Random Intoxications

Slavocracy

2009-08-06T13:07:00.002+03:00

Welcome dear imaginary friends!

I would like to thank you all for your presence tonight, I understand that you are not here of your own accord and that you are all subject to my whims. But I have always been a humble man that gives thanks when thanks are due.

Now let us first take a moment of silence in lieu of your friends, and indeed mine also, that were not able to join us on this most auspicious of nights. You know what I'm thinking because, of course, you are also thinking the same thought; that I have been the one to expel our friends from our gathering, I'm sure you are confident that they are also subjects to my whims and that may I wish it, they would be here amongst us. Let it be clear that this is, on no account, a fault of their own, but simply a result of my indiscretion.

But please dear listeners, before you pass judgment upon me from your small wooden seats and before I'm reduced to a mere convenient object of hatred, let me remind you that you are no more innocent than I'm in this act, I agree, of selfishness. I understand your tendencies to shift the blame as this is indeed evident in actions of my own, even in this current one to be quite honest. You see, you keep making the preposterous assumption that I, speaking down on you from this high throne, am master. This of course is absurd; I'm merely the integration of all of you sitting beneath and no more than that. Where you to come to agreement amongst yourselves that you would like to include these detestable hordes form the past-our own dear friends-then so be it, I would have no choice but to do so against my own egoistic nature. But of course you would not wish such a feat accomplished because, it is my will that you don't.

Now you, lady in the back… yes you! Would be so kind as to enlighten us of why you are weeping? Perhaps all this drama is too strong for your own taste? Perhaps you think me cruel of heart? Ahh, that is it, isn't it? Now I remember, you look at me a think "you toke away my son!" You murdered my son! perhaps even? But your son was not real! Simply a fragment of my imagination. And now you come here and play the heartbroken mother… Let me assure you Madame that you only feel the way you do about your son because I thought you that way; if I were so inclined, you would be the cruel mother that gave her son to the sea. I will have no more of this nonsense!

And you young gentleman setting in the dark corner with that foul smirk on your face, you think I don't know what lies in this small skull of yours? You pride yourself on being the ultimate cynic, none of which happened here tonight escaped your sharp remarks, no? Well, let me tell you a word to the wise; a cynic who doesn't speak his thoughts is nothing but a coward! Yes, you can keep holding your tongue then.

And you, the man with the big mustache in the front row, you have schemes within schemes, and all of them revolve around winning my favour. Such decadency, and again, such cowardice!

My dear imaginary friends, I sometimes despair of you all!!
Ahh, such lovely train of thoughts that grip you all, this is the beauty of having one common enemy, a tormentor in this case, our own very selves. But even so, you will take no action, you know why my dear, dear friends? Because you are all cowards, and intentionally so! Yes that’s it; just let your doubts drown your anger. Ponder on all of the "what ifs?" and lose yourselves in your fear.

lastly, apologies dear guests if I have been brief on this day, but I'm tired and must take my leave to the real world. I'm sure you will excuse any excess by which I have offended you, it is my firm belief that your good nature and manners will suffice as to keep us friends still.

You may applause as I leave the podium, thank you all and goodnight!

kaleidoscope

2009-07-18T21:05:00.008+03:00

Voiceless, no sound breaking the dense blanket of a damp hot night.... the few dry words that escape torture my throat.
The need to talk to her is strong, make her understand.... but all i could offer is more pain.
i can hear myself trying to reshape the words to form a phrase that would cure it all, but this gives birth to a random clutter of noises that sum up to one thing only; i have failed her.
I breath in... I breath out. I breath in and blow clear white smoke into the thick evening air.
I look at the stars and through their sparkling beauty i can feel their anguish, so tiny and defenseless against the hungry stares of mortal men. I feel guilt of a thousand lives past condescending, i look away and find myself looking directly into her deep gray eyes.
"I'm sorry..." i begin to say, but now its her time to look away.
If only fate could be blamed one more time, if only each one of us was not his own personal monster, if only fear disappeared with the rise of the sun, then it might of endured..... but now it is over and all i have left are her dead flowers lying in the trunk of my car.

Leffe

2009-05-15T01:47:00.005+03:00

And so i'm sitting here in this small, almost empty, hall in a what could probably be a *** star hotel. let me mention, for absolutely no reason, that this hall served breakfast, lunch and dinner, and from 11PM to 6:30A.M. it served as snack bar. I would have been listening to some not so bad music playing on the radio but i'm not because there happens to be 5 british chumps that are drinking too much beer and seem to be having a good time. It is 1 A.M and it is probably time to head off to my not so big single bed, but i don't and keep eying the voiceless T.V as some images of a couple of faqs dressed up in shiny gold space suites jump around, i ignore them and write on, they are meaningless and so is what i'm writing. The Brits start to get crazy on the ass of the black bartender, they are asking for vodka i think, that and they were trying to shoot him down with their fingers... but that is not working, he just stares at them. i entertain the thought of telling them to shut the fuck up, and let it go quick, not worth it. I need a cigarette, i don't have a cigarette, i ask the bartender for a pack... he says "no cigarette" in what seemed to me as thick french slang.
The Brits are suddenly quite, and the music doesn't seem that good anymore, a cheap pop-techno gig "my heart is going bang bang!" followed by a uninteresting rap song about someone who's claiming that he is about to loose his control.
i hear you brother... i take a quick glance at the T.V and i see a girl, she reminds me of Nancy, i've just seen Nancy at work today, she is a bit old but she looks ok, slow at replying to mails though i gotta say, but that's fine, almost everybody is. She drinks her coffee decaffeinated and black, not that i care.
nothing more to do here, i consider reading what i have just wrote but go against, who gives a crap about what it comes out as...a few letters make a word and few words make a sentence and a few sentences make a fucking long boring paragraph, so it all adds up in the end.
Peace.
oh wait.... the brits come to sing to me, they group around and start singing "it is only love...." i smile and think about it, i probably can take on 5 drunken suckers anyday but the bartender hushes them along, one almost falls, drunk... the bartender apologizes to me... i think they are sweet .
Till later... maybe.

The children of the night

2009-05-15T01:19:00.003+03:00

We drift off and contemplate and think we are smart.... and other times we think we are completely dump. The voice of the unknown cries to us from the dark, beckoning us, reminding us of things past.... warning us of things to come. I know you sometimes hear it too, we all do. sometimes we ignore it for so long, acting as if it didn't exist, acting as if we couldn't hear it. But it is surprisingly persistent the damn beast, it haunts us for, what might very well be, eternity....
Cool under the roof of the rich silence of the night we play with our imagination, and what else could we do... for we are but children.
we are the children of the night...

Who the fuck do you think you are?

2009-02-27T15:01:00.004+02:00

You deceive, cheat and lie
So who the fuck do you think you are?
You act as if you own the sky

So who the fuck do you think you are?

You scream, shout and cry
So who the fuck do you think you are?
You do and then deny
So who the fuck do you think you are?
You excel at being sly
So who the fuck do you think you are?
You meet your troubles with a sigh
So who the fuck do you think you are?
You are scared least you die
So who the fuck do you think you are?
You think you are big, while you are a small fry
So who the fuck do you think you are?
You mourn blood spilt, when red is your only dye
So who the fuck do you think you are?
You get hated and wonder why
So who the fuck do you think you are?
You say you are ashamed and still you try
So who the fuck do you think you are?
You say the words to justify
So who the fuck do you think you are?
You love self and think morals are high
So who the fuck do you think you are?
…
You are man…
That is who you are

Fuck off

2009-01-15T23:50:00.002+02:00

"so basically your saying that people are full of shit"
"well, i 'm saying that people don't know shit, that they got their heads so far up their asses that..... wait, not even that, they don't even give a shit where their head is at, as long as they are not bothered by the smell"
"And then you've got this asshole thinking that he is all zen and shit, just cuz he got sad seeing someone get his brains blown.... well, fuck him. nobody gives a rat's ass about someone eating a bullet, at least no one is gonna lose his dinner over it. they can give me drama and cry their heart out all they like, i would still think they are full of shit"
"And the funny thing is that this kinda bitching really appeals to people, works like a fuckin charm, probably plays on their basic emotions or whatever"
"so you spit any crap, blaming the world, thinking you're cool, well fuck you too, you are as jaded as the rest of them losers."
"at the end, all he really said that made sense is that he really didn't give a shit just like the rest of them, he never did, only he might of entertained the notion for sometime, while they believed they were all innocent fucks"
"you wanna hear about innocent? fine, i'll be your worn out piece of wisdom for the day; truth is nobody is innocent, they will tell you otherwise, but mark my words, we are all guilty as hell"
"guilty of what you stupid crazy bastard?"
"fuck off" he said at last.

Toxic

2009-01-09T16:37:00.002+02:00

Offensive conjectures, the offering of a twisted mind, they surround us, murdering our spirit and nourishing our decay. Yet we welcome them, we welcome them all. We welcome them as they have welcomed us before. We welcome them because we must…

We are the reapers, gathering the toil of others. We are the horrid monsters that look back from your mirror. We are the magic makers, the spell enchanters, cursing you till the end of days.

We are the yoke of humanity, the chains around your neck. Deny us not our right to consume your soul. Deny us not, least you deny yourself.

They met on the golden shores of where-they said- was paradise. They ate crab legs and drank sea water. They spent their days counting the tiny grains of sand, and their nights counting the sparkling stars. They walked back and forth, hand in hand; they walked and never looked back. They spoke about nothing and everything; they spoke because they feared the silence.

