Driving in saudi arabia Part 2

If any of you were around long enough to remember my post about driving and drivers in saudi arabia you will undoubtedly understand that traffic in this country is a huge problem. Well since my last post Ive come across a host of new types of drivers of whom I'd like to discuss.

The Line-rider: This guy learned nothing about driving on a road from the little that is taught in driving school. Is under the impression that the white lines dividing the road are in fact the lanes themselves. So he drives over the line making sure to keep it within the tires of his car. These guys are completely oblivious to the great amount of honking generated by other drivers.

The Player: Ever watched a game of american football? Where players run and dodge opponents in order to reach the other side? Well considering most young shabab are crazy about soccer, these type of drivers have been watching the wrong sports channel. Think of this guy as the younger unmarried version of The Camel Jockey. Not only do these guys not look when they turn in from an intersecting street, but act like that any ensuing mishaps resulting thereof is invariably the other teams fault. In the event of an accident will either phone his daddy or every friend on his mobile phone's contact list.

The Bus: These big and gentle giants are unfortunately very annoying. Not only are they slow but they take up a whole lane forcing its giant metal ass to take up your whole front view. If you end up being in the unfortunate situation of heavy traffic with a bus in front of you then you will also have to endure breathing heavy exhaust smoke filtering through your car's air-conditioning system.

The Truck: Very similar to a bus however unlike the bus these come in a variety of wonderful forms such as:

The dumptruck. The waste disposal truck. The garbage truck. The people's truck. The water transportation truck. The toxic or potentially dangerous chemical/substance truck.

Either way if you're behind a truck on a road it would be advisable to move immediately. Or you might end up getting some strange substance on the front hood of your car...

And last but not least...

The Pedestrian: Somehow its ingrained in our DNA to be idiots. Why oh WHY don't people use the overhead walkway bridges instead of just stumbling across the roads like they've got a bad case of diarrhea? Some of these people have a death wish. Standing in the middle of the road it makes one think if they actually want cars to turn them into squishy little smears on the asphalt..

Exit musharraf

Well it was going to happen sooner or later. I really don't know if I should feel glad or dissapointed. You see despite the fact that Pervez Musharraf made it a point to ally himself with the US and other pro-western forces, and despite the fact that this was basically the reason why most pakis were unhappy with him, and despite the fact he wasn't democratically elected after staging a coup ousting the then prime minister Nawaz sharif in 1999, he is in my opinion much much MUCH better than the ass-hats now vying to take his place.

Asif Zardari and Nawaz Sharif (again?)?? Are you frikken kidding me?? Two of the most corrupt and useless politicians in paki history? The very fact that Musharraf ousted Nawaz sharif was exactly BECAUSE of clowns like Zardari and Sharif. Not only do these two not care about anyone else except their greedy selves, but have proven in the past to be totally incompetent when it comes to running a country. I would have been ok with musharraf's resignation if the current presidential candidates were actually sane people looking to finally set the record straight with pakistan's messed up past.

Ok yes I know Musharraf kicked out a bunch of high level judges last year and he tried to censure the country's media following that fiasco, and he imposed a nationwide state of emergency, and he toyed around with the constitiution a bit, but to be honest he is probably the most honest and uncorrupt high-level government leader that pakistan has seen since maybe Muhammad Ali Jinnah himself.
At least he managed to open up the paki economy to foreign investment which in '99 was almost negligible and encourage industrialization, which I should add is far far more than Zardari or Sharif have ever accomplished in the past.

Its left to be seen what the future of pakistan holds, but if you ask me they've taken a major step backward.

Cats

soundtracked by: Al Stewart - "Year of the cat"

I know what you're thinking. As you scroll down you're expecting to see a couple of pics of some cute furballs and possibly a hand or two stroking one of their fuzzy heads. Well nothing could be further from the truth.

This post isnt about why I like cats. Its about why they're so annoying. You see I have this backyard. And the only thing in this backyard are......my 11 cats. Yes I have 11 cats (well technically 3 cats and 8 kittens) running around my backyard.
I've noticed that cats are just like homeless people.

