'Hey Johnny'...

Here I am sitting in a wonderful cafe at 11 a.m. wearing my Ray Ban shades in the middle of the North Coast drinking my tea and doing some work in my 'vacation'. It is a very weird feeling to be off work for two consecutive weeks after suffering for 4 continuous years. I remember the last time I was off goes back to the summer of 2002 before my last semester in university. I was off to Vienna. Life post university was and still is very hectic. I forgot how it feels to be on vacation. How it feels to wake up whenever you want to wake up and eat whenever you want to eat and swim whenever you want to swim. One could wonder, how didnt I take any vacation for the past 4 years? Easy; here in Egypt, you get 21 days off every year. The thing is, I changed jobs a lot in the past 4 years (exactly 4 jobs; that will not include my part time work in writing or appearing in football programs) and therefore I wasnt able to take any vacation because I was always on the move. Actually I miss work now(because my life rotates around it all the time now), and that's why I decided to do some work today from my laptop and send it via the email 'I am one of a kind, the best thing after sliced bread! The company I work for should be thankful for having me' :)
Anyway, during my time here in Marina, something very interesting really caught my attention. Beside that famous cafe I usually spend my time eating and smoking my shisha in, there is this alcoholic store that people move in and out from all the time. The funny thing is that they come out holding black plastic bags (not transparent though). I wonder why do they place their drinks in such bags??? I see people walking in and out of banks and exchange stores with those bags, simply because they have money; the greatest weapon nowadays in the world. If people see you in the street with thousands of pounds, they could stop you, hit you and take your money and that's why a black bag is being used; for protection. But why a black bag for beer? No sane person will steal bear during the day and also during the night. The store is in the middle of the street. It is located in a very lively area, actually the busiest in Marina. So everyone could see who is going in and who is coming out. If you are ashamed to sell alcohol then why form the store in the first place?!!!
I am against alcohol by all means as my religion prohibits it but I am laughing at the owners as they are having a huge conflict of concious. They want to sell alcohol and make money, yet they dont want to hurt the public's feeling and so place the drinks in black plastic bags. They think that by selling their products in dark plastic bags, the public will be happy and will stand and do a lap of honour for them. But I am actually laughing about how foolish they are and I am sure I am not the only one laughing.
Zeek goes back to work now.

Thoughts

It is not easy to accept that you will one day die. It is not easy to accept that one day something will strike you and you will be out of this world for good. The laughs, the tears, the jokes, the games, etc.. all will disappear from your life; your soul will be up there and your body will be down there, can you imagine all this? People find it hard to submit to God. They find it hard to love Him. To pray for Him. To ask Him for mercy. We are all sinners yet many of us find it hard to ask Allah, Almighty, the Creator and the Ruler, for forgiveness... Many of us find it hard to kneel down like slaves and ask Him for guidance.

One should always look to the people in Somalia and Ethipioa, to the uneducated, and to all the poverty in the world and thank God for everything He Granted us with. This life is not eternal; we will all die. I believe in the other world. I believe in Heaven and Hell. What is happening today in the Arab world (Lebanon in particular) and the joint evil powers (USA and Israel) are just minor problems but it is sad they only make the headlines. There are many major problems happening in the world and unlike war, they are unstoppable and uncurable. Many issues cannot be decided or solved by a cease-fire, a veto or a UN intervention. People are stealing and killing for fun. Some get tuned to music channels (where women discovered that stripping is a good source for money) watching them singing barely naked while eating a Big Mac and singing along with them. Some people are proud being gays, claiming that they they were born like this and the world is getting closed minded to oppose them. Yeah right!

There is 'no one' who will be able to change the world. Try to change yourself. Try to be a better person. Submit yourself to Allah. Follow your religion. Become a good person, and everything will be better afterwards.

We talk about Lebanon and Palestine. But how will we be able to help a 'whole' country, while some of us are proud being gays. Some of us have piercings all over their bodies. Some of us believe that religion is such 'old-fashioned' and come on we are the generation of the 21st century, so it is not cool to pray, it is not cool to fast and it is not cool for a girl to cover herself and wear a veil.

Please God, Grant us with Your Mercy.


P.S. Some people might find me a hypocrat, because I dont march in the protests, neither did I volunteer to go to the war, nor am I a Sheikh living in a mosque. I admit; I am a normal guy who still continues to eat the Big Mac after watching the bloodshed in Lebanon. I am not happy about myself though. I know my limits. I believe in Allah and I love Him and I was never afraid to submit myself and believe in the fact that I am nothing wihout Him.

Crazy World

One of my friends just bought a pair of jeans for 800 Egyptian Pounds!! That amount was after sale (50%). That means the orginal price was 1600!! Till this moment I dont understand how did my friend actually thought of even buying it, and to add to all this, he is totally happy and convinced!!

