ammaro Wisdom

Just because its ur right to be stupid doesnt mean u should be. - "ammaro"

The first in a series of #ammarowisdom thingies. With Twitter compressing everything we need to say into under 140 characters, the whole concept of blogging seems partially irrelevant at times. That isn't to say I won't be 'blogging' per se, just not doing as much of it (as has been obvious from my off and on posts over the past few months). For those that don't follow me on Twitter, i'm @ammar456.

On another note, i'll be revamping the whole site; this will turn into the hub for ammaro productions, mainly covering video, music, events etc. The blog will stay embedded on the right side of the page though (or left side, who knows, I haven't thought of a design yet).

On a final note, get ready for a big new project coming out next weekend; watch on this space.

Creating the Next Superpower (on Twitter)

Twitter is pretty good for spreading information, live news, and wasting time. It's also good for creating the next utopia.


So here I was on the morning of the first day of the week, thinking, wow, that weekend was definitely not long enough, and so I posted: "I'm going to start my own country where weekends are 3 days and the weekdays are 4. Whose with me?" Apparently the concept was too exciting for people to handle, and a flood of replies later, my 'country' was established with a population of five people (that took about 5 minutes). I declared that citizens can suggest legislation for the country, but considering it is my own country, it will be a pure dictatorship and final decisions regarding anything are up to me.

This didn't seem to fly well with a few citizens who started retaliating by burning tires (and here), and stuff. Of course I wasn't going to let that happen so I started hiring people to head up the Ministries; with security being the prime issue at hand, the Minister of Security was hired (who was later fired for being inadequate and demoted to Minister of Barbie Dolls).


With riots and fires, we set the name of the country to the 'Democratic Empire of ammarolands' (kinda like Netherlands), and the Minister of Finance was hired, whose first job was to provide a budget to build shopping malls (to stimulate the economy) and jails (to keep those causing trouble locked away). So with 10% of the population in jail (drastic measures for the safety of the country) I, the emperor, went on to hire more people to fill in the important positions within the country. Eventually, the following posts/roles were filled:

@ammar456: The Emperor
@afnansz: Minister of Security, later demoted to Minister of Barbie Dolls
@HasanZainal: Minister of Finance, who has cabinet meetings in Sharm Al Shaikh
@rashid_AG: Minister of Adult Entertainment
@Fahad_: Minister of Twitter
@Neenooh: Minister of Defense who is skilled in the art of torture
@NaseemF: Headed the riots and escaped the country. The Bin Laden of #ammaroland
@mssenos: Minister of Health; originally had no assigned budget so was stuck with giving out Panadol Extra's to the sick

Of course, in any new country, there are always the opportunists, and these were the lovely @FahadFakhro and @h9290, who decided to make their money through liquor and prostitution (not of themselves). Obviously in #ammaroland religion and state are completely separate and therefore morality is subjective, and so those businesses were allowed to run. Plus they generate good money so we can't say no to that...

A few more people joined in important positions as the weeks went on:

@maymalk: Runs the Apple Store in #ammaroland
@loay555: The new cold-hearted Minister of Security

And even with all the money we were generating, we were still running a little on the edge of bankruptcy (imagine, a whole country bankrupt). Luckily for us, we got a donation by @RamiJamal for 500 trillion ammarollars (equivalent to about 10 trillion million billion US dollars), and that allowed us to give the whole country 3 days off in non-stop party celebrations.


Of course, it was only upwards from there. We developed the economy, society was prosperous, and we started building the World's tallest tower (456 floors with the emperors palace on the top floor) while importing the labor from Italy & Spain (models only). @NoorAlHaji was hired as Minister of Social Development and @Yasmineelcharif as Minister of PR, who also made sure that each citizens gets an iPad, iPhone4 or/and Blackberry, and a personal concierge.

Onwards, we had discussions with N.Korea on a partnership to create clean energy, decided the passport would be black with Platinum print and encrusted diamonds, we opened a halal casino too, and even created a Ministry of Twitter.


Next came discussions with the UN, taking over nearby countries, growing farms and producing crops for the entire world, etc.. So far it's been a good 10 years (about 5 hours in TwitterTime) at #ammaroland, and now it's probably time to start waking up and either doing it in real life or going back to doing nothing particularly useful all day.

Hmm..

What a Year!

Wow, what a year...

