Saturday, May 28, 2005

Saudi Arabia's King Fahd Hospitalized

By ABDULLAH AL-SHIHRI, Associated Press Writer

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - King Fahd, whose efforts to strengthen ties between
Saudi Arabia — the world's largest oil exporter — and the United States provoked
the wrath of Islamic militants, was hospitalized Friday, apparently suffering
from pneumonia.

Fahd's half brother, Crown Prince Abdullah, has been Saudi
Arabia's de facto ruler since Fahd suffered a debilitating stroke in 1995.
Abdullah is expected to become king should Fahd die.

Fahd's hospitalization triggered reports that an emergency had been declared
in the kingdom. Officials said on condition of anonymity that an alert had been
declared and that military leaves had been canceled or at least discouraged.
However, this was firmly denied by the Interior Ministry.

"This is absolutely not true," ministry spokesman Mansour al-Turki said.
"There's no canceling of leaves and no state of emergency or anything." [Full Story]

It can't be long now.

Monday, May 23, 2005

Movie Review: Star Wars Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith (1.5/5.0)

Before I begin this review, I want to get something off my chest and out of my system. What the Sith was that all about? I mean did you get a load of that Sith? That was some crazy-ass Sith right there man! Ok, I think now I've got all of it out of my system. Well, most of it at least.

There were a lot of flashy lights that gave me a seizure. Basically I thought it was crap. The movie lacked drama. You know what? I'm bored. I don't think I want to review this piece of crap. I didn't like the last two episodes, I don't know why I went and saw the third. Probably because the whole country was nuts about it and I succumbed to peer pressure and that's why I saw the stinking movie. It was a whole lot better than the last two episode, but a piece of crap nonetheless.

I give it a 1.5/5.0 rating for the pre-release hype.

Sunday, May 22, 2005

New Pictures...

I was up all night and had nothing important to do so I took these pictures at 6:30 AM in the morning. A few pictures turned out to be good. If anyone wants to see my whole artwork collection then go to http://freedomshockpics.blogspot.com/.

Thursday, May 19, 2005

Another Very Close Call

Yesterday I went to the bank to cash a check. I heard a car speed up towards me as I was walking towards the building from the parking lot. As a reflex action I look to my left and I saw this redneck woman in a Kia steering towards me. In sort of skip I jump out of the way just in time. I even felt the side-view mirror of the car touch me as it sped by. I gain my balance and look towards the car to see if she was completely blind or did it on purpose. She just sped away and didn't even give that apologetic look back. If I didn't know any better, I think she aimed to kill me. I can't believe it, that was the first deliberate attempt on my life!

That wasn't the first time anyone had almost ran me over with their car. The last time I almost got run over was a couple of months ago on my college campus. Before I tell this tale let me tell you that the whole campus is a 15-25mph zone. In a crowded and high traffic pedestrian crossing, this kid in a white car doing at least 50mph almost ran me over. I literally had to jump out of the way like Max Payne. There were at least 10 witnesses to this incident. After I had landed on the sidewalk two people came up and asked me if I was alright. One of them said he saw the whole thing and said that guy was going way above the speed limit and should have stopped like everyone else. I asked around if anyone knew that guy? But, no one didn't seem to know. Then I went to the campus police and reported it, but it was of no use because they needed at least a license plate of the vehicle or whether I knew who the driver was.

People say in a near death experience your whole life flashes before your eyes. But, I saw nothing except a speeding car and then my reflex action kick in to get out of it's way.

Tuesday, May 17, 2005

Praise The Lord, I Did It!

Finally, I was able redesigned my blog template to be resolution independent and with another side-bar. It took me 5 hours of trial and error, and 13 lessons of Dreamweaver MX 2004 tutorials to make it happen. Although it needs a bit tweaking, but the hard part is over. At last my confidence is restored! Now, bow down to me all you puny mortals. :-)

Lo and behold. Look at what I have created! *Castaway reference*

Monday, May 16, 2005

Movie Review: The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy (3.9/5.0)

Last Wednesday, I watched "The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy". This movie is based on a book which is based on a BBC radio show written by Douglas Adams. I heard from the fans of the book that you'll enjoy watching the movie even more if you have read the book already. I should have read the book before I went and have seen the movie. Because the book is written in a way like Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels", where there are deep statements and ideas the author is trying to convey.

