The Lives of Others

This is not a review. I have seen this movie and liked it, but this has been like 2 years ago. So, this is not the issue. The issue here is why I think today that this movie is one of the greatest movies ever made. Actually, the titles says it all: The Lives of Others... You sit and watch people living their lives, over and over. It doesn't matter if you do it intentionally or not, but in most cases, if you happen to fall in this category, you will end up with one thing and one thing only: people will go on living their lives, and you end up in the dust they stir as they move.

So, my advice to you, dear reader: live your life. Go on with your life, do something about it, and don't just stand there perfectly happy with your bird's eye view. You are not happy, even if you tell yourself this every night. Life will not wait for you because she is busy with the others who are living their lives. The shopkeeper loves the paying customer, not the guy who spends his time looking at the stands and other customers.

To the people who are living their lives: I don't envy you, I wish you the best. And I hope that you too wish me the best.

(23) Happy Birthday to me!

So, I am 24. For two dozens of years this creature has walked the earth. How much longer will he be here? What can he achieve and how long will it take him? Only God knows...


This is the first time that I have celebrated my birthday all alone! Now to start, I was doing night float in the hospital (that is the name they give to the night shift). It was incredibly boring and I slept from 1 am till 5.30! I stayed in hospital till 5.30 pm. I found out that cakes are too expensive here, so I didn't get one. Instead I bought myself a nice ice cream. I wanted to eat one for a long time. Ice in the streets + ice in your throat = Awesome! I went home, cooked for myself, ate and then slept. The house was empty as my room mates are all away.


Happy birthday to you my father, and happy birthday to me.

My friends from G-Company gave me Battlefield: Bad Company 2. My  father got me something back in Egypt. And that's it. Only three other humans wished me happy birthday beside my family and G-Company. All the other wishes were from forums I am a member in.

(5) The First Day

I had to be in the hospital and meet the secretary of the program director at 9 am, so I woke up at 6, got ready and was at the reception by 8.15. I thought that it was better to be early. And it was. Now, before I go on much further, let's talk about: shock. While I passed by the hospital 2 days ago, I didn't enter it till today. Wow! The hospital was massive. It's made up of multiple building but everything is connected through passageways that arch over the streets. There is also a very long passageway, called The Pike, which is the main highway in the hospital. As I said, the hospital is connected to 2 more institutions which are the Children's Hospital and the Shapiro Cardiovascular Center. There are sign posts everywhere to help shepherd the patients, visitors and medical staff, all the same. But, it is still way to easy to lose your way inside.

I went inside the orthopedics department and asked for Brenda, who is the one I should be meeting. I was told to wait inside in the waiting area which was a table and a couple of chairs. Almost everyone that passed by me stopped and asked me if I was being helped or not. Oh my God! I waited till 8.50 until I saw a girl coming who looked Indian. I knew that the other student with me was Indian, but I couldn't know from the name if it was a guy or a gal. Moments later we saw Brenda. She greeted us and gave us a rapid orientation. She took us to get the white coats from the hospital's linen section. Students and PGY1s are required to wear short white coats. They are like the ones worn by dentists here in Egypt. Then we went to get the hospital IDs. These IDs have a photo and a bar code, in addition to the name, rank and department. On the back of it, it says that the bearer of this ID is an essential member of the health care team at Brigham and should be allowed to move across police/army blockades to report to the hospital in case of a declared emergency or disaster. Also there was a separate card that supplied info about fire evacuations and what to do in case of needle-stick injuries.

After I did all of this, I was directed to the orthopedic residents' room, located on the 15th floor in The Tower. The Tower is the main inpatient building. It's made of 16th floors and 2 lower levels. The first lower level is ORs (operating rooms) land! I never went into the 2nd lower level, so I have no idea what's in it. The floors above the 2nd floor are all inpatient rooms, loosely divided among specialties. For example, most ortho patients were located on the 15th and 16th floors. But I saw patients in other floors and also in the Shapiro building.

I entered the residents' room but the resident I was assigned to wasn't there, his name was Jay. For privacy reasons, I am only going to use the first names of the residents. I met Christina, who will be responsible for me on my 3rd week. She told me that Jay was in the clinic and asked if I had lunch. When I said no, she told me that I should go and get something to eat. And I did.

The cafeteria is located on the 2nd floor. It consists of one large multiple-outlet section with sections for hot sandwiches, cooked meals, deli (which I still don't know what it means), multiple fridges containing all kind of refreshments and milk, a fruit section, a salad section, a soup section, a huge coffee/soft drink section, ice cream and potato chips and 3 counters. You simply go in and pick what you want and pay on your way out. They only accepted cash. The other part was an Italian food corner with pizza, pasta and other weird stuff that I don't know their names. When you are done, there are multiple stations where you can pick up napkins, spoons, knives, forks, sugar, Splenda, salt, pepper, ketchup and so on. After that, there are 2 food courts, where you can go in and sit to eat. Their combined size is as large as one half of the new food court in City Stars in Cairo! There are a couple of microwave ovens should you want to bring your own food and sit and eat with your friends. During non-rush hours, one of the food courts is closed. And it's also used sometimes as a conference room. There is also multiple vending machines for soft drinks, chocolate and chips and finally there is a vending machine for kosher food, but I never got the chance to stand and read what they offered. You can go and sit in the food court at any time till 11 pm even if you are not eating.

