Gewgel makes us styoopid

I have a short attention span beaklsadbboiasdbasalbasfdkbasouh

Oh, I lost my attention span again. Thanks technology.
I believe what the author had to say regarding google making us stupid. There is just something about things being easier that just make you lazy. It’s like exercising, if you do it the right way you’ll sow the rewards and lead a healthy life, and if you don’t you’ll be stricken with disease.
Your brain is a muscle, and it’s a muscle that has been definitely misused. I don’t think I can read books now with the same efficiency as I did before when I was younger; now that the internet has taken over I feel less intellectual and more “googllectual”.
I bet if I told my younger self: “Hey, you’ll be able to find out anything with a click of a button!” or “You will be able to summarize anything you want to say into 140 characters!” he definitely would not be impressed.
So this is me declaring, to be less digital. Even though I’m already more analog than most of the people I know, I will still decrease my time spent on twitter and facebook, and I will waste those summer days reading until the summer nights.
I will try to be more efficient with my time and attempt to complete all the things that I want to do in the summer. Hopefully, this way I will have energized my brain and I will become a productive member of society.
Theres stile hope for… sdflviksdflaubsdfa.

… damn it.
Stupid attention span.

Viv4 L4 Rev0luc10n 4-the L0lz

February 11 2011 was a historical day, at least in the eyes of Egyptians. It was the day that former President Hosni Mubarak stepped down from his position. Egyptians around the world were in jubilation because they couldn’t believe that they’d actually do it. They can actually force a dictator to leave. What amazed me is that throughout the troubled times, the scary winter nights and the impending fears, Egyptians still managed to keep a smile during the whole time.
Egyptians have always been known in the Middle East for their sense of humor and it was such a vital aspect in keeping the morale high during the revolution. Social and political commentaries have always been available in Egypt. I remember as a kid we used to tell jokes about Hosny Mubarak, there’s one in particular that I still remember to this day:
“Bill Clinton, Jacque Chirac and Hosny Mubarak are in a plane, and they wanted to know where they were. Clinton stuck his hand out of the window and felt the Statue of Liberty, he then said: it’s ok folks, were in America. Hours later Chirac stuck his hand out of the window and felt the Eiffel Tour and said: it’s ok mon amie, were in France. Hours later Hosny Mubarak stuck his hand out of the plane, when he pulled it back he realized that his watch wasn’t there anymore so he said: It’s ok, were in Egypt.”
Those jokes and updated versions of them reappeared on the internet, providing Egyptians with a good laugh and some food for thought. Some of the new jokes that appeared during that time were:
“Hosny Mubarak died and in the afterlife he meets Sadaat and Abd El Nasser. So they ask him: “What was it? Poison or an assassination?” So he replies: “No, it was those damn kids with Facebook!”
Another source of laughs during the revolution were the signs that people took to Tahrir Square. While all of the signs had noble purposes and a message, a lot of the signs delivered the message with a chuckle or two. Some of the famous signs in Tahrir Square included:
“Please leave, my arms hurt from holding this sign up!”
“Please leave because I need to go home and shower.”
“By the way, this country is not a game of Mafia Wars.”
“Denial isn’t a river in Egypt, it’s a president.”
Plenty of fan pages were created for these hilarious signs on facebook.
Twitter also provided with plenty of opportunities for political satire within 140 characters. That was evident with the popular hash-tag titled ‘#reasonswhymubarakislate’:
“#reasonswhymubarakislate He’s downloading skype”
“#reasonswhymubarakislate He is deciding which set of islands to buy”
“#reasonswhymubarakislate Have you ever tried packing 70 billion $?”
“#reasonswhymubarakislate He’s changing his facebook relationship status to ‘it’s complicated’”
““#reasonswhymubarakislate He’s listing his chair on ebay”
“#reasonswhymubarakislate can’t remember is it’s a Swedish or a Swiss account”
“#reasonswhymubarakislate Extra security check to make sure Kanye isn’t stealing his mic”

Even though it was people in the streets fighting for freedom, rights, and dignity, but it was the people who managed to put smiles on people’s who kept the nation’s morale soaring high. Laughter IS the best medicine.

But as a comedian once said “Laughter is the best medicine? Try telling that to a kid with cancer.”