I can sit and bore you with paragraph upon paragraph of what's gone down through the year, but let me try and summarize it in one line:

Tons of traveling, HalaBahrain got crazy popular, New Tahoe and pimped it out, launched a whole company and ran it (UrFilez Bahrain), riding a camel infront of the Pyramids, villa on the water at the Maldives, put together a bunch of large shows, brought musicians in Bahrain to popularity, launched an album for DJ Outlaw, and a ton more stuff that I can't even remember any more...

2010 is gonna be crazier.. Keep watching this space; HalaBahrain is up for a huge re-make, BahrainTalent is going to be completely re-done and pushed out, get ready for ammaro Productions (audio & video), and get ready for Arabia Underground... That's just the beginning...

(On a separate thought, imagine if you wake up tomorrow and it's the first of January 2011? Where did 2010 go? Imagine losing a whole year. Whoa, trippy. Ok ignore me i'm being silly).

Happy New Year everyone! See you in Oh Ten!

BTV; fun fun fun

Ah yes, another Ramadan is upon us. Another month of fasting, religiousness and giving. Equally also known as the month of laziness, gluttony and TV.

I've been gone for a while; its been a hectic 6 weeks, running show after show at Seef (we set up a big stage, and had everything from latin bands, breakdancers, talent shows, to much more). If you haven't seen it yet, check out the video below (just a short quick compliation to give you an idea of what we've been doing). More on UrFilez.

It really has been a bit of a rollercoaster with no breaks (brakes?), and it's finally over straight into Ramadan. Yup, a definite month of laziness for me.

And that's what the month ends up being. I'm really not feeling Ramadan at all this year; it usually has some sort of sparkle to it but apparently that's lost and all that's left is grumpiness, laziness, and a bunch of silly TV shows.

What's sad to note is Bahrain TV. Really, really sad. Back in the 80's we were so far ahead of the rest of the Gulf countries in terms of media it seemed like they would never catch up. Unfortunately we stayed at that same level while everyone else evolved; our actors and TV hosts are still the same ones that have been on TV for the past 20 years, the acting fake, stories repeated, and the special effects, well, they're just lame. Seriously, I've seen so much talent and creativity when it comes to audio-visual production (and even actors and script-writers) in Bahrain, but they prefer to either keep their stuff on YouTube, or fly out to countries like Qatar and Kuwait that actually appreciate those sort of skills, and compensate them accordingly. I swear, I watch the productions of Qatar, UAE, Kuwait, etc with pleasure; they're great. But us? Hmm.

So when is the Bahrain Ministry of Information considering hiring young blood with some actual skill/knowledge in the field to produce something of value? I swear its embarrasing to actually switch on Bahrain TV. Example; one of the shows is a Punk'd type thing with a new celebrity each day; wow, exciting! The only problem is that every episode is recorded in exactly the same location, (a worn out school classroom), with the same prank every day (kids make fun of the celebrity). Yup. It's basically repetitive right after the second episode. Not to mention the microphones used are actually mounted on the camera and so half of the audio isn't exactly clear. Oh, and the intro song talks about this show being a "brand new concept 100%" while the cheesy graphic special effects shine in the background. So much for Bahraini creativity.

Another show is in the form of local competitions, where the host goes around to different people in public and asks them questions for prizes (wow, that's original). Whose the host? None other than Abdulla Malek, the same guy whose been hosting these shows for like, the past 20 years. The dude's old and gray, falling apart and really not the best candidate for a young and fun TV show, but hey, who else are you gonna bring, right? (Well, besides some new young fun performers?).


Oh and lets not forget the 'graphic special effects' put in place by Windows Movie Maker.

Anyway, I feel sorry for the state of Bahrain TV and really wish I could do something to help out. Obviously I wouldn't be allowed to since I have no certificate or background in TV (which honestly is the last thing you need to put on a good show). You need young and fresh people with new ideas and concepts, rather than these old and gray jokers who have taken over the channel. Maybe then, we would actually feel like watching Btv for something other than comical amusement.

You'll Leave

I remember a while ago, someone read my palm and told me I would be leaving Bahrain for a long long time. I sort of figured out why over the past few days.

It's getting really crappy here. Yes, we have F1 weekend coming up, woohaa. But that's about it. A few days before the beautiful event that brings millions of eyes upon Bahrain, and brings in tourist to have a good time and their dollars in to spend, the Ministry of Information & Culture decides to ban one and two star hotels from serving alcohol, and bringing in musicians.

