FiroSoft Consulting

Sometime you need an epiphany or a life altering event to make you introspect and externalize your findings.. And sometime all you need is an iPad!

So Cialis Online I decided to write..

Hmm.. OK let’s see.. A tool that allows me to blog directly from my laptop, even offline, or through my mobile phone.. why not!

I thank God every day for the marvels of technology.. Who is God? That’s for another post. But I do thank him or her or it. Technology pays my rent, buys me new things, flies me to places, and feeds my hunger. Generic Cialis It also lets me stay alive, happy, fulfilled and motivated.

How did people do it before technology existed? That’s also for another post!

It would be absolutely pointless if I went through Cialis so many years of life, got so many brain-teasing thoughts, and learned so many new lessons, but failed to share any of them with the world.. Isn’t the whole point of civilization to pass knowledge to your successors?

I decided to share my thoughts with this world, and frankly, this won’t come as a surprise to many, since I often share my thoughts quite loudly and prominently to everyone.. I guess I just decided to use the pretty tools of technology which I am absolutely and totally submerged in and surrounded with, as a new venue for my random ramblings..

Bear with me..

I’ll come around to posting my real blogs here, but for now, here is the latest from the Stuttgart Auto Show.. Start saving now, who knows what you’ll be buying in a couple of years!

Firas

Generic Cialis Online center;”>

Some people pay as much as 10 million Cialis Viagra buy Online $ for a car plate number in the UAE! Would you rather buy 10 McLaren F1′s with that amount? Each in a different color? Which would attract more attention?

Firas

The Desert Bunny Hops to the Hills?!! Part V version 332.19 beta

Hola! Si! It’s moi again, the Desert Dueler Bunny.. I KNOW for a fact that none of you missed me, but since when does the bunny wait for the hunter to miss him and then shows up?

OK, the list of friends I send this to has grown quite substantially, and I have to put in the same yearly disclaimer: DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME! Meaning don’t print this and show it to your mom, coz she’ll throw you out of the house for having obnoxious cynical sarcastic friends!

For those of you who are wondering what the hell is going on here, I usually send a collection of my “new country and travel thoughts” on a yearly basis to all my friend, so that those unfortunate people who can’t afford the super luxury golden diamond celebrity famous prosperous life that I lead (yeah right!) can rot in jealousy!

If you’re interested in reading the previous 4 writings, I’ve posted them on my website  http://www.firosoft.com  under the Category “Thoughts” (you’ll find it on the right side of the page, sign up so you can post comments).

OK here we go.. but this time is different! The Desert Bunny has  actually betrayed the beautiful sandy dunes of the Arabian Gulf! Yes! You heard it right! No no, don’t let your shock force you to re-read the sentence.. Come on!  Stop it! OK fine, read it again and let me know when you’re done so I can continue typing..

** whistling **

Ah! Welcome back!

OK so this year’s email is a big milestone.. I actually left Qatar, and moved around to the US for a trip in California and Las Vegas, then Dubai, Lebanon, and finally hopped to the beautiful country of Jordan (no, Michael did not play basketball here, and that’s not why it’s called that!).

So this email unlike the previous ones, is a little tour of all the above countries and their cities..
Let’s start with…….

Qatar & Saudi Arabia
———————————————————————

- I had the best days of my life in the silly little island of Qatar. You say “it’s not an island”.. well I don’t consider its border with Saudi Arabia existent. You’ll know why next. I already miss the amazing life and friends I left back in Qatar!

- The customs office at the Qatar/Saudi Arabia border actually opens every SEALED box of empty CDs in your luggage to check each one on their computer and make sure you are not bringing in “inadequate material”. Uhmm… Let me think of how I should say this without offending Fahad and Faysal… OK I got it, here we go: DUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! So “inadequate materials” threatening Saudi Arabia are coming in through shipped CDs? What about Saudis being one of the highest users of drugs in the world? What about satellite transmitted porn? What about internet sex? Violence? Kuwait war? Money laundering? And those guarded tents in the desert? What happens in those? Eh?

Bunny says: The customs department needed blank CDs to record the downloaded MP3s they had. This was a conspiracy to take my CDs!

- It’s illegal to drink or purchase or bring in or think of or talk about or know of or know someone who once said the word “alcohol” in Saudi Arabia. “Tough luck” says the majority of Saudis.. “We’ll just have to fly to Qatar or Bahrain, drink at the bars, and fly back here”..

