I am 24

Which means I have exactly one year before my Prefrontal Cortex (PFC) is completely grown. For the medically uninitiated, the PFC is the area in the brain responsible for, among other things, impulse control, judgment, forethought and learning from past mistakes. In us males, this fruit doesn’t ripen until we’re 25. This means that I have 12 months to officially, or at least physiologically, be labeled as an adult. Not that now I am childish or immature, but rather I might have to start conforming to people’s perception of how an adult has to think and act. Of course it would be ridiculous to think of this as an event to happen overnight. Its not like I turn 25, someone flicks on a switch and poof! I am now thinking more rationally.
But don’t get me wrong, there is absolutely nothing wrong with adulthood, that is not what I mean. I am not talking about behavior, but rather about interests, mindsets and actions. What I do mean is that although it is often difficult to ignore the fact that one’s priorities, responsibilities, ways of thinking and even interests are- like many other things- subject to change with age, sometimes I feel indirectly mentally herded into thinking in a certain way or making certain decisions. And I say indirectly becuase it is not like anyone is telling me you should do this or not do that (although it might happen every now and then, not that I listen), but there is the argubly more potent power of peer and societal perception of how I should think and act now that I am an “adult”. And to be honest, I don’t want to go there, becuase, quiet frankly, it really doesn’t seem like fun.

This may sound like a pointless wanna-be non-conformist rebel rant. But hell, here is to a year of wild decisions, reckless judgement, and crazy living with 3/4 of a brain. Rock on!

Moblogging

It must be the lack of sunlight for like 5 months a year that forces the Swedes to stay indoors most of the time and come up with all these cool stuff like Saabs, smoked fish and Mobilblogg. I stubled upon this website while searching for a moblogging plugin for WordPress (for the technically challenged, moblogging (not to be confused with Mublogging) is the act of posting entries to your blog using a mobile device, and WordPress is the kick-ass open source blogging software that powers this website).
While I am not the most avid blogger and it wouldn’t kill me to wait to post an entry, it would be extra cool to be able to post some pics from my phone. And it would actually be convenient while travelling somewhere in the Gulf countries where it often costs an arm and a leg (and sometimes a kidney) to get crappy internet access. I’ve posted a few old pics to test it out.
Mobilblogg is not a new idea though, other moblogging websites have been around for a while, such as Text America. The thing about Mobilblogg is that it works for international users. And since I was one of the few international users who signed up till now, the folks behind Mobilblogg contacted me when I signed up to see if the service worked ok when posting from Egyptian networks, sort of interational beta testing. And the thing works great, you can post pics to your moblog via MMS or email.
Problem is, I don’t have a camera phone (I used a borrowed Nokia 9300 to moblog the pics I posted), I am holding on to my Nokia 8250 with a broken screen that have sustained some serious abuse and still alive and kicking. Might be putting it to retirement soon in favor of the rugged and brick-like Siemens M75

Blog like an Egyptian

Venturing out of my usual reading in the technology/gadgetary and travel blogospheres, I’ve discovered a significant number of Egyptian blogs (by “Egyptian” I don’t necceicarily mean that the author is Egyptian…s/he might also be an expat or simply a blog with Egyptian-themed content). Most of these blogs provide quality content, and many write eloquently and make for very intresting reads.

While a lot of these blogs’ content revolve around Egyptian politics, Islam, and other Middle Eastern political issues (they even coined a term for blogging about President Mubarak: Mublogging!), many have other themes, like poetry, culture, photography (one of my favorites is this photoblog: Egyptian Eye) and technology. Some blog in English, some in Arabic and a few do it in a literary cacophony of both.

Here is a quick categorized list of (what I think is) the top of the pack who are currently rocking the blogosphere Egyptian style:

N.B. List is in no particular order.
N.B. 2. Categories are meant to represent the dominant theme of the blogs’ content. That does mean that this is the exclusive theme of the blog.

Egyptian/Middle Eastern Politics:

From Cairo with Love
This is Cairo
Egyptian Sandmonkey
Big Pharaoh

Culture & Religion:
Cynicistan

Photoblogs
Egyptian Eye
Somewhere in North Africa
Samer Atallah

Technology
FooLab GNU/Linux related content.
EGLUG “Where the penguins eat ta3meya” (nice tagline:))

...and for a semi-comprehensive list of Egyptian blogs on the web, see The Egyptian blog ring

World66 Globetrotter index: Hey, we’re not too bad after all!

A survey on World66 ranks the Egyptians number 7 out of the top ten most travelled people of the world, with an average of 21 countries visited. According to the survey, the Swiss are the most travel savvy, and Americans are the least (not the ones I know, anyway). It is not clear whether the survery observes the rule of a legit countable visit to a country or not, but I’ll just assume it does.