There are 2 more places to eat in the hospital. Au Bon Pait, which is nice and it's like a big chain as I ate in many Au Bon Paits in Boston and even in JFK airport when I left the country. They are a bit more expensive and they don't have home-like cooked meals, but they do support credit cards. There is another place called Pat's place. But I will talk about this later.

After eating, I went up again and met Jay. He took me on a tour inside the hospital. We went to get scrubs. We went into a room where there were many racks full of scrubs. He told me to get a lot, so I got six of them matching my size. Residents and nurses leave their homes dressed in scrubs and go back home in scrubs too. They only change them in the hospital if they become soiled by blood or any other similar contamination. If everything went fine, they will go back home in them. They have plenty of changes back at home and when they are finished, they just come and dump the dirty scrubs in the soiled linens basket and get replacements.

What I did was different. I took the scrubs with me back home, but it was too cold for me to go to the hospital everyday in scrubs. So, I dressed up normally and took my scrubs inside my bag and then I change in the residents' room. At the end of the day, I changed back to my normal clothes and dropped the scrubs in the basket in the residents' room.

After that, we went to the OR section... I was in normal clothes and a white coat, I was forbidden from going inside the OR wing. I had to dress up in a disposable cover-all gown and a head cover. There are about 50 ORs in the hospital, divided between general surgery, ortho, neuro, cardiothoracic, Obs and Gyn (they say it: OBS and G, Y, N) and urology. The division is by wings or bays, with each containing most of the ORs in which surgeries of a certain specialties are done. Ortho was done in Section G and all the equipment was located in that section, with a large storage room in the floor for almost everything.

I forgot to mention that when I was with Brenda, I signed a confidentiality agreement to keep everything about patients, equipment, on-going research a secret. I don't believe I am telling anything that will breach this contract.

I went home early that day and I went out again after that to look at some stuff in shops downtown.

(2) The Big Freeze

This was the COLDEST day I have ever seen in my life. I woke up at 7 am and I had lots of things to plan. I wanted to buy a bus/train subscription, look for a mosque to pray the Friday prayer and go to the Office of the Registrar because it was the last work day before I started my clerkship in Monday. The problem: MSNBC Weather's website said that it was -11C and felt like -22C. -22 Celsius!!! Our freezer back at home is not that good.

So, I took a leap of faith and went outside, and man, it was cold. You felt like your clothes had needles in them. I think that I have fried my anterior spinothalamic tracts from the huge influx of pain impulses. I walked with my back arched and my hands inside my gloves inside my coat pockets and my head tucked into my coat collar as deep as possible. It was like a 2-footed tortoise walking. When I was walking, I discovered the ultimate truth about Google Maps, which is a thing that I can confirm is true: not everything they say is true. It's not intentional, but some businesses close and this doesn't get updated on the map. So, I walked trying to look for one of 2 cashier/money wire transfer offices that also sold tickets for the bus. I couldn't find either from the get go. One was no where to be found, and the other had a different building number. But in the end, I was successful, thank God.

Next, I used the notes I wrote in my quest list, err, I mean my notebook and took the bus trying to reach the mosque. The bus was something to behold. There were 2 varieties of buses, a regular one and an extra long one. I, ultimately, tried both, but for my first time, I rode a regular one. This one had 2 doors. People could leave the bus from any door but you should only get on from the front door. There was no conductor. Next to the driver, there was a machine that had a slot for magnetized tickets (weekly or monthly tickets, like mine), a scanner for CharlieCards (prepaid cards that you can add money to) and a slot to add either $1 bills or 25 cents coins. And that's it. Everyone was polite and no one skipped this electronic conductor.

Now, here was the thing: the bus only stopped in bus stops. There was no "on your right, Yasta". The bus has GPS and you get both a written notification on screens in the bus (one in front and one in the back, along with 3 other screens on the exterior that show the number of the bus and its pathway) and a computerized voice. Should you want to get down on the next stop, you should press on large yellow tapes that were strategically located throughout the bus and this would be notified with a "stop requested" written and spoken through the speakers. Not only that, but the computerized voice was also responsible for some ads and some notifications, like "Report any suspicious behaviour or unattended bags to the driver." 1984-style.

I went down after a while and lost my way. Finally, I reached a small zawya after asking a nice old lady in the street. The person in charge there directed me to the large mosque in the area. He was from Panama and spoke very little Arabic. I followed his direction and went to the large mosque. It was really huge. Inside, it was like a regular building with a dedicated part that resembles the mosques we all know. I mean, the entrance had an office, a cafe, etc. There was a notice on the door regarding shoe policy inside. It stated that in certain places inside you must take off your shoes. Inside, there was a nice ablation section that was separate for both men and women. They had hot water! The first and only mosque I have seen that had this. And not only that, they had paper napkins to dry yourself afterward.

