A Day At The Beach

While everyone was suffering from the freezing after effects of Saturday’s snow back home in Jordan:

(Na-na-na-nana, you didn’t even get a snow day cos it snowed during the weekend)

I was enjoying a day at the beach in Australia:

Mwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

 

Twitter for Dummies

I have to admit that I love Twitter more than Facebook. No games and applications, no random likes of annoying meaningless pages, no annoying tags appearing in your feed, and no one tagging you in meaningless photos and then having 100′s of meaningless notifications appearing out of nowhere from people you’ve never heard off, and all that crap.

I’m trying to get some of my FB friends on board, I’ve succeeded in converting one friend (aka habooleh) and another friend (batee5a) has been trying it out for a while, but it seems to me that she can’t get the hang of it, so this post is dedicated to anyone who’s thinking of giving Twitter a chance, and anyone who has but doesn’t really understand how it works and what to do. (And by the way, I’m going to assume that you know how to use Facebook, also this is the way I use Twitter, it’s not necessarily right, but it’s the way I got the hang of things and how it grew on me) 

Ok, let’s start:

You know how on Facebook you have your news feed where you see what your friends have been up to via status updates or shared photos etc, well Twitter has the same thing, but only with “status” updates (aka tweets). You can still share links by posting them and photos (via yfrog or twitpic).

In order to enjoy Twitter you need to FOLLOW people. Following is just like “friending” on Facebook except you don’t have to send a request unless that person has set their posts to private. Then you have to wait till they “add” you or give you permission to follow them.

Don’t follow people who never tweet, or have never tweeted, or tweet once a year. This is the reason why you may find it so boring, also don’t just follow the 2 or 3 people you actually know and call it a day, in order to really enjoy twitter and make the most our of it, along with your acquaintances, follow people who interest YOU. They don’t have to be actual people, they can be companies, newspapers, magazines, celebrities, writers, bloggers, or random fictional characters whose tweets make you smile, or even a random stranger who shares the same love for giant metal chickens as you do. Also you don’t have to follow everyone who follows you, if you don’t find them interesting enough, then just don’t follow them, if they seem like they’re spammers (you’ll know because when you go to their profile all their posts are just spammy links on how to make more money, or whatever) then you can block them and/or report them for spam.

Don’t follow random people who tweet too much, and by too much I mean every 5 minutes or less, tweeting random links and ads. Those people are known as spammers…and are just as annoying as those Facebook friends who fill up your news feed with random crap and you end up unsubscribing from all their updates. You may also find that some celebs and other people you’re following are just as annoying by tweeting way too much, so try not to follow those because then you’ll wake up to 500 new tweets and no time to read the ones you do find interesting. 

Clean out your followers every once in a while (if your tweets aren’t protected) because you’re going to find a lot of spammers and ho’s following you…and you don’t want anyone (like your boss, or significant other) to find nude profile pics of your followers while they’re spying on who you’re following and who your followers are.

It’s not a competition, you don’t have to follow hundreds of people just because other people you know are, or else you won’t have time to catch up on any tweets, and at the same time you don’t have to have hundreds of followers.

I follow 37 people who are made up of mostly friends and people I know in real life (some have only joined twitter and have yet to tweet), celebrities & writers who I find interesting like @shondarhimes (creator of Greys Anatomy & Private Practice), @ajcookofficial, @pagetpaget (both actresses from Criminal Minds), @LizVassey (who played Wendy on CSI) and @TJThyne (who plays Hodgens on Bones), awesome and funny people like @hamzahmoin, @shitmydadsays and the funniest of all @TheBloggess, people who tweet show spoilers like @MichaelAusiello because I’m still a spoiler ho, and that’s about it. I used to follow a bunch of other actors and writers but it was just too much for me to keep up with so I created another twitter account, @aussiesfavorite, and added them all on there to catch up on whenever I’m bored. 

I hope this post helps anyone who’s thinking of joining the awesome world of Twitter or has joined and is wondering what to do next.

 

Happy Valentines Day…Bwahahaha

 

Back in Civilization!