Oh, and with a one day notice, ie; "Hellowwww, we just came up with this rule yesterday, so shut up and deal with it", thus basically screwing up half the hotels around here. I'm guessing the concept is supposedly done to get rid of the sleaze, but then we still have sleaze in the 3, 4 and 5 star hotels. Oh trust me, i've seen it. It's just classier sleaze. So all we've ended up doing is screwing up a bunch of hotels in the middle of a recession. Lovely.

Anyway, besides destroying about 40% of the hotel industry here and forcing them out of business (because we all know it's not the super-expensive room rates that are getting them their money) and screwing visitors over, they decide to screw over the local population too. Remember our little friendly internet ban? Well now we've moved from banning porn sites, political garbage and rubbish like that, to actually banning big bank websites, and other government websites. Duh. No seriously, the expensive auto-blocking system they bought to basically search for and block banned content ended up blocking the biggest e-banking website in Bahrain, and the e-gov website. Of course people complained and these have been re-opened, but that just tells you that not only are the people responsible for the blocking trying to restrict freedom of speech, they're actually doing a bad job at it.

Anyway, besides that we have the millions of other things going on, such as traffic jams that keep getting worse, mosquitos that end up biting more, and desert that so beautifully seems to get more dusty by the year. Plus newspapers that publish rubbish and can't seem to tell a word of fact, MP's that can't solve a real case if their beard depended on it, and car agents that won't admit that sales are crap and keep increasing their prices.

Ah yes, from the looks of it, that palm reading might just turn out to be true.

The Real Reason Behind the Website Ban

Remember the Matrix? Remember how the whole world you lived in, which you believed was real, was in fact completely made up? Just a mirage?

That's probably what the internet is in Bahrain. The internet was all a mirage created by the Bahrain government, to let you think that you're connecting to the outside world, when in reality we are kept very isolated from everything and everyone else. All the sites you've ever visited were set up by creative individuals in the Ministry of Information; every single one. There's a guy who writes the CNN website, and makes up the world news, another guy who writes the BBC website. It's sort of obvious that they're sitting next to each other when doing this; the news is almost exactly the same on both sites...

Then there are the global forums; the government obviously pays people to sit all day and just reply under multiple nicknames, to give us Bahrainis an impression that we are talking to the outside world.

Google, Facebook, YouTube? Yup, you guessed it, all created here. Some of the videos are purchased from other countries and uploaded to the YouTube servers right next to the Bahrain TV studios.

This whole internet thing has been fabricated in Bahrain, in the back offices of Batelco by their chief engineers; it doesn't exist outside the country, it's all one big facade. Imagine leaving the country one day, flying to another country, checking into a hotel and asking if they have internet, only to be replied with the words: "Interwha'? What's that?"



We've been living a lie. The new website bans aren't really websites being 'blocked'. It's actually a side effect from the Global Credit Crunch, where the Ministry has had to fire a large number of employees because of a shortage of funds, and couldn't sustain as many websites as it used to. Therefore the ban.

Very simple.

Can't Hold Us Down

(following from my last post...)

The Ministry of Information has went from being a minor pain in the ass to just totally infuriatingly outrageous. Besides blocking politically affiliated sites, they've blocked proxy sites, translation services, art & culture websites, archives, and much more.

MINISTRY; HERE'S A SPECIAL MESSAGE FOR YOU. YOU CAN BLOCK A DOOR, YOU CAN BLOCK TWO, BUT YOU'LL NEVER BE ABLE TO CENSOR THE INTERNET, WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT. THERE ARE A MILLION AND ONE WAYS TO GET AROUND YOUR BLOCKADES, AND YOU'LL NEVER KEEP UP WITH THEM. GET WITH THE PROGRAM.

Besides the numerous politically affiliated websites, proxy sites, as well as adult and gambling websites, there is a number of ridiculous bans we don't understand (Why?!?!?!?)

www.DeviantART.com (Art/Culture website)
www.Demonoid.com (Private torrent tracker)
www.askmen.com (Online Men's publication)
www.google.com/translate (Online translator)
www.allposters.com (posters site. WTF?)
www.4chan.org (imageboard service)


Want to read more about this? Here's a list of bloggers/newspaper articles dealing with the blockade.