Bunny says: If you can’t beat’em, go around’em! The Qatar/Saudi border customs are trained in handling incoming drunk citizens!

- Saudi Arabia is SO hot in the summer, I mean REALLY hot, very hot, super hot, amazingly hot.. to the level where Saudi men have to leave their women and children and go to Dubai to “cool off” for a few months!!! Wait a second! Isn’t Dubai HOTTER than Saudi, and 10 times more humid? “It’s a matter of perspective”, the smiling Saudi with a well trimmed beard, a Mont Blanc pen, a Ferrari Camelarossa and a Rolex Super Dooper Oyster Diamond Perpetual Chronograph In Your Face Downright Shiny Like Michael Jackson’s Jacket watch. “Hot or cool is not always about temperature”, continues our dear Saudi friend, and then he walks away into the Dubai sexy nightclubs and bars..

Bunny says: “Hello, how are you hunny? Enjoying the cool summer in Dubai? What’s that music in the background? Who is that girl giggling next to you? Ah, just a tourist at the hotel? Well the kids miss you and we’re roasting happily here in Saudi..”
Let’s move to..

Dubai
———————————————————————

- Dubai, oh Dubai.. Why do I love you so much, oh WHY? Is it because of your buildings so high? Or is it all the prosti… uhm..  beautiful sky?   O:)

- Wait a second! What did you think I was going to say? HEY! It was just a typo.. I wanted to say “professionalism so high”!  I just mistyped “prof.. prosti..” you know……. nevermind!

- STOP THINKING OF THE PREVIOUS 2 PARAGRAPHS! Dirty minds!

- So Dubai.. What can I say.. They have the “most everything”: Tallest Building in the Universe, Biggest Underwater Hotel in the Galaxy, Fastest Growing Banking Sector on the Planet, Most Real Estate Investments in the Region, Best Pro.. uhm….. FESSIONALISM in Existence , Most Fake Population in Life, Ridiculously Highest Over-valued Real Estate Market in Eternity, Most People with Fancy Cars which they Can’t Afford in Humanity, Fastest Way to Spend your Cash in Zero Time, Most Speeding Tickets per Rich 14 Year Old Driving a Land Cruiser Ever, and Lowest IQ per Capita in the Constellation! (sorry Rano!)

Bunny says: Sometimes you need the Largest Room in the World to fit the Biggest Head and Ego of the person living in it!

- Cyclone? What’s Cyclone? ** looking around ** I’ve never heard of Cyclone! Who said Cyclone? I mean yes I did hear that there is a brothel/prostitution house in Dubai, but God forbid I would ever drive by it, park in that dark unpaved parking lot behind it, say hi to Jay the philipino bouncer that always bows to guests, and pay $20 per beer bottle to watch some barely dressed girls dancing around silver poles in that smoky sombre atmosphere.. I’ve never been there! Honest! Ever! Neither did all the Saudis coming for a cool summer in Dubai!

Bunny says: Liar.

- What’s the point of fixed traffic speed radars and cameras if you spread them EVENLY on a highway, at 2km from each other exactly? Granted we have the lowest IQ per Capita, but is it so hard to slow down for 2 seconds next to each camera, avoid the ticket, then speed back up to 200km/h for the next 2km? You’re just wearing off our brakes man! Just replace the cameras and radars with something a bit more unpredictable, like random sharp shooters with M-16 machine guns, that fire at your tires as soon as you reach 121km/h!

Bunny says: We are looking for high-precision snipers and sharp-shooters. Send your CV to jobs@michelin.pirelli.goodyear.firestone.com. Salary commesurates with experience. Dental benefits included.
Another hop to..

Lebanon
———————————————————————

- OK this is for you Dina, since you bashed me completely last year when I spoke about the Gulf states, saying that I am unappreciative of the countries that feed me and provide my salary. You see, I criticize everyone, and I mostly double-criti-cyni-bash-icize my own country!

- Who in the world uses a cell phone to call their maid from the kitchen to the living room?

Bunny says: Lebanese do.

- Who owns a BMW, a Hugo Boss suit, Armani shoes and a Baume et Mercier watch, but can’t afford gasoline and the phone bill?

Bunny says: LEBANESE doo!

