Perfection

Life's a train.

Life is like a train that's on a one way trip, people you know are the stations you stop by one your way, the time you have at each station is up to you but you can only stop by it once and never go back, so make the most of it and just sit back and enjoy the ride.

The Muslim Brotherhood

Contrary to popular belief, I used to feel bad for The Muslim brotherhood during Mubarak's era being not able to get a fair chance & despite of all the smear campaigns against them by Mubarak's media. However, after 25 jan being on their own and responsible for their actions they succeeded in a few months to do what the whole ousted regime failed to do for years and years making me loathe and despise them... Kudos!

The 84th Academy Awards

And the Oscar goes to...
Best Picture	Best Director
The Artist – Thomas Langmann The Descendants – Jim Burke, Jim Taylor, and Alexander Payne Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close – Scott Rudin The Help – Brunson Green, Chris Columbus, and Michael Barnathan Hugo – Graham King and Martin Scorsese Midnight in Paris – Letty Aronson and Stephen Tenenbaum Moneyball – Michael De Luca, Rachael Horovitz, and Brad Pitt The Tree of Life – Dede Gardner, Sarah Green, Grant Hill, and Bill Pohlad War Horse – Steven Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy	Michel Hazanavicius – The Artist Woody Allen – Midnight in Paris Terrence Malick – The Tree of Life Alexander Payne – The Descendants Martin Scorsese – Hugo
Best Actor	Best Actress
Jean Dujardin – The Artist as George Valentin Demián Bichir – A Better Life as Carlos Galindo George Clooney – The Descendants as Matt King Gary Oldman – Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy as George Smiley Brad Pitt – Moneyball as Billy Beane	Meryl Streep – The Iron Lady as Margaret Thatcher Glenn Close – Albert Nobbs as Albert Nobbs Viola Davis – The Help as Aibileen Clark Rooney Mara – The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo as Lisbeth Salander Michelle Williams – My Week with Marilyn as Marilyn Monroe
Best Supporting Actor	Best Supporting Actress
Christopher Plummer – Beginners as Hal Fields Kenneth Branagh – My Week with Marilyn as Laurence Olivier Jonah Hill – Moneyball as Peter Brand Nick Nolte – Warrior as Paddy Conlon Max von Sydow – Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close as The Renter	Octavia Spencer – The Help as Minny Jackson Bérénice Bejo – The Artist as Peppy Miller Jessica Chastain – The Help as Celia Foote Melissa McCarthy – Bridesmaids as Megan Price Janet McTeer – Albert Nobbs as Hubert Page
Best Writing – Original Screenplay	Best Writing – Adapted Screenplay
Midnight in Paris – Woody Allen The Artist – Michel Hazanavicius Bridesmaids – Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo Margin Call – J.C. Chandor A Separation – Asghar Farhadi	The Descendants – Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon, and Jim Rash from The Descendants by Kaui Hart Hemmings Hugo – John Logan from The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick The Ides of March – George Clooney, Grant Heslov, and Beau Willimon from Farragut North by Beau Willimon Moneyball – Screenplay by Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin; Story by Stan Chervin from Moneyball by Michael Lewis Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy – Bridget O'Connor and Peter Straughan from Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carré
Best Animated Feature	Best Foreign Language Film
Rango – Gore Verbinski A Cat in Paris – Alain Gagnol and Jean-Loup Felicioli Chico and Rita – Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal Kung Fu Panda 2 – Jennifer Yuh Nelson Puss in Boots – Chris Miller	A Separation (Iran) in Persian – Asghar Farhadi Bullhead (Belgium) in Dutch and French – Michaël R. Roskam Footnote (Israel) in Hebrew – Joseph Cedar In Darkness (Poland) in Polish – Agnieszka Holland Monsieur Lazhar (Canada) in French – Philippe Falardeau