The praying area is not that large. I noticed upper floors, but I didn't see anyone praying in them. I arrived at 11.45 am and according to an electronic board they had (Courtesy of Kuwait) the Zuhr prayer was at noon. But they didn't start until 1 pm. I asked after the prayers and I was told that they start the Friday prayer at this time regardless of the season to make it constant. Smart thing, but I would have liked it to be at noon, so as to coincide with the lunch break here. The imam was from Egypt. I knew it from his accent in both Arabic and English. I was always curious about how non-Arab Muslims (80% of Muslims) give the Friday sermon. He used both Arabic and English with a great ability. I think he had an Azhar education. You can always tell! The sermon was great too, one of the best I have heard in a long time. Man, I need to change the mosque I pray in, I almost memorized what the imam had to say.

Afterward I started the great tour... I managed to get on a bus and asked the driver, Egyptian-style, if he passed by Brigham and Women's Hospital (from now on, I will refer to it as they do here, Brigham). And he said that he did. I went into uncharted territories. I wanted to take pictures, but the cold was unbearable. From my research on Google Maps, I knew that Harvard Medical School was a street or two behind. But, as you can expect, I was lost. I asked around until I managed to go to the building, only to discover that I got the wrong entrance and the correct one was a street behind. The view of the main building was incredible. And this is a fact that I have noticed in most buildings here. Building here have a character in them. They are not just made of expensive marble or glass, they are designed uniquely, and at the same time have a similar thing that links it with other buildings of the same institution or the neighbourhood. At the registrar's office, I got my confirmation letter in letterhead.

Afterwards, I wanted to do something. I wanted to visit the local RadioShack to change the phone I bought earlier. I used info from Google Maps. And this time, I totally lost my way. I mean, after some time, I had no more orientation with where I was. I stopped and asked someone in the street. While we were talking, he looked behind me and told me that someone was calling for me. The first thing that I thought of was "WHAT?". I mean, I don't know anyone here. It was a car that was honking its horn to me. And guess who that was. Well, there is only one guy who can be the driver. It was John! He was heading to buy some groceries from a shop called Trader Joe's which was like Sainsbury's when it was operational in Egypt. I mean, what was the possibility of that happening! Not only did I get a free ride (and I dare to say, a medevac! I was freezing), I actually went with to the shop and bought some groceries for myself. Inside the shop, it was like wonderland! Most of the stuff sold there I had no idea what it was!!! So, I asked for his help and told him what I wanted and we got it together.

During the long walk in the freezer, I had a Snickers bar in my pocket that actually froze. My camera was stone cold. The tears in my eye from the wind froze on my eyelashes! And in this arctic circle, there were some volunteers from Amnesty International standing in the cold asking people for donations to end violence against women. Later on, I met similar volunteers from other organizations. They are volunteers: they are not getting paid. The get credit for it though. And this kind of credit is needed for colleges and schools here. People are encouraged to volunteer for any kind of social work here.

I went home afterwards, after I had known what cold really meant...

(1) Discovering...

I woke up at 6 am, local time. There is a 7 hour time difference between Egypt and the East Coast of the USA. The first thing that surprised me when I woke up was that I have really slept well. Although it was only 6 hours, but I slept without waking up in the middle of the night many times (which is my norm). The second thing was the absolute silence. There was no noise of any kind. No car noise, kids, people talking, nothing... My street in Egypt is not super noisy, but it's not super quiet too!

After staying in bed for a bit, I decided to contact my family using Skype. Afterwards, I took a shower. I know! Too much detail. But the thing is that the shower tap was very strange. It was one thing without a separate tap for hot and cold water. So, I thought that since we were in winter and it was freezing, warm was the default. I was wrong and I was greeted with a wave of cold water that made me want to scream... The trick is that you need to increase the flow of water a bit for hot water to catch up. Smart, eh?

I was hungry. I ate some stuff I bought last night, but still, I was hungry. So, I decided to leave the house and go forge for food. It was cold. Too cold outside. It was my first real walk in the streets of the US of A. I was amazed by everything: from the cleanliness of the streets, the street lights, the pavements (sidewalks for the Yanks), the architecture, the shops, etc. Some people were walking and the seem not to be bothered by the cold at all. I found mothers walking with their little kids and everyone is happy and not covered in 1000 layers of clothes like I was!!!

I bought a coffee and some bakery and went back home after walking for like an hour or so in the cold. When I went home and wanted to go out again, it was snowing then. I saw snow the day before, but it was in the street and not falling from the sky! It was beautiful.

The rest of the day passed normally in unpacking and arranging my stuff in the room, talking with John (my landlord) and looking at the map of the city in Google Maps.

(0) Getting there

I have traveled only once outside of Egypt. When I was 8 years old, I did an Umra with my family in Saudi Arabia. That's it. So, the experience of traveling to a new place is not something that I have. Add to that the fact that I am cold intolerant. And (okay, this is embarrassing) that I have never lived alone before. Yup, I am a mama's boy. I once went on a trip for 5 days to Sharm but I don't think that this counts!

Anyway, the trip was boring. I traveled by EgyptAir and it took 12 hours to get to New York in a direct flight. I was worried about the new security measures. I mean, I am an Arab, Muslim, male and 23 years old. In Egypt, the guy at the check in disk of EgyptAir, started asking me about my birth date and place. After he was done, I asked why and he told me that there is someone with a similar name on "some list". WOW! I thought that I am doomed.