You give them food once, they come back asking for more.

They try to become your pal when you really don't wanna know them.

They're always raiding the trash cans 3 or 4 times a week.

And they pretty much plop down and sleep anywhere they want. Like on the side of the street or in the middle of the park. The only difference is cats can give themselves baths and homeless people can't.

Plus they use their cute fuzzy exteriors to induce sympathy amongst people in order to manipulate them into giving them food. Homeless people don't have fuzzy exteriors. And even if they did it wouldnt be cute.

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So anyways when a guy has a cat it tends to be a sort of a father-child relationship. You have to take care of the cat, feed it expensive cat food (btw those bastards at the supermarket raised the price of whiskas again), and provide it a place to sleep...just like a child. The good news is at least you dont have to potty train it.

Now, the 10 of my 11 cats are the result of my three-legged cat called Gato. Yea she's been sleeping around the neighborhood alot. Now as a 'father' this sort of presents an upsetting situation. First of all the cat that you've been nurturing for all these years, one day decides to get up, go out the door and disappear for like a month. You don't know where she is and what she's doing, and even if she's alive and well. And then just like that BOOM she returns back pregnant with a kid (or kids). Now what do you say to this cat? You can't yell at her because the poor thing is pregnant and all emotional and what not, and besides its not like she really listened to you much anyways to begin with.
And thus this leads to the birth of a whole batch of new furballs and then the nightmare starts to repeat itself. This is also compounded with the fact that you have to deal with your friends making inappropriately perveted jokes like "So dude...which pussy you gonna feed tonight?" (wink wink).

Now you might simply say...well gee don't keep a cat if you don't wanna have to deal with all that. But apparently theres an upside to a guy having a cat....

....Women love cats.

(well except for Sous and Pinkish's sister)

So therefore if a guy has a cat, women will automatically like you. And even IF women don't like you they'll still wanna see your cat, which means they'll be around you alot resulting in the likelihood of them possibly hooking up with you. So it pretty much works out in the end.


So why am I still single? Damn cats.

Tagged by a whole bunch of people.

Oh wait a minute. I'm a guy. I don't do tags.

Oh well. Maybe next time.


suckers :)

Arabic blunder # 3

Don't you just hate it when people drive up to you when you've stopped at a red light, ask you for directions and you don't know what the hell they're talking about?
You see people ask me for directions ALL the time when im out driving. And I mean ALL the frikken time. I dunno is it the way I look or something? Do I exude some kinda superficial charm that I'm unaware of? Is there some kinda sign that makes people think "oh gee you know what I think i'll ask him, he looks like he knows everthing" ?? WTF man

Anyways this was back when I just got my driver's license after spending 2 weeks in that shitty excuse of a driving school (and people wonder why saudis can't drive). So its a hot summer night and I'm ready to go out somewhere. I stop at a red light and lo and behold a white landcrusier driven by some saudi in his 40's (as usual) pulls up next to me. He pulled down his window and motions to me. So being the good natured idiot that I am I pulled down my window to hear what he had to say. This is what ensued:

Him: Hala ya shabab. T3aref wen Abqaiq?

Now this was before I even knew any of the other cities in shargeya besides dhahran, khobar and dammam. I can't say "maafi maloom" again because I already tried that and I'm not afghani. So while trying to think of something to say I see across the road a bakery with the name "Bayt al Cake" in arabic. I dunno what happened but all of sudden I made this instant connection with "abqaiq" and "bayt al cake". So thinking I'm a genius I say with a smile on my face:

Me: Cake? Aha! Shoof cake hinak (pointing to the bakery)

The guy stares at the bakery for a minute and then looks back at me as if I was the strangest looking creature he had ever seen.

Him: Aghollak wen abqaiq. Ma t3aref?

Me: *shrugs* uhh la2.

Him: Tab gol hada! Ish feek? *drives off in a huff*

Of course now that I know lots of arabic if anyone asks me wheres abqaiq is I'll just say "Up your ass thats where you mofo! Ask somebody else!".

laterz.