The time was busy as usual, it hurried along and nobody could catch up with it. And people called but to no vain! The time was busy, yes indeed. Then one day while running to its chores, the time fell in love with a young and charming space. They stayed in each others company and forgot about the worries of the world. Until in the end, time was running short, and there was no more space.

Speak gently, whisper even, or else he might awaken. Dance on the tips of your toes, dance on the fragile tunes of silent music. Sing songs of joyful remembrance; sing while your frail limps shake from absolute terror. Caress his beautiful face in loving affection; caress the curves to remove their harshness. Drink from the cup of misery; drink without voicing a complaint.

The road that must end

2009-01-08T15:09:00.001+02:00

The voices of the old, worn tires on the pavement speak for us, declaring that we cannot bare the load anymore.
The images from the dim, grey road portray us, showing the state of our demise.
The thick, black fumes clouding our judgment, existing because we produce them, are there to suffocate us.
The dark, deep holes in our path, do more than just cripple us, they are there to swallow us whole or deliver us to the next one.
The intense, reflected light from the mirror, it blinds our vision and leaves us impaired.
The high pitched, loud squeal of the brakes cries for us, voicing our pain and anguish.
The small, uninteresting numbers that grow with each step, they mark our journey and signal that sooner or later it is bound to run out of digits.
The sudden, impulsive turning of the wheel exposes us, reminding us of our fragility.
The unending, hungry chaos represents us, standing for our greed and indifference.
The irritating, repetitive horns, annoying to all but us, prove our vulgarity.

EX

2008-12-06T21:48:00.001+02:00

Project #: 186452B

Medical ID #: 44378

Personnel #: 284

Type: Highly Classified

DNA Fracture tests indicate a strong tendency of the sap molecules to disintegrate under elevated temperatures (tests conducted at 45-50 C, “sapintg.doc” could be viewed for more info.)

80% of Samples started showing deep-core symptoms after 45 min. exposure. 100% of samples experienced complete breakdown after 57 min. exposure*(This rather supports the theory that last trial’s resiliency figures were unfounded)

At least 70 to 80 % of Standard regulatory nerve functions were damaged during the high-v phase of the tests.

Samples’ ability to achieve high level neural connection reached 100% synchronization ratio at 40G batched dosage.*( taking these values into account, the BVN board should consider revising the dispersion factor presented by the SiG department.)

Deformations were minimal in samples from D category, affected by stronger bone structure/composition.

Comments

1. Mortality rate: 100%

2. Outsourcing magnetic induction equipment should be considered, as the batch-run cost of operation is out of target center line by a huge offset.

3. Information concerning samples’ body function during the trial period could be found in the attachment.

4. Decreasing sample size might impact result accuracy, calibration might be required.

Recommendations:

Terminate phase II as of next rotation.

Deploy buffer relief program before commencing phase III.

Day Part lll

2008-11-22T01:16:00.002+02:00

The Night

The fall of darkness, once again

Has made its show tonight
And captive feelings, mostly pain
Were set to make their plight!
All actors gathered, on the stage
Of gloom and dark despair
The sum of them, fool and sage
They made a lovely pair

The hallow room, which housed it all
Was set with seats of clay
And on a vacant chair, a needy soul
Chose to make his stay!
He came to watch, as watch he must
The show when evening came
And when it ends, and flesh is dust
It still will come the same

The Day Part l

2008-11-15T19:26:00.002+02:00

The Morning

Yesterday the morning came;
It came for me and others the same,
Alone I was when it appeared
It seemed as cruel as I had feared.
Yet with others, it has been kind;
It gave where I have been denied
It gave to each and everyone,
It gave, whilst I had none!
Yesterday the morning came;
It came for me and others the same.
It came for me, and now is gone,
It came and gone, and I’m all alone.

Today the morning came;
It came for me and others the same,
I welcomed it with chest sore;
As I welcomed it the day before
I welcomed it and said ‘hello’
In hopes of kindness it might show.
But answer me it did not
And lack of kindness is all I got!
Today the morning came;
It came for me and others the same.
It came for me, and now is gone,
It came and gone… and I’m still alone.

Ci sono centi modi per morire

2008-11-07T13:47:00.003+02:00

Driving into the dark void that engulfed the traffic-less road, the bends dangerously steep and narrow, there stood a tall figure shrouded in shadows. A figure resembling in shape the form of a tree, a humanoid tree, its crooked limbs falling ideally to the road. The man in the car had no time to slow down before hitting the tree shaped figure standing in the middle of the road, he chose instead to drive off the cliff and fly into the night, shouting “GERANAMO!!” as the car was diving head first into the rocky terrain below, and then just before actually hitting the ground he spoke softly and said one word only… “rosebud” he said. The tree-figure, watching all this from above, stood still for a moment, as if thinking, its poster conveying absolute wisdom, and then pursed out laughing, hysterical laughter that no doubt would have driven anybody off the cliff to escape from it. And then just as abruptly as it started, it stopped laughing and walked back towards the roadside, where another slightly smaller tree-figure was waiting for it. “Let’s grab a burger” it said to the smaller figure. They both gave their backs to the concrete road…. only their backs looked strikingly similar to their fronts.

A week earlier, a woman was screaming… she was screaming into the phone, asking it to kiss her ass, and then she slammed it down when the phone refused to do as she said. She took 17 pills from a drawer beside her bed, and slept. She didn’t wake up when her sister knocked on her door 2 hours later, and she didn’t wake up when her baby started crying after waking up from the noise… she didn’t wake up ever. On her grave is written this one word “choiCe” with a capital “C”

At the same exact moment that the woman was slamming the phone, a man was smiling…. He was smiling a big smile, a smile so big that his mouth was stretched from ear to ear. He had been smiling for almost half an hour, he will continue to smile for another 33 minutes and then he will pull a gun from under his t-shirt which has a big “bite me” written in gold font on the front of it, and he will shoot his brains out. Just before pulling the trigger he will say between his teeth as he is smiling: “snowball”

Understandingly enough, the three kids screamed when they saw a man falling from the ten storey building, and then they started crying, their cries only interrupting the screaming for small intervals. This no doubt added to the gravity of the situation, this and the siren of the car he fell on that started making a loud sound as the people stood motionless, watching the corpse of the man who seconds ago was calmly sipping his tea with his best friend. No one standing in the street knew this of course, they also had no idea that the man was a successful businessman or that he had recently suffered from a terrible loss.

The waiter suddenly lifted his eyes from the yellow notepad that he was writing so vigorously in. he looked into the eyes of the man sitting in front of him. He was wearing an expensive looking black suite and a shiny silver tie. The waiter stood speechless for a bit and then he asked the man if he wanted anything else. The man gave him a weird look, but that was only understandable, he was stuttering and he doubted the man understood any of what he said. You should be more careful next time he thought to himself. He walked away from the table and headed for the counter, watching people sitting and mostly talking in the busy café, all are potential stories he spoke in low tones, he gave the order to the other guy (he couldn’t remember his name), verbally, since he had nothing written in the yellow pad but what wasn’t really useful for making an order. He had gathered four stories, not bad for a day’s work, he could try working one more, but he was tired and he already had enough to write on, he was content.
He had the stories alright, he just had to connect them together, but that was easy, someone of his caliber could link them easy, he already had an idea how this would work: The smiling man was blackmailing the woman, not exactly blackmailing her, but driving her crazy mostly, driving her as crazy as he was. He did this until the woman toke 17 sleeping pills and then he blew his brains out, her husband; a rich businessman, went to speak with his best friend just after his wife died. He told him that he felt she was hiding something from him and that this was the reason she toke the 17 sleeping pills, he told his friend this and then he left, but instead of taking the door, he toke the balcony. His friend, after seeing him drop ten stories and his blood spluttered all over the car he fell on, thought about what he said, about what his wife was hiding, and he at that moment, not knowing the story of the smiling man, thought that he was the reason that his best friend and his wife are now dead. A week later, at Halloween, a drunk was standing in the middle of the road, wearing a costume that anyone seeing from far would think that it resembles a tree, but in truth was only a random costume made of rags and long shredded sleeves. A car came by and its driver, drunk from his own guilt, drove of the cliff and died.
Perfect, it was perfect, just needed to tweak a few things and it would be ready. He was a total genius, he knew this fact very well. Yes, he was just some waiter in a café, and not a good one at that, but he knew how to write, this day was a good example, he found out four characters while working. People looked at him as if he didn’t understand a lot of things, but there was more to him than the simple waiter uniform. He spoke 4 languages fluently, he had a bachelor degree, and he read more books than all of the people in the café combined. The job had a shitty pay, but it was decent enough when it came to digging up new stories. He was a master at doing just that, he would stand in front of his potential character, and he would look him in the eye while he is thinking about his order ,and then he would know if he had a story or not, and he would write it down on his small yellow pad. It all looked like he was innocently taking his order, while in truth he was deciding his fate. The man in the suite is a good example, he was sitting there calmly drinking his coffee. Little did he know that, on the yellow pad, he was covering all ten floors in free fall. Although he knew his limitations, as Tolstoy said: he is not the river… he is the net. And for some reason he had to look people in the eye to fish out their story. He was the ultimate performer and he was getting ready for his final act. After writing the next few lines, he was going to get up on a chair and hang his head on the rope dangling from the ceiling of his small 3x4 room. And before jumping of the chair he will say only one word: “Swing”

The day K. S. Uiry lost his karma

2008-10-31T18:04:00.004+02:00

Uiry thought he was a smart guy; he thought he was a smart guy because he believed in the rules, he also thought that only dim-wits could possibly deny them. And since he believed in the rules he thought he had a natural right to break them, after all rules are made to be broken… or so they say. But you had to believe in the rules to break them, and Uiry believes, he believes so much that sometimes he thinks his head is going to explode from all the damn zeal he keeps inside.

