Spreading a Rumor

I drive on Sitra Bridge almost every day; it's old, always overcrowded, and definitely falling apart. It wasn't that unbelievable to get a broadcast Blackberry message saying the bridge actually collapsed, although I usually wait to confirm news before I spread it.

Apparently the news wasn't true since I was zooming down the bridge 30 minutes after I got that message, but still, the news (rumor) was all over Blackberry messages, Facebook, and even my not-so-connected-to-technology-aunt heard about it, and it literally spread within the day.

So how fast does it take to spread a rumor? Let's find out. Talking to my cousin who asked me whether the Sitra Bridge collapsing thing was true, we decided to set up another rumor and see how long it takes to spread. The rumor is pretty silly, actually, but it's fun to see how viral it gets. Here's what I came up with (Since we're spreading it through blackberry, it might as well be a blackberry news item) ;

Guys, BB Messenger will become subscription only! "Nov 18, 2009; John Adams, president of RIM, the company that provides the Blackberry, has noted regret about closing some of the companies services at the end of the year: "The global crunch has been harsh on our company especially past the second quarter, and unfortunately we will be dropping some of the more expensive services we currently offer for free." The first service to be dropped at the beginning of 2010 is the popular Blackberry Messenger service, which will be restricted to paying subscribers. Packages are targeted towards business subscribers with corporate packages beginning at $200 per month for every 10 units. (CNN.com)

Pushed out and sent to about 50 people on my list, and I asked my cousin to let me know when he gets the message forwarded to him from other people; that was at exactly 11:02pm. Within 1 minute two people had replied complaining about RIM and their service, and one person asking me if it was true or not. Within 5 minutes I got 3 broadcast messages, 2 other people asking me about whether it was true, one person who told me they had googled it and found nothing, and one person warning me to not send stupid forward messages again. I told the people who replied that I actually made it up as a test and to keep track and let me know if they receive any broadcast messages or replies.

By the tenth minute I had feedback from my trackers of over 20 broadcast messages sent back to them from various people, comments like "RIM should sort out their server before asking for more money", "Great i'll get back control of my life again" Hey guys you wanna get together and put the money for a subscription" and more. By half an hour judging from the people I know who had forwarded it, I estimated approx 600 people had received the message (and that's not including people I know only, who knows how many people I don't know forwarded it on).

Ridiculous.

I'm trying to keep track but it's starting to get hectic so i'll just quit. It's pretty funny how people decide to spread rumors without checking them for any credibility. Tons of rubbish out there, from the "please forward as hotmail is tracking active accounts and will delete if you don't forward", to "dunnowho will pay $1 for every person you forward this to" to everything else. Some fall close to home, obviously; I just got another message about Bershka in Kuwait having spy cameras hidden in the changing rooms and you should watch out.

People are sheep. Funky.

Do you have What!?

I get tons of random SMS's every day from people. This by far is the most random (especially considering we live on a country where the temperature hits a good 50 degrees at times):


"Do you have ice skating shoes I can borrow?"



I don't even know how to start replying to that..

Where's my frickin' toast?

Ever heard of the term cash cow? It's a business term about a company that's grown big over the years, and is a generator of a steady flow of income, yet has little or no chance of innovation of it's services. ie, it just sits there and grabs the money without having to do much about it.

That my friends, is Jawad. Yup, supergroup Jawad, which we all once adored and loved for bringing us everything from yummy Chili's to our old time favorite DQ, has gone down the dark path.

Apparently when you get as big as they have, you start getting greedy; well either that, or their management has changed and been replaced by the 'lecha squad'. When you start really pushing the limits of your customers tolerance to save a few hundred fils, then you know the company is starting to go down the drain.

So I walk into Grill & Chill (previously Dairy Queen) the other day and order a salad meal. Salad meal; ie, i'm not going for any of the fat stuff. Naturally, if you're trying to eat something light, you get a drink that is also light, but with Dairy Queen being who they are, all they over is over carbonated soft drinks, and those extra-sugary slushy things. One choice left; water. But noooo... Their salad meal doesn't come with water. It comes with a soft drink. "But I want water" I said. "No sir we don't offer that any more, you'll have to buy the water."