Thank God, nothing happened. When I touched down in the US, there was a really long line in front of the immigration office. We were given forms to fill on the plane and when I finally reached the officer (they even had us move to the stands dedicated to US citizens because it was really crowded in the visitor stands), he was super nice. He didn't even want to look at my confirmation letter from Harvard or anything like that. He gave me 6 months allowance and a smile. Thank God. And in the customs office, I gave them the form that I filled and I was given back a smile. Nothing else.

My first impression when I was in the queue for the immigration officers was one of total amazement. I saw people from lots and lots of nationalities all in the same place. Note: this sense of amazement faded away when I went into New York! Officers were organized and everyone was smiling.

On the plane, I failed to sleep more than hour divided throughout the entire trip. I couldn't read and I don't know why. I didn't use my laptop because I know that my battery life is embarrassingly short and that I may need it later. I watched G.I. Joe. This was a terrible movie. Sienna Miller is hot and all, but this movie was terrible. I met a nice lady and her daughter on the plane. We talked a little on the plane, and when we arrived at JFK airport we moved together till we got our bags. They were really friendly.

I met at the airport with a guy a colleague of my mother's knew when she (my mother's colleague) was teaching in the US. He is Jordanian and he was really nice. It was enough for me that I heard someone calling my name! We talked a bit together and then he showed me where the taxis where and I took one to the bus station, Port Authority Station, in Manhattan, where I will catch the Greyhound bus to Boston. I booked a ticket from Egypt and I chose the last trip for that day because I thought that I may be delayed in the airport. I wasn't delayed but by the time I arrived there, I had about 2.5 hours left. This was actually good because I lost my way there. It was like a maze in there and I had around dragging my two pieces of baggage behind me like, ehm, a donkey. The station is not dedicated to long distance travel, so there were no baggage trolleys. Speaking about trolleys, in JFK, a trolley costs $5. In Cairo International, it costs $0. God bless Egypt.

The taxi had a touch screen in the backseat that allowed  you to see a GPS map of your location and destination. You can check the weather and read the news too. The trip took about 45 minutes and it cost... $55. If taxi drivers in Egypt knew how much I paid, they will revolt! LE 250 for a taxi. That was a shock. But I kind of expected that. The fare is $45 from JFK to any first destination in Manhattan. Add $5 for a toll station and $5 as a tip (which I was told is a must) and you have 55. When the driver passed the toll station, he didn't pay anything, on the fare meter there was just $5 additional expenses. Wow. During the ride, all I thought of was the Ninja Turtles.

I didn't mention the first contact with subzero temperatures. I first knew what freezing was, was when I stepped out of the airport door. It hurt everywhere. Even my eyes hurt and were full of tears from the wind. It felt horrible, and I was dressed up in my heaviest clothes with a heavy coat. I kind of got used to it now, but not that much really.

I had one priority that I wanted to fulfill. I wanted to get a prepaid cell phone subscription. I did that at RadioShack. It's not that different from RadioShacks in Egypt. And I also wanted to eat. And this was my first contact with the serve yourself policy. I went into a small cafe near the place where I was going to board my bus. I asked for a cup of coffee. The guy at the counter told me to get it myself. I got it, paid, then asked about the sugar. It was on a table, for self-serving. I learned my lesson since then.

I didn't see anything in New York except what I saw from the taxi car windows. But I did go outside and walked for like 50 meters. I had no idea where I was or where Time Square was (which I wanted to see) and I didn't want to risk losing my bus, so NYC will have to wait.

When it was finally time to board, I met an American guy who was an African American and was totally like Coach from Left 4 Dead 2. I mean totally. There was also a Japanese girl who played the violin. She was great. I asked her to play Barber's Adagio for Strings and she did. She has talent.

Finally, the bus moved on. The bus was massive, and it had a bathroom, power sockets... and wireless internet!!! Yup, I talked to my parents using Skype from a moving bus. I did manage to sleep most of the trip. It was dark and there was nothing to see. The driver told us that our ETA was 11.30 pm and we did arrive at almost 11.30. I called my landlord 30 minutes before I arrived and he was so nice that he came to the station and drove me home. That was just awesome of him. He is one of the nicest guys I have ever met (more on that in later posts). He had his dog with him. If you personally know me, then you know that me and dogs just don't mix, at all. His dog was in the car, it's a she and she is called Penny. It's a Pug (Google it). She was very tame and sat in the backseat. We reached the house, we went in, he showed me my room, and that was the end of the busiest day of my life.

(34) Days of America

Dear Readers,

I was accepted in a clinical clerkship that I applied for at Harvard University. More specifically, in the Orthopedics Department in Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. I thank God for this great opportunity and this chance to do something I always wanted to do and this is my last chance to do (more on this in later posts).

