As I promised earlier, here’s a series of posts about some hilarious (though a bit frightening) times my friends and I got stopped by police patrols or intelligence agents late at night. We often get suspected and stopped for a routine check since we’re a bunch of guys moving around at night. It’s pretty hard to avoid the night watch because police patrols can be hidden anywhere while Intelligence agents simply appear from the void. Maybe the biggest lesson we learnt through all these experiences is that the streets are never empty as they may look like …

I usually hang out with my schoolmates; Waseem, Sami and Zaid because so far those are the only ones I knew who can stay up till the dawn. Waseem asked me not to mention his name on this blog, so I’ll call him Mr. X from now on :P

This was one of the first times we got stopped by a night patrol. It was the four of us in Mr. X’s Hyundai bus. I was a bit scared because I still haven’t got used to being stopped by the police back then. The police officer asked us for our IDs and was going through them …

The community in Amman is a complex, yet very connected set of social networks. Tracing some social relations you’ll come to conclude that everybody is connected to everybody in some way or another. This doesn’t apply to other communities as much as it applies to Jordan, specifically Amman. I think that this high connectivity is directly related to the relatively small size of our population (compared to other foreign communities), and most importantly: our Jordanian traditions that emphasize the importance of keeping in close touch with all relatives and friends.

Most people think that the word “community” strictly describes the world of the “elder” people, but I don’t think so. Communities are characterized by the environment, and since all of us: engineers, doctors, tradesmen, natives, foreigners, grown-ups and youngsters share the same environment; then all of us make the community!

It should also be acknowledged that our (and every other) community is made of groups of sub-communities of people who share a common location, identity, or interest.

Among the many communities and social groups that form our society, there is the “Guys” Community, a community formed by mostly all the guys of Amman, say those who are 18-25 years old, and who don’t spend Thursdays watching TV or sitting infront of a computer.

The way I see it, guys socialize in more interesting ways than girls and grown-ups do. The relationships they tend to build range on different scales of friendship and respect. Also, guys meet on more “free” grounds; they don’t meet in parties nor in family gatherings; they meet in hangouts! Therefore guys usually build “deeper” and more “open” links to each other.

It’s pretty hard to imagine all of that if you’re not a guy who keeps in touch with a number of different gangs. The Guys Community is large Jordanian community with a great potential and a promising future.

During the past 5 years of my life, I came to know hundreds of new guys through work and though the expanding network of universities and friends. With these new connections, I started to understand the structure of the guys’ community. I also started to meet new “gentlemen” guys I personally refer to as the “Extraordinary” …

The extraordinary guys are those who haven’t let a single moment of their lives slip away for nothing since the very beginning! Every one of those guys has developed some kind of an amazing skill, made a remarkable achievement, or already became independent of their parents' care, and almost nobody knows about them!

Mostly all guys grow up under their parents’ care preparing to advance to the next level; becoming independent. Guys at this stage are only asked to pay attention to their studies, no one is asked to work, make a living, or accomplish. Some have interesting hobbies, and have developed remarkable skills, while others have started to work alongside with studying. Only very few guys, however, already make a better independent person in this early stage. Among the hundreds I know, only 10 guys make it as “extraordinary” in my opinion.

This Thursday, I was at Sleman’s farm with a big bunch of his friends and buddies celebrating his graduation. After lunch, we split into groups and everybody went doing something. I joined Sami Kreishan and some other guys and sat having an exciting chat over a range of subjects. I got introduced to Bashar, an interesting guy who makes professional web-site Flash designs. I will simply refer to his work as “beyond description”, because no words fit in this regard. Bashar has already started making a living out of his flash designs and has other remarkable skills. I realized that he’s definitely an extraordinary guy as soon as he showed me some of his work on his laptop.

I had a joyful chat with him, and made sure I had his contact details before we left. He’s also coming to my university next semester so we’ll have more chances to talk and explore each other :)

Bashar and other extraordinary guys are well-known in the guys’ community. Those guys have already accomplished what even grown-ups were short to. A gathering of 2~3 similar guys can lead to a very huge and successful project, but it’s just that every one of them is a Jack of a different trade, and the circumstances rarely join a group of such guys in one place.