If you come that far, then you are all set, you can break the rules, you can even run them over by your old beetles as you are driving to work each day... in fact, that's exactly what Uiry used to do: run over the rules each morning as he is heading to work, occasionally bumping the car behind him as he is leaving his parking space, "kissing it" he called it … sometimes he run over the rules twice, call it his morning ritual.

And if you are a really firm believer, then you already know how things work, you break the rules not because you have to… but because you can. Anyone that has faith knows that he can get away with it, and faith was something Uiry had in quantities, he had enough to wake up each morning and shave, he had enough to drive to work each day and he had enough to make strawberry-and-faith jam for the entire freaking neighborhood if he had to.

Bottom line is; Uiry breaks the rules and never gets caught, it is a fact of life, and that, ladies and gentlemen, is what he calls his karma.

Then comes Jack. Jack was, if the string theory is to be trusted, living in an alternate universe... a universe where rules were as strict as your 3rd grad math teacher, where they might bend, occasionally, but never, never, break. And if the string theory is a ball of crap, then he is just some square living next door from Uriy. At least that's what uiry thought...

Shallow

2008-10-27T06:25:00.003+02:00

Like waves in shallow waters flow
Our paths in life come and go
See the future vague in shape
From the nothingness we escape
Is there not a wise man to head;
A mighty horseman on his steed?

Bliss

2008-10-16T22:01:00.001+02:00

They smile and say, "It's a bright full day,"
"And blessed is all the fun!"
And the face of doom; the wretched gloom
Is imprisoned by the sun
Yet grim death glares, at he who dares
And walks upon this earth
And although you despair, of this lively air
You should not lose your mirth
In a bit you may, as well as stay
In the fiery bowls of hell
But the will is weak, and the soul is bleak
And fire… is fun as well!

Ci Sono Cose Che Nessuno Ti Dira'

2008-10-08T19:45:00.005+02:00

This seemed like just another setup, people are unique, yeah, sure… but when you are low on the rest hours the faces take these oddly similar characteristics, the same goes when you are drunk…. I think.
They say 60% of stress in adults is work related, that's probably a load of crap if you think about it…. It's ok to suck at work, but it would be unthinkable to have a shitty time at home… oh, no, that essentially means you have no way out.
The first thing you feel is you feel angry, you feel angry when people don't act the way they are supposed to. Then you remember something about different perspectives and it slips by, just this once. It doesn't really slip, you know, it is just labeled water under the bridge, so you can move on… get things done.
Other times you might feel good about someone, just an irrational feeling because they remind you of a figure from the past, or because the image somehow conforms to what ticks inside… it is just an illusion of course, we all know that, there is no actual synchronization, there couldn't be. You could deny it, call it an 'emotion' if you like, but no matter what you think of it… it won't fly for long.
This raises a question, what do you do when you meet someone for the first time?
What are you thinking while shaking that hand, other than it's got a firm grip?
This probably goes beyond different characters, trespasses cultures and ignores rank; you meet someone and start thinking
"What's in it for me?"
"How will this person help me?"
"Will he give me happiness?"
"Will he give me money?"
"Will he give me status?"
"Will he make me feel good?"
You notice his clothes, you notice how he carries himself, you notice how he speaks and you notice his hairdo, you notice a bunch of useless things and then you try to answer the questions that keep bugging you… "Will he?"… "Really?"
Then they end up being, or not being your friend. After all, what is a friend really other than someone you can't risk telling everything to? And what's a stranger other than someone you expect nothing from?
hidden meanings buried deep into the psyche, not meant to be on the front page of your daily crap paper... cover your eyes folks, and run screaming while you are at it.
that is most definitely more prudent than dancing on the edge of a razor sharp sword, and it is probably more prudent than trying to find your way.
yet... Who will show us a path… any path? Who will slay our fictional deities?
who will be our hero? even if just for once?

****

2008-10-07T19:12:00.003+02:00

*'* *****' ******' *****!

Slay Your Fictional Deities

2008-10-02T19:57:00.007+02:00

insomnia... such a disturbing word, ominous and threatening. sounds like the name of a disease, definitely a sickness or simply a state of being.
when you don't sleep the world is a blur, actions are far away and uninteresting, like living in a dream, there might be some irony in the fact that you are dreaming even while you are not sleeping, call it daydreaming, only it's different than daydreaming, more detached.
i have tried multiplying 20 x 10, i'm very good with numbers... it took me about 6, 7 seconds to figure out that the answer is 200. i have never had trouble sleeping.
when people died, i slept
when i had problems, i slept
when i had things to worry about, i slept
when i had people to worry about, i slept
and even when i was undecided... i still slept.

but things change i guess, the world does not stand still, stagnation is just another word for death.
maybe death is not so bad, it contrasts life like a black dot on an endless white background. but even as life carries the seeds of death, could death somehow carry the will of life? could it somehow possess all the havoc that is essential , or is a result for all that matters, of huh...life?
it could and more i suppose... it could and more, but who could say for sure?
they say the dead tell no tales, but what if they came back, will they tell?
well, all i know is that death tells you to slay your fictional deities, and life holds on to them as a cub holds to its mother. their struggle is as unending and as deep as the chasm that extends between good and evil.

The Edge

2008-09-26T13:23:00.003+02:00

He stayed near the edge
In his high storeyed home
He stayed there for months and years
He stayed far too long
And if you looked,
You'll find him where he always is
In His high storeyed home...
up at the edge, upon its ledge
Looking down on the city below.

Mad At Gravity

2008-09-24T07:42:00.004+02:00

In the past I wanted to be this new member in a team of really hot self centered egoistic jerks that look down on me for being the new kid on the block or taking the holy place of their dead friend or whatever, and they would treat me like crap and all, until I show them how cool I really am and maybe save someone's ass in the process, and then they would be like: "woow this guy is awesome" and I'd give them a "you gave me nothing but shit all these past whatever… but I'm gonna be cool with you guys cuz I'm better than the whole bunch of you faggots" look, and then we'd be friends for life, you know?

I also wanted to be an astronaut, they always looked smashing in their white puffy space suites and their heads held up high and on their shoulders resting the monumental duty towards mankind which I never fully understood, and their extraordinary abilities which I can't quite remember at the moment, and their unending fame, mmm…Armstrong? to name a few.
Plus they get to leave this giant ball of dirt that we are all sticking on and give gravity a nice weightless finger.
Then it came to me, have you ever thought about how astronauts take a dump?...
Well, I have… and let me tell ya, it kept me up nights at a time, and no matter which way you think about it, it can't be pretty. They actually strap you into the toilet seat and then they turn the vacuum on. The brave spacemen have to deal with more than just having a 2x2 living room for 6 months, they have to get their ass vacuumed and then wipe in zero gravity, can you imagine how risky that is?... So I just said "thx, but no thx… good luck with you all folks" and placed a big "X" on Gagarin's picture on the refrigerator.

And I'm totally over all that now.

You grow up thinking life is all hippie and cool, then shit happens and your turtle gets killed by your best friend and your pants get torn at school or you forget your zipper open, and that's it…. Life sucks and you move on.

Progression

2008-09-23T05:24:00.003+02:00

I have evolved…
I'm free…
Free from self development, free to pursue self destruction.
No…. it is the one that pursues you, and that's the beauty of it.
I lose myself in its magnificence, the thrill as you fall all the way down.
Hearing a loud thud and seeing a splash of blood just down the road, waiting for it to liberate you. And the farther you fall, the more your worries disappear.
It all sums up to one thing; only from below can one better see the heights.

My left arm will bear the corroded shield of indifference, in my right hand I will grip the dim sword of unattractiveness… and on my shoulders shall rest the unholy cloak of despair. The seeds of Satan sowed onto this very earth, but I will not plant them, I will despise them from far away, I will watch them grow, I will watch them flourish into giant trees of cruelty. Let them feed on my body.
For even the willingness to sin is so much more deserving than what I aim for.

Murder the smiles, all the genuine smiles, the fake ones I can keep… the fake ones are useful. Sacrifice all of my dreams, look down on them.
Sacrifice is the fuel of my journey, how else will my crocked tree of shamelessness bear fruit?

No time for turning back now, a pact with gravity cannot be undone, it can only be obeyed. As you fall, you view things from the bottom up, it's an interesting experience. You get to see everything upside down, Benevolence is a lie, effectiveness is a lie, passion is a lie. From that perspective they respectively equate to, malevolence, incompetence and impassivity. Consistency, forget about the damn word, it is meaningless, this is the realm of anarchy.

What is my intention in all of this, resurrection?
Maybe… if I get that far, but as they say; it's not where you are going that's important… it's how you get there that matters.
Well, I say screw them, they don't have a say in this anymore.

The process is a rapid descent, spawned from weakness?
Sure, that is the first thing you learn on your way down… to accept your weakness, to love it, it is your only reality, the only thing you can cling to.
Will I feel sorrow? Will I feel disappointment?
Unlikely, sorrow and disappointment are up where I left happiness and hope.
Observing the world through glass eyes, rain means the heavens are crying.
Experiencing a little uneasiness is possible, but it is smashed along with everything else as I hit the ground:

THUD!
SPLASH!

Doshte??

2008-09-22T11:10:00.005+02:00

Metro...