- Who speaks 3 languages fluently, has a graduate degree, has travelled the world, but can’t make up his Propecia cheap mind whether it’s better to throw the cigarette butt out the window or on the room floor?

Bunny says: BLABLABESE DO!!

- Who never stands in line, always speaks loudly over mobile phones to make sure everyone hears about the latest multi-trillion gazillion dollar super business deal that he did the night before with the King of Brunei, gets interrupted by his wife calling in to say “hey, you better not be sleeping at 6pm tonight too like last night, you have dishes to wash!”, makes a fuss about restaurant quality of service but never leaves any tip, and whenever a bombing happens, is the first to go “check-out the scene”?

Bunny says: Yabadaba doo

- For those of you who have lived or visited Lebanon, do you remember the “moveawaythisismyroad” look? OK it goes like this: you’re driving (also known as “fighting for your life behind the wheel”) and you get to an intersection which happens to be one of the 99.9% of intersections that have no traffic lights, and are governed by the “Darwin Law of Jungle driving”. You reach the crossroad smiling, look left, look right, and decide to move. Out of thin air, a 1967 BMW 2002 Tii “tirbo” appears in a flash, and no matter where you are, you are ALWAYS in the BMWs way. You hear a loud thundering horn, see a guy with Lenny Kravitz glasses and 2.3 kilograms of hair-gel sticking his head and arm out of the BMW’s window, pushing your car away with his powerful royal hand gesture, and giving you the “moveawaythisismyroad” look.. which consists of constant eye contact for the duration of the “crossing” experience, with a dracula frown, eyes dimmed, and a facial expression that says “eeeef yooooo mooooovvv eye villl keeeeeel yoooooo”!

Bunny says: Give him back the
“iammovinganywaybecauseiamaforeignerandicanruntomyembassyifyoutrytokillme” look!

- You always hear that shopping is awesome in Lebanon. This is because local Lebanese girls don’t wear anything when they go out. Shops have to sell clothes to someone to survive, and since Lebanese women cover their bodies with dental floss (only when truly necessary, and the situation requires decency), foreigners benefit from the shopping experience instead. When you’re in a club, the most covered and dressed girl gets the most attention. She’s just to

And when you all thought “Yesss! No more Desert Dueler emails!”..

Here it is again! The New and Improved version 3.0 of the “Desert  Bunny” comes to you right from the land of melted camels..

For those of who who are going “Huhhh???” at this moment in time, this is Part III of a yearly email that I send to all my friends in an attempt to 1) keep in touch, 2) keep you posted on what is going on, 3) keep the level of sarcasm and cynicism in this world at an acceptable high, and 4) keep you wondering why some people refuse to grow up!

For the rest who are familiar with this concept, I apologize for disappearing for a year now. I am still with IBM, still in Qatar, and I basically lost half of my weight! So next time you see me, you might not! Talk about a candle in the desert!

Actually I am amazed at the idea that some people actually printed my previous emails and showed them to their parents or friends, or forwarded them.. What’s wrong with you? These are EVIL emails!

Well, here goes nothing. This is my usual compilation of random Desert thoughts to hopefully brighten your mood..

- Epiphanies Epiphanies! I am amazed at how much living in the Arabian Gulf can teach you.. You would be surprised at how rich this literally EMPTY place is! Let’s start with money.. You probably know that the Gulf is rich in petroleum and natural gas. If you didn’t, you’re either too young, too busy, too high or too rich yourself! Let’s discuss money a bit more..

- Hear this.. The culture is so drenched with the concept of wealth, that people here assume that they can buy anything! Did you know that, if you are a cute lady.. uhm.. forget cute.. a LADY jogging on the sidewalk, a car could cruise by and a guy inside would flash a packet of cash at you, with a nice proud smile to go with it? What a nice guy, you would think! He must be so nice! Of course, who can resist a smiling gold mine (with a missing tooth)?

ADVICE: take your clothes off immediately  and jump in the car with him! He’s probably as sophisticated and intellectually advanced as his bank account balance!

