a gasp. "You're married and you don't cook for your husband?" "You're married and you don't hav...

A couple weeks ago, after the win of Pinoy boxer Manny Pacquiao, my feed reader was flooded with declarations of Pinoy pride. Suddenly, everyone and their mother was connected to Pacquiao because of shared nationality. Oh, yes, he's excellent at what he does because he is Pinoy, therefore, we are excellent in what we do because WE are Pinoy. Suddenly, we are not so ashamed of our nationality, and we announce it to the world (of Facebook, I guess). After this came the terrible killings in southern Philippines when about a hundred armed men attacked a group of people on their way to file a candidacy, and the media people covering the event. These same proud Pinoys decried and condemned the massacre, they expressed their anger towards what happened. It's a horrible, horrible thing. Be proud, Pinoy, for they share your nationality, too. They are terrible people capable of evil acts to destroy other human beings, therefore, so are you. Take responsibility for the things you are pro...

If you know me at work, you also know that I am that employee always scurrying for cover in order not to be caught by the superiors for the nth time wearing the strictly forbidden Jeans. We have a strict no-jeans policy at work and I have chosen to fight against it here in my widely-published and credible professional blog. ... Yeah. So we all know their reason for the no-jeans policy. Jeans are just way too casual to be worn in prestigious workplaces such as the one I work in, and it is imperative that we command respect in our fly suits and stiff upper lips. Cool, cool. However, considering the nature of our job (teaching), it's pretty difficult to keep up with this. No, I'm not saying that we should all be allowed to come to work in our deconstructed jeans and faded apple-bottoms and start krumping our students into perfect English. I agree that not even the most "inconsequential" students should be subjected to the sight of their teachers showing off the occasiona...

I can't sleep now. I'm so past the point of sleeping that the point has become invisible. *** The thing about Depression is that there are many things about it. It's one of those things that one is so tempted to make exclusive. I am so tempted to say that you won't understand it until you've actually hit it yourself. I'm tempted to say it's worse than your everyday emo, your friendly neighborhood drama, your PMS mode on turbo. I could say it's not like one of those days, when everything is just not going right, and everybody seems to have turned their backs on you, and the only thing you want to do is kill yourself because nothing is worse than this, not the poverty in this world, not the hungry children's suffering, not the abused person's situation, no, this is much, much worse. I'm tempted to say that, but I probably shouldn't. Because Depression is not an exclusive club that is "better" than the other mental conditions. It...

I obviously didn't make myself clear in my last post. I admit it, this is me on Defensive Turbo. In retrospect, I realize that my last blog entry is not a good reflection of my professionalism as an event photographer. It doesn't matter that I was ranting on a private blog, or that I was being sarcastic, or that I exaggerated some aspects of my story for entertainment value. It doesn't matter that it was a private, personal note, not really intended for all to read, especially of course, the subject of the post.  Because nothing is ever private online, is it? Because it was published online, I compromised my (young) reputation as an event photographer and exhibited how "nicely" I take to challenging situations, how "quickly" I can adjust to an unexpected occurence, and how "excellent" my people skills are. Look how I talked about my client. Who's gonna want to hire me now? And yet, I do not apologize for that post. Call it stupidity. Arroga...

I am back, poubelles. Had a nice vacay, thanks. Today, we rant about the world of photographers. In Jeddah. I'm a little busy, see? It sounds simple enough. You have an event, you'd like some above-average photos of that event, you hire a photographer, you get your photos. Done. The problem is that you don't really know what a photographer is supposed to be doing during your event, do you? It's also very simple. The hired photographer is to do the following: 1. TAKE PICTURES. 2. TAKE PICTURES. 3. TAKE PICTURES. Oh, did the photographer forget to mention that to you a week before your event when you two were negotiating the price for photography services? In that case, I'm sorry, it's not your fault. I mean, it's not as if it is explicitly mentioned in their job title that their sole purpose is to take pictures. What the hell does "photographer" mean, anyway. It could mean ANYTHING, for crying out loud. A photographer could be anything from an event...