English:
Yacoubs Dome
S as in Saudi
Silly Bahraini Girl
Gulf Daily News #1
Gulf Daily News #2
Another Day
Eyad
RedBelt
Al Singace
Ali Abdulemam

Arabic:
Suad
Marhoons
Ali7
Khalid Bahrain
Hayat

FaceBook Groups:
Article 19 of Decree Law 47!! :S
The website Ban in Bahrain is BULLSHIT
You may take our porn... But You will Never... Take... OUR FREEDOM!
The Ministry of Culture/Info Should Stop Blocking Websites

And i'm pretty sure there are a lot more out there. If you know any, add them in the comments below and i'll update the list. We won't stop till these stone-age minded big brother tactics are lifted.

ammaro update

Yeah, it's been a long time coming... Loyal followers of the blog, I know i've more or less disappeared for a while, mostly since April, really. Sure, I post occasionally every now and then, but not as often as I used to, and not many real posts like I used to do.

But hey, on my side of things, 2008 was one helluva year, and quite a busy one at that. Let me give you a brief update of what changed for the ammaro (in no particular order):

- After a long period of contemplation, decided to leave the job world for good! Yup, after 6 years of banking/finance jobs, I let it all go; time to go back to LIFE and do what I really want to do!

- Started up BahrainTalent, a much needed push for musicians in Bahrain, and word about it got around pretty quick, with tons of people sending me requests to be up on the site, and a ton more visitors checking it out..

- Switched to Apple! Yup, it was time for a new laptop, and I was DREADING the whole shift to Vista... Besides, Apple was doing really well, so I ended up getting a black Macbook! A very nice piece of hardware, but one which made my life hell for about two weeks (i've been using PC's since the days of C:/> ...), until I got used to the whole system. But hey, things are a lot smoother now!

- Started up HalaBahrain, an online magazine; within 6 issues it's gotten a readership of about 15,000ppl a month... So far so good!

- Got a crack, umm, I mean BlackBerry. Those things seriously take over your life. Started off with a Curve and now a Bold.. I am now technically online 24/7. I can't leave the internet even if I wanted to.


- Companies started asking to buy my photos, to which I happily obliged :p Some of them are on Flickr (see the link on the left)

- Tried Krispy Kreme for the first time. Oh man...


- Filmed 'The Package', which was a short 2 minute movie for MBC, and actually got it aired on TV for millions to see! Yuppeee (link for it on the left hand side)

- Completely shifted fields from Banking/Finance to entertainment! I've been working with musicians, events organizers, etc etc on so many things, and recently affiliated with a big music company that's opening here pretty soon. Will let you know more about this as it happens!

So yeah, that's pretty much the past year! The past few years were pretty much rubbish until 2008, which signaled amazing changes, and 2009 looks set to be even better! Yes I know the whole rest of the world is in a downturn, but I guess my success is negatively correlated to the global situation. Oh, and today is my birthday, yuppeeee. Not that I care. But hey, anyone considering getting me a gift ===> Buy Me THIS! If you don't like the idea of buying me expensive music making software, then you could always buy me this instead.

No? Then perhaps you should just get me the music software as a gift and quit complaining.

I promise to organize my time and post more guys! Stay tuned!

Just another five minutes at the checkout counter...

'Twas the night before Eid, and the stores were superbusy with everyone rushing to get their last minute shopping done, just in time for the festivities the next day. I was at a hypermarket getting a few basics, five minutes before closing time, and looked around for an empty lane to pay and leave through the busy crowds of shoppers, all dressed in their warm jackets and sweaters, keeping away the cold of the winter outside (and the frozen foods section).

As the case always is with Bahrain, the '10 items or less' counter is always lined up with queues of people buying trolleyfulls of rubbish, so the concept of buying a few small items really doesn't mean you're getting out of there much faster than anyone else. I waited as the truckloads of groceries and household goods infront of me were loaded onto the checkout counter, and everything seemed to move slowly but smoothly.

As I waited, I dazed off to a warm beach on a far away land, relaxing on the golden sands next to a cool blue sea. People played beach volleyball to the sounds of funky reggae tunes, while others just basked in the sun or swam in the sea. The waves were smooth, swayed around by the light breeze, as the sounds of an angry screaming lady rang in the background.

Huh??

I came out of my little daydream, only to realize the lady in the line infront was shouting at the checkout assistant. I wondered what had happened during the few minutes on my island, and realized that one of the items she wanted to buy had no tag on it. The checkout guy requested one of the staff members to get another one of the items to price it, and the whole process seemed to be taking a little over a minute or two, which seemed to be too much for little screaming woman to wait.

"What kind of service is this?!" she shouted as her tempers started to reach the boiling point. "I have things to do and I can't waste my time waiting for your people to get a tag!"