- Exhibitionism is a big thing, and I ain’t talkin about Freud! If I have money, you HAVE to know I do! You have no choice! How dare you think of me as a normal guy? Don’t you see my 3 billion carat diamond and platinum hand-made hand-crafted one-in-the-world fountain pen proudly hanging in-your-face on my front shirt pocket? What about my disco-light super-shiny diamond-enriched made-especially-for-me Swiss gold watch with my name engraved on it, and a sign dangling from it which says: “the Designer of this watched died trying to make it perfect”? Come on! Are you nuts? Couldn’t you see how prominent my custom wheeled chrome dipped gold-launching Lexus LX4703028631z 4×4 bus-shaped rocket car is? Ignore my dirty toes and ghetto slippers, those mean nothing.. Look up here.. HERE.. not down there..

ADVICE: Respect cash. Cash owns you. You will be assimilated. There is no way out. Surrender to my wealth.

- Mystery.. that’s a word to associate with wealth and power.. It’s quite customary to see a very (VERY) expensive car cruising by, turning heads.. but with 100% tinted glass all around. What cosmicly mysterious James Bond cognitive process did the owner go through when he chose this? “I want to show everyone my car, but they can’t know who I am!”? What is the point? To show the world that Mercedes AMG can build an awesome car? But THEN.. you come to know the truth: there is POWER in the SURPRISE APPEARANCE! Yes! You have to admit, when that amazing car parks somewhere and the door opens, your heart starts beating, your palms get sweaty.. You are dying to know who this prince is that will appear from behind the mysterious fog.. And then THERE HE IS! His amazing grace appears! He is.. He is.. Soo.. Uhm.. short?! I can’t remember the rest, I fainted then..

ADVICE: Act very astonished and praise the mysterious King.

- More money stuph.. And this is a true story (yep, I gotta make a movie one day!). Say your whole culture revolves around your worth being so associated to your wealth.. What would you do if your credit card was declined at a very crowded expensive store? When everyone is watching the poor little clerk tell you “Sorry Sir, this credit card is maxed out, do you have another one?” (basically, she should’ve said: do you have another one, or is this diamond pen fake?).. Well here’s the true part of the story: that man ended up making the whole line wait for 10 minutes while the clerk had to retry the same credit card 20 times since “Dunt tel mi idz magzed aout, zis gredet gard haz unlemeted muney inzide it, trei it egennnnn in yor bad macheen”.

ADVICE: Shake your head and tell the guy “It’s amazing how these machines always break with the richest people”

- More cash bits.. You go to buy a car.. You know which one you want, you research it, you find the right one, you negotiate the price, you agree with the seller.. Fine.. Now why in hell would you take 3 times as much cash as the agreed price when you go pay? And you just take the whole $60,000 out of your pocket, then slowly count $18,300 from them and hand them to the seller? Or do you just walk around with $60k usually in your pocket, just in case that perfect BMW comes along?

ADVICE: Ask the guy if he would like to buy a $41,700 boat, since he has the extra change!

- OK enough about money.. you got the point! Oh no, wait a sec, just one more.. I don’t even think I can explain this one well, so I’ll just throw it out there for you to decypher. Starbuck’s is a coffee shop for normal people, surrounded by a parking lot which doubles as a car show and cruising ground for the elite. People actually drive through the parking Viagra cheap lot itself in a circle around Starbuck’s!! Uhm.. whatever..

ADVICE: Uhm.. Go to Cafe Najjar instead (right Rania?!)

- Let’s see.. how about a little on relationships and dating in the Gulf. Yeahhh, that should trigger some controversy I apologize in advance for my Gulf friends who are reading this.. Hey come on, you know I am kidding, right? ** group screams NO!! in the background **.. OK, then to distract you, tell me first.. Why do men wear white and women wear black? Is it a chess game? Or just simply to distinguish them from each other just kidding! Well, who got to pick their color first? And was it in the summer?

ADVICE: Don’t say what I just said in public! HEY.. WHERE ARE YOU TAKING ME? I KNOW PEOPLE WITH CASH, YOU KNOW!

- Relationships.. OK.. This hooks up into the Mystery part, but there is a whole culture and subtle details associated with the common dating pattern here. It goes like this: the single woman would be in a supermarket, usually with her best friend, standing at the make-up section and staring at 1 product for enough time to be noticed. Then the Vulture (the man) would land, and smoothly stand next to her, not looking at her of course, then pick up his own mobile. The mobile would then magically dial his best friend’s number, and he would skip the hello part and introduction and jump right into “hey, my mobile number is 588-6676, did you hear me correctly? my mobile number is 588-6676″. Recognizing this known mating call, the lady checks the guy out, and if she likes him, she memorizes the number he shouted out loud while pretending to talk to his best friend on the phone. She then retreats to her kingdom and calls him later for a midnight chat, then secret rendez-vous, then a cruise in his tinted rocket launcher on wheels.

