Stupid adverts, or targetted at stupid people?

Is there a word stronger than “detest” to express my hate for most of the stupid television commercials targetted to Gulf viewers?

The typical TVCs (television commercials) we get to watch on the now tens of satellite channels and ALL of the terrestrial channels in the Gulf I think are so low in creative quality, that they verge on the obsene. Add to the fact that most if not all seem to be targetted to “sub-intelligent” viewers – meaning the Gulf Arabs in particular – that they are downright demeaning.

Worse is the companies that sponsor them, get them made, and disperses them at vast amounts of money are mostly Gulf companies. We should shame them, maybe there is life in that dead horse.

new theme…

yep, I’ve finished the first iteration of a new theme for Xaraya inspired by the PBS scientific site Nova and the new Xaraya theme done by Andy V. where I borrowed some of his styles.

let me know what you think and if you experience any problems with it…

Here’s how I created this theme and how you can create your own Xaraya theme.

To hell with democracy.. bring back the old ways

For the first time in my life I voted for the Bahraini Parliament. Now I know that I should not have bothered. Democracy is not worth it and it doesn’t work in the Arab world in general and Bahrain in particular.

They have been operating now since October 2002. Almost a full term considering that they’ve just voted to take 3 months off for summer! They want to be addressed as “your excellency”. They insist on getting Mercedes S320 cars with drivers. They get between BD 2,000 and 3,000 per month, maybe more if they’re involved in various committees and shall not be surprised if they also get overtime pay.

What the bloody hell are these people doing? Did they do a single thing since taking office to better the way of life in Bahrain?

Consider this:
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Lorenzo Climbs Everest

Here’s a blog that you should visit. Lorenzo tends the plants at the Open University’s KMI labs in England. But when he’s not doing that, he’s climbing mountains! and he’s off now to climb Everest to celebrate and commemmorate the 50th anniversary of Everest’s conquest by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay.

The difference is that he’s providing an “audio blog” rather than the low tech one you’re reading now! Here I am extremely happy that I’ve at last set up a web diary, albiet as part of the testing that I’m putting Xaraya to, but still just low tech text. I wonder if I could configure Xaraya to do video blogs! A bit ambitious considering that I’m still struggling with the Helix Basic Server that I used to stream my videos!

Come to think of it, I’ve been really blogging since 1986 when I started one of the first BBS (bulleting board service) in the Arabian Gulf. Called appropriately “Stray Cats BBS”, but that’s another story!

back to work now… just wanted to tell everyone about this guy that I really admire for what he’s doing.

The bankruptsy of Art in the Middle East

A friend of mine, an artist, has written to me decrying the state of visual and auditory art in the Arab world in general and Bahrain in particular, complaining of essentially the bancruptsy of the traditional broadcast institutions as well as so-called “image makers”, the advertising agencies and post-production houses in the area, that he finds it hard to compete in the market and maintain his self-set rules and quality standards, thus even harder to purchase systems that I sell – although he is the first to ascertain that he is infatuated with the equipment that I sell – not just because of the name and resepect they engender in the market (Avid Technology specifically), but he believes that these equipment can give him a competitive edge by giving him time lost in the trivialties of technical failures.

Here is my response:
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