I believe that Levi's Jeans is most the common all over the world, and most of the people I know wear Levi's since Tom started teasing Jerry, since E.T. spoke and since the Jews started murdering Arabs. I would never enter any jeans store apart from Levi's, because it is the best and also easy to find. I've never heard of a brand called 'ICEBERG JEANS'!! What's that? If I heard someone talking about jeans that cost 800 pounds, I will automatically think of Armani, Boss, Gucci, Prada, etc.. But what is ICEBERG? The name is not even attractive, it sounds like a deoderant or an energy drink.

People critisize me because I could and (did) spend more than 2000 dollars on football jerseys only. Everyone of us could spend a lot of money on things they love. I could never spend on technology, mobiles, computers, etc... because they dont send a buzz to either my mind, heart or eyes. But I would understand if someone buys the new Nokia mobile with 3 cameras, because they enjoy the technology, but a jeans is a jeans. There is nothing fancy about a jeans. A jeans is something you have to wear everyday. It gets dirty and you rarely wash it. Jeans is either light blue or dark blue. Sometimes you could wear black jeans, grey jeans and thats it. So there isnt much to think about or a long list to choose from really! When I go buy a Levi's pair, I do that because since the day we started to speak and meet our mum and dad, it is Levi's we automatically got introduced to, just like corn flakes and The Last Unicorn. If I decided to buy a pair of jeans now, I will not think of Diesel, CK or Celio (even though I owned them before) but they are not my ideal brand. Just like water when you are thirsty; it is the first thing that comes to your mind, not nescafe, not pepsi and not iced coffee. So why would someone go and buy ICEBERG JEANS? It is even much more expensive than Levi's, it looks the same like any normal jeans AND if you are a loser who wants to show off with things, then certainly the ICEBERG is not the 'amazing' brand to walk around with.

Moments

Some pictures are worth a million words....

They are back!

The Smashing Pumpkins are in studios recording a new album!!!!

"Is it bright where you are, have the people changed? Does it make you happy you're so strange. And in your darkest hour, I hold secrets flame; you can watch the world devoured in it's pain."

Dreams can come true

What Ashton Kutcher is not aware of and I salute him for, is that noble move he performed which filled the hearts of teenagers around the world with hope. Getting married to Demi Moore proved that childhood dreams can come true if you believe in them.

When movies like 'Ghost' and 'Indecent Proposal' came out; Ashton was between 13 and 15 years old. Demi was the woman of his dreams and of every teenager dreams, including myself, my father, my uncles, my teachers, the school's principal and every male on this planet. Demi would have probably gave Kutcher some chocolates or signed posters for herself as giveaways if she had met him 16 years ago. The boy didnt breakdown and weep for not being able to have a glimpse of Demi like any kid having a crush on his ho school teacher would do and lose hope of everything; instead he worked hard and entered the showbiz to be close to her. He had the confidence, he had the fame and he had the humor. He was sure that Demi would easily fall for him and that is what happened.

Bravo Ashton!!!!

To look back when you were 13 and think of what you dreamt of then and did you accomplish it or not is certainly a personal challenge. I remember my 13th birthday... I invited my 4 best guy friends at the time for McDonalds and after that we had a little Mortal Kombat tournament on the mega drive at my place in which I dominated, as usual. I think we also watched a movie that night, 'Basic Instinct' by Sharon Stone. I didnt have big dreams for my future back then. I wanted to be captain of the football team in our school and thank God I did accomplish that! I wanted to be a famous guitarist :( I dont know why didnt the guitar and I get along. I never had the flashy dreams of becoming a sultan or owning the millions. I was born satisfied :)

14

I just heard over the weekend that males/females farts an average 14 times a day! This was all good news like music playing in my ears. At last a doctor came out and said that it is unhealthy to keep your fart in!

I can understand girls not farting infrotnt of guys, but what I just dont get, and consider it childish and lame, yes CHILIDISH AND LAME, when some guys get irritated and start acting all uncomfortable when another guy farts. If men are not allowed to fart infront of each other then this is definatly the end of the world! Am I supposed to ask before I fart or take a permission to go to the bathroom and break the wind??!

Where is the man-hood? Where is the man-pact? I dont find any relationship between being well raised and farting. What is the theory of the people opposing it? Smoking in itself is a bad habbit, addictive and it kills you. Farting will never kill you, farting is not addictive. You cannot fart whenever you feel like because you are not able to choose your farting times. You only fart, when you have to. You will never wake up at 4 am and decide to fart, but you can go down at 4 am and keep searching all over to find a store and buy a pack of cigarettes! Oh and if you didnt find the same cigarettes you smoke, you will go crazy and keep searching for another store, etc...! And then you tell me, farting is bad?!! If you are well raised, then you shouldnt smoke or curse, and probably go to bed early every night. So for everyone who claims that farting in public means you werent raised up properly, give me a break. Stop smoking in public and I will stop farting; fair deal I guess.