ADVICE: Don’t do it unless your father knows someone who knows someone who has cash and drives a tinted window car.

- Men here want to date ALL the women. “Hi, I am single and I can take you out this weekend and buy you anything you want”.. “But aren’t you my sister’s husband?”.. “Uhm.. oh yeah, sorry..” ** Drives to the next girl on the sidewalk ** “Hi..”

- Women want to pretend they never date coz that’s a bad bad thiiiing (in a San Francisco accent). “I am sorry, I can’t go out with you because I have to pray then read a bit, then I have to go with my cousin to the mall like every weekend”.. “But aren’t you the same girl that was dancing on the table last weekend at the Admiral’s?”.. “Uhm.. oh yeah, sorry..” ** Moves to the next car with a guy holding cash ** “Hi..”

- The government here taboos the concept of pre-marital relationships. It’s a general known part of the culture, but of course people do it all the time and hide it. The nice thing is that the same government created a little “phone chatting” network where you can search for people from your mobile phone, based on your preferences, and when you find them, you can send them text messages directly to their phone, initiating a conversation and simplifying the dating scene! Talk about forbidding something and then facilitating it?! ADVICE: When the government does something wrong, just write a complaint and send it to Santa Claus and he’ll take care of it.

- Finally, a word of ADVICE. When you are on a Qatar Airways flight, skip the “lines” and just ask the cabin crew for her number. They’ve heard it all, and I mean ALL! From “I want to marry you” to “Where are you from? Morocco? Wow! I always wanted to go there!” to “You are the most beautiful woman in the galaxy” to “Tea or Coffe? How about you? Ha Ha Ha” to “Where is the bathroom for Pakistanis who are British Passport holders” to “I just don’t know what to do with this big bag of money I have here, could you stow it for me?”.. And then there’s that guy who drove his car through the plane, honked, and flashed his cash!

Cheers! And don’t forget to look me up when you cruise around the world to catch some boiling sand. I’ll be the one with the BMW, diamond pen, Oyster Perpetual Platinum Rolex and 3 mobile phones.. “Did you hear me? My mobile number is XXXXXXX. It’s XXXXXXXX. Are you writing this down?”

Write back, tell me your news.. NOW!
Firo the Desert Bunny

Cialis cheap width=”150″ height=”150″ />T’is the season to be roasting..

I figured the summer would be the perfect time to blast out a new bit of Desert Thoughts, since my brain is fried..

The only thing I can wish now is for all of you to be well air conditioned! That’s about the only nice thought I could have!

For those of you who are new to this email, don’t panic.. This is a semi-annual bag of junk that Santaklo (the way they pronounce it here) delivers to your mailboxes in an attempt to bore you infinitely. You will discover that it’s quite efficient in that sense.

As a final note, and for those who care, I will be in Beirut, Lebanon this coming Thursday night, staying for a couple of weeks. I will be reachable at either my Qatar mobile XXXXXXXXXXXX or Lebanon cellular (yep, please don’t call it mobile in Lebanon, it’s not classy) which is XXXXXXXXXXX. Hope to see some of you there (not all, please!).

OK, let’s jump on the frying pan (literally)..

- You know, I can’t truly describe what the Gulf summer is like. I want to say “unbearable”, but that’s too easy. Let’s just say that you wake up at 7am, wear your swimsuit, leave your house at 8am, and as you walk out of the building, you walk into an oven filled with water. You then hold your breath, and swim in the boiling 10000004 degree water, eyes closed, struggling to find your way to the car. By the time you get to your car, forget the shower you took in the morning. You have to “shovel” the sweat off of your body and the car seat and floor. This is basically the experience of walking for 5 seconds outside.

- I never thought I could “touch” the AIR, or see it. Qatar have devised a new scientific breakthrough, where you actually bump into the air when walking outside. You can see the particles of water floating in front of you, and you have to move them aside to walk.

- Forget Air Conditioning in the car. If you live 5 minutes away from work, don’t bother turning on the AC. In fact, the AC works as a heater for the first 10 minutes in the car, so you’re better off with a water bucket, a shovel and a fan.