The extraordinary never show through universities, exhibits, or social events. They have their own life and they’re way beyond showoff. If you met somebody in one of those places and thought he’d be one of the extraordinary, think again.

Those guys have a very promising future, and every one of them has a big chance to become a model figure in the near future. Sadly, but not so surprising, they prefer not to be spoken of, so unless you come to know them personally, you’ll never meet them again :)

A couple of weeks ago I met Sleman, a friend that I haven’t seen in a year or so. He was doing Tawjihi this year, and has passed with an excellent grade :)

We went out for dinner with a bunch of friends to catch up some of the days we missed. Sleman had so much news; he said he started learning guitar a year ago, little after the last time I saw him, which was a bit surprising because I too started learning guitar about the same time!

Sleman asked me where I go for music lessons and I said am trying on my own. He said he had been taught playing guitar during the past year by the legendary Sami Kreishan …

Sami Kreishan is a top Jordanian guitarist. I would have simply said he’s the best, but I’ll stay opened to the possibilities because I didn’t check every other player in Jordan. Among the Jordanian guitarists community, Sami has been a well-known figure. Some are astonished by his abilities, while others say he’s a showoff. Both parties, however, can’t but agree on his astounding level … the guy is amazing!

Sleman said he could arrange to take me with him to his next lesson, and I couldn’t say no. I wanted to see how good Sleman got with playing guitar, and of course … wanted to meet Sami Kreishan :)

So it was Wednesday, the past week, and I picked up Sleman and drove to Sami’s place. We arrived there a bit early and Sami was out for sometime so we waited outside his house. Ten minutes later, he arrived, parked his car and went down walking into his house without noticing us. His humble appearances made him look like any other guy out there; nobody would have guessed what that guy with the short pants was capable of!

We went down, followed him, and knocked the door. He opened it with a wide smile and greeted us, then we all went inside and waited for him to arrange his stuff and prepare for the lesson.

Sami’s house was full of guitars and equipment. I can’t recall much but for a moment I thought I was playing “find 40 guitars in the view”! He had soo many guitars arranged everywhere in the living room … an American Stratocaster … a Squier Showmaster … some Ibanez … a flying-V something … and I stopped counting for my own sake!!

His little “studio” was full of guitars, guitar accessories and equipment. Distortion pedals where covering the floor all around him, boxes were everywhere, and next to him stood one big Marshall Amplifier that could have easily brought the building down with its sound.

The guy must have been running a serious guitar business in his place!

Sami arranged his stuff, picked a guitar, and started playing …

I don’t think I can explain it to non-guitarists, but Sami could perform as well as some of the top worldwide guitarists, namely Joe Satriani (Link), Yngwie Malmsteen (Link), Michael Angelo Batio (Link) and Steve Vai (Link). The guy turned to be a professional player, much more than I thought he was. Now I have a solid belief that this guy can compete internationally.

So after some warm-up with cool shredding (Link) pieces of heavy metal, Sami stopped and started the lesson. I tried to be a silent observer because I didn’t want Sleman to waste his class, but I simply couldn’t but ask at some points … Sami had all the answers I needed!

During the past two months, I had a strong feeling that am lacking an essential technique because I couldn’t play some licks no matter how hard I practiced. Watching Sami playing last week helped me figure some big facts that I missed all the way till now, details that remained “secrets” for long, holding me back from advancing to the next level …

Whether Sami is the best guitarist in Jordan or not doesn’t matter as much as that he’s got this far with playing guitar. The new techniques I picked while watching him play last week were the best kind of info I ever had about playing guitar. I’ve been playing for hours since then, exercising over and over with some new solos that have just been unlocked for hard practice!