Yes, I know I haven’t been updating this blog lately and that my third and supposedly final installation of my Doctor Who reviews is still in my drafts waiting until I find some time to finish it. The reason for this is that I’m in Australia on a much needed vacation, from both the stress I was under at work, the cold cold winter in Jordan this year, and the horrible cough I had because of my stupid allergies (which I’m happy to say suddenly disappeared two days after I left), seriously though, who gets allergies in the winter?

The weather here is beautiful, it’s supposed to be summer…well the end of summer anyway, so I expected it to be hot with lots of sun, but instead it turns out to be perfect, the kind of weather I’d always wished for, cool, like you’ve got a permanent air conditioner on, showers, lots of clouds, some sun, occasional heat…its just awesome.

It’s also nice to finally be in a civilized country where you’re greeted with a smile and a “hi, how are you”, wherever you go instead of a kashra (frown) which is something Jordan is famous for, and a “have a nice day” when you leave.

I’ve decided to enjoy this vacation to the max and do things I never get to do in Jordan because I simply have no time, even though I’m only here for 5 weeks before I head back to the desert, stopping in the UAE for a week before I go back home to the same old routine of work and sleep.

Like the last time I was here, and to keep the weight gain to a minimum since it’s inevitable, I’m going to the gym at least three days a week, but I’m aiming for five (thanks to my wonderful and awesome sister in law who once again signed me up as a gift).

I also signed up for swimming lessons, which is something I’ve always wanted to do. I did take swimming lessons when I was in school for a couple of years but I never actually learnt how to swim.

I also found this AMAZING coffee place which is a 10 minute walk from my brothers place and a 5 minute walk from the gym, and yes I do make regular detours there a few times a week.

And lets not forget that I plan to do lots and lots of shopping as well!!

 

A Review of Doctor Who – Part II

Part Two – The Doctor Explained

First of all, Doctor Who is a British show (for those of you who love the fake British accent, of course their accents are real, not fake..this little note is dedicated to one person I know who will totally get this while everyone else who reads this will be thinking WTF).

Secondly, Doctor Who is a science fiction program, full of aliens, space travel, as well as time travel and there even is a parallel universe.

Third of all, Doctor who is like a really really old show, originally running from 1963 – 1989, there are probably over 700 episodes out there (no I didn’t watch all 700+, come on, when would I find the time for all that!)…and to date there have been eleven doctors (I’ll explain the bit about 11 doctors later on)…but they “rebooted” the show in 2005, and so far it’s been on for six seasons, a seventh on the way later this year.

So basically the show is about the adventures of a Time Lord, a time travelling 903 year old alien, who looks *gasp* human. He travels through time and space, almost always with a companion, in his TARDIS, which stands for Time and Relative Dimensions in Space. It’s a small blue wooden policebox (the one in the picture –> ) and don’t let the size of it fool you, it’s bigger on the inside, and when I say bigger I mean it’s HUGE…swimming pools, stairs, corridors, bedrooms..you name it the TARDIS has it. If you want to get to the closet you have to take your first left, 2nd right, 3rd on the left, go straight ahead, under the stairs, past the bins, and it’s the 5th door on your left. Kinda makes you wish they really existed and that you had one of your own.

Time Lords come from the planet Gallifrey and The Doctor (no his name is not Doctor Who, just “The Doctor”) is the last of them…the rest of the time lords were all killed along with the Daleks during the Time War. The Doctor looks completely human except that he has two hearts.

Time Lords have this awesome little trick. They have the ability to regenerate whenever they’re near death, which means they come back to life looking completely different, in a brand new body and with a whole new personality. They can end up being older, younger, thinner, fatter and they can even come back as the opposite sex, (now THAT would be interesting) anything is possible. All the incarnations of The Doctor share  the consciousness, memories, experience and basic personality of the previous incarnations. This actually brings a question to mind, if Time Lords can regenerate just before they die, then how the fuck did a whole planet of them get killed off? To quote River Song, “Spoilers.” So I guess you’d need to watch to know exactly what happened to them.