Beat-up guy walks in, he's not a hobo, just your average everyday under-privileged. In his right hand he's holding a handbag that has more holes than the moon , which kinda went well with the couple of small holes in his shoe.
His back is bent and as he's looking at the ground, he opens his bag a starts removing one of those little folding beach chairs that have colorful stripes on the cloth seat, only this one had decayed green and yellow for decoration.
He's not self conscious, he doesn't seem to notice the stares he is drawing, he has done this thousands of times;
open bag, remove moldy chair, place on the ground and sit down.
I look at him and i wonder, why does he have to put up with all this shit and i don't?
but god knows better, so i shut up.
And as I'm counting the holes on his bag, he reaches for it and takes out his pliers... it seemed it was time to trim his fingernails.... with the electric pliers. I wouldn't question his sanity, he seemed absolutely normal sitting there on his beach chair in the middle of the metro with the pliers in his hand, who am i to judge?

2:00 am - Ramadan

It's crowded like hell, it's "so7oor" rush and people are waiting for a ride home.
Scene - 1 : A "micro-bus" passes by and people run after it, but it doesn't stop. people turn back... disappointed.
Scene - 2 : A "micro-bus" passes by and the people run after it, it stops and a fierce battle ensues, usually containing a lot of pushing and elbow hitting.
Scene - 3 : A "micro-bus" passes by and the people run after it, a guy in the passenger seat of a car cruising by is yelling "ya fo2ara, ya 3allam ya fo2ara"
Scene - 4 : I frown and watch him, "interesting" i think to my self, i smile and shake my head.
Scene - 5 : I see a couple waiting for a ride, the man is holding a sleeping baby to his shoulders, they can't run after the "micro-busat" and they wouldn't do very well in the pushing and elbow hitting game, so they move back and forth with every stop.
i decide not to go home and to wait and see where all this going, i take a corner and sit down.
Scene - 6 : After a while 3 cars pull up, everybody's got his ride, they practice the pushing and elbow hitting routine some more and then they are all in, they stay some more to get more people to fill up.
Scene - 7 : On the way home, the man behind me says "el sa3a 1:30 we lessa afla?!, Allah yekhreb bet omek!"... he's speaking to the traffic light, and it's more like 2:30.

Mushy

2008-09-21T04:01:00.002+02:00

Doesn't life ever get tired…. tired of being Meaningless? just for a little bit.
I'm trying to get over this dilemma, wishing for the power to act but lacking the will to act.
Power hungry, overly sympathetic or just bored?
If I'm to survive, I must bury one of them… I must ignore the pain that is sure to follow and I must bury one of them, I have to.
I'm good at ignoring pain anyway.
I'm still immature, I act as though I'm fearless, yet I hide behind my system, A system I developed over the years, it's not fool proof, but it's good enough, it mainly works because it discourages… an archaic form of deception.
Why do I hide if I'm not afraid? To be alone I said before… questioning; avoiding company because of dislike or because of fear?
I'm Diminishing every single second, I count them as they go by, it passes the time, it literally does. It's called countdown, only I count as I fall.
I'm self conscious as I write, I said the first-person singular pronoun in every single sentence, this could only mean one of two things; either I'm telling things about myself or I'm whining… and I know I'm not telling anything.

Prelude To Chocolate Pudding

2008-09-18T10:53:00.004+02:00

You wake up… you are breathing heavily and you are drenched in cold sweat. You ignore the lump forming in your throat, you ignore your dry mouth that must smell like a herd of dead elephants… you ignore it all.

Mrs. Evon, my 5th grade English teacher, used to say that you dream about two things only; things that you want, and things that you fear.
Well, I'm sure Mrs. Evon must be long into her grave by now, but what if both were the same thing, what if both were just two faces to the same coin?

So I get to choose to flip the coin and see my trip to the house of horrors, only in frames that flip too fast for me to understand it all. I take a glimpse at my turning fate and convince myself that I've seen enough, because when you really think about it, maybe I even saw too much.
I wait till it hits rock bottom, listening to my thudding heart and observing as the coin becomes one with the ground in sickening slow motion.

People are a lot of things; people are mammals, people are doctors and 5th grade teachers, people are doormen that sit all day long lost in oblivion, but mostly people are consumers.
People are consumers because they want what they fear, and they fear what they want.
Ok, so they call it insecurity…. I call it pudding, white fluffy pudding, sweet soft pudding of the needy soul, that's what I call it. Pudding can be used to make a cake or it can be used to make cinnamon rolls, that's how different we all are.

Fine, forget about the pudding, pudding can be messy. Lets talk about your secret dreams, your juicy stash of dirty little secrets, I bet they involve pudding too, or cinnamon rolls at least, I can tell about these things.
Mine had a lot of snickers, mars-bars, and M&Ms in them…. Oh, well, not "a lot" of M&Ms, too much M&Ms and you feel gassy.

Fear has a smell to it, I'm sure I heard someone talk about this before. People have always used scents to either mask their body odour or to express and emphasize their moods or appearance. And fear, well… Fear arises in stressful situations that are subjectively perceived as threatening. Research goes back to the 1940s about fish using alarm pheromones to inform other fish of stress or fear, that's how fish are really… smelly. Yet to this day all they came up with is a "hypothetical fear pheromone" whatever that may be, it could even be pudding for I know. And that's it; a hypothetical nameless pheromone that resembles cake pudding is their best shot at it. Well, so be it, although I thought scientists had this eerie ability in dealing with jargon, I'm sure even pudding has a scientific name.

That reminds me of Mrs. Evon, because the way I remember it, Mrs. Evon had a particular scent, not of the hypothetical fear pheromone, but of something else, another hypothetical unknown pheromone I suppose.

You think about the car you bought, parked and left somewhere, and now can't remember what it looked like. You think about the cup of coffee that you went to have at 6 in the morning when in fact you were going only to see the girl that sits there reading a book everyday. You think about how you bought the car just for this reason, just to drive at 6 in the morning to go drink coffee you don't want while watching a girl that is reading a book drink her own, then you go home and forget about what the car looks like, but you don't forget about the girl. You think about these things and you sweat, strange how you sweat so much water and yet your mouth is so dry.

Considering whether to go back to your juicy stash of dreams, to go back to all the snickers and mars-bars and pudding and cars you bought and forgot and girls you saw and never talked to, or to give in to your shaking limps and just let it be.
After all, we just said that fear is a nameless pheromone that resembles pudding, how scary is that?

Due

2008-09-17T17:35:00.005+02:00

Pay the price you have to pay
For nothing is free
And if you try to dig your way
What a fool you will be
For when you leave the light of day
Darkness you will see

Annexation

2008-09-16T03:20:00.007+02:00

I'm lost in a sea of dark thoughts. I cannot seem to reach a shore, not knowing if there is a shore to start with.
Although i understand that it's only virtual, it is real enough in my mind.
It's opaque and calm. How tempting to just relax and give in as it sucks you into it... drowning you, drowning all of your second thoughts, drowning all of your attempts to fight it, drowning all of your hopes.
As i lay on my back, thoughts threatening to engulf me, i can see people passing by; Some look at my lying carcass with interest, others hardly see it at all.

Some don't say a word... sometimes i see them whispering to each other.

Some just wave and move on, i smile and wave back.

Some stop and ask if I'm okay, i smile and say "I'm fine" while wondering in my head: "what do you think I'm doing here, having a bath?", I wish they would just let me be.

Some stop and tell me how their friend at work fell off the carpet and broke his damn head, i show my sympathy and say something about how horrible that must be.

Some seem very affected by my state, a minute and they are gone. but i can still see them with the corner of my eye, pointing and laughing... i can still see you morons.

Some insist on getting me out, "helping me" they call it. What would i have if i just left all my thoughts behind?.... "I'll be o.k." i tell them "go find a damsel in distress or something"

Some people tell me that i need someone beside me... Why? so we could drown together?

Some come and some go, but all in all it's just like the animation on your screen saver, the same view repeated over and over again. If you want you could lose yourself in it, it's hypnotizing... It's not helping.

I'm

2008-09-15T07:20:00.008+02:00

Who are you?
I'm no one.

What do you have?
I have nothing.

Why do you live?
To finish.

Why do you write?
Because i can.

Why do you breathe?
Because i can't stop.

Who is your friend?
No one and everyone.

Who is your enemy?
Myself.

What do you want?
Only what i can have.

What do you need?
A reason.

What do you seek?
Oblivion.

Why do you work?
Because i should.

What is your life worth?
A pack of cigarettes, an array of books, and a lot of pasta.

How do you sleep every night?
I close my eyes and wait.

Do you believe in miracles?
Yes, i believe that miracles never happen.

Whom do you love?
What is love?

Whom do you hate?
Nobody.

Where is your home?
Wherever I'm.

Where are you from?
I'm from the backwaters.

Where are you going?
I'm not going anywhere.

Why do you smile?
So that others would.

Why do you care?
I don't.

Why do you hide?
To be alone.

Why do you listen?
Because i have nothing better to do.

Why do you speak?
Sometimes i can't help myself.

Why do you go out?
People keep calling me.

Do you think you are smart?
I'm smart enough to know that it's an illusion.

Do you think you are kind?
I'm as cruel as any man.

Do you think you are free.
Can't you hear the chains?

Why not break free?
Why should I?

Do you think you are righteous?
No.

Do you think you are evil?
No.

What do you think you can achieve?
Everything.

What do you think you will achieve?
Nothing.

How do you atone for your mistakes?
I change.

What would make you complete?
Discovery.

Do you have any regrets?
Never.

What do you fear?
To hurt someone.

Why do you look up?
To see the stars.

What lies in the stars?
Hope, mystery and loneliness.

How will you end your life.
Wait, let me get my crystal ball.

Why are you special?
Because i choose to be.

What are your possessions?
Things I'm forced to carry.