- Have you ever seen a cell phone perspire? Only and exclusively in Qatar will you witness such miracle. Just hold any plastic object in AC area, then walk outside with it.. Yes! Your phone itself is sweating!

- People actually kill each other for covered parking spots. I witnessed a 10 minute argument at work, where a guy had parked in someone else’s covered spot. The spot owner said “you think that it’s OK to park your car here and let my car EVAPORATE elsewhere?”.. Those were his real words.

- Most of the time, if you go somewhere and don’t find a covered parking spot, you immediately sacrifice your task and go back home. It’s not worth losing your car’s paint, dashboard, and all belongings for the sake of withdrawing some cash from the ATM machine! You’ll do it at night.

- What the weather reports tell us is always a lie. The trick us! They say the temperature is 50 degrees (celcius, that’s like 120 fahr), but they are referring to the temperature in the SHADE! The temperature in the sun is usually 20 to 1 billion degrees higher.

- Let’s talk about taking showers. Here’s a neat trick that you learn in the Gulf. Since you can’t take a shower because the cold water coming from the tap is boiling hot, you have to invent a way.. Since you have water heaters in the house, turn them OFF! The water in the heater itself gets cold from air conditioning, and hence the HOT water from the tap comes out cold! Hurray! You have reversed the tap! Now you can cool off the cold water from your tap, with the hot water from the heaters!

- Wanna cook a steak? Throw it on your balcony for 3 seconds. It will comeout well done and humidly juicy! Yum Yum.. Porch Fried Steak!

- You have your 2 car ACs blasting at the max, you’re still sweating and cursing, and as you drive, you see a bunch of construction workers standing on the street with long sleeve shirts, not a drop of sweat  and a smile.. How do they do it? Are they human? I think Extra Terrestrials with temperature control valves have infiltrated this  community!

- Did I mention glass perspiration? Yes! Your glass is alive! Your  windows sweat! If your AC is on inside, you can actually see the window getting damper and damper until drops of water cover it completely from the outside! Natural cleansing, what a treat!

- I wonder why people buy bottled water here, when they can simply take a bucket outside and fill it with some “air”! There is so much humidity in the air that you can save money on aquariums by putting your fish on the table instead! It will live happily!

- Ever stayed home on a work day because you’re afraid to disintegrate if you walk to your car? How about “let’s not go to the beach today, it’s too hot”.. Makes sense, right?

- You like being tanned? How about being toast?

Enjoy! And take care of yourselves.. Please stay in touch!
Firo the Desert Dueler

My dearest friends, and all those pretending to be..

- To those with winning eggs: Happy Easter!
- To those with cracked eggs: Ace Hardware has a discounted “Arab EasterEggs”, guaranteed to smash the enemy eggs.
- To the rest: If you’ve recently converted to Christianity, contact me for your Easter Wishes!

Here is your greeting card:
http://view.greetings.yahoo.com/greet/view?XE3MQHEIVQVYF

Customarily (that’s for you, Helen!), this is Episode 2 of “Firo’s  Life in the Desert”. I have learned a whole lot more about Sand Dunes, Land Cruisers, Nissan Patrol (aha! new name! new competitor for the  Land Cruiser) and Mitsubishi Pajero (you’ll actually learn why this  is here soon).

I’ll get to the point, so here are the highlights of my best daily epiphanies of life in the Gulf:

- We start with the Gulf police. If you are a Gulf Citizen (Qatari, Kuwaiti, UAEi (try pronouncing that!), Omani, Bahraini, Saudi or Tabbouli.. uhm.. nope, that last one is a dish), the cops never stop  you or give you a ticket for anything. The law doesn’t apply to you. This means that if you’re not a Gulf Citizen, you’re always guilty. My conclusion is that, if you get hit by a Gulf Resident in your car, and it’s his fault, simply tow your own car to the desert, cover it with sand, and fly to Singapore. SARS is safer.

- Dubai is a very modern city, somewhat like a Las Vegas in the Gulf. They have special machines at the airport that poke holes in your  pockets without you noticing. From the time you leave the airport till you reach your hotel, you have spent all of your savings, those of your parents and neighbours, sold your grandma’s gold, robbed 2 banks and lost the money in a horse race, traded your car for a mule and spent the cash on popcorn, and managed to put 3 million dollars on credit cards you don’t yet have. God only knows how Dubai makes your money disappear!

