Do NOT listen to this man…. (well the last bit of what he is saying)

Guys – know it, learn it, accept it – that is all!

Gals – si, comprender….

You have to click on ALL the links to get this.

(sing this to the tune of Fresh Prince of Bel Air)

Now, this is a story all about how
My virtual life got flipped-turned upside down
And I’d like to take 929 characters
So just sit right there
and i’ll tell you how I became the princess of a town called Twit-ter

In the virtual worlds I born and raised
Munching cookies was how I spent most of my days
Chillin’ out maxin’ relaxin’ all cool
Shootin some tweets outside of twhirl
When a couple of gals
Who were up to no good
Startin following me in my twitterhood
I got in one little conversation and it all just flared
They all assumed I was a girl in the land of Twit-ter

I ran to the l’il boys room to make it clear
That I definitely was supposed to be there
If anything I can say it couldn’t be clear-er
But I thought ‘Now forget it’ – ‘back to twit-ter’

As – I – pulled into bed ’round about 10
And I yelled to my tweeps ‘Yo guys, tweet ya later‘
The girls replied -
‘we’re not guys over here‘
A sigh and a smile – that’s just Twit-ter!

This was inspired by Digital Nomad, Humera and Lili.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upvweQDrd5c

We are releasing a software patch tomorrow, and due to lack of resources, I have had to test the software before its release. I came down to one bug which was fixed by the developers, and I have been testing it since yesterday. This is how my day went today while testing the software.

• Started the day early and started the day well while testing the software;
• A couple of hours later, got irritated by the client who will get the software – I told him yesterday that I will update him in 2 days time. Third time in 3 days that he is asking about the release;
• Closed outlook because the emails are piling up;
• Started wondering why software was not behaving as it should. The bug was fixed, but the results were weird.
• Blamed my calculations, and recalculated everything on paper;
• Tested on software and got random results;
• Knocked my head with my fist – request to brain to wake up;
• Spoke to developer who verified that software is working/fixed as expected;
• Started fresh, and still no luck;
• Hit head on table – still no luck;
• Sat with developer in an attempt to walk through the software;
• Both of us hit heads on table;
• Stopped doubting my calculations, begin doubting my understanding of the specific part of the software;
• Involve head developer – relief that my understanding is not flawed;
• Still confused about why the software is not working – now spent almost 6 hours trying to figure out bizarreness;
• Figure out that some small bit of data is not present on the database;
• I argue with the developer that I HAVE created and set that data;
• He doesn’t believe me;
• We check the application, and the data exists; we check database, and magically the data exists;
• We check functionality – it works like magic;
• Hit my head on the wall;
• Spent 7 hours on something which “works” without any change being made to it;
• I laugh because it is unreal;
• Get back to my desk;
• Hit head on desk.

On the bright side, I live to fight another day!

Damn software!

As promised…. here is the first post from our new home!

Mars aka Dr N Sain is interviewing me…. mainly because I politely asked her to! This is how it went down….

1) Describe your ultimate dream job. It could be absolutely anything, without fear of cashflow, morals or anything in reality – it is a dream after all.

In the real world – I am almost there with regards to my ultimate dream job. I work as a Software Consultant, and I get a chance to be involved in both high and low levels of detail with major financial institutions; I work with management, with developers, with back-office users – I don’t think there are many restrictions in the job that I do. I also get to travel from work, so it’s all good!

But that ofcourse is a boring answer – my real dream job would be a “fly on the wall”. I love observing people, I love listening to their thoughts, I love analysing their actions and being able to predict, based on their historic behaviour, how they will react when provoked; I guess some branch of psychology, or psychiatry? Definitely NOT Big Brother!

2) What qualities do you look for in partner/date/soulmate (where applicable)?

This is an interesting, and tricky one! There are ofcourse a huge number of qualities which one desires from a partner, but for me – the number one quality which I would look for is the ability to unconditionally trust me, and know that I will reciprocate. Let me explain –

I’d like to think that I am a very passionate person in life; I think I am a wholehearted person who gives nothing but 110% in everything. As a muslim, I believe in the interpretation (an open interpretation) from the books that it is the role of every able bodied man to earn the living for their family, and the role of the woman to raise the family. Ofcourse each one is supposed to compliment one anoher, and my description is a very loose one.

Now, before you go all up in arms and call the femist brigade, let me clear up one thing – not for one moment are either Islam, or I implying that women should stay at home and not work etc – hence the “open interpretation”. What I am trying to say is that, in any family model, there are “fixed” roles and expectations from each partner; being a guy, I want to fulfil my role in the relationship by having the confidence of my partner that I will  earn that living an make sure that there is roof on top of our heads and food on our plates, look after then in every situation, and if god forbid we get stuck in a pickle – my partner would have the belief that we will get ourself out of it. That is the level of trust which I desire from my partner.

3) What super-power or ability would you want and why?

If there was one superpower which I could have, it would be the ability to motivate and educate people consistently. I believe in the saying “Give a man a fish, and he will eat today. Teach him how to fish, and he will eat for a lifetime”. The saying is so simple but also hard hitting at the same time – too many people have the ability to do things, but just don’t have the confidence to push on; I would love to have that ability to help them cross that hurdle.

4) We all have a dark side. What would yours be? It could be in any form – a deadly sin, super-villain, etc.

If I were to have a dark side…. I would love to be a Heath Ledger from The Dark Night, or a Jack Nicholson or Anthony Hopkins – an almost sane-ly psychotic character. I would love to learn what goes on in their minds and what their motivations were. Remember – none of them ever portrayed or demonstrated greed, they were just almost schizophrenic in an attempt to dominate their surroundings.