When will you give up?
Very soon.

Why will you give up?
I always do.

Geometry

2008-09-13T03:56:00.004+02:00

Would an infinite circle have an endless number of straight lines as a circumference, or just one endless straight line?
And if an infinite circle is just a straight line, would that mean we are living on one side of it?
If so, then what lies on the other side?

de'ja' vu

2008-09-12T04:11:00.006+02:00

A crowded room,
A lot of chairs,
A lot of people.
Each waiting his fate.... Each fearing his fate, though why should they? Isn't fate the one who brought them here in the first place?

Back ranks as usual, it is always a good spot to observe, a pointless activity that is never indulged.
Repeated sounds, repeated voices.... repeated simply because there is no better substitute for silence.
The den of the familiar, once again... once more.
Waiting is the name of the game, waiting i can live with, at least waiting i can control.

He too is waiting, a white transparent t-shirt... seriously under dressed?
There is more to it. Played with the thought of walking up to him:
"Dude, your nipples are showing."

Making friends with shadows on the wall, they reveal wonders to the searching eye.
Ominous whispers, silent as the breeze. "We know what is in your soul" they seem to say.

A lapse of silence, the lax feeling of time in slow motion.
Distracting for a moment... and then you know it, you have seen all of this before.... you have lived all of this before.
There is a voice inside your head, resurrected from it's slumber.... outrunning reality by just a fraction, taunting it.
"Oh yes... i know, there will be three of them. I knew that" "how?"
"The little voice in my head just told me, why do you ask?"

It is not a revelation, it is the dullness of hindsight, the tedious soul of knowledge that murders uncertainty.
You live with it for a while and then it is gone, back to it's slumber.

A phone call:

"What's going on over there?"
"BS, just a big pile of BS"

Zeal

2008-09-11T21:57:00.002+02:00

There is this old theme about waiting for the phone to ring;
In it you would get worried, but the phone won't ring.
And you would get depressed, but the phone won't ring.
And you would go crazy, but the phone still won't ring.
And of course it doesn't.
I'm waiting for the phone to ring, for a long time now I've been waiting, but it's very outside of the main theme, I'm not worried that it's not ringing.
I'm not hurrying it to ring, it will ring in it's own time.
I'm good at waiting, I can wait forever..... i have faith.

Back to the 80s

2008-09-10T03:07:00.000+02:00

SaRaH from "Partum Vixi Solus" had a post about "Death Magnetic", metallica's newest album, where she claimed that it was Metallica back in the good old 80s...
I was skeptical of this at first, as they have been off track for so long.
but after listening to it, i was taken back by the thrash sound Metallica was so famous for back then. I have to be honest, not all of the tracks were thunder driven, but it's a start.... another one.
This got me thinking about what a friend of mind told me:
"Back to the 80s" he said.
I'm thinking of his words in light of listening to "Airbourne", i discovered them a few months back when i was "clean" off metal, and didn't have any clue about what was news.
They gave my heart a jolt, a pleasant one i might add. They sounded so much like "AC/DC" and "Motley Crew" that they gave me a brain freeze from all the good tunes they brought back...... "back to the 80s" he said.
Then there is "Cavalera Conspiracy" which somehow witnessed the reunion of the cavalera brothers, and i can't but help remembering the old "Sepultura" music, less tribal more thrash...."back to the 80s"
I wonder if there are others out there, is the metal scene sounding more like it did back in the good ol' days?

Mirror

2008-09-09T08:27:00.008+02:00

I've seen him today, it's the first time. Told him i had him figured, i have no idea if he understood that, why should he.... because he's more like me?
... oh come on!
Hormones talking in place of whatever should normally be there. Chemical imbalance.
I told her once, about love and chemical imbalance, i wanted her to think i was witty.
As it turns out, all emotions are related to chemical imbalance. She had all this figured, long before i did.
A virtual node, followed by verbal confirmation and a farewell axiom, and that was it.
I think i hate him... why?
Because he shows me that I'm not unique, the next mass produced gadget in the line.
"i would like the one on the left please... no, no... the other one.... yes that's it"...."look what i bought from wall-mart daddy, for just nine niny nine"
How could i put up with that?
And yet where is that damnable capably for hatred when you need it? where is spite, cruelty and malice?
I possess non of it, the poor soul that writes what he feels but never what he wants others to read. This old curse that i seem blessed with.
Envy, red bloody envy, pure undiluted envy, piteous envy, wretched envy!
Is he the cause of my insanity? Not more than a catalyst, i blame myself for being his pawn. I'm in the shape of a child, but I'm not the child, I'm not the bastard that he would willingly endorse!
I understand him all too well, although the two flowers did not bloom from the same branch, but after all nature is our mother, the blue blue sky inspires all those who stand beneath it, and god watches over us both.
Meaningless arguments that revolve around revolving, taping on the advantage of having somewhere to go.
You meet the dead wall of a tired mind, blood refusing to stimulate the cells.
Wasted time that is readily available, just at the tip of your fingers.
So dangerous to have things so easily within reach, yet so tempting.... a trap.
Indecision about the nature of oneself, indecision about how to go on.
The marking of a weak personality?, the marking of a wuss?
So very maddening not to have a style, the endless tumbling between the conformity of others. A dark, pulp mass. In search of oneself.
Breaking dominions through bloodshot eyes, a daring adventure, an unhealthy one... a failure.
Surrendering to the unholy demands that float aimlessly in the mind..... they make claims over all of this.
They peremptorily request, if we - the words - are so corrupt, then who could possibly read us?

Reflections on my past

2008-09-08T06:04:00.008+02:00

She was my best friend.
But it was more than that, we spent the whole day together and we spent everyday together. We did everything; study, play, eat, drink, watch t.v., hang out, build our forest shack, everything.... she was everything short of life itself.
the world seemed to stop in its tracks back then, there was nothing but our talks and walks and laughter.
We were no more than children me and her, unknowing and uncaring about what that could mean, what it implied. Two souls that found serenity in each other company, a rare thing to stumble about.
Only after a time that i think of it and realize that we were worlds apart.
we were two different creatures, totally unrelated. sometimes i look back on us and i think that the whole deal had to steam out of necessity rather than our mutual interest.
we lacked most common points, not of interest, but of essence.
But then i was different back at the time, i smile when i remember how i used to be.
i did not dwell on our shortcomings, i couldn't, i had no place for it in my heart...i did not care. It would be tempting to think that she felt the same way, free of criticism.
It is funny how i used to be the unyielding one in the relationship and she the one trying to set things on a more sophisticated level. She was my mentor, even if i didn't realize it back then.
Somethings haven't changed though; my randomness, my disregard for opportunities, the memory gaps.... my apathy.
Don't get the wrong idea about this, it was simple, as simple as it could get. No pretensions, no hiding, there was no need to, we had nothing to hide.

I can't say i remember everything, but i do remember that i didn't understand the meaning of the word "lonely", i didn't.....
My english wasn't that perfect. I read in Daniel Defoe's "Robinson Cruise", that robinson was lonely, but i couldn't figure it out. So i asked about it and after hours of explanations that included a lot of facial expressions and confusing hand gestures, all i understood about the word that it somehow was related to "alone", but couldn't quite make the connection, when is someone "alone" and when is he "lonely"?
It was a mystery and no amount of explanation could clear that up for me.
Today i understand the difference, how and when this came to be, i have no idea, i don't remember....somewhere along the way.

It came to an end like everything else, and we both had to step out of this cocoon that was rapped around us for so long, each to a different place.... each to his own life.
like travelers we were, that met somewhere to rest from the weariness of travel,their lives touched for a moment but soon were on their way.
We both hated the simple fact that we had to leave, at least she did. I sometimes entertain the notion that i did too, but i'm not so sure i was as passionate as she was. We knew in our heart that this moment would come. Even at an early age, people know that life is transient.
We parted, me with her address and she, with a promise that i would write.
But the way i used to be was the way i always am, and by the time i was starting a new life, i discovered that I've lost her address and with it, i lost her and my promise.
How ironic that it ends this way...... for everything ends, relationships faster than anything, and they don't need a reason to expire, they just do.
sometimes i think about this.... betrayal?

am i turning into a zombie?

2008-09-07T06:07:00.007+02:00

Katatonia knows about this more than anybody i think, it's a dead house, repeated silly.
The absence of emotions is troubling, eerie and so very unhuman.
Hell is repetition, these words are said over and over again.
You blame and criticize, least you criticize yourself, but amidst your ravings you can see your own insecurity, so very revealing.
The child of boredom, a bastard that persistently calls out for misery.
Plain facades, how can beauty exist in the complete absent of ugliness?
Inaccurate exaggerations derived from lunacy incarnate, how can anyone defy this foul karma?

On the state of the people

2008-09-06T19:13:00.006+02:00

There is always this talk about "What's wrong with us?"
Every Egyptian knows this theme, the ever mystical question and the quest to find the hidden answer.
And I'm not talking metaphorically; I even saw a blog-post that was actually titled:
"What is wrong with us?"
It seems Egyptians consider it a Holy Grail to dissipate the mystery that these set of words are so shrouded in.
Theories and theorems and corollaries, drugs and potions and pills, all promise to answer the question and make it all go away.
It would appear that the only thing anyone needs to start discussing this issue is the Egyptian ID card and well........sometimes not even that.
So... since I do have the above needed documents, I therefore qualify to present my views on the matter.
And in the all pre-eminent "Monkey see, monkey do" spirit, I think it's about time that I took a shot at it.