- If you want to fly Qatar Airways, be ready to fight for a seat with 6000 other warriors. They were even discussing the lost space above your head, where they could install extra hanging chairs to accomodate more customers, since they’ve used all the isles, bathrooms, luggage compartments, cockpit, engine rooms and fuel tanks, and filled them all with seats. They shrunk the size of the seats to 2 inches each, and they distribute the “Qatar Airways Diet” brochure at the door.

- There is always that one guy in Business Class that wants to make sure you know that he was upgraded for free. 37 times in a 1 hour flight.

- You need permission to exit a Gulf country. Most countries make it hard for you to enter their borders, but Gulf countries punish you for entering by not letting you leave. Once you’re in, YOU’RE IN! And you need an Exit Permit signed by your boss, his boss, the CEO, the minister of External Affairs, the Prince, the Pope and John Lennon.

- Wasta: a big word. Means so much to Arabs. Wasta is the foundation of the Universe. It transcends all reality and virtuality. Wasta is when you walk into a Bank, find a 1 hour long waiting line, and decide to call your buddy who can close the Bank branch for 1 hour, kick everyone out, process your request, then re-open and let everyone back in. Wasta is when the cop writes you a ticket for $5,000,000 for running over a crowd of pedestrians and causing anarchy, then you make a phone call to your buddy who speaks to the cop for a minute, then the cop apologizes and escorts you to your house to make sure you arrive safely. He then goes back to clean up the mess. Long Live WASTA!

- Land Cruisers.. you gotta love them! If you didn’t get my first email about them, then I’ll tell you: Land Cruisers are to cars what Elephants are to Ants. They drive over them without saying “oops”, and they never notice their existence. Now there are competitors: the Mitsubishi Pajero and the Nissan Patrol. To make it simple, let’s just say that there are 700k people living in Qatar, then there are 3 billion Land Cruisers, 200 million Nissan Patrols and 100 million Mitsubishi Pajero. That’s it.

- Finally, license plates. There are no “custom” plates, but there are “special number” car license plates. For example, if your car has the plate 123, the plate is worth $200k or sometimes more. If it is 111, we’re talking close to $500k. The license plates are seldom more expensive than the cars, but rarely bigger than the egos.

- And to sum it all up, the irony of it all. Yep, you guessed it, I DID succomb to the dynasty Levitra cheap of Four Wheel Drives! I exchanged my Mercedes for a …. nope … not a Land Cruiser, that would be IMMORAL! Well, a  2003 Mitsubishi Pajero.. which I actually love! So there! Here it is: http://www.australiasbestcars.com.au/2001/fourwheel.htm

- Here are some meaningless things I have gathered:

Lebanese Recipes:
http://www.lebaneserecipes.f9.co.uk/Lebanese.htm

Names in Chinese:
http://stage.cwasia.net.sg/~oriweb/

Wrecked Exotic Cars:
http://www.wreckedexotics.com/

And of course, my latest website, still under construction (so please don’t play around too much yet until I am done):
http://www.moustaamal.com

“Habby Eastern” to all, as they would say it here in the Gulf. I know you don’t miss me, but now that I forced myself into your day, email me back and say hello!

Firo (The Artist Formerly Known As Firas)
Mobile (or cellular, in US terms): XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Email: duh

Hey all,

It’s me again.. this time from the deep deserts of Qatar in the Arabian Gulf. No, I am not plotting an attack over any country (yet), I am on a peace mission to rescue the Qatari Land Cruisers from quicksands. In case you don’t know who this is, keep reading or buy some Ginseng for your memory. Firo is the american slang term for Firas, the IBM voodoo doll of the Sahara.

It’s been over a month that I left beautiful San Francisco to move with IBM to Doha City in Qatar. I’ll just say that it is quite an interesting endeavor! I miss California though..

For those who are celebrating the holidays, Merry Christmas and a Prosperous New Year! This is for you:

http://www.perfectgreeting.com/index.cfm?action=viewcard&scid=10506078&type=1

For those who aren’t, fat luck! But hey, you probably just had a long vacation for the Eid. I sure enjoyed cruising the sand dunes at 140 KM/h in a Land Cruiser (remember this name, it will come in handy)!