Classic example of idiotism and intolerance. First of all, if you're so damn busy and don't have much time to waste, explain how long you wasted filling up two trolleyfulls of stuff? Second, this is a huge hypermarket, sometimes tags tend to fall off things, are removed by other customers, or disappear for whatever reason, get over it. Third, the checkout guy is doing his job and hasn't been inefficient in any way. He even tried explaining to the lady what the problem was, to be met with more screaming and howling. Fourth, if your time really is that important, why don't you just leave your untagged budget pyjamas for today, pay for everything else and leave?

Lots of people overestimate the concepts of customer service. It's not even taking them for granted, it's actually expecting everything to be totally perfect. Sure, I can understand that businesses try to aim for it, but in most cases, this isn't a utopia, and things don't always come out flawless.

This situation was a little silly, considering that this was a normal inconvenience, and a pretty common occurence, especially considering the size of this hypermarket; the lady really didn't need to get too upset. Also, she let out all of her fury on the checkout guy, who was actually doing a good job, probably had nothing to do with the cause of the situation, and really has no way of fixing it in the long term; any complaints should be directed to either management or customer service.

Get over it woman. Unless your service has been compromised directly by this guy, shouting at him really doesn't do much more than make you look like a bit of an ass to everyone around you. And this goes out to all of you reading this; if you get served by anyone, just know that they're usually trying their best (well, usually). You're probably the hundredth person they've had to deal with today, and i'm willing to bet quite a few have acted (unnecessarily) like miss howling woman here. If they've still got a smile on and doing their job, give them a break.

The tag finally came, and the lady took her budget pyjamas and left. Checkout dude heaved a sigh of relief, as did most of the shoppers around who had to listen to her shouting. I got my items checked, paid, took my change, and gave the guy a heartfelt 'thank you'.

He smiled, and I left. More shoppers, more tags to check, more items to sell. Just another five minutes at the checkout counter.

The Toy Store

I guess after a while of growing up, we all get caught up in a world of business, stress, responsibility, tasks and so much more. It all becomes a lot and it sort of dulls us down from the (hopefully) exciting people we were back in college, school, or whatever we were previously. We work more, put our mind into achieving what we need to achieve, not doing what we want.

Not me, not today.

We walked around City Center Mall sort of bored; my friend was looking for something specific to buy - work related obviously - and we managed to stumble upon this huge toy shop:

Not that we usually go inside most toy shops we see, but this one had a really cool full-size dragon in the window! Yup, a huge mutha, twice the size of most people; anyhow, that got us inside the shop, and we started walking around this childrens' wonderland:



These guys had everything; stuffed dolls, robots, flying remote-controlled helicopters, science-experiment-game-type-thingies, board games, and a lot more.. Sure beats what we had when we were kids; I remember we used to get things like those bags of plastic green soldiers; what a load of crap those were, some couldn't even stand straight and kept falling. But yeah, today's kids have got it all sorted out huh?


Looking through all these toys, we figured, yeah, it would be nice to be a child in today's world. On our way out, we passed by the model section; models of cars, boats and planes, and I stopped and looked at them.. Wow, I remember putting these things together back when I was a kid, and, damn; the more I looked, the more I wanted one! The guys told me I was being silly, but I wouldn't leave the store without one (sort of reminds me of when I was younger and my mom would try to drag me out of random toy shops).

I picked up a model plane, and while contemplating whether this thing might be a little too simple to hold any interest for me, I saw the label on the side. Number 4, it said. A key on the back explained what 4 meant, on a scale of 1-5:

1- Easy, snap on kits not requiring any glue or paint.
2 - Simple kits with up to 30 parts to glue and paint.
3- More demanding models with up to 100 parts.
4- Kits with up to 150 parts for more experienced modellers
5- Difficult models with over 150 parts requiring a very high level of skill
paid, and went on my merry way, gleeful in the thought that I got myself a toy!

Cool! I rushed to the counter, paid, and made my way home gleeful in the knowledge that I had just bought myself a toy! Lovely, I feel all child-like again!


I got home, ripped open the box, and figured that I was faced with a hell of a task; putting together all these pieces needed a LOT of time and effort, and the 20 page instruction booklet looked like something out of a mechanical engineering graduate book. Crap. But a challenge, no? :p Looks like fun! I'll document progress over the next few days (Weeks? Months?).


If you don't see anything on this topic in the next while then just know i've already given up on it, and perhaps I should leave the toy world to the kids!