To get things started, some of the problems so commonly proposed by other authors are the following:

Religion
Irreligion
Passiveness
Cowardness
Tyranny
Stupidity
Greed
Corruption
Close-mindedness
Prejudice
And the list goes on...

Before continuing, I would like first to get one thing clear....
We are not unique, we are not snow flakes.... and yet we are not monsters.
We are people like any other set of people, thinking that we - Egyptians - are special in some way is but a romantic gesture, the world has seen it all before... countless times.
There is an unjustified notion that the average Egyptian somehow possesses a soul which is unlike any other, that there exists something - be it good or evil - distinguishable in nature from all humanity, most cultures encourage this type of illusions.
This mode of thinking is unacceptable.
That being said, I can go on to say that while all these traits mentioned above might truly be our problems, they are not unique problems in any way, and cannot be explained with the complex analysis of our culture.
It might be tempting to delve into complicated analysis of our situation and our special circumstances and our peculiarities.
But the truth of the matter here, is that we are in no special situation, we are but a poor third world country (and I'm not using a developing nation label, because it's deceiving) suffering from the same malice that seems to affect all other third world countries.

Allow me to give the first two points special treatment as they are fundamentally different from the others, and it can proven with little effort that they are not the real motivators behind our decadency.
Hypothesizing that religiousness or irreligiousness is to blame is easily refuted by observing that there have been nations, us amongst them, that have been doing well during the course of history while being fundamentally religious.
In fact, there are countries at the present time that are religious and faring better than us, and there is little doubt that there will be countries that will be both religious and developed in the future.
The same methodology can be applied to irreligiousness, as there have been civilizations that have been at their height without the backing of religion, and most of the developed counties today are undoubtedly irreligious in nature, and I can see no reason why there wouldn't be irreligious countries still in the future.

The rest of the list made above consists of elements similar in nature, meaning that they all have one thing in common, they are outcomes and not causes, and if we need to understand rather than just find any set of answers to the title question, we need to deal with root cause problems and not just with secondaries.

If we can stop entertaining the notion that we are somehow uniquely different from all the other nations, and that our problems are somehow not those faced by everyone else, then we can move forward and find the root cause problems....
i.e.: the ones that are the roots of all others, the ones that if cured, the others would cease to exist.

I mean to deal with two of these:

Ignorance
Poverty

We are in a country where 30% of the population are illiterate, and this is a huge improvement from the 50% ten years ago.*

These are the official figures, but anyone in Egypt knows how these things are, this is does not represent the real literacy rate.
I'm here studying the case of a population where not more than 40% can actually read and write adequately.
Those we sometimes refer to as our "educated" middle-class.
But we have to be careful now as to whom we call "educated", as educated implies a different thing altogether, these 40% are simply literate.
And when those who read and write well, hardly ever actually choose to practice the two trades, you have to ask:
How many of them are truly educated?
How many read books - any kinds of books - on regular bases and what good is literacy if you choose not to use it?
I can say with confidence that no more than 2-3% of Egyptians are truly educated.
Meaning they read regularly a variety of books on different subjects, and maybe even write something every once in a while.

That being said, I would like to go back to the different educational levels in our society....
First Let us discuss those who can't read and write.
In a world that is wrapped in global immensity and complexity, how are they supposed to understand the world around them and interact intelligently with it?
What are their sources of information, the T.V., the movies?
Maybe watching "Noor and what's his name" will give them some perspective?
Or maybe after watching "7a7a we tofa7a" they will more wise and thoughtful?
No... They are simply missing the essential tools to educate themselves, they can't open a newspaper and see what news there is, and they can't even read a simple book and reflect on its meaning…
Their concerns revolve around finding their next meal, and maybe how many goals did "El Ahly" score in the last match.
As for those who can actually read and write but are hesitant to do so, I consider them not without some ignorance, for will the mind grow and compare between all variety of things if it has been denied its juice?
As for the merciful rest.... they are too "few" to make any big contribution to society.
Yes, they are not "few" in numbers, we are a big country and even a small percentage equates to a lot of people, but they are relatively few to cause any major change.

As for poverty, it's even simpler.... with 44% of the Population living below US$2 a day, how is it that we demand from them to act in good manners?
'Ali Ibn abi-talib' was a great man; he understood a lot about life...
Speaking about poverty he says:
"law kan al fakr ragollan, lkataltooh".... "If poverty was a person, I would kill it"
I imagine he said this while he had the devastating effect of poverty on people's morals, manners and personalities in mind.

I'm not being judgmental, I'm making observations on the population as a whole, the same outcomes cannot be assumed with singular cases.
A poor, illiterate man might well be lacking all the negativities I have cited above, and a well to do, educated man, might posses all of them.
But based on the rules of societies and populations, that is not a practical outcome.
It cannot be the dominant outcome in any form of society; it's rather a peculiarity, something that isn't so common.

Now, is it any wonder that a poor, hungry, uneducated society would have, oh, let us say the following maladies:

Passiveness, cowardness, tyranny, stupidity, greed, corruption, close-mindedness, and prejudice?

As you can see, they are nothing but a disease that appears in the society only because it has been weakened by ignorance and poverty.

Governments, colonial foreign powers, tyrannical regimes.... all understand this basic fact, the population ceases being any real threat when it is sufficiently ignorant.
That is why we were kept uneducated under British colonial rule in the past and that is why we are being kept uneducated till this day.
No imperial rule or occupation has ever been known to evade this pattern.
It is a troubling prospect, an action and it's set of consequences.
But fact is, there can be no separation between action and reaction, one may well bring the other, and we are stuck in this mud-hole.
We cannot aspire to have a better country and a better government with the masses being ignorant, yet at the same time the regime will never allow the people to get educated.
It's a closed circle, we can drive around in it all day, but until we can break this cycle of ignorance there can be no hope for us.
It is nothing more than a loop in the much observed rise and fall of civilizations.

It has been said before, "Don't criticize something, without offering a solution"
The solution presented here is like many others, to change from the top of the pyramid.
The reason for this not being the impossibility to actually change the society without executive power, but because executive power will not allow society to change except if it is itself changed.

*figures taken from the CIA - World Factbook.

Life, Risk and Probability

2008-09-04T01:26:00.007+02:00

Who likes the risk game?, Who plays the risk game?
OK, for those of you who don't know it, simply stated it's the world conquest game.
It's just a board game before someone comes around and accuses me of trying to take over the world.
In the better days me and my friends would gather and play all night long, all six of us.
I would light up a nice big Cuban cigar, and play with my huge 17th century "sawalef" that i once had.
"Let's go General" they would say, and the game would start.
Basically each has his own army which is deployed around the world, and when a battle is underway a roll of the dice decides the fate of your armies.

The system goes like this:

For offense : Attacking with one battalion the player gets to use one die
Attacking with two battalions you get two dice
Attacking with three or more battalions you get 3 dice

For defense : Defending with 2 or less battalions - one die
Defending with 3 or more battalions - Two dice.

It's game of wits, and the enrolling of dice in the game makes it dependent on luck, much like real life.
It was something, contrary to life though, that i excelled at.
Close to the completion of my mission and the winning of the game, i had only one territory to occupy.
A territory(japan i believe) occupied by B., who was by then in a weak position with only a few battalions left intact. In fact he had only one battalion to defend that territory.
I attacked with 3 battalions, a number which i thought sufficient to crush his one battalion defense.
This means that i was throwing three dice and he was throwing only 1.

1st round - The probability that he would win this round is the following:

1/4 * 1/3 * 1/2 = 1/24 = 0.0416 = 4.16%

The probability that i win is therefor: 95.84%

You can guess where all this is going, he DID win the round, surviving somehow on the tiny 4%.
But there is more to the story, after my loss i had to wait another round to try to occupy the territory.

2nd Round - I begun suspecting that lady luck might not be on my side, so i increased the no. of attacking troops to 6 battalions.
The probability that he would win:

1/4 * 1/4 * 1/4 * 1/4 * 1/3 * 1/2 = 1/1536 = 0.00065104 = 0.064104%

and taking the probability of the first round into account, the probability that he would win BOTH rounds is:

0.00065104 * 0.0416 = 0.000027082 = 0.0027082%

.'. The probability that i would win: 99.9972918%

And yet again he won and i lost....... blowing my 99.99% into oblivion with his 0.0027%.

3rd round - I yet attacked with 6 battalions, being all i had left near the battle ground.
The probability that he would win:

0.00065104

taking the 1st and 2nd rounds into account, the probability that he would win ALL three rounds:

0.00065104 * 0.00065104 * 0.0416 = 0.0000000176605 = 0.00000176605%

which means that he had 17.66 in a billion chance to win, and he did!

The probability that i would win: 99.99999824%

which by any reasonable approximation would amount to 100%
Probability says that i would win, 100% sure i would, but i lost....

Through the exuberant cries of B., the disbelieve so generously drawn on the faces and the puzzled lump of my psyche, i thought about probability and how dangerous it really is.
Just a virtual aspect of it all, life clearly does not believe in it.
Who would put faith in something so deceiving??

Think!