I know that I am terribly late in writing this. I have been in the US for almost 2 weeks (2 weeks tomorrow, God willing). But I have really busy and things have been really moving too fast that I didn't have the time to do anything. Actually, I still don't. And I am writing this just after I came from the hospital and I still have to eat something and then sleep really early because I have to be at the hospital at 6.15 am tomorrow, God willing. And to add to the fun, there is a snowstorm tomorrow, with warnings of up to 30 cm (Metric, people, metric. I refuse to use the inch) of snow fall...

I mean, if I am not going to blog about a unique experience like this, then what the hell am I going to blog about beside reviews that only 3 guys read?!

So, I am going to document my trip and what I have seen and done. And I am going to cheat. I am writing this on the 9th of February, but I am going to date it January 26th, which is the day just before I traveled. And I will do this till I am up to date.

Yours amorphously,
Amorphous Snake

The King is… Dead?

 

Always bet on Duke.

I was still hoping that someday I will see Duke saving babes from evil aliens. I think I saw the E3 2001 trailer in 2002 or so, and the moment I saw it, I told myself, “This is going to be awesome!”

Years passed, more years passed, and now, after 12 years from the initial announcement of the game… 3D Realms have closed shop for financial reasons. They still own the Duke IP (intellectual property) and their publisher, Take-Two, still holds publishing rights, but as far as everyone is concerned, now we may never see the game at all.

What makes Duke special? Well, he is the man. Duke Nukem 3D was one of my favourite games. I played it at friends’, in school (Oh yeah!) and on my PC and PS. I played the 3rd person PS games that came out and I even played the Manhattan Project side-scrolling game on the PC. I was really waiting. I am patient, very patient.

So, what’s in the future for Duke? This maybe the greatest publicity stunts ever and a month or so later we all get surprised with the game being released! Or some other company can buy the rights from the now defunct 3D Realms and finish the game and release it. And last but not least, this may be the true end of the Duke.

Hail to the King, baby…

In the past 4 or 5 days, I have seen screenshots, gameplay footage (leaked of course) and plot details than I have ever seen in all the past years. Make sure you head there and there. And if you want to really have a few big laughs, head over there and read about what happened in the 12 years of DNF development, including a pre-order receipt for the game!

Ooops, it seems that the leaked gameplay footage was pulled offline. But it’s available on Youtube. I am not going to host it here as it has some nudity in it. This is a family-safe blog!

The Road

I do like the "end of the world" scenarios a lot. They just spark my imaginations into countless "what if" scenarios. To the extent that on some crazy moments, I started thinking how I will fortify my house in the case of a zombie apocalypse! I am not joking. It makes a relaxing mental exercise. Try it someday.

I spent the greater parts of last November and December reading, watching and playing all sorts of stuff related to the apocalypse. The frenzy started with me reading Blindness during the last days of my exams... It made a great mood changer! Please read the last post to know what I thought of the novel (and its movie). Then I read the original 1950s novel I Am Legend, which I liked its 2008 movie adaptation a lot. After that I read the fantastic, breath-taking and mind-blowing The Road by Cormac McCarthy. And this reading session was concluded with one of Stephen King's best novels: The Stand. In this article I will be discussing The Road. I have already talked about Blindness, and God willing, I will write about the other 2 novels some other time.

During this frenzy, I watched a lot of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic movies and played the wonderful demo of Left 4 Dead. I was also hoping to walk a bit on the barren wastelands of Washington DC in Fallout 3, but it never happened. But nothing in this grim time reached the heights of The Road, and here is why...

The Road is a 2006 novel by the American writer Cormac McCarthy. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature in 2007 and became a best seller. A movie adaptation is being made and will be released in 2009 starring Viggo Mortensen and Charlize Theron.

The novel follows a cataclysm whose nature is not mentioned at all in the whole novel. The events take place in North America in an unknown year and mostly about 10 years after the unknown cataclysm. A man and his son are trying to make escape the freezing north into the warmer south while heading east towards the ocean. Well, that's almost the whole story. But if you are not looking for events, but rather to an experience, then you will find plenty of this here. The story is incredibly grim and pessimistic. It will haunt you and personally I felt a huge psychological load on myself while I was reading it. The images are strong and memorable and the events in the novel so lifelike that it's really scary.

You never know what really happened. The sun is no longer visible from the dark clouds. All the plant and animal species are history. Food, fuel and clothes are no where to be found. Some people found out an alternate source for food: other humans. So you see, some people turned to cannibalism, capturing people and imprisoning them to eat them piece by piece. The fact that you never know what happened was an annoyance to a friend of mine that read the novel. But I see the opposite. It really means nothing to know what happened. In the first couple of years it might have been important, but after that, what's the point? The end is coming and no one can stop it. You just live long enough to see the next morning and that's all you dream of.

At first, I thought that this was too much, and I started making my thought protest as I did in Blindness, until I thought about it. 10 years is a lot of time. The survivors lost all their humanity if they have survived that long in a dying world. The man and his son are maybe the last of their kind. The man is of a dying breed and I thought that he must be some sort of a legend for his son. He tells his son stories about stuff that the boy never saw and never will. The boy never saw lots of things that we take for granted in our modern life. In one part of the novel, the man was trying to describe to his son what a cow was... The scene was so strong that it reminded me of a similar thing in Band of Brothers when a US soldier gave a little boy a piece of chocolate. The little boy took it while he looked a bit surprised. After taking a bite he started smiling. The little boy's father told the soldier that the boy never tasted chocolate before.