5) Speaking of a dark side, we all have a price. What would yours be to kill an innocent?

Aaah! What a question! *looks around for the hidden psychologist* I’ll keep this one simple… it’s a no brainer…

There is no price to kill an innocent. If there was one, then I would have to live through the guilt for the rest of my life, and that life is not worth living. So if it was between someone innocent and I… well, i’d have to step out and face the music!

Here are the rules in case you want to tag anyone, or if someone wants to play off your blog…

1. Leave me a comment saying “interview me.” The first five commenters will be the participants.
2. I will respond by asking you five questions.
3. You will update your blog/site with the answers to the questions.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions. (Write your own questions or borrow some.)

… you are the love child of social media and technology…..

When your business card has a blog adress on it…

When you have one card for your name, and another for your social network profiles…

When you start calling everyone tweeple….

When you speak in 140 characters or less…

You laugh LOL…. in real life…

When poking someone is OK….

When you get RSI because of Facebook…

When facebook chat overtakes MSN…

When your actual conversations are Facebook messages or Tweets….

When your mom has to DM you on twitter to get your ass down for dinner…

When your mom has a FB or twitter account…

When you mom “understands” the concept of Facebook, but not the settings on the washing machine…

When news breaks first on Twitter….

When you answer every question by Google-ing it….

When your name has a number at the end to identify you… because the name CookieMonster was already taken….

When your phone can detect earthquakes and volcano eruptions, but struggles to make a phone call…..

When you prefix someones name with @….

When you pass a message by re-tweeting it…

When you organise an event purely using twitter…

When you can list 20 things to prove who your real parents are – Blackberry and Twitter. Who needs DNA?

I’m a little under the weather, so I will share a couple of awards with you readers which I “won” last month.

My first award was the Lemonade, which was presented to me by Antonella from the STUPIDEST corner of my mind. I received this award because I deal with topics with a certain attitude. One instance of this can be seen here.

The concept of this award is to

1. Thank the person who was so thoughtful for giving you this award by linking their blog to this post. (Mucho Thanksies Anto)
2. Put the logo on your blog or post. (….check)
3. Nominate 10 blogs which show great attitude/gratitude. (….ummm I’ll do 5)
4. Link your nominees to your post.
5. Comment them to tell them about the award they’ve won.

Right, so here they are… (and I shall be counting in Arabic… because I am learning arabic (but I knew to count already))

Wahid) MaliZOMG – Blogging is all about passion, and this guy does it with attitude – thats a lethal combo!

Ithnayn) Mars – I love honest writing… I love reading about real life issues, and I get my fix over at Mars’.

Thalatha) Mona – When you talk about passion, you talk about Mona. Everything is attitude, and standing up for what you believe is right. Rebellious Arab Girl is one of my favourite blogs because of the style and “anger” in the writing.

Arba-a) Falak – I like this blog because of the giggle factor. It reminds me of myself behaving in the same random ways 10 years ago.

Khamsah) Katherine because I feel that she is inspirational to young people, trying to get through the battles of day to day life, doing what she does.

I thank you Anto for picking me on number 7 on your list…. it is my luck number, and I feel privileged!

The second award which I received recently was the Honest Scrap award, which I received from MY over at For the Love of Life

The “rules” for this award are:

1) Choose a minimum of 7 blogs that you find brilliant in content or design.
2) Show the 7 winners names and links on your blog, and leave a comment informing them that they were prized with “Honest Scrap.”
3) List at least 10 honest things about yourself.

10 honest things…… (oh dear……)

a) I try and be logical when sometimes I should be emotional.

b) I will have an opinion on anything and everything.

c) Most of my friendships have been formed because of my reliability.

d) I always used to think that I would have issues with commitment in a relationship. Turns out, I over committed in my last one.

e) I constantly try and bring out the best in a person; I feel the need to motivate anyone and everyone.

f) I love eating, I will dip my fingers into anything.

g) I feel at home with people from different cultures and regions.

h) My inquisitive nature will get me into trouble one day. One person should not be allowed to ask this many questions!

i) My style is to shock and awe… it’s the rebel in me which brings out the “dark side”…

j) I selected the title of my blog based on one of my beliefs in life – anything and everything seems simple in life…. until you get down to actually do it… to put the biscuit in the basket.

As for the nominations… well, I will nominate the same 5 people above, plus Freshly Squeezed because she gives me a genuine reason to wear my shades indoors, and Minus 1 thousand because I enjoy her pics, and recipes! Did I mention I love eating?

Shukran MY for nominating me, and for understanding what my blog name meant!

I picked this up from Lili on Twitter – it is soooo funny! I am having issues displaying the video so please click on this link to view it.

I wish more people in the media came out and openly spoke about this issue – in humour or otherwise. Politicians are talking one sided crap about this situation, and I think “normal” people have to have a say and influence the situation, giving it the attention it deserves.

We had our company christmas lunch last week on Tuesday; a company briefing preceded the lunch. Now let me explain the structure of our organisation – essentially we are a group of companies trading under the “same” name; all of us provide various types of software to the Financial and Insurance arena.

Now the guy who runs the European operations stood up and gave us an update on how the organisation was doing during these troubled times. In brief – revenues were up, profits were down (as a group), and our company was the only one in the whole group which was making any money.

So, when I saw this Dilbert cartoon strip, I had to post it! You could even say that Scott Adams was in our company briefing!