As annoying as it might be when The Doctor has to regenerate, it’s probably the reason why Doctor Who’s been so successful. I love how they made something so complicated as a main actor leaving the show into something so simple and normal and part of the show. Of course the downside is that you need to get used to a whole new actor and character, but  it does get easier after a few incarnations. So far there have been 11 incarnations of The Doctor, The 2005 reboot has already had three to date and so far I have to say that Ten is my favorite.

The Doctor has a lot of enemies, but he’s not evil and he’s not a murder, he’s actually a pacifist (he hates guns and doesn’t carry one around with him, his only weapon is his sonic screwdriver, which is really really cool by the way) and will try his best to reason with the enemy, yes even the Daliks who killed off all his people, but we still see a lot of alien deaths.

And now that you know who The Doctor is, and a little about the show, I can move on to the third and final post in my Doctor Who Review (I swear the rhyming was accidental). 

TBC in the third and final part: A Review of Doctor Who – Part III

 

A Review of Doctor Who – Part I

Part One – Why I Started Watching a Show I Never in a Million Years Thought I’d Like

A few years ago a very good friend of mine told me that I had to start watching Doctor Who, I think it was in it’s first or second back then. I’m sad to say that I ignored her, you see I’m one of those people who hate anything even remotely related to science fiction, I hate aliens, space, spaceships, shows set on planets other than Earth or set in spaceships (this goes for books, movies and television) and I really hate shows that replace the main actors(s) and then having a totally different dude play the same character.

This hatred of all things “spacey” comes from being forced to watch, or should I say put up with, Star Trek the Next Generation & Babylon 5, with my siblings. It was back when we only had 4 television channels to watch and only one aired dramas in English, so if I wasn’t out on the balcony spying on the neighbors and watching people come and go outside, then I was stuck inside while that crap was on. Winters were the worst because then it was either freeze to death in your room or watch that crap with your siblings in the warm living room next to the heater.

But that wasn’t the only reason I refused to watch Doctor Who. I have these distant memories of it airing on TV in Australia back in the 80′s (I was like 8 or 9 I think, but I could have been much younger) and I remember hating it, although I have no idea why I did.

Then when Doctor Who was in it’s 5th season, another friend started telling me how cool it was and saying that I’d love it, she then linked me to a clip of The Doctor and his fez on YouTube, which I have to admit that I liked, so I told her that as soon as I had time I would try out a few episodes. (You see how lucky I am, I’m blessed with friends who have exceptional taste in television shows so I’m kinda screwed because right now I’m addicted to more shows than I can watch or download)

Over a year later I decided it was time to see if this show was even worth watching (not because two awesome people tried to convince me to watch, and not because winter hiatus was coming up in the USA and this year I’d have nothing to watch for a few weeks until my shows were back, and not because I finally had a chance to download all the episodes and specials while I was visiting my sister who has super fast internet compared to mine, but because The Bloggess tweeted that she’d started watching it and that it was awesome..yes this is a true story)

Although for me it went more like this:

Episode 1: Hmmm, killer plastic….interesting.

Episode 2: Ewww, aliens…this is stupid, total crap.

Episode 3: OMG! I WILL NEVER STOP WATCHING THIS SHOW!!

So the question I keep asking myself now is, “OMG! What the fuck took me so long to watch this!”

I think it’s time to end this post but before I do, keep this in mind, the review (or reviews) that will follow this later on are written by someone who, yes, is addicted to a million and one shows already (mostly crime shows), but also hates all shows like this one…every single thing I swore I’d never ever watch is in this show and let me tell you that it really is amazing, maybe Beiber (gag) was right…never say never.

TBC in: A Review of Doctor Who – Part II

 

My Latest Hiatus Obsession(s)

Unless you have cable in the middle east, you have to put up with regular free to air satellite channels that either air Arab crap, or a few English channels which all air the same movies and shows over and over and over.