You need time to think about what was just said. While watching the movie you start thinking about what the characters had said and the story moves on and you missed some things that way. You can download the audio-book from TorrentSpy.

The movie was a bit drag only to be punctuated by a few moments of extremely hilarious gut-bursting incidents. I think those few funny parts in the move made it overall a very good movie. Even if you haven't read the book, I recommend watching this movie.

Overall I rate this movie 3.9/5.0.

Movie Review: Kingdom of Heaven (3.0/5.0)

I watched Ridley Scott's "Kingdom of Heaven" last Friday. I have to say that it turned out to be more "Fair and Balanced" than I expected. When I saw it's trailer three or four weeks before the movie release, I thought it was going to be just another cheap attempt by a Hollywood director to profit from the present American paranoia. A sort of fuel for the US war machine so to speak.

As a matter of fact, the movie was more like a documentary than a piece of entertainment. Come to think of it, after watching the movie I felt as if it missed something significant. A true hero! Yes that's right, a hero with substance. I've read the crusade history and I could just not recall any character by the name 'Balian' from it. I mean who was that guy? I would have seen Balian (Bloom) as a hero only if his intentions to go to Jerusalem were noble to begin with and the enemy was truly evil. I think the movie should have been told from Saladin's perspective. Because he was the conquering hero. He was the one who didn't not avenge the massacre of Muslims in the same barbaric way as the Christian crusaders. But, Ridley Scott's primary audience are right-wing nut-jobs, so they didn't

I was really glad to know that the filmmakers didn't portray Saladin as a hot-headed blood-thirsty Arab. Anyway, how could they? Saladin is the only person recognized in history by almost all historians as the most merciful and civilized Muslim ruler. No one tops prophet Muhammad (P. B. U. H), but there is too much dissent to his historical achievements.

Orlando Bloom was such a stiff in this movie. It's like the director knew how much of a stiff Orland is and that is why he had Orlando Bloom's character to have so few lines.

The movie is good and I would recommend watching it. Overall I would give it a 3.0/5.0 rating.

Wednesday, May 11, 2005

Rant: I've Gone Over To The Dark Side

Living in a race conscious country such as America has had a immense negative impact on me. Before I came to America, I was color blind and held a profound belief that all men were equal before God. But, it's not the case anymore. Now I find African-Americans a bit repulsive. I know it's stupid to hold that attitude based on some of their behavior. Anyway I'm going off topic.

I am always awed at the creative racial slurs that come from people around here particularly from Whites. It seems to me that Whites have this natural ability to be very creative racists, a quality that seems to be passed on from one generation to another, although it's scientifically not possible. The Whites come up with such racial slurs that seems to be derived from a very distinctive quality of that certain race. Like for example: Coon, Beaner, Rag head, Camel Jockey, and many more.

I live in an apartment complex with a swimming pool. I'm one of those people who doesn't like to be in the pool with strangers. Last Thursday I felt like taking a swim and when I got close to the swimming pool I noticed that it wasn't empty. There were some White folks already in the pool. In my frustration, I murmured something so profoundly racist. After I had said it, I couldn't believe my brain was capable of coming up with something of this caliber. Unconsciously I had said "God Damn those STD infected pork-eating bastards!".

I had fought so hard to stay a decent human being in this land of freedom and vice. Now I have succumbed to the dark-side and become a racist, not just any racist at that, but a very creative one.


On a related topic. Whenever I go swimming, this thought always crosses my mind. Since, it's a public pool and some of it's ceramic tiles are rough and one could get a few cuts or bruises by it. I know I always do. Suppose if a HIV infected person got into the pool and got a cut in the water, would that contaminate the whole pool water? If so then would I get infected if I accidentally cut myself in the HIV contaminated pool?

Tuesday, May 10, 2005

My Music Work

I was going through my past artwork and I came across these music files that I either extracted or remixed. So, I thought why not publish them on my blog? The links below are all ed2k links. You need eMule or eDonkey to download these files. If the link doesn't work then copy the link shortcut and paste it into the eMule program.