The trip of the man and his son across the dying American landscape with charred forests, ransacked houses, dead farms, derailed trains allowed me to reflect a bit about all the stuff that we can lose and that we already take for granted. For this sad couple, there was really no future. They are just living day to day with no long term goals. The boy asked his father what their long term goals were and the man was astonished to hear this sentence and asked the boy where he heard this before!

The man knows a lot of stuff and is a survivor, which is a given when you know that he stayed in that hell for so long, while doing his best to keep his son alive. He was underfed, cold and tired and in a constant danger of being eaten by the cannibals, but yet, his father did his best to keep him safe.

One of the strongest pictures that made its place in my memory is the picture of the man and his son walking together on the ever going Road while pushing their supermarket cart in front of them. It haunts me when I walk in the street. When I go to the supermarket. And when I think about the future.

This is one of the best novels that I have ever read in my life, and I think every adult should read it at some point in his/her life to know that we are living in a paradise and that in a blink of an eye, we can lose it all...

Falcon-Man

It's a sunny winter afternoon, people are walking in the street and everyone is happy... But wait a minute, there is a woman screaming... A flat is burning. Policemen arrived. Someone is calling the fire brigade. Cars are slowing down so their drivers can see what's going on.

# Insert John William's music here #

Someone yelled, "Look at the sky." What's this? It's a plane. No, it's an eagle. No, it's a piece of cloth. No, it's Superman... No, it's not. It's FALCON-MAN... The Man himself!

Flashback: here is how everything started.

I was driving home after going to the local computer mall with my dear friend Falcon (as you can see, I didn't know his secret identity, yet). We noticed a lot of people standing in the street with a police officer or two. Some MPs were there (you do know why, don't you?). A few seconds later, we saw the fire extending out of a window. A lot of people were standing there. Before we knew that there was a fire we thought it was an accident and we were looking to see if someone needed our medical knowledge. But after we knew it was a fire, I looked to the passenger's seat and saw Falcon changing into Falcon-Man. I smiled and thought, "so, it's you!" Falcon got out of the car and said to me, "I will go up and check if someone is still there." I said, "But it can't be, with all those people standing there." But he didn't listen and went ahead. I don't know why he used the stairs, but I guess he didn't want to blow his secret identity to everyone... He didn't have his mask.

My car was in a very awkward position. After a few moments, I was forced to change its position to make way for the cars already honking their horns behind me. I stopped at the opposite side of the street, facing the burning building. I couldn't park there, as this is a very sensitive area. So, I stayed there looking at the gathered people.

After some minutes, I started to call Falcon on his cell phone, but he didn't answer. I didn't know what to do. I called him again. No answer. Some moments later, the firemen arrived, and I found Falcon-Man returning to the car, now that his work was done.

The following part is written as told by the great Falcon-Man (Legal notice: This is exclusive to this blog. Falcon-Man didn't authorize any other geek to write about his adventures. If I see his heroics written on any other site, I will be very angry. You won't like me when I am angry. Besides, I have some powerful friends, eh?):

I went up the stairs quickly. I heard a woman yelling, "my mother is still in there." I busted the door open with a single kick. I checked the door knob to see if it's hot or not. (Snake's note: He later told me that it's a safety procedure so that those who are opening the door won't be engulfed in the flames because of the pressure difference. Not that the flames will hurt him.)

I went in, I yelled for the lady. I found her in her bedroom. I took her to safety. It was very difficult to see inside. My infrared vision was disturbed because of the heat, so I used my cell phone to light the way for me. I saw that I was getting a call from Snake. I couldn't answer now... What a sissy?!

After I handed over the lady to some gentlemen at the door, I went in again. Again it was very difficult to see. I shouted if there was anyone else in there. But there wasn't. I went inside the burning room. It was the kitchen. It was very hot inside and the flames were apparently coming from the natural gas pipes. (Snake's note: Later on I told him that I saw some workers cutting the main gas supply.) Water wouldn't work. It was time to use my Freezing Breath move. I took a deep breath, but alas... I inhaled some smoke that made this pathetic human lung irritated. I started coughing... Imagine this... It was worse than Mac-onite!!! I thought about doing the super spinning move to create the nano-Black Hole. But then, I heard the fire brigade cars coming. I thought, "Oh well, let them have some of the glory. There is nothing left but the dirty work."

I went back to the building entrance. I looked to the car where Snake stopped, but the car wasn't there. What a sissy? Did he turn tail and ran? I looked further and I saw him parked in a far place. I should change my friends. Too bad Falcon-Woman wasn't with me today.

This act of selfless heroism made me really ashamed of myself. I didn't go up there, not because I was afraid (I wasn't afraid, and that's the truth). But I just didn't go up there. Maybe it was the car. Maybe I thought that there was no need (I didn't know that there was someone in the flat until Falcon told me). I am really ashamed of myself.

But I am more than happy to know a person like Falcon. I am really honoured to have him as my friend. What he did today was an example to everyone. I hope it will be one of his good deeds to present before Allah on the Day of Judgment.