Next week I’ll meet him again in a celebration for Sleman’s graduation, I hope I get to know him better :)

EDIT: I was asked by Sami to publish his contact details here since many people are linked to this page looking for them. This post, surprisingly, is the first hit on Google for "Sami Kreishan". Here it goes guys;

Sami Kreishan
+962 79 5364002

Happy news to all those hosting their blogs at Blogger!

Blogger is testing a Beta release of an upgraded version of their blogging software. They added amazing new features that all users were asking for, check these out …

• Categories Support
  Posts can now have labels (better known as tags), and be categorized accordingly.
  
  
• Blog Access Control
  Blog owners will be able to control who can read their blogs. They can either keep their blogs open for the public, or restrict their access to a selection of people identified by email.
  
  
• Interactive Template Editor
  Those who have no HTML or CSS knowledge will be able to change the layout of their blogs by moving sections of their blogs around with their mouse pointers.
  
  
• Comments Feed
  There will be a separate feed file for comments on each post. That means you’ll be able to track new comments much easier than before.
  
  
• No “Publishing Timer”
  The classic publishing procedure that took some seconds to update your blog is now gone. New posts will be published immediately.
  
  
• More improvements
  Enhanced interface and more blogging options.

The Beta is not yet open to the public. For the moment, only few will be given links at the Dashboard to upgrade. However, all people will eventually be able to use the new service :D

I’ve also noticed that Blogger accounts have already been integrated with Gmail accounts. From now on, people will be able to login to Blogger using their Gmail accounts. Blogger has always kept its own accounts' database, though the company was bought by Google in 2002. It looks like Google is continuing to join more services under the unity of Gmail accounts, adopting the same technique of its main competitors: Windows Live (formerly MSN) and Yahoo!.

In my opinion, Blogger will overcome WordPress and other blogging software with this outstanding upgrade. I can’t wait to see.

For more info and Blogger news, check out Blogger Buzz.

Here is a Direct Link to the new Blogger Beta Tour.

If you think like me, you must have always considered the possibility of making changes to the things that you come by or use on daily basis. Little differences in these can make your life much better, or worse. Among the things that I always wanted to change are … Internet web sites!

Many of the websites I visit daily (Google, Hotmail, Blogger … etc) don’t look the way I want them. Sometimes I find it easier to use a page if a certain link was moved to somewhere, other times I wish I can delete some sections of the page and have only the content am interested in. Few times I did come with brilliant ideas to improve the page and wished I could contribute!

I may have sounded a bit picky, but I know all people would like to make some change. There is no single web-site layout that looks fine to all people, simply because people have different thoughts and tastes.

So is there any way you can make changes to Internet web sites that you don’t own? The answer is No …

Instead, you can change “the way they look to you”, which is as much better! This can be done using a couple of FireFox extensions …

1. Greasemonkey (Web Site – Download Link)

This is a famous extension for FireFox that modifies web pages according to special scripts. People have been using Greasemonkey to alter web pages in so many different ways. Greasemonkey scripts modify the internal HTML source of Internet pages once they are loaded, and are thus able to make wide changes to the page elements, their behavior, the page layout, and the functioning of the page!

Greasemonkey is cool, but creating a Greasemonkey script is a hard task for the average user. People usually search the Internet for scripts, but only few are capable of creating them … so here comes the other part of the magic …

2. The Platypus extension (Web Site – Download Link)

This extension will add a toolbar of editing tools that will let you modify the loaded Internet page in real time, just as easily as you modify a word document. When you’re done making changes to the page, Platypus will generate a Greasemonkey script that will re-render this Internet page the exact way you designed it every time it is loaded!

The possibilities of what you can be done with these two extensions are endless. I’ve already started creating “cleaning” scripts to simplify and remove all the ads from my favorite web sites. Below is a new Hotmail layout I designed, next to the old layout.

This Thursday, Rani, Zeid, Basel and I gathered at Basel’s house after midnight, and watched “Fragile” (Link), which is “supposedly” a horror movie. This movie falls in a bunch of horror movies I’ve watched lately; all of which were either boring or funny! It is weird how horror movies became so dull and meaningless; watching a documentary these days is a bit scarier.