Best Documentary – Feature	Best Documentary – Short Subject
Undefeated – TJ Martin, Dan Lindsay, and Richard Middlemas Hell and Back Again – Danfung Dennis and Mike Lerner If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front – Marshall Curry and Sam Cullman Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory – Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky Pina – Wim Wenders and Gian-Piero Ringel	Saving Face – Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and Daniel Junge The Barber of Birmingham: Foot Soldier of the Civil Rights Movement – Robin Fryday and Gail Dolgin God Is the Bigger Elvis – Rebecca Cammisa and Julie Anderson Incident in New Baghdad – James Spione The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom – Lucy Walker and Kira Carstensen
Best Live Action Short Film	Best Animated Short Film
The Shore – Terry George and Oorlagh George Pentecost – Peter McDonald and Eimear O'Kane Raju – Max Zähle and Stefan Gieren Time Freak – Andrew Bowler and Gigi Causey Tuba Atlantic – Hallvar Witzø	The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore – William Joyce and Brandon Oldenburg Dimanche – Patrick Doyon La Luna – Enrico Casarosa A Morning Stroll – Grant Orchard and Sue Goffe Wild Life – Amanda Forbis and Wendy Tilby
Best Original Score	Best Original Song
The Artist – Ludovic Bource The Adventures of Tintin – John Williams Hugo – Howard Shore Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy – Alberto Iglesias War Horse – John Williams	"Man or Muppet" from The Muppets – Bret McKenzie "Real in Rio" from Rio – Sérgio Mendes, Carlinhos Brown, and Siedah Garrett
Best Sound Editing	Best Sound Mixing
Hugo – Philip Stockton and Eugene Gearty Drive – Lon Bender and Victor Ray Ennis The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – Ren Klyce Transformers: Dark of the Moon – Ethan Van der Ryn and Erik Aadahl War Horse – Richard Hymns and Gary Rydstrom	Hugo – Tom Fleischman and John Midgley The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – David Parker, Michael Semanick, Ren Klyce, and Bo Persson Moneyball – Deb Adair, Ron Bochar, David Giammarco, and Ed Novick Transformers: Dark of the Moon – Greg P. Russell, Gary Summers, Jeffrey J. Haboush, and Peter J. Devlin War Horse – Gary Rydstrom, Andy Nelson, Tom Johnson, and Stuart Wilson
Best Art Direction	Best Cinematography
Hugo – Dante Ferretti and Francesca Lo Schiavo The Artist – Laurence Bennett and Robert Gould Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 – Stuart Craig and Stephanie McMillan Midnight in Paris – Anne Seibel and Hélène Dubreuil War Horse – Rick Carter and Lee Sandales	Hugo – Robert Richardson The Artist – Guillaume Schiffman The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo – Jeff Cronenweth The Tree of Life – Emmanuel Lubezki War Horse – Janusz Kamiński
Best Makeup	Best Costume Design
The Iron Lady – Mark Coulier and J. Roy Helland Albert Nobbs – Martial Corneville, Lynn Johnson, and Matthew W. Mungle Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 – Nick Dudman, Amanda Knight, and Lisa Tomblin	The Artist – Mark Bridges Anonymous – Lisy Christl Hugo – Sandy Powell Jane Eyre – Michael O'Connor W.E. – Arianne Phillips
Best Film Editing	Best Visual Effects
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – Angus Wall and Kirk Baxter The Artist – Anne-Sophie Bion and Michel Hazanavicius The Descendants – Kevin Tent Hugo – Thelma Schoonmaker Moneyball – Christopher Tellefsen	Hugo – Rob Legato, Joss Williams, Ben Grossmann, and Alex Henning Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 – Tim Burke, David Vickery, Greg Butler, and John Richardson Real Steel – Erik Nash, John Rosengrant, Danny Gordon Taylor, and Swen Gillberg Rise of the Planet of the Apes – Joe Letteri, Dan Lemmon, R. Christopher White, and Daniel Barrett Transformers: Dark of the Moon – Scott Farrar, Scott Benza, Matthew E. Butler, and John Frazier