Music of Days Gone By

I've got millions upon millions of discs (ok, that's a bit of an exaggeration, but the truth is I have quite a lot). These include anything from original music CD's (which I stopped actively buying sometime around the turn of the century), to VCD's, DVD's, a few laser discs (the technology that never really took off), but mostly, I have tons of CD's and DVD's holding backup data, images, files, music, etc.

Through years of backing up data, copying music, creating mp3 CD's, etc, these discs have managed to accumulate into a large pile of unlabeled rubbish. The process is simple; you burn a disc with whatever on it, and then you look for your permanent CD marker pen, which always seems to get lost at that exact moment. You then decide, ok, i'll write something on this later, which you never do, and a few years later you have hundreds of CD's with no obvious description of what's inside them. Of course, a day comes where you're looking for a specific file you managed to back up ages ago.

Crap.

So today was the day; I looked at my unlabeled CD collection with a mixture of emotions; confused, horrified, amazed.. How on earth am I suppose to find that file?

So I decided i'd fix this whole mess by going out and buying a set of 4 CD markers, sat down in front of my computer with a table covered in discs, and started going through them one by one, figuring out what they contained and labeling them as required.

I found quite a bit; photos from college days, random videos, an old CV, lots of music, and quite a bit more. Of course, through the years your discs get mixed in together, and between every 4 or 5 unlabeled CD's is a DVD or an original music CD.

I found an old music CD I bought years ago; 1993 to be precise (Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince; Code Red). Great album, really, and I decided to play it; although a few of the tracks were a bit cheesy, others were great, and the whole album sounded amazing and took me to a much simpler time a good 15 years ago. I was in a different place in the world, in school, hardly any responsibility, and the vibe was nice and chilled out.


But it wasn't just that; there was something different about the music itself. The music felt richer, deeper, and much stronger than most of the tracks I listen to nowadays.

Why is that?

It's not that this album was specifically done really well. It was a good album, but nothing overly special about it, except that it sounded amazing.

I decided to rip some of the tracks to mp3 to play in my car later, and that's when it hit me; the music here wasn't compressed. The music isn't as compressed as mp3's are nowadays. The music isn't compressed to fit a small file size of a few MB per track.

I pondered; on regular music CD's, you could fit a good 15 tracks or so on the CD before it got full. That's an average of around 40mb per song, while today's mp3's rarely go above 6 or 7mb. Compression means loss of quality, and although mp3 music does sound clear, listening closer you can feel the difference; certain small instruments get lost, some of the not so obvious tunes get compromised, and although the song is the same in general, it's the small touches that give a song it's depth that are gone.

Most people can't tell the difference, or can't be bothered to tell the difference, to be honest. Music has changed from something that lives with you, to something disposable, tracks that you listen to a few times and then replace, shifting from classics, to hits. The subtle underlying tunes don't matter to most people, and go unnoticed.

It's not all bad though; the mp3 revolution has made music much more accessible to everyone. It has managed to open up the market for loads of new musicians around the world. Getting what you want whenever you want is becoming more and more possible by the day. The big labels are losing money on physical distribution, struggling to find solutions to make money through digital sales, while new companies spring up all the time offering music online. The world is growing smaller, and now it's much more easier to listen to music from parts of the world you never thought you would be listening to. There's a lot going on, and a lot more to come in the coming months.

For now, just leave me with my old uncompressed albums, while I enjoy vibes of days gone by.

"Can you feel it? Come on, clap your hands, wind it up if you're feelin alright, clap your hands, wind it up, if you're feelin' the vibe, nod your head from side to side, as we ride the vibe, cuz it's a party all night, You can't fight the feelin' you're feelin'g cuz you're feelin' fine with nothin really on ya mind.."

Oh, and I haven't found the file I wanted yet, either.

Arabic Musicians

Guys & girls; i'm looking for people with a good understanding of Arabic music. This means anything from Khaleeji music, Egyptian, etc. I don't mean people who know the latest hits, artist names etc, but I mean people who understand composition of the music, it's features, mixing, production etc. If this means you, drop me a message with your contact details and i'll get in touch with you. I promise you'll find it interesting.

(fill out the contact box in the About section, top of the screen)

Meanwhile, in ammaroland..