Th3 T1m3s Are A’Changing

Oh my God.
Yes this is how I’m starting this blog post.
This week we didn’t pay the bills on time and so we had to wait 3 days until the internet came back. What a horrifying three days it was.
First of all I was not able to contact my friends via facebook, which is a problem, especially with my long distance friends who live abroad. I also had no twitter for the time being, which made communication with my group of buddies in Cairo very limited.
During that time I realized that I missed out on a concert of one of my favorite local artists, Hany Mustafa. That was due to the fact that I didn’t receive an online reminder when I checked in on facebook. I also missed out on plenty of football games because I stream the European leagues on my computer.
When my internet came back hurriedly logged on to all my accounts ad found plenty of messages of concern. “Where have you been Safi?” “You just disappeared, man.”
Then it hit me.
All of my friends [ALL OF WHOM HAVE MY PHONE NUMBER] wondered where I was and thought something bad had happened? Why did that happen? Did they forget that we have other mediums for communication, not just twitter and facebook?
So I started thinking, when do we really abandon a medium? The radio is almost forgotten as a way of communication, and its only current purpose is to entertain you on your way home when your auxiliary cable is busted.
The regular landlines were almost obsolete, being used only to call the grocery store or those long and meaningless holiday phone calls. Only until recently during the 25th of January revolution did Egyptian public remember the invention of the landline telephone because the satellite signals were cut.
Even new technologies such as cell phones are somewhat a thing of the past in terms of their original use aka to call people. Now it’s a music player, a flashlight, an internet browser and a useful tool for passing time; it’s everything except being a telephone.
But is this a matter of generation X, Y, Z? Or is it truly human nature?
I don’t know precisely what will happen with technologies or how they’ll evolve, but I do know one thing; I’ll keep my eyes on how some technologies just slowly fade away.

Friday Friday! Music Industry Died On Friday!

I write this blog post with tears in my eyes. RIP music. I have listened to the new Youtube sensation “Friday” by Rebecca Black, and I think it is safe to say, it is the worst song of all time. The thing is, how could something so horrible be so viral in a matter of days?
4chan image boards had a huge role to play in making this video viral. 4chan are known for ‘creating’ he internet, because most of the internet pop culture and memes are generated on 4chan boards, especially ‘/b’. Users of 4chan were responsible of promoting this video “for the lulz” or for the sake of a good laugh in their terms. They’ve done that before with other Youtube videos such as “Charlie bit my finger” and “Chocolate Rain”.
What makes this song so horrible that it earned 2.8 million dislike on Youtube? Plenty of reasons; first of all the song is immersed in horrible layers of Auto-Tune. Black’s voice in this song almost makes Stephen Hawking’s voice sound as rich as Freddie Mercury’s. Auto-Tune has been a topic in the music industry that has constantly irritated me. Why would we opt to sound like machines when the human voice is the most expressive instrument there is? Why has opera been so successful for thousands of years? Because nothing can overcome the power of human vocals; I mean there’s a reason why my favorite Pink Floyd track is still “A Great Gig in the Sky” till this day.
Second of all, ‘Friday’ is the most lyrically absurd I have ever heard. Here is an example of the first verse:
“7am, waking up in the morning
Gotta be fresh, gotta go downstairs
Gotta have my bowl, gotta have cereal
Seein’ everything, the time is goin’
Tickin’ on and on, everybody’s rushin’
Gotta get down to the bus stop
Gotta catch my bus, I see my friends (My friends)

Kickin’ in the front seat
Sittin’ in the back seat
Gotta make my mind up
Which seat can I take?”

I could’ve sworn Leonard Cohen had written these words.
Seriously?! The choice between the front seat and the back seat is lyrically significant enough that you make it the bridge to the chorus? Even though that seemed horrendous, it wasn’t even the tip of the lyrical iceberg.
“Yesterday was Thursday, Thursday
Today i-is Friday, Friday (Partyin’)
We-we-we so excited
We so excited
We gonna have a ball today

Tomorrow is Saturday
And Sunday comes after…wards
I don’t want this weekend to end”
Oh lord in the heavens above, please send grace to your worshipper Rebecca Black for she has taught me that Sunday comes after Saturday; I would have never known.
Why?
Why?
Why would a video like that trend when the “Fleet Foxes” new album get’s almost no online recognition? Why would this song be the number one downloaded song on iTunes when there are plenty of up and coming talents who are ready to take the stage but aren’t given a proper chance? Why would someone even think that this is suitable as a song in the first place?!
I would like to sincerely thank Rebecca Black for managing to kill the music industry, and ironically, on a Friday.

My VIP

I decided to use my VIP as a chance to invigorate myself creatively and to use this as an opportunity to break my writers block. I will work each week at least on one new piece of material. Whether it’s just lyrics or music or a full song, I will try as hard as possible to break this creative dry spell that I have.
This will motivate me and eventually the rest of my band into fulfilling our plans which is to record an EP by the end of the year.
Hopefully this dream will become a reality.
www.noirchitecture.wordpress.com

We Love You Arsenal! We Do!