What? Where are the pictures?! I am Amorphous Snake, not Peter Parker!

Happy Birthday... to me!

"... to us."
"Yes, Precious... I mean to us!"

Enough Lord of the Rings fanboyism! Today, is my birthday. Now I am 22 years old. I am growing older, and hopefully, wiser.

We are having a small family party here, so I haven't eaten the cake yet. I will save a piece for GLaDOS, so that she may know how a delicious, juicy cake tastes! The cake is not a lie today.

I had a great day, today. Really. A big thanks to those that made it that great.

I received very good birthday gifts this year. I can say that Arsenal Gear is my family's gift. I got a Logitech mouse from G-Company. As you see, all of these are PC hardware. So, I decided to give myself a different gift... I bought myself a new toothbrush!

One Rig to Rule Them All

Three Rigs for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Rig to rule them all, One Rig to find them,
One Rig to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.

And for my vanity...

All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.

- Gandalf

Behold... The Rig of Power...

• Intel Core 2 Duo "Penyrn" 45nm E8400 @ 3.0 GHz with 6 MB of L2 cache
• Gigabyte P35-DS3R Revision 2.1
• Gigabyte GeForce 8800 GT overclocked @ 700 MHz with a custom Zalman fan
• 2x1 800MHz Kingston DDR2 RAM
• Western Digital Caviar SE16 500 GB SATA HDD
• Samsung 20X DVD+/-RW
• HEC 580 W PSU
• LG L194WT 19" WS LCD

Precious... My Precious...

ARSENAL GEAR

May God protect you.

And may you last me for many years and give me the power to conquer all those in Game-earth. We wants it... We needs it... It's ours... Ours...

Yes... Precious...

Stupid people!

Today I had a truly horrible experience! I decided to go with my family and watch I Am Legend in the theater. Don't get me wrong. The movie is actually very good, and I do enjoy going to the cinema with my family, so that's not the issue. I will try to write a review for this movie soon.

The experience itself was horrible. For me, going to a movie in a theater is the highest possible way of entertainment for me. It's my nirvana! But that's not the case every time. The problem is when people in the theater start talking! Theaters are made for watching movies, not chatting with friends. Talking in the sacred shrine of movies is unbearable for me.

I don't know if I am neurotic or my luck is really bad, whenever I go to the theater, I must meet one of these retards. A man with his finace, he tries to show her that he has some gray matter and she tries to show him that she is the innocent girl who can't think for herself, so he must explain the movie for her, and most of the time, he doesn't understand a thing of what is happening on the screen. A person who gets a mobile phone call and he must answer it! A mother who, in her immense stupidity, must take her 3 years old into the theater, and of course the kid must scream! A group of young men going out together, they don't care about the movie and all they want is to have a good time. Or worse, a group of young men and women going out together, again they don't care about the movie, and as in the first example, the man will play the know-it-all role. Or finally, my favourite, an old woman with her adult daughter who don't give a damn about the movie and they just sit there chatting! Wow, what a charming bunch of people I meet in the theater.

I require absolute silence while I am watching a movie, it's part of the rituals of watching a movie. You see, rituals. The process is very spiritual for me.

But it's never easy for me, I ask politely, and I ask not-so-politely, and most of the time nothing happens, or they just shut up for a short time before they start their normal routine.

Today, I had a nemesis in the form of a mentally-retarded individual who was accompanied by two women, possibly his wife and his mother or mother-in-law. They started talking. I asked politely to shut up. It worked for a few minutes, then two young men started talking, loudly, to my right. I hushed them. It failed. Then the trio sitting behind me started talking again, and this time I wasn't able to do a thing. I felt really humiliated. I am not an aggressive person and I believe in reason, but how can you reason with someone who is mentally-retarded? Someone who doesn't even think that he/she is doing something wrong. Someone who doesn't even think that they are attacking my freedom.

A friend told me that your freedom ends when others' begin. All I want is my freedom. I don't want to take anything more than my freedom. Theaters are made for watching movies, not for talking. People should respect this. They should keep their stinking mouths shut at all times when they are watching a movie. This is the right thing to do. This is what should be done. This is all I am asking. I don't want them to do anything special for me, just follow the simple, civilized rules of humanity. When you keep your mouth shut, you won't be harmed and you won't harm anyone. But when you talk, you annoy other people and you make a fool out of yourself.

So, please, people, shut up when you are in a theater. SHUT UP. SHUT UP!!!

Accordingly, I decided that this is a thing that will never resolve. People in Egypt will continue to talk when they are watching movies because they don't care about movies. All they want is to spend a good time with their friends and to have a good laugh in a stupid movie, so when they watch a movie that forces you to think they just start talking, to pass the time and to enjoy themselves so that the night won't be a failure!

So, I decided that I won't attend the 3, 6 and 9 p.m. shows anymore. I will only attend the 10.30 a.m. and maybe the 1 p.m. ones because they have the least possible audience, and besides, they are cheaper. Most of those who attend these early shows are either people who really want to watch the movie, otherwise they wouldn't go there in that early time with all the inconveniences it has, or they are love birds who just want to sit with each other, and most of the time they are silent.