Ok, that's understandable to an extent, as pouring me a cup of sugared crap costs them less than giving me a bottle of water, but still, cheap shot. After a bit of arguing, I gave up: "Ok, can you replace the soft drink with the water and i'll pay the extra to change", to which the dude replies, "No sir you have to buy the water separate".

So let me get this straight. You won't let me replace the soft drink with water. You won't let me pay to replace the soft drink with water. You do however want me to buy the salad with the soft drink, and then go ahead and buy an extra bottle of water?

Granted it's only 300 fils extra (or whatever) for a bottle of water isn't really that much, hell, I can even buy a bottle outside for 100 fils if I really had to. The concept here is that Jawad has decided every last fils counts, and they'd rather give their customers a hassle rather than bear a little expense. Yes sure sure, financial crisis, global meltdown, inflation, bla bla. How about we start buying our food at Raju's burger and salad for 300 fils instead, and that my friends, is INCLUSIVE of water.

Anyway, this isn't the big issue. The big issue is, the other day I made the mistake of actually going back to DQ, and ordered a chicken strip basket. Now for those of you who don't know what a chicken strip basket is, it's 4 pieces of chicken, 2 pieces of toast, and some fries + sauce. One of the tastiest parts of the meal is the actual toast, slightly browned and left to crisp with a touch of melted butter spread over the texture. Mouthwatering. So I order it and:


Wait a second, where's my toast?! Where???

Oh wait, look, there it is, hiding behind the sauce.


Are you guys frickin' serious? What is this? The two pieces of toast are literally smaller than that french fry. And see that top piece of toast? What is that? You call that a piece of bread?


Are you guys for real?! Just to give you a relative example, i've put a ketchup packet next to it to show you how tiny that thing is. That's not a goddamn piece of bread, that's just plain embarrassing. You know what, my anger towards Jawad has just turned into feeling sorry for them. If you have to resort to cutting up a piece of bread into smaller pieces to serve 5 customers instead of 1, then there's just something wrong with you.

Don't believe it's the whole Jawad group? Here's an example of how they destroyed Chili's too. Enjoy!

Bahrain's Top 50 Power List

Arabian Business is a magazine that's been running for quite a while, and one thing they're good at is picking out and identifying whose who. They've brought us the top 50 richest Arabs a few months ago, and are now down to tackle our own little island with their top 50 most influential people.

This list confuses me a little. It's not the 50 richest, nor is it the 50 in the top positions of power. I guess it's a little bit of everything, fame, fortune, etc. Royal family members are not included apparently because that skews the list, so here you have it.

It's a pretty interesting list. Talal Al Zain tops out at number 1, being CEO of Mumtalakat (which is essentially the holding company for the governments assets, namely Gulf Air, Bahrain International Circuit, major shares in Batelco, National Bank of Bahrain, etc). CEO of that? That's a lotta frickin' power.

Esam Janahi holds the second spot, mainly for his role as Chairman of Gulf Finance House, as well as being on the board of a bunch of other companies. A regular employee just over a decade ago, Esam pushed forward with GFH to create one of the biggest Islamic investment banks in the region back in '99; we're talking about initiative such as energy cities in countries all over the world, economic development zones, and those two emerald green towers you see from almost any spot in Bahrain. And that's hardly scratching the surface; GFH has done a LOT, with many investment banks in the country and region opening to try and follow course.

The Kanoo's make an obvious appearance in the top 10. So do the Moayyed's, although not the one you would expect; Mona Almoayyed, President of Bahrain's Businesswomen Society, MD of Y K Almoayyed, and achievement spanning being the first woman to be elected to the board of the Bahraini Chamber & Commerce. Lovely.

Number 5 gives me a bit of a shiver when I read his history; Menir Kirdar, who originally escaped from Iraq as a child hiding in a rolled up carpet, is founder of Investcorp, one of the earlier investment banks in the region holding over $13 billion dollars worth of assets, with regional office in London and New York. A bit of a step-up from that rolled up carpet, huh.