First off, I’m a huge Arsenal fan. Probably the biggest in this beautiful nation and it brings me pain that there are only few in Egypt whom I can share the glories of Arsenal with. With that out of the way, I’d like to delve in the beautiful world that is Arsenal online world.
I start off every Friday morning by listening to “The Arseblog Arsecast” which is basically an Arsenal podcast made by one of my favorite bloggers, “The Arseblogger.” Arseblogger is a huge Arsenal fan and a successful blogger who managed to gain the support of thousands and probably millions of fans worldwide. He successfully managed to make his blog the most successful Arsenal related blog worldwide, which is a huge achievement.
With a mixture of truth, practical analysis, constructive criticism, and most importantly HUMOR, he managed to be a global online journalist/sports entertainer. He has plenty of tricks in his bag of humor. He had trademarked the term ‘boilk’ for when he writes a blog post with a nasty hangover, which is pretty often since he’s Irish. He also has a way with words, he has the ability of creating wonderful imagery; usually dirty, and always hilarious. Like for example in a recent Arsenal game against Merseyside giants Liverpool, Arsenal scored a penalty in the 87th minute and then in the added time Liverpool received a penalty and successfully converted, which angered Arsenal fans around the world. He then wrote one of the most descriptive sentences in the history of the world: “There really wasn’t as much anger as I thought there’d be, more a resigned dismay and disappointment that once again Arsenal had managed to pull a rabbit from the hat only to discover the rabbit was, in fact, an Ebola carrying velociraptor who bit us right in the a**.“
Along with “The Arseblogger” I live a separate life as “.::EgyptianGooner::.” on www.arsenal.vitalfootball.co.uk. This online football forum brings in Arsenal fans from across the globe into one virtual community; some of the best times I’ve had procrastinating were spent on this site.
As innocent as it may seem at first it seems like I have created relationships with all the people that are online, good and bad. Sharing musical interest with ‘Amos’, bonding over our love of Dennis Bergkamp with ‘iceman10’, listening to the wise words of the sports journalist Tim Stillman aka ‘LittleDutch’, and arguing with ‘ProfessorCalculus’ over how important Nickolas Bendtner is to the team. Soon after you get to know the forum, you tend to find personality traits but translated into the virtual world. For example, ‘Rocky7’, one of the older forum members, is known to be very dark humor oriented, often leaving cheeky comments. ‘iceman10’ is a huge optimist and always compares new players to older legendary players and how they can live up to the glory of Arsenal. ‘LittleDutch’ is always very pragmatic and deconstructs every single move of them game tactically and manages to make the most complicated of tactics seem easy. These traits make me wonder, are they like that in real life? Or is it just an online persona?
Another thing that fascinates me about forums, and especially this one, is the name of the person. Out of almost infinite possibilities why would someone choose a certain screen name? Some, like myself, choose one that indicates location because it is something unique ‘.::EgyptianGooner::.’. Some make a reference to their favorite player such as ‘iceman10’ which was the nickname and jersey number of Dennis Bergkamp. These small things might open up a world of indicators to the human psyche, or I could just be over analyzing something that might be insignificant, who knows?
All in all, internet and sports are a definite match made in heaven.

Oh, I almost forgot:
WE ALL FOLLOW THE ARSENAL! ONTO VICTOOORRYYYYY!!

The Digital Juggling Act

Is this blog post taking my absolute attention and concentration? The answer is no. I am working on my blogpost, drinking my coffee, checking my twitter, listening to Ben Harper and I have one eye on the game aired on the TV. So I sit here and wonder, is it only with this miniscule percentage of concentration on a single errand? Turns out I’m not. I asked a bunch of other friends and they all mentioned the fact that they can’t seem to produce 100% concentration on a single subject. They watch a movie, listen to music or do something else completely. Things like these make me wonder, have humans always been that way or are we the ill-fated generation?
I sit down and hear stories from my mother about how time changed and how things were different ‘back in the day’. My mother says she was always fully concentrated on her assignment and never had a distraction, and how all the previous generations were like that. Even my brothers, she said, were devoted to their studies without any interruption. I looked at her and responded with “Mom, my brothers are 32 and 30. I’m pretty sure back in the day they had cassettes because I keep hearing about their legendary collection.” She then admit to them having cassettes and how they would sometimes listen to them during their studies and how sometimes they would also study in front of the TV. She said what they were doing was ok, but what I was doing was too much.
At first I agreed but then I took a second to ponder and asked my mother if grandma and grandpa owned a radio when she was young. Her face lit up and she started talking about how it would bring beautiful music on and she’d listen to it through the night and have the time of her life. So I asked if she ever listened to the radio while studying and she responded with a whole hearted yes.
She then felt that her “debate ship” was sinking and attempted to save it by commenting about how the music in the past was soothing, providing her with good study experience, but we both knew that her argument was flawed.
So I’ve come to a conclusion that every new generation becomes more adaptive to using many forms of technologies at the same time due to the culture and the general pace of life. Hopefully if I ever see my children doing 12 things at once while studying, I’ll try to be more understanding.