If this doesn't work then I will stop going to the theater, but I highly doubt I can do this!!!

I have a dream: when I have the money, I will get the best possible projector and a screen and I will watch the movies I want, sitting in the comfort of my home, alone, in a dark room and without any interruption and with surround sound. High-definition movies in 1080p make this a possibility, and who knows, maybe when I actually have the money, quad-high-definition will be out, along with 12.1 surround sound!!! This will be fun! If only I had the money...

But even if this doesn't happen, a good 19" or 22" wide screen LCD with 5.1 surround sound and showing a 720p movie will be acceptable, and this is more affordable, you know. And the good thing is that you can get the movies for free, from you-know-where!!!

Operation: Clean Fingers

This is my good ol' trusty A4 TECH keyboard I bought in 2003. Thank God, it has been functioning ever since. It's a good keyboard with only one minor flaw, it has no LEDs for the Caps and Num locks.

Throughout the years I cleaned this keyboard several times. It's a painful and tedious process in which I must use a piece of cloth and glass cleaner to clean individual keys! So, I didn't do it too often.

I left this keyboard for almost 8 months or so without cleaning and this was the result... Behold...


You will notice that the W, A, S, D and E keys were clean. These are the keys used for games mostly. You will also find part of Tab, Lt. Shift, Lt. Ctrl, Lt. Alt, the Space bar and a small area of Enter to be clean, because these are the keys most often used. Oh, and I forgot to mention the Esc key.

After criticism from my family and friends, I decided that this must be cleaned immediately. And this was the result...

When my sister saw the clean keyboard, she asked me if I had bought a new one!

Mission Accomplished!

A night with the monkeys!

I never learn, do I?

Last Thursday, I brought to my home my 2 friends; Falcon and Kamolly. Originally, it was a mini-LAN party night meant to be spent fragging each other in CoD4. But, instead we decided to watch a movie. We picked some movies and I recommended one of my favourites: Kubrick's eternal 2001: A Space Odyssey. Well, I should have known better...

I don't know what the rest of my family thought, but I think that they thought we were on crack or something!!! Falcon and Kamolly's hysterical laughter rocked the house! Their comments during the "music" intervals in the movie were simply hilarious!

Kamolly kept commenting on the apes at the beginning of the movie and he made the night's most hilarious comment: he described the Discovery as the world's largest sperm!!!

Falcon, on the other hand, was laughing, even more than Kamolly, because of an episode of Futurama that was a parody of this movie.

I can't say that I was disappointed that they didn't like the movie. But I don't need their opinion to like or hate this movie. You can't help but LOVE this movie, if you are not on crack, that is.

This movie is like a poem, you either love it or you hate it...

Finally, after countless comments and an insane amount of laughter, especially at the movie's legendary ending, they left.

I have recommended this movie to 2 friends before, one of them saw it and its sequel, 2010, and he liked it!!! The other didn't, for now...

The codeword was: monkeys!

A mantis in my window

This happened a couple of weeks ago. I was sitting in my room when I looked at the window and saw it. This was the largest praying mantis I have ever seen. These creatures have always fascinated me. They are beautiful, calm and deadly predators (like cats!).

I tried to take photos in macro mode using my Sony DSC-W50 digital camera. But it kept focusing on the mosquito wire of my window rather than focusing on the mantis itself. So, sorry for the quality of the photos. I could have shot the exterior of the window by opening it, but I didn't want Mr. Mantis to pray in my room, besides, if it managed to get inside my room, it would have driven my cat crazy!

I lost my virginity!

OK... I am lying! But that's the closest term that can describe what happened to me tonight!

Ever since I joined medical school, I made a secret pact with myself that I won't take private lessons. It was part ideological and part practical (lessons = waste of time).

Thank God, I am doing well in college and my grades are fine. But I decided to give a try at attending a private lesson in internal medicine. My glorious college doesn't offer good lectures and some professors don't attend, and those who attend, shouldn't! They are not born to be lecturers. Maybe they are superb doctors, but they can't teach!

Anyway, I decided it will be very foolish of me if I didn't take a lesson based on ideology alone, if the price was that I will be a less qualified doctor than my peers. Grades can go to hell, I want to be a good practitioner! So, I made the decision.

To start, I felt like something broke inside me! Seriously, it was like an idol that was breaking apart! It reminds me of the victory scene in Shadow of the Colossus when you kill a colossus and in turn, his idol is destroyed. I haven't taken a private lesson for 5 years... since I was in school!

Let's sum it up with that: the tutor was very good (and God damn the stupid policies that prevents a guy like him from explaining the whole internal medicine curriculum for us in college!). But the surroundings were abysmal. The entrance was surrounded by secondary school students. The center has everything from a cafeteria to a place where they sell pre-paid mobile phone cards! There was about 300 students in the lecture hall. The tutor arrived more than an hour late.

I really don't know if I can go on like this. The subject is tough, but taking a private lessons won't make it go away. The problem with me is that I am picky! If I am not 100% content with the person (and the surroundings) teaching me, then it will be useless. I am better off alone.

I will try another tutor and see.

Final piece of advice: If you are interested in medicine... don't study it here!