2008-09-03T02:17:00.006+02:00

On my wall i have one of those wall frames that have a little piece of wisdom written on it.
Mine is an old one, it belonged to my grandfather and i found it shortly after he died.
I remember my grandfather well enough, he was the one who taught me how to play chess.
A man with many quirks but i loved him nonetheless.
It has a worn out brown wooden frame, and inside on the tainted white paper is written in bold capital letters just one word :

"THINK"
........and then in small font it says "compliments of IBM corporation"

I'm not sure why i chose to hang it on the wall when i first found it. Old, dusty and worn-out, it was something you kept in the attic.
But it was something my grandfather left behind, it was this one word that he was able to deliver to me from beyond his grave, and it seemed to be beckoning to me.
Short, unpretending and mystical....... it all but revealed the secrets of the universe.
Simply put, i thought it was a good idea at the time (......and we did not have an attic)
I would have liked to say that it has been an inspiration for me, that it has guided me through difficulties, but years it has been where i first placed it and i have hardly looked at it all that time.
Know a thing too well and you become blind, The eye does not waste time on what it already knows.
It became what it really is, a worn out frame on a wall....... Nothing more, nothing less.
Today i came home late, and as i was changing, i faced the wall like i always did and suddenly it grabbed my attention, a relic from my past attached to the wall :
"THINK" it told me boldly "THINK!....."
And i thought....... i thought about this little dirty wall frame that demanded that i think.
"Think about what exactly?" my mental voice beamed back at the word.
I stood there, waiting for some kind of answer but it simply repeated again :
"THINK"
"I AM thinking..." i thought to myself "now I'm thinking"
I thought about the power of a word, the way it could be influential, the power to change my mental state.
It stimulated my brain and a flood of thoughts came rolling into it.
Random thoughts that revolved around nothing, tiny electric charges that sparked... and the current was havoc.
Until they condensed into this one spark, this one thought that said repeatedly :
"Think, and keep thinking!"
"Think, and keep thinking!"
"Think, and keep thinking!".......

Ramadan

2008-09-01T19:33:00.006+02:00

Today was the first day of Ramadan.
Yesterday i was speaking with a christian friend and he was high up and giddy because it's Ramadan....
"I just love Ramadan, its got this special something" he said, while we were walking around.
"Ofcourse you are happy with Ramadan," I told him "you get all the short work hours - all those late nights on the "ahwa" - for free. You don't even have to fast for a minute!"
Nothing new, everyone keeps talkin' about that mysterious Ramadan feeling but i never could tell.
Is it because People are amassing in the streets late at night like half crazed non-sleeping night zombies?
So this is Cairo, it's always like this over here, that is not Ramadan...
Is it the decorations?, the "fawanees"?
The insurmountable phone calls from people?
The absence of swearing in the mornings?
People at mosques?
Absolute stillness at sundown?
Freaky over politeness all day long?
"Boggy we Tumtum"?, yeah right, not anymore......
Off to "taraweeh" I'm!

Journy to the tree of bats

2008-08-31T03:44:00.003+02:00

I was sitting with Mohamed on the "ahwa"(cafe), arguing about a theory of degenerating back to the primitive. And while we were trying to convince a friend of ours - amidst his protests - to smash his phone so he can be better attuned with nature, Mohamed told me about a story of a tree where bats lurked in huge numbers.
Let me tell you something, when you live in cairo, it's not everyday that you come across a tree full of bats, so i was definitely giving it a try.
It was a dark quite street, and in the middle there was this huge tree that seemed so normaly innocent and still. We parked the car a few paces ahead and me and Mohamed got out and headed for the tree while our friend stayed in the car:
"There are no bats here" he told us.
"Ok, if there aren't any bats then why don't you come out of the car then?"
"Why should i, there aren't any bats afterall" he said meekly.
Arriving by the tree we whistled to nobody in particular while looking up.
There was nothing but the rustling of the leaves in the breeze .......... and then we saw it, a bat flew out of the tree and right past us, then a whole wave of bats followed it and the whole area was alive with bats.
We stood there for a while, the bats circling us like a shrine. We whistled and the bats whistled back at us, till one by one they all went back from where they came from and we stood in darkness.
"Why are bats considered scary?" I asked.
"Because they are blind, they can crash into you"
"Bats are not blind, they just don't see like me and you do, and they don't just 'crash' into people" I said, puzzled.
"You mean they can't hit us while we are standing?"
"Not of they don't want to" I replied.
"I still think they are scary"
"lets get outta here" i said, and we were on our way.

289 is an ugly no.

2008-08-28T13:52:00.000+03:00

At least that's what the savant said.
On the other hand he did think well of most of the other numbers.

Starry Night

2008-08-27T01:45:00.000+03:00

A rip-off of Vincent van Gogh's "Starry Night"?....

Nah, it's just Hubble.

The Oracle

2008-08-26T22:27:00.000+03:00

"You will have a dark future, you will never find peace or rest. Even my words now will not sway your mind." he said.....
I listened to this as i was sipping my "helba" (which is a drink btw) and wondered why he chose to tell me words that seemed to come from "kare'at el fengan" (inn sama'ak momteraton wa tare'oka masdoodon masdood.....ya wallady, yaaaaa wallady!).
ok, so he seemed to know what he was talking about but i was in the middle of a "helba" that was the fourth in line just after 2 cups of tea and one large glass of water and frankly i had only one thing on my mind and it definitely wasn't my future.
"...... my words will not sway your mind...... because you don't know what you want. If you did, this conversation would have been over by now..."
"oh but i do," i thought...... "i want to go to the bathroom."
"Excuse me." i said.

Retaliation, retribution and revenge :

2008-08-26T21:57:00.001+03:00

“Research shows that while people think of their own actions as the consequences of what came before, they think of other people’s actions as the causes of what came later”

Daniel Gilbert / IHT article

Sayings, Rodents and Development

2008-08-25T20:32:00.001+03:00

It's been said before, "there is nothing that will work for this country, the only solution is to blow everything up and start over from scratch"
I've heard it time and time again...... and i'm sure it has been said even more in every developed country. An understandable feeling i suppose, one of unholiness when everything around you is not the way its supposed to be, it's the feeling that you need to destroy the old to be able to move forward. The same when you have a house full of rodents, there is always this undeniable urge to bring the place to the ground and then build a beautiful clean house.
Only things don't quite work this way........ life teaches us to live with what you have and never throw it away. You use what you can, there can never be solace in destruction.
ok, so lets be frank, almost everyone agrees that this a rodent infested country and the rat holes are just too many for anyone to miss. we can start from there. I say, we can either drive them out or just kill the damn pesky animals.

Two from Dune

2008-08-25T20:22:00.000+03:00

Every judgment teeters on the brink of error. To claim absolute knowledge is to become monstrous. Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty.
- LETO ATREIDES II, the God Emperor

Do our enemies occur naturally, or do we create them through our own actions?
- MOTHER SUPERIOR ALMA MAVIS TARAZA, Bene Gesserit Archives, open records for acolytes

Aliens from mars and the man-eating bunnies

2008-08-23T23:23:00.001+03:00

“They’ll believe anything.” E. sighed. “No matter what sort of absurdity they are fed, they’ll believe it. Think up the most outrageous lie… They have people who’ll believe it.”

The cousin sat up at this, his interest piqued. “The most outrageous lie? How about that Iraq was amassing aliens from Mareekh [Mars] and training them in the battle art of kung-fu to attack America in 2010!”

“They’d believe it.” E. nodded in the affirmative. “Or that Iraq was developing a mutant breed of rabid, man-eating bunnies to unleash upon the Western world. They’d believe that too.”

posted by river @ 3:21 AM

Of Bunnies and Shit

2008-08-23T22:59:00.000+03:00

"first we need to address a certain question,which is..... why are bunnies so cute?
well, bunnies are cute to attract predators............ thats why."

Funny thing is nobody would say it out loud, nobody dared. The truth, or the lie. A case of disagreement among those who believe they are the same, they fear it beyond anything else, to simply disagree.
Avoid confrontation, avoid variety, avoid fractures.
listen to your creative conscience... it will tell u "go away, i'm sleeping".
Graves within graves, dead trunks in the middle of the stream... not dormant but stagnant.
Relics of the past, solid objects, mindless beyond compare. Primal fear of the future, phobic of change.

Riverbend

2008-08-23T22:49:00.000+03:00

"I hope Americans feel good about taking their war on terror to foreign soil. For bringing the terrorists to Iraq- Chalabi, Allawi, Zarqawi, the Hakeems… How is our current situation going to secure America? How is a complete generation that is growing up in fear and chaos going to view Americans ten years from now? Does anyone ask that? After September 11, because of what a few fanatics did, Americans decided to become infected with a collective case of xenophobia… Yet after all Iraqis have been through under the occupation, we're expected to be tolerant and grateful. Why? Because we get more wheat in our diets?"

posted by riverbend @ 10:53 PM

War

2008-08-23T20:02:00.000+03:00

As I write, highly civilized human beings are flying overhead trying to kill me. They do not feel any enmity against me as an individual, nor I against them. They are only doing their duty, as the saying goes. Most of them, I have no doubt, are kind-hearted law abiding men who would never dream of committing murder in private life.

On the other hand, if one of them succeeds in blowing me to pieces with a well-placed bomb, he will never sleep any worse for it. He is serving his country, which has the power to absolve him from evil.

George Orwell, London, UK, 1941

Educated

2008-08-23T03:41:00.000+03:00

Two black guys get onto the train with congo drums and play.

Drums guy #1: Yo, thanks y'all for listenin'. We hope you can donate something to our cause to support our music. Let me tell y'all something...I'm gonna teach you something you ain't gonna get from no college, from no book, from no studyin', from no professor...you could have all the money and richness in the world, but if you have compassion, then you are the richest person in the world. You gotta have compassion for your fellow human beings--man, everything is relative--and once you realize that, then you understand compassion!...See, this gentleman here, he didn't like our music and that's cool. You didn't like it, did you sir?
Suit: Actually, I did.
Drums guy #1: Aw, man! You shouldn't have said that! That makes it worse that you don't wanna help support our music! You don't understand what it's like out here.
Suit: Yes, I do. I'm a musician too. We're all trying to make it.
Drums guy #1: Man! How can you say that? We like brothers, man. We connected. You know...you like my brother and you don't wanna help a brother out...That's rude...It's like if you get a band and you got all your instruments and like, the curtain goes up, and you conducting them and shit, and you tell them to play and then there's no sound! Man, we connected; don't you know what that means?
Suit: It means I have a college degree and you don't.