The list goes on to cover CEO's, Chairman's, and other people holding up major positions. A few names hold special interest, however. Milan Macala, Coach for the Bahrain football team makes #10, and with good cause. Bringing Saudi to their knees and bringing us that one step closer to the World Cup, Milan is revered as one of the best coaches in West Asia. Will that hold true against New Zealand? Let's wait and see.

Artists also manage to make the list, as we see both Qassim Haddad, probably Bahrain's most famous poet, Al Shaikh, one of our most influential composers, Balqees Fakhro, artist, and Haifa Hussein, actress whose gone on to be featured in TV shows all around the region make the list. I don't necessarily agree with all of these, as I do believe we have more deserving and influential artists, but it's always good to see that this list is not just about business.

What do you think of the list? I personally have a bunch of names I would take out and a few more I would put in there (I would also rank myself at either 27 or 28 somewhere on this list), but generally this gives a good idea of whose who on our little island. Check out the actual list and let me know what you think!

1 Talal Al Zain
2 Esam Janahi
3 Abdulla Ali Kanoo
4 Mona Almoayyed
5 Nemir Kirdar
6 Anwar Abdulrahman
7 Khalid Abdulla Janahi
8 Abdul Rahman Jawahery
9 Steve Harrison
10 Milan Macala
11 Dr Jawaher Al Mudhaki
12 Ahmed Al Noaimi
13 Dr Mohamed Nedal Alchaar
14 Jawad Habib Jawad
15 Khalid Rashid Al Zayani
16 Alan Horne
17 Hassan Ali Al Majed
18 Samer Majali
19 Dr Osama Al Ali
20 Rashid Mohammed Al Maraj
21 Qassim Hadad
22 Khamis Al Muqla
23 Jamil A Wafa
24 Farouk Y K Almoayyed
25 Jassim Al Jowder
26 Akram Miknas
27 Mohammed Dadabhai
28 Peter Kaliaropoulos
29 Mohamed Al Qaed
30 Fouad Rashid
31 Martin Whitaker
32 Fahad Al Rajaan
33 Stephen Rothel
34 Hassan Ali Juma
35 Adel Hassan Bin Ali Al A'Ali
36 Bob Vincent
37 Abdulla Ahmed Nass
38 Khaled Al Sheikh
39 Murad Ali Murad
40 Fathi Al Mohamed
41 Ahmed Al Ameer
42 Faisal Jawad
43 Haifa Hussein
44 Khalid Abdulla Al Bassam
45 Nooruddin A Nooruddin
46 Balqees Fakhro
47 Atif A Abdulmalik
48 Ammar Ali
49 Majid Al Sayed Bader Al Refai
50 Yousof Saad Kamel


ArabianBusiness.com - Bahrain Power List

Fayez Enta Fayez

Ramadan's over, and I must say, the amount of crap on TV this year was beyond me. We get a whole lot of crap every year, true, but this year just blew the Guinness record off this thing... Everything from drama shows which have no relevance to reality, supposedly funny prank shows that end up repeating the same prank every day to different people and get boring after the second viewing, to to to... It keeps going..

One very special memorable show was from our neighboring Kuwait. We love you guys, but you didn't have to throw this on us. Yup, Shejoon Al Hajiri, otherwise known as Shoojy with her own competition quiz show, unbelievably fake tan, ridiculous laugh, and overall annoying everything. Here's a very short clip so you have an idea of what i'm talking about (don't want to give you anything longer as it might result in brain damage)



And now that Ramadan is over, everything is back to normal, except that ringing in the back of my head every time I try to do anything; fayyyezzz entaaa fayyyeezzz walla faayyyeeezzz AAAARRRRGGGHHHH SHUUUTTTT UPPPPP!! Luckily for me, Thee Project, a heavy metal/rock/alternative band had the cure. They had a concert about 2 days ago at BIC, and performed a little suprise tribute to Shoojy as part of their show. Enjoy.



I was rolling on the floor in laughter! Amazing stuff, and hey, the ringing in the back of my head is gone! Lovely :D

Spread this to anyone whose having trouble sleeping or still faces Shoojy nightmares. For more info on Thee Project and the Reflux concert they performed at, check out Bahrain Talent