Howard Stern the Radio king in America is known as the fart champion. Well I do hope that Mr. Stern is aware of the blog world, because I want him to read this carefully; I am the Fart Champion and no one will ever take that from me.

Work from home?!

To be working and employed means that you have to wake up early for 5(6) days a week and go sit somewhere for a minimum of 8 hours. If you dont do that, then sorry but you are not working!

Some friends of mine are free to choose one day every week as 'work from home.' I tried hard to understand what is the concept behind 'work from home?' At the beginning I thought that they wake up at 8 in the morning and work from their computers at home, just like what they do in the office but the only difference is that they are in their shorts, maybe watching a dvd along the way or doing some push-ups...BUT, that wasn't the case. They just sleep, sleep and sleep. They are on hold of course while asleep incase something happen, but nothing happens in this country; we all know that.

A home is a home. You sit at home to relax, to sleep, to eat, to watch movies, to play hide and seek and to watch other people in the next building through the window. No one can or will be able to work from home, never ever. The funny thing is that my friends are not working in a local company, at least I would have imagined; they are working in a huge multinational with more than 50,000 employees worldwide. How on earth would a smart multinational actually believe that their employees will work from the place or from the room that consists of an AC, a computer, a music stereo, a TV, a playstation, movies and above all; a BED? If we could actually work from home, then why didnt our schools give us that option too? Could you imagine the students skipping school to sit at home and study for the day?

I worked in a customer service department before, basically I was answering calls and troubleshooting with the customers over the phone, so if anyone was meant to work from home then no one would fit better than a custromer service agent. I could have easily done all that from bed. Why did I have to wake up every day and driving to the moon to do that? When a friend of mine calls and I am tired, and he asks to do something, I automatically reply, 'listen man, I am very tired... I need to go home, how about later?'

Therefore; just like the heart is the symbol of love and the big fat 'M' represents Mcdonalds; home is the symbol of relaxation and comfort. So either the country allow us all to take a 'work from home' day or we just jump ship and join that multinational. That is the easier option anyway.

Magical Tea Vs. Poisonous Pepsi

When I was born, it was either tea or coffee. Nescafe, Cappuchino, Hot Chocolate and all the latte's were all related to coffee, and you shouldnt have coffee or ask for it as a kid 'that what they told us' because it is not good; for multiple reasons that I am sure everyone heard of. Therefore, all my instincts led me to the tea. Of course as a kid, you try the different kinds of tea. Tea with skimmed milk, with fatty milk, with mint, without mint, with sugar, without sugar, with diet sugar, with the teabag, without the teabag, Lipton tea, Earl Grey tea, Aroussa tea + Al Gawhara tea (Egyptian Local) and so on... I soon disovered that hot tea with mint is the ultimate drink for the Zeek. That was and still is 'my hot drink'! I seriously cannot believe how poeple refuse to enjoy sipping hot tea with mint?!! The crowd nowadays are into the frappe's, milkshakes, flavored coffees, chery coke, energy drinks, you name it!! I try to be objective and accept the logic behind the way people abandon the tea for the other new 20th century drinks which attracts you by their caramel smell and sparkling colors, but I still am not able to figure out how could you go for such drinks when you have a drink that many nations before used to form their economy upon and 'some still do'. People should go back and open the history books, read about the Boston Tea Party or the First Opium War.

This debate takes me to the other part that is killing me, really killing me! Why do people drink Pepsi??? It tastes bad, it makes you burp like Baloo the bear, it softens your bones, it gives you a belly and it affects your throat badly (that's what I tend to believe). I agree that the marketing of Pepsi is appealing, the celebs in their ads are full of shower gels and pradas, but it is still full of poison.

If you just had a big meal and you want to relax, then drink soda water, tonic water or a fresh juice. Go to sleep and you will wake up smiling. You dont have to drink Pepsi to give you the strength and power to fight Mojo Jojo!

I rest my case.

P.S. Even Coke is better.

Circles...

Everything around me is changing. I dont know if I am lost or am I just involved in too much thinking. Someone was kidding with me the other day saying, 'What happened to the King?' and thinking about it, I dont really have an answer. I look back at my life and discover how much it changed over the years, how much I've learnt and how much I got more attached to football and pizza!!

I wish I could go to sleep and wake up 15 again! I miss my school, my friends, my short leg, my music albums, my history teacher, my shoes, my perfumes, my acting, etc... Dont get me wrong; I love my work, I love my friends, I thank God every day that both my legs are normal now after the car accident, I still see my history teacher, I have more shoes, perfumes and music albums than ever and I wont be interested to act even if Meg Ryan offered me a role in her new movie, yet I miss the old days.