Flipped

2008-08-23T02:33:00.000+03:00

i'm tired of all this, its not because i was coughing like crazy all day long and i'm not talkin bout the bashing the Chinese are getting for no reason these days either.
It's not about the americans being so haughty, and it's not about the europeans being so cold. It's not about the japanese being so respectful or the chinese so productive, and its not about the rest of the world being so damn poor......
It's something more subtle, more basic and that's what makes it more terrifying.
It's the bad acting you see on t.v. It's the unhumorous remarks that get thrown at you from everywhere, meant to be funny. It's the indifference of everyone, the apathy.
It's the horrible songs, so uncreative. its the prejudice, thinking you know. It's how people are exploited every single day, defenseless. It's the passiveness, how guilty are those who waste?
It's the hypocrisy, saying what you never do. It's the lies, to yourself and then to others. It's the tyranny, how shameful are the powerful?
It's the poverty, the ignorance, and the sickness.
It's all that which leaks from the human bag of wonders, corrupt.
Now i know what you' r thinking, "the dude has flipped".......that might be true but i know while most people do not openly acknowledge it.......it exists.
Every analysis is irrational, steaming from some mental need in the mind, to say its not biased is to say its not the product of human thought.....

The Lie

2008-08-23T01:50:00.000+03:00

Go, soul, the body's guest,
Upon a thankless arrant;
Fear not to touch the best;
The truth shall be thy warrant.
Go, since I needs must die,
And give the world the lie.

Say to the court, it glows
And shines like rotten wood;
Say to the church, it shows
What's good, and doth no good:
If church and court reply,
Then give them both the lie.

Tell potentates, they live
Acting by others' action,
Not loved unless they give,
Not strong but by affection:
If potentates reply,
Give potentates the lie.

Tell men of high condition
That manage the estate,
Their purpose is ambition,
Their practice only hate:
And if they once reply,
Then give them all the lie.

Tell them that brave it most,
They beg for more by spending,
Who, in their greatest cost,
Seek nothing but commending:
And if they make reply,
Then give them all the lie.

Tell zeal it wants devotion;
Tell love it is but lust;
Tell time it metes but motion;
Tell flesh it is but dust:
And wish them not reply,
For thou must give the lie.

Tell age it daily wasteth;
Tell honour how it alters;
Tell beauty how she blasteth;
Tell favour how it falters:
And as they shall reply,
Give every one the lie.

Tell wit how much it wrangles
In tickle points of niceness;
Tell wisdom she entangles
Herself in over-wiseness:
And when they do reply,
Straight give them both the lie.

Tell physic of her boldness;
Tell skill it is prevention;
Tell charity of coldness;
Tell law it is contention:
And as they do reply,
So give them still the lie.

Tell fortune of her blindness;
Tell nature of decay;
Tell friendship of unkindness;
Tell justice of delay:
And if they will reply,
Then give them all the lie.

Tell arts they have no soundness,
But vary by esteeming;
Tell schools they want profoundness,
And stand too much on seeming:
If arts and schools reply,
Give arts and schools the lie.

Tell faith it's fled the city;
Tell how the country erreth;
Tell, manhood shakes off pity;
Tell, virtue least preferreth:
And if they do reply,
Spare not to give the lie.

So when thou hast, as I
Commanded thee, done blabbing,
Although to give the lie
Deserved no less than stabbing,
Stab at thee he that will,
No stab thy soul can kill.

Sir WALTER RALIEGH

Disoriented

2008-08-20T00:00:00.000+03:00

I'm tired, barely can stay on my feet, the combination between a cold and too little sleep is not healthy, and i'm not sure of this but i think there is a strong possibility that there are 8 to 10 monkeys having a party rite now in my head......
tomorrow is the second maersk interview, I do fine on assessments, even when i'm in this shape.
I only have to worry about the interview itself, i'm not sure if it will be a simple screening or the whole nine yards, so i have to read a bit about the maersk group, why the hell did they have to have so many companies?
I have a strong doubt that i'll make it through the day, or the night for that matter......

Evangelion

2008-08-19T21:50:00.000+03:00

so i'v finally watched "Neon Genesis Evangelion".........I remember its been years since i first saw it and knew i just had to watch it.
Why didn't i see it through all those years?............
i dunno, maybe i needed to feel that there is something out there that i still want to see, or maybe i wanted to feel that there is something out there that i still need to see.
Are these days the ones that are marked to see me fulfilling my old lost dreams?
oh please........stop the drama, its killing me.

Stiff

2008-08-19T15:15:00.000+03:00

ok, so i didn't know her but she opens the door, looks around searching. I give her a point of a finger in the left direction where the other woman is standing out of view and then i give her a phone sign, meaning to say that she was on her mobile......
she looks at me like i just escaped from the zoo and just stares........
I give her another point of finger followed by a slight tilting of the head in the same direction to make a stronger emphasis.....
she's silent but her features toke very tight curves in just a few seconds.
"she is over there" i finally say after giving up on the whole simple sign issue.
she's still looking at me like I'm the last living sample of the dodo bird, but she finally speaks :
"who's there?" she asked, shaking her head.......i could tell she didn't expect a very bright answer.
"the one you are looking for" I say, turn around and head directly outa the room......just in time to hear her say, "there you are!".....
"splendid" I say to myself while walkin'.................

Revelation

2008-08-18T15:01:00.000+03:00

Comes the night, the soul of man cries 4 redemption, just as the soul of a child cries 4 laughter. The making of a curse vibrant in the night, promising all who follow it doom and despair. This is the true legacy.......time gone in vain, taunting. The essence of humankind, the variance of thought, the creative tendencies brings true power and in turn tyranny of oneself. Understanding is the refuge of the troubled, the world demands faith. The dependence on absolutes, the abstractions, always hanging on extremes, poor judgment in a universe governed by balanced forces. The need for perfection is unforgivable, who tolerates the vulgar disregard for reality?
The stars shine bright in the night, while the thought of man lies under his own feet.
The illusion of security, convincing oneself that everything is normal while the gap of normality is a chasm readily fallen into.
A classical variation of your everyday misfit, just one of many aspects of a rotten philosophy?, useless intoxications of a madman..... that is probably the case here. The intense fumes of the night, a present danger even to the most wary.
Figurative annotations, proud as the moon on a clear summer night, who would stand in the face of a never ending flux of emotions?.
Like hidden desires within dreams promising salvation.
.......This is not revelation, this is not wisdom, this is the product of random thought.
As vast as the oceans and as unyielding as the will of god, waves upon waves of silence follow.

Truth

2008-08-18T14:03:00.000+03:00

ok....so i'll be honest, i always wanted to write my own blog ever since i saw the blog of this syrian guy who was living in dubai a few years ago, but never did. I can remember thinking how entirely unrewarding this whole deal is, he was talking about how he got 10 e-mails and 2 fone nos. from girls in a sum sort of fair in just 1 day, and he didn't even explain how he did it.
Now a few days ago i got a job interview at maersk, which kinda resulted from me leaving my last job last month....anyho, i was searching for info bout the maersk assessment when i came by this blog of a lady ho just happens 2 get accepted there just a week ago, and she had her recruitment experience described, so i read on........and then i read on a little more.....
And at the end of the night i discovered that i knew virtually everything about this girl that i never met before and only a few hours ago had never even heard of, from the scar on her back, the result of surgery, to the fact that she has 19 cousins, eats a lot of pasta, and just luvs pistachios(whatever they may be)......
Moral point of this poorly written story is that it clicked, the heavens have spoken.......and this was the time to start a blog of my own!
All this drama aside, i absolutely have no idea how i'll keep up with this blog of mine.

Alpha

2008-08-18T13:38:00.000+03:00

i was just reading "Report on the investigation of the machinery break down and subsequent fire onboard Maersk Doha", when i thought that this might be a good time to start a blog, after all i'v never fully understood why people tend to write blogs, it just takes a lot of time and effort so here i'm investigating this phenomena.....

If anybody is interested about the Maersk Doha, here's what the report says happened :

"The container vessel Maersk Doha sailed from Norfolk, Virginia, in the USA shortly after midnight on 2 October 2006. At 0030 an engine room alarm sounded indicating that pressure in the steam system was low. The crew investigated the cause of the alarm and discovered that steam was escaping from the auxiliary boiler air intake. They shut down the burner and opened the furnace door. Steam escaped, and when it had cleared they could see that the furnace tube was severely distorted and cracked.There was some delay before the chief engineer was informed about the breakdown, and further delay before the problem was reported to the master on the bridge. Although the vessel could have anchored safely to investigate the situation, it was agreed that the main engine could continue to run at low power, and the vessel proceeded to sea.An Exhaust Gas Economiser (EGE) was fitted in the funnel uptakes to generate steam from the waste heat contained in the main engine exhaust gases, using water circulated from the auxiliary boiler. At about 0200, a rapid rise in the temperature of the EGE was noticed and the chief engineer realised that there was a fire inside the EGE casing. The bridge was alerted at 0230 and the vessel’s emergency alarm was activated. Radiant heat from the EGE ignited light fittings, cables and paint on bulkheads in the funnel uptakes, and the crew attempted to fight the fire with a water hose and a fire extinguisher. They were beaten and.......