It's been a busy few weeks over at ammaroland, as life manages to throw everything and anything at The ammaro. This is not necessarily a bad thing, however, but it just means the ammaro has been kept busier than a restroom in a very, very busy Indian restaurant (hence the lag in posts over the past few days). A lot of risks have been taken, but so far things seem to be going good.. Let's take a look at what's been going on,

1- BahrainTalent; if you don't already know this, it's a site I put together a while ago to bring together underground Bahraini musicians and give them some well deserved exposure. So far it's been up and running, featured a few artists, and just yesterday launched a weekly radio show (click here to listen). We're also working with a few big companies to organize a few events, and launch some services you might find pretty interesting. Besides that, we have more artists ready to be featured over the next few days. Keep your eyes peeled.

2- Hala-Bahrain Magazine; this has been kept under wraps for a while now, but should be launched in the next few days. HalaBahrain is a free online lifestyle magazine, covering places to go, restaurants, events, etc all to do with Bahrain. It's also got local news, competitions, entertainment, and lots more. You can get it sent directly to your email as soon as it is launched (in the next few days), so make sure to sign up your email address for a copy!

3- Music; Been working with a few people, some small names, some big names, on a few interesting concepts. Can't really say much about it at this point, but it's going to be pretty big. Will let you all know as things develop.

4- Collaborating on a few huge projects, which are gonna change the way a few things are being done here.

5- A million and one other things that aren't significant enough for their own point, but nonetheless all together take up quite a bit of time and effort.

All in all, some exciting stuff; I just realized this was all a little vague, but hey, it should all get clearer as time goes by! Keep checking the site out for some really interesting developments in the coming few weeks, but for now make sure to check out BahTalent Radio and HalaBahrain Magazine!

How to/not to take care of your baby

In the news over the past few weeks, there have been a number of cases where parents accidentally caused their baby children injury, harm, or even death. Although seemingly an obvious task, taking care of a baby is a huge responsibility. Here we will go over a few basic guidelines on what and what not to do when you do have to take care of a baby:

Follow these guidelines, and stay safe!

The Amazing Weather Forecasting Stone

Gary has a stone with amazing magical powers; it can forecast the weather. Really amazing stuff:

I wonder how it does that.

Bird Surf

Total Attitude.

If you didn't notice anything special about the photo, look again.. Focus.

Yup, that's a Blackbird hitching a ride, or surfing, on the back of a Red-Tailed Hawk. Seems this sort of behavior is actually pretty common amongst those cheeky Blackbirds (who seem to have quite big balls for small birds).

"Yup, that's me, tiny Blackbird. Check me out; I've made this big badass hawk my bitch. I rule."

Yes you do, Blackbird.

Very cool.

Source

We Love you Soulja Boy

I used to be a big hiphop fan; back in the early to mid-ninties, there were some pretty powerful artists out there who came out with songs holding deep meanings, strong lyrics, and put some real effort into their beats & tunes. Now if you're not a rap/hiphop fan, you probably won't know what i'm talking about, since the genre has been transformed into something resembling a germ on the butt of a dead dog rotting in pile of garbage. In the rain.

Real hiphop is apparently dead, because as I was scanning through the TV channels the other day, I managed to come across a little masterpiece music video by someone called Soulja Boy. The meaningful lyrics went something like this:

YAH TRICK YAAAAAAH
YAH TRICK YAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!
YAH TRICK YAAAAAAH!!!
YAH TRICK YAAAAAAAAAAAAAH
ABAGEDEBAH ABARGEDEBAAAAAAH!!!!
GET OUT MY FACE!!!
GET OUT MY FACE!!
GET OUT MY FACE!
GET OUT MY FACE!!!!!
GET OUT MY FACE!!!
YAAAAAH YAAAAAAAAAAH YAAAH YAH YAAAAH YAAAAH!!!!

Lovely. I'm sure the song actually has a deeper meaning than i'm able to envision; what with me being an old fart today compared to all the cool 16 and 17 year olds out there.

Oh by the way, those lyrics are not made up by me, not one bit of them (not even the abadgedebah abaargedebaaah part). Don't believe me? Here, check out the video: Soulja Boy - YAH! (trust me, you have to see this to believe it).

If you haven't already heard of Soulja Boy, you apparently don't listen to the radio; there's been this song playing over the past few months with no real melody, rhythm or lyrics, that goes YOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU and DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO and OOOOOOOOOOOOH and i'm pretty sure you must have heard it somewhere. After all, it's been all over TV, radio, cellphone ringtones, and blasting on the speakers of random teenagers driving around your neigbourhood (Video Here)

So then, this Soulja Boy has managed to turn the hiphop artform into a bit of a joke, turning his annoying tunes into ringtones everyone can download, walking around with oversized glasses with his name written all over them, sporting ridiculous fashions, and creating a stupid new dance for everyone to do.