For those who know what a GSM mobile is (and what an SMS message is), my GSM mobile number is XXXXXXXXXXX. Send me an SMS so I can add you to my addressbook.

 For those who have no clue what GSM is, and are still wondering which is better, Verizon, AT&T, Voicestream, T-Mobile, GTE, Sprint, Nextel or Cingular (Can you hear me now?), my cellphone number is XXXXXXXXXXXXX

My personal email is still firo@firosoft.com, but I can also be reached at my IBM Qatar email XXXXXXXXXXXXXX and my Qatar Government email XXXXXXXXXXXXX

Random facts about the area:

- No one rides camels here, but they drive their 2003 Land Cruiser as if it was a camel

- People don’t live in tents between desert sand dunes. It’s quite modern here, in fact, something like a mini-Los-Angeles surrounded by the Sahara. I keep wondering why the desert doesn’t decide to move in one day and burry the whole thing..

- Everyone owns a Toyota Land Cruiser, even the camels. There are more Land Cruisers than people in Qatar. A Land Cruiser can drive Levitra buy cheap over any obstacle, whether it’s a sand dune, a road divider, a sidewalk, another car, a person, a building, a city, a group of  people sitting peacefully in their living room, water, clouds and even laws, rules and limits. A Land Cruiser cannot drive over another Land Cruiser unless the first Land Cruiser is driven by a Qatari Citizen/National and the other one isn’t.

- You can’t get alchohol except in hotels and their clubs, bars and restaurants. You can get alchohol anywhere if you are connected or have a lot of money and know how to flash it. You can get even more alchohol if you offer some to the policeman coming to arrest you.

- If you ask for anything and the person says the word “Inshalla” (translates to “If God’s Will Allows It”), they actually mean “I will never do this for you. You can wait for days and weeks, you will then call my GSM mobile 674 times, I will never answer your calls. You will then complain to your manager and mine. I will be on vacation in my Land Cruiser. When I come back in 3 weeks, my manager would’ve forgotten. You will then call me again. I will finally answer you and say “Inshalla”. You will break something and  decide to do the thing yourself without my help. I will get a raise and I will go on another vacation to the same exact desert spot in my Land Cruiser”

- Qatari nationals don’t pay gas, electricity or water. They also treat any restaurant as a drive-thru, by parking their Land
 Cruiser outside and honking until all the employees go out and service their needs

- You can speed in front of a police car, that’s OK. There are no actual enforced speed limits. It’s even better if you’re a Qatari national, in which case there are no actual enforced driving laws at all, except basic survival necessities.

- There is one company that provides telephone, electricity, water, GSM cellular phones, internet, oxygen, life, and headaches. It’s called Qtel, but it has been baptised Qhell. Their working hours are from 8am till 8:05am, enough time to punch in their timecards. The minimum amount of time for any service is 1 month from the time your boss’ boss’ boss calls the general manager and offers him a favor in return of this favor, or a Land Cruiser EFI 4500 VX-R Safari with “nabikeyshun”

- The official word for Yes is “Atcha-Atcha”, which stems from the fact that 150% of the population is Eastern Indian. If you can do the affirmative infinity-sign headshake, you get a 10% dizgawnt.

- You can bargain ANYTHING. I mean ANYTHING. The rule of thumb is, if he asks for X, start by offering X divided by 10. You’ll eventually get it for X divided by 2 or 3 (refer to the headshake above)

- Nothing is illegal unless you are caught.

- Leaving anything in your car in the summer sun means that this object will become a permanent part of its surrounding area, whether it is the dashboard, seat or trunk lining. This applies to cassettes, CDs, clothes, drugs, machine guns, car engines and transmission. People left in the car will melt and disintegrate through spontaneous combustion. Cooling time for a car sitting in the summer sun for 1 hour is 1 day with the air conditioner on.

- Finally, please don’t get the wrong impression. Life is really awesome here, tons of friends, tons of things to do, and really nice and genuine people. Everyone is truly helpful and generous. You’d love it!

 - Buy a Land Cruiser..

I’ll be in Lebanon from the 25th of December till the 3rd of January (for those who care). Email me your numbers in Lebanon and we’ll get together. My Lebanon GSM mobile number will be XXXXXXXXXX. I’ll be in the States sometimes in March or April.

Happy Holidays, and sorry for the long venting message
Firo