Egyptian Equality - NOT!

So, here I'm setting in the cafeteria, it's the break time, and after translating God-knows how many articles in the last three hours for work, I just wanna be left alone.


Of course you would know, if you were ever in one of this office's cafeterias, it's the right time for some people, with nothing better to talk about, to show off their new hunts of mobiles, and play the latest funny/tacky songs or videos they have to their friends in a show-off kinda way.

You actually can categorize people depending on what they play on their mobiles at these times, the three 30something boys there with naughty laughs are watching porn, the couple of people in the corner with wet arms after cleaning up for prayer are playing Quran or watching the latest fatwa from El-Shikh something-something-or-another on the mobile, and the younger generation are playing the latest song of Haifa Wahbi or listening to the latest funny video someone downloaded it from Youtube.com, and of course there's me, the guy who just wants to be left alone, drinking his Pepsi and almost dozing off.


eavdroping on the next group, half interested in the latest mobile joke they're playing I hear the fight starting:
- No! No! No! Haram (It's a sin), you have to delete this NOW!
- Oh! com'n .. it's not even mine, it's just a joke.
- NO! you can't make jokes about Quran reading, do you understand!?
Well, you see, the mobile joke the guy was playing was about someone talking normal stuff (I went to the market, I bought a carrot, and it tasted nice) but with a twist, he's saying all of that in the same tune of "singing" that they Shikhs do when reading Quran.
Tajweed, it's called, it's a way to read Quran in a beautiful rhythm, of course there's different ways and tunes, and of course there's the Egyptian reading and the Saudi reading etc. it's a huge science really, something that you study in school if you're raise Muslim.

I forgot about it, and got busy with my own mobile when I heard the conversation turns into actual laughs:
- Yeah, that's totally OK! it's actually funny!
- HaHaHaHa!
Ha ?! what is so funny?! I mean in the end of the day I'm still in Egypt, when anything that touches Islam is enough for you to be hanged ..
It turns out to be another joke of the mobile, this time the guy - same guy as before - is saying the same normal words, but this time with the same tune that Christian psalms are, and the people are laughing about it like crazy.
Hold on a second, are you serious now?! I had to get to that conversation, I had to say something:


- You know?! it's a religion as well, why you're not treating it the same way?!
- It's not my religion, they're wrong anyways so why not making fun of them!
- you're wrong in their eyes as well, why don't you allow them to make fun of you the same way you allow yourself to make fun of them.
- HEY! of course not! I care about my religion, it's the right one! Islam is the right religion and it's what God said.
- Well, Christ said that Christianity is the real deal, what difference does it make?! both you and a Christian man are getting your information from different sources but in the same way.
- Oh Shut Up! what do you know about Islam ?!
- I know enough, and anyways this is not about Islam, it's about social equality! where's the brotherhood of Egypt and the "The religions belongs to Gods, and the Land belongs to everyone else" ?!
- That's not what Islam says!
(Here, thankfully, couple of other people agreed with me that he was wrong, he should delete both jokes, of course, I believe that if he wants to keep the songs he shall, but not delete one and leave the other).

I left the cafeteria knowing that the guy didn't change his mind, he felt that everyone agrees with me because logic was on my side, but he still believe what he believes.

What do you think ?!

That's so Swine-Flu of you!

So, if you're living in the same galaxy as I'm, you would be well-informed about the swine-flu thing that's taking over people minds lately, it's more of a fashion thing actually, the swine-flu is the new black of summer 2009 and everyone is wearing masks.

Now, question, does anybody knows what "Swine Flu" really is?!
That is a very interesting question because, obviously, no body actually knows what that kind of sickness is, everyone is scared shitless of it, but no one understands it at all.

Like for example, the Egyptian government decided to kill all the pigs in the country, a whipping number of three hundred thousand plus pigs, amazing, right?! specially that none of them is actually sick, and that the virus doesn't depends anymore on the pigs, it's a person-to-person sickness now.


The government as well found it extremely funny when an Irish tourist and his mother landed in Egypt with a normal "Flu", but of course a single sneeze on the plane and everyone started screaming like little girls, the poor Irish guy did nothing wrong (other than being Irish of course, the damn red nose and weird English), and suddenly he found himself and his mother in the Fevers Hospital (mostashfa El-7meeyat) in Abbasya, a place I used to live near by, and to be honest, there's nothing healthy about it, the way I remembered, it's just scary looking.
of course, the guy had a normal influenza and was sent back home.

Interesting Ads were spread all over the metro in Egypt, asking people to avoid "crowded places", thous avoiding the swine flu, and I was wondering as I saw them if the people who created those ads actually took the metro before.

Egypt is a crowded place, really, really, really crowded, if you mange to avoid crowd you're actually a superman, a super-hero, a person who can tele-port or something.
Today I was talking to a friend who're traveling to the States for a month, a clubing trip he called it, and I was like "Yeah, please don't come back with Swine-Flu.


The problem with him coming back with the sickness is not the fact that he might spred it all over, not that all the company will be sick and no body would work, the problem would be that nobody knows what to do with it here, and most likly, if it actually breaks nobody will go on TV and tells you that, rather than a phone call on air in some goddamn local TV program to Mr. Healthy McHealth asking him about the rumers of spreading the sickness, and he, of course, asuring you that everything is safe and sound.

Poke Her Face!

"Poker Face" was a Chart-topper song, that took Lady Gaga to the next level, instead of being a one-hit-wonder girl singer, famously known for her "Just Dance" song, GaGa became a worldwide success story and now, you just can't stop reading about her new hair color, her new outfit, and her Goddamn cup of tea she takes everywhere.

Kanye West, on the other hand, was never my cup of tea, his attitude of "Fuck everyone else, I'm the Goddamn legend" that really pisses me off, however, I like his couple of his songs, specially his "American Boy" song (maybe because it features Estelle) , click here for the video.

I first heard that song, actually, when I saw the parody couple of Egyptian boys did it, titled "Egyptian Boy", which was REALLY hot! Do click here for the hilarious video.

Now, like usual, I'm getting somewhere, and that "somewhere" is actually a street track called "Poke Her Face", done by Kanye West and friends, playing the same Lady GaGa hit, but with a twist, GaGa consider this song to be the ultimate meaning of "Poker Face", and actually called it "the Real Poker Face", and Kanye takes about sex, drugs, threesomes and other stuff in his virsion of "Poker Face".
You can listen to the song if you clicked on this link, and you can read the lyrics on this link.
So, listen to it and tell me what you think.