Fragile is about a night nurse that comes to work in rehabilitated old hospital where a group of children is being treated. Strange accidents take place, and throughout the movie the nurse uncovers the truth of a roaming old nurse ghost who loves the children so deeply that it would do anything not to let them leave.

The plot may sound interesting, but only because I put it that way ;). If you watched the movie late at night like we did, you’ll probably fall asleep within the first ten minutes.

I wasn’t quiet awake myself then, but I remember that at some time during the first minutes of the movie, the nurse was standing in one of the corridors of the hospital when one of the kids approached and told her in a calm spooky tone: “She’s coming!” …

Well, am not sure if that was supposed to scare anybody, or create some kind of tension, but I laughed so hard on how lame that was! My friends also mocked the lame scene and all of us started adding our own blowing wind and booo effects.

Really what a funny movie! Ba3deen guess who’s acting the nurse …


Maybe that explains why we couldn’t stop laughing …

The nurse is Ally McBeal :D

At the end of the movie, everybody was trying to escape the hospital, which was being destroyed by the raging ghost. All children were killed, and Ally McBeal escapes the front door with her machine gun, or maybe I was too sleepy and imagined all that, am not sure ;)

Seriously, if you want to know what really happened buy the DVD! But don’t blame me for wasting your time and money!

Anyway, apart from Fragile, some other horror movies I’ve watched lately were The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Link), Wolf Creek (Link), Dog Soldiers (Link), and The Omen (Link). Texas Chainsaw is a good horror movie that I got more than one recommendation to watch, and I do recommend it to others now; I enjoyed it. Wolf Creek and Dog Soldiers were a bit different from other classic horror movies but nonetheless were boring. The Omen was entertaining, but didn’t scare a bit of me, probably because I watched it at home …

So what’s wrong people? Ana tamsa7et, wella hadool el aflam ma be5awfo wlad z3’ar?

My close friends know that I’ve been running away from the traffic police for more than a year now! I keep escaping their motors and Fords at day, and evading their patrols at night. I didn’t do anything against the law if you thought so … it’s just (for reasons beyond the scope of this post) that I don’t have any kind of driving or car licenses :D

Seeing a police Ford roaming nearby means a lot of trouble for me. If I got suspected and caught, before getting my licenses, my car will be stopped and taken away by a creaking winch, which means bye bye to the car body and downside. Getting stopped by the police is not an option for me. I hope they don’t come in my pursuit if I didn’t make a stop at their sign one day :P

Today I was heading towards the technician to fix a problem with my car’s electrical wirings. Unluckily, I got stuck behind a wondering police Ford all the way from “dowwar el da5eleyyeh” to “el-dowwar el awwal”. I couldn’t move left or right, nor horn a long beeeeep like I usually do to old bumpy pickup trucks. I had to behave or else … “BMW ko7le soffele 3al yameen”.

Anyway, it took me almost 10 minutes to reach my destination, which was a car accessories place, and the police car was ahead all the way. I finally got to the place at the beginning of the Rainbow Street, and there … I faced a big surprise! The police Ford stopped exactly in front of the place!! They were also coming for a fix!!

6ab3an ana 7ammaret oo zarraget oo ba66alet 3aref esh a3mel. The police car filled the space in front of the building and I had to either move on or to stop on the other side of the street (mamnoo3 by the way). Moving on meant returning home, which I couldn’t do after coming all this distance, so I chose the later option, and waited for the police to finish their business praying to god they don’t get inspired to do something like “abol shabab lesh safef hek? a36eene ro5asak”.

El mohem, they were a tough twenty minutes I had to spend in my car, pulling on a confident look and trying to take a picture so that I can post about the thing :P. At the end, they moved on “miraculously”, not even having a single doubt that the freaking driver in the next car was an easy “catch” for a ticket!


Today was one of the discomforting nowadays of my driving. You can see how much of a problem traffic police became for me. Ironically, I used to like them and enjoy their stops during the first year after I got the driving license. I’ll post soon about some funny stories my friends and I had with the police :)