Even newer seasons of shows air a few years after they were shown in the USA (CSI is up to it’s 12th season in the USA but here they’ve only aired up to 9). Hell there are even shows that have never aired on any Arab channel and never will (Wilfred & Game of Thrones are good examples of shows that will never see the light of day on free to air channels). And even the shows that make it end up getting censored. Grey’s Anatomy has all the Calizona scenes censored out, so unless you’ve watched the uncut episode, sometimes you stare at the TV and wonder WTF because you didn’t understand what just happened when the scene was cut half way through, why, because Callie smiled at Arizona, or hugged her, or held her hand.

This is why I download all my shows, I like to watch the latest episode right away and that episode being uncensored is a huge bonus.

I have a bunch of summer shows, so I don’t get bored during the big hiatus and long wait until it’s Fall and all my shows are back, but what does one do during winter hiatus where there are no shows at all to watch? Well I for one get addicted to new shows (like I don’t have enough to watch already). 

This year I decided to give a few new shows a try, and a few old ones, which I downloaded while I was in Dubai last November. The first show I watched was Unforgettable (all 11 episodes), it’s still in its first season, and the reason I wanted to give it a try was because Poppy Montgomery was in it (if you remember she was Sam in Without a Trace). I can honestly say that the show is awesome and I really really hope CBS renew it for another season.

The second show I watched was Ringer (all 10 episodes), I’ve never liked Sara Michelle Gellar much, I really hated her in Buffy, but I’d seen part of the Ringer pilot on TV and I got hooked.

What really caught my attention was that this show was different and the suspense does keep you on the edge of your seat. It’s about Identical twin sisters Bridget & Siobhan, estranged for the last six years find that their lives are both unraveling at the same time. Bridget, a recovering addict, is on the run from the mob after witnessing a murder. She flees to her sister’s home & they seem to be repairing relationship until Siobhan mysteriously disappears during a boat trip the sisters take together.

Then I had to choose between The Big Bang Theory (all 5 seasons) and Doctor Who (all 6 seasons and the specials). Since I wasn’t that optimistic that I’d like Doctor Who even though I’d promised a friend I’d give it a try (I hate science fiction, I hate aliens, I do like time travel though, and I hate it when shows keep changing main actors every few seasons) so I decided to go with The Big Bang Theory. I’d watched a few episodes on TV and I loved it. I started to watch on a weekend and I couldn’t stop, I think I ended up watching one season a day. I finished it in less than a week.

And finally I was left with Doctor Who, I’ve been watching for almost 2 weeks now and I’m almost half way through the final season, I should be done watching it by tomorrow.

I’m so glad I left the best till last, I’m totally hooked, I honestly can’t stop watching, I spent the last 2 weekends in bed watching one season a day. I stay up till 2am on weekdays after I get home from work watching, every time I finish an episode I promise myself the next one will be the last for the night…it never is.

And yes, I’m writing this blog post while I watch episode 5 of Doctor Who’s season 6, it’s actually the first kinda boring episode so it doesn’t need my full attention…yet.

I may review Doctor Who in a future post, if I ever get around to it…it really is that awesome and deserves one.

Hiatus is now over, actually has been over for a week now and I have a bunch of new episodes of my shows to watch (over 18 hours worth) but I can’t until I’m done with The Doctor.

 

14 Things I Learnt From Doctor Who

My latest obsession is Doctor Who 2005 (Reboot), maybe I’ll write a blog post about it one day when I’m finished watching it and can finally pull myself away from the TV. 

For now, though, here are several things I’ve learnt from the good doctor (seriously this stuff could save your life one day..I am not kidding):

• Always wait five and a half hours
• Always bring a banana to a party
• Always wear sneakers to formal occasions, ESPECIALLY WEDDINGS
• Speaking of weddings, always make sure your wedding dress has pockets
• Don’t blink. Don’t turn your back, don’t look away, and DON’T BLINK
• Stay away from the shadows
• When you are holding a timey-wimey dectector, stay away from chickens
• Don’t try the Adipose diet
• Little blue boxes may not be so little on the inside.
• Turn left
• There is no Noddy
• Beware of the words, “Bad Wolf”
• Never ever wear a Bluetooth attachment
• Always RUN!

 

English Pronunciation

And my first post for this year will be this lovely poem…I’m just in the mood for making you suffer

I wish there was a recording of someone reading this so one would actually know if they pronounced every word correctly.

