Monthly Archives: September 2006

I am sick of cell phones

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Give me a hammer...

I just hate the thing, and regret the day I got one. Becuase the minute you buy a cell phone, you instantly give up a huge chunk of your privacy. Example:

Friend: “I called you 5 times and you didn’t answer”

Me: “I was in class”

Friend: “...but then I sent you an sms”

Me: “I was still in class”

etc, etc..

AND IT WASN”T EVEN URGENT!!

So you see, once you recieve an sms or a missed call, you are now expected to call back instantly no matter how trivial the issue is or how busy you are. So for the purpose of filtering unwanted calls in pursuit of efficiency, I activated voice mail…

Message on voicemail: “Hi Hani, can you call me as soon as you get this, bye”

This ticks me off even MORE! The caller has made no mention of the urgent issue in question (AGAIN, IT WASN’T EVEN URGENT!), which basically rendered the benefit of using voicemail to zero.

And don’t get me started on the morons thoroughly amused by getting new ringtones for their cell phone. Nobody cares about your Ricky Martin ringtone..get a friggin’ life. And you don’t have to set the ringing volume at the ear piercing 900 DB. And while your at it, turn down the volume of your own yakking, the world is not interested. And remove that wirless headset from your ear when your not using it, you look like a tool.

So here is my policy on cell phones for like, the next whole month or something: The damn thing will stay ON and recharged, on silent. I am just not answering calls or sms. If its urgent, leave a voice message or better, email me. I am not trying to be a jerk, but I’ve had it with this crap.

I feel much better now.

Twitt

Not that anyone is hanging on the edge of their seat…

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..but I still haven’t got around to posting the rest of the entries from last summers trip to Europe. Hell, I almost forgot I even had a blog. The fall semester has started and its chockfull of fun: a full-time job and a full credit load. Probably not a good idea since I will be abroad for at least a month. Oh well. I am officially striking out the word “boredom” from my dictionary.

As for the rest Europe trip entries, I’ll probably just rip out the pages from my notebook, scan them, and post them here with a bunch of random pictures. Good luck with my handwriting. Not that anyone reads this. Well, I know of at least a couple people who check here every now and there is always the rare chance of a mildly amusing story amidst the crap I post here. But anyway…

This semester I am going all out techy. I am using a tablet PC to manage my utterly chaotic life. I don’t actually own the thing, since I currently can’t afford this kind of gadgetry goodness, but let’s just say its on an extended loan from work. I’ve actually had the thing for around 6 months now, but just recently I’ve begun to discover its wonders. So I basically decided to go paperless this semester. Almost paperless. I plan to accomplish this feat by using a Fujitsu Siemens P1510 tablet PC and a bunch of cool software apps. More on that later in a series of posts documenting the whole “paperless experience”.

On a different note, I came across this somewhere on Facebook. I consider it an addendum to my post on traffic in Cairo from way back:

1. Speed limits are just suggestions
2. You take the 6th of October Bridge to go almost every where in Cairo
3. You can see your school but somehow you’re not getting there
4. It’s faster to walk
5. You get stuck in traffic at all times of the day
6.There’s no such thing as a rush hour, Its a rush 24 hour
7. Its not actually tailgating unless your bumper is touching the car in front of you.
8. A yellow light means at least 5 more cars can get through.
9. A red light means 2 more can.
10. You can cross 4 lanes of traffic in under 30 seconds
11. Stop signs mean slow down a little, but only if you feel like it
12. A slow driver is someone who isn’t going at least 10mph over the speed limit
13. Someone has honked at you because you didn’t peal out the second the light turned green.
14. You’ve honked at someone because they didn’t peal out the second the light turned green.
15. Rush hour lasts all day
16. You know at least 3 alternate routes to avoid sitting at a stop light.
17. You refer to distances in minutes, not miles.
18. When you put on your turn signal to change lanes, the people next to you speed up.

All of the above is very true.

Speaking of traffic, I am currently on the hunt for a motorcycle. When telling random people I know about this, the range of responses I’ve been getting varied from speculation on how long it will take before I am hit by a truck, to facial expressions of real and uninhibited terror. I like the Honda Steed

Twitt