But then, you start to think about it; the kid is 17. Hmm. We were all acting 'cool' at 17, so I guess he's just acting his age; I was doing about the same things back then. And wait a second; besides appealing to ridiculous amounts of teenagers who buy his music (making him a millionaire), creating a legion of followers through his 'dance' moves, he's managed to turn it into a ringtone, and earned a few million more through that. And last (and i'm sort of ashamed to say this), after hearing the songs a few million times, they actually start to sound good. And the videos get pretty funny too.

He's obviously having a lot of fun doing the whole thing. Sort of reminds me when I was 17; darn it... Anybody know of a way I can go back to that age, of being a little silly teenager with no worries? Blah..

For now though, i'll continue to 'Crank That' Soulja Boy in my car as a bit of a guilty pleasure as I cruise around (not too loud obviously, to make sure no one can hear me listening to him!).


Shameful. So Shameful.

More HDTV than you can handle?

Did anyone recently buy a HD TV? 1080p? Happy with your purchase? Think you have a top of the line TV right now?

Think again; Samsung has just introduced a spankin' new 82" 2160p TV, making your regular HD feel like a crappy black & white TV in comparison. Well, not really, but you get the point;

This big brand new mutha was shown in SID 2008, and offers 3820x2160, which is four times the resolution of current HDTV's; this means you can see every single pore and sweat gland of your favourite actors as you watch the next episode of whatever show you enjoy watching.

I really don't know why anyone would need one of these, but hell, I want one. Although not officially priced yet, estimates put this at a little over a hundred thousand dollars.

My birthday is soon guys; start saving up!

Link to original Article

Go Kill Yourselves.

Seriously you Batelco guys, go take that telecommunications license you have and burn it, or stuff it up your ass. You guys are a bunch of useless pricks.

Picture this, a week ago, my internet connection suddenly stops working. Fair enough, Batelco have a knack for doing this anyway. But it turns out that it's not just my connection, my actual telephone line is disconnected. Hmm.. There's no dial tone when I pick up the phone, and even when I dial my number from another phone, it gives me a disconnected message.

Bluh.

I called them, and they had no idea what was up, but they said they would investigate. A day later, still nothing so I call them up. No idea, but they said they would investigate. I called them the third day again, and they said, ok, we have a few blown fuses (or something) and we need to replace them.

Great, took you 3 days to figure that out.

Next day, still no dial tone, so I called them up, and they say they're "working on it".

Two more days of calling up and complaining to which I finally got a dial tone! Yupee!!! Took 5 days, but the case is over, right?

Wrong!

Someway, somehow, they managed to give me a totally different number :S

That means, when I call anywhere from my phone, I get a totally different number than my original one, it's not even from the same area code. And no, the internet still doesn't work.

It's been another 3 days and i'm calling EVERY FRICKIN' DAY and they still have no idea how to fix it... What the hell am I supposed to do? I'm stuck with a million tasks to do and no internet...

Frickin Batelco. Go kill yourselves.

Feels like a war zone..

This is getting ridiculous. Tonight is concert night, Haifa Wahbi and Fadel Shaker are to perform on stage. There's been a HUGE opposition to this party, firstly by our SuperIslamic parliament, and secondly by some of our sheep-citizens, who have been influenced to believe that having Haifa in our country is nothing less than the work of the devil himself.

If you don't already know her, Haifa Wahbi is an Arab musician, and a pretty sensual one at that. We had a huge fuss last time Nancy Ajram was about to perform, both by riots in our parliament halls, as well violent demonstrations on the streets by our people.

I'm driving around Adliya right now, close to where the concert is meant to start a few hours from now. The scene is like a war zone, in preparation for any sort of riots or demonstrations; riot police everywhere, ready with their batons and guns in hand. The sound of helicopters flying overhead resonates, as a mysterious smog appears up ahead.. The sky is grey and cloudy, and it feels like something pretty bad is about to go down..

Hope tonight goes by with no major disturbance; i'll post a few photos later on

Well, thank you 'anon' (in the comments), but I think it turns out most of this war-zone stuff is because the ruler of Dubai is here. Blah.

I still think the whole war-zone over Haifa Wahbi would have made a cooler story though.