They say that if you can pronounce correctly every word in this poem, you will be speaking English better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world. 

After trying the verses, a Frenchman said he’d prefer six months of hard labour to reading six lines aloud. (I think I may have to agree with the French dude cos I started coughing after reading a third of the poem. Seriously it’s worse than going to the gym!) 

by G. Nolst Trenité

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Fe0ffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

If you’ve made it till the end (without cheating and just scrolling down) then I applaud you, you are totally awesome…BRAVO!

Stolen from The Poke

 

People Like This Are Why Stabbing Should Be Legal

(Title stolen from a comment a very good friend of mine made on the FB status I posted yesterday about this subject)

Apparently I’ve done something unthinkable and unforgivable according to an idiot out there. Who would have thought I could really piss someone off with my meaningless blog which no one probably reads unless I pimp out my latest posts on Facebook, Twitter and G+.

Yesterday I got a comment (which instead of approving and replying to, I’m writing my final post for 2011 about) on my last blog post.  This idiot is demanding I take down my blog because I’m “stealing” their reader base. How am I doing that? Well according to them it seems that when someone wants to search for their blog on Google, mine comes up first. Insane right! (The secret is that I bribed the folks at Google because I really have it in for this person I’ve never heard off). Mwahahaha.

Actually the comment really made my day and had me ROTFLMFAO…not only was it hilarious…but they actually think that my meaningless blog is so popular, I have thousands of readers….also that they seem to think that their blog is popular enough to have just as many readers (maybe even more than me…which I found even funnier) and that I wanted to steal them all by creating this blog.

Here’s the comment:

Hello, aussieforgood. This is relatively unrelated to your post, but I wanted to express my dis-contempt with the domain name you’ve chosen. You see, the domain of my wordpress is idiot.wordpress.com*, and when my loyal fans choose to Google search it, your blog comes up first in the index. I’d like you to take the entire thing down, you’re taking my reader base, that is unforgivable. Thanks.

*I’m not posting their “domain” name in this post just in case their loyal readers who are now reading my blog realize that I’m the wrong person and then go back to reading that idiots blog, and we wouldn’t want that to happen, so I’m substituting it with idiot..also there may be a blog out there with a domain name that starts with idiot..if there is I apologize to you for associating you with this idiot, I really didn’t mean to make fun of your blog, I’m pretty sure any blog with a domain name starting with idiot is an awesome one.

Just for clarification, this persons “domain name” is kinda the same as mine but has an extra letter in there somewhere.

And now, just in case the writer of the comment above (which will never be approved and will be moved to the trash as soon as I publish this post) comes back to read my blog, this is my official reply:

• Dude, what can I do, wordpress made that name available to me…at first I tried 1 “u” then 2, those were taken, 3 “u‘s” were available so I just snatched it up without thinking that maybe someone has the exact same domain name but wanted to add an extra letter in there…next time try taking all domain names close to yours and make them unavailable to everyone else. (OMG!! I just realized that I’m probably stealing all the loyal readers of the other 2 domain names that were already taken!! Oh no!! This means I’m not just stealing your reader base but other peoples too! How evil of me! Oh my, how am I supposed to sleep at night)
• Try updating your blog regularly instead of ditching it in February then coming back to it in December…maybe your readers (if you really have any) would have stuck around had you been updating in the last 9 months.
• As of yesterday you have a total 10 blog posts, I have 60…maybe you should take down your blog…not that I see it as any kind of threat to me since I know the people who read my blog, or should I say, I know the people who I want reading my blog, and I don’t think they’ll be interested in reading yours.
• Maybe you should Google how to get your blog’s ranking higher up in Google instead of Googling your blog, maybe you can find out what a sitemap is and how to use it to your advantage.
• Oh and please don’t take my use of the word idiot personally…I’m just one of those people who agree with House and I like to call all idiots “idiot”.

I think I’ve done enough idiot bashing for one day. And finally to all my readers (and the ones I’ve stolen) have a happy new year and see you in 2012.

Now back to my Doctor Who marathon.