كلمة اهل الشهيد محمد جمال سليم بالمنصورة 27/1/2012

Dr. Ghonim's Speech 27/1/2011

"Invictus" by William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

Henley wan an influential poet in the Victorian era, a major theme in literature prior to this era was human powerlessness against fate, The poem celebrates the concept of free will, declaring that the individual can choose to live with courage and dignity even if the circumstances are beyond his control, Henley himself suffered from bone tuberculosis which lead to him spending too much time in hospitals and finally resulting in a below knee amputation of his left leg in his late teen years or early 20s, which inspired him to write this poem and didn't prevent him from living a full life and becoming an acclaimed poet, Invictus is Latin fro "unconquered".

Revolution..."To be continued"

Gaza still weeps

I made this video a couple of years ago, the sad thing is nothing really changed, Palestinians are still being attacked and murdered and Gaza is Still being bombed...

First they came...

First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

-Martin Niemöller

Happy #NoSCAF day!

Today, or i should say yesterday May 23rd was the #NoSCAF day which many Egyptian bloggers have been promoting and calling for quite some time now on Twitter, facebook and anywhere they can, the idea was simply to publish blog posts criticizing the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) to break the fear barrier and media silence over it's violations. I was supposed to write this post earlier but i got stuck at the hospital and went straight to bed when i got back so i'm writing this now, sadly it's gonna be extra short cause i have to be up in less than 4 hours and be back at the hospital so here goes. Looking a few months back, when we started the revolution on January 25th, the main goals were to free people from their fear from the system, letting people know that a president's main role is merely as a manager or an executive that the people hired to run the country and he's not a God like figure not to be criticized and breaking that taboo and many other goals of course but those where the ones high on my list, the idea of being able to express my opinion without the fear that i might get locked-up or tortured, it was giving everyone a chance to speak up without worrying about the consequences that might follow. Let's take a look about what we acheived on the past few month after the revolution:

• Hosni Mubarak: stayed in a palace in Sharm EL Sheikh protected by his own forces, and when he was supposed to go to trial he acted all sick like a kid who's skipping school and went to Sharm el sheik's hospital, and he's still there.

• Suzanne Mubarak: Released from detention after throwing away some chaneg (24 millions), also was admitted to the same hospital after a presumably panic attack.

• The SCAF issued an Anti-protest law.

• Protesters and detainees are facing military trials not civil ones although martial law is not applied.

• The SCAF started acting like the previous regime, keeping all the decision making to themselves with no representatives whatsoever of the people who made the revolution in the first place.

• The SCAF, more than once used violence against protesters and detainees , starting from beating them down, tying them, keeping them in non-humane conditions, cutting their hair and cussing them to using electric sticks, tasers and even live ammo against them.

• Protesters went to military trial for having a sit-in in front of the israeli embassy after being detained by the army.

• The same army forces who just stood there during the revolution while protesters were attacked and killed by thugs in Tahrir and other places and who were not-so-fashionably late during the Imbaba incident are the ones who didn't waste anytime in beating up and attacking the protesters in front of the israeli embassy and apprehending them and in Tahrir too before that.

• The usage of the Egyptian museum as a torture chamber by the army in many occasions.

• Not taking any action or showing the initiative to investigate these actions.

That's all i could think of right now,and from that we conclude that the revolution is far from over, we still got a long way to go and yet some people are wondering why many activits called for returning to Tahrir square on may 27th.

The revolution is still alive...

The Vienna incident

This happened more than a year ago, Summer 2009 in was in Hungary for a month in a student exchange program, i traveled to Vienna, Austria for a couple of days and this happened when i was there, and since i'm writing this now it won't be 100% accurate cause some of the details are foggy due to my "awesome" memory.

We were a group of 6 traveling together, 2 turks, 2 english girls and me and my friend from Egypt, one of the english girls wanted to stay behind in Vienna so we were supposed to be 5 people traveling together to Prague and we had reserved the bus tickets online and everything was going fine, the bus was supposed to leave at 6:30 so we decided that morning that everyone should go do whatever he/she wants and that we all should be ready by 5:30 and meet at our hostel to pick up our bags and all.

And so we did we met the turks at the hostel while we got a text from the english girl that she will be meeting us at a certain subway station and which line to take, so it was almost 6 and we were about to take the subway to that station when i got another text from her saying that the bus station is not near the station we were gonna meet at and that we should meet at another one that's nearby the bus station, luckily we got that text in time just before we boarded the train so we started looking at the subway lines map they got to check the shortest and fastest route to our destination, and while doing so we ran into our English friend which had a bit of a surprising news that she's not sure where's the bus station we should be taking our bus to Prague from!

So we took the subway to the 2nd station she mentioned and it was past 6 by that time, 6:10 may be and we started asking random people about the bus station which was called"International bus station" or something like that as i recall and of course nobody knew what the hell we were talkin' about let alone not everyone could speak english, so we started going out in the streets, trying to get any information we can but again we got nothing, then our english friend decided to ask a friend of hers which lived in Vienna for help, she called him and luckily he knew the bus station and volunteered to go there and try to hold the bus till we arrive and it was 6:25 by then.

So now having less than 10 mins to catch the bus we started running in the streets with our luggage and all, through gardens and highways with speeding cars, the turkish guy almost got hit by one, the turkish girl tripped and fell down, the english girl took off her flip flops and started running bare foot, and then it started raining as if that wasn't enough already, it looked like a scene from a bad movie, except it must have been fun to watch.

Luckily we made it just before the bus leaves, we were the last group that boarded the bus, remembering all of that now i can't help but having this huge smile on my face, GOOD TIMES!

Quote of the day

There will always be that one person who doesn't even know you exist,but has the power to shatter your heart into a thousand pieces.

Islands

I came to the conclusion that life is like a boat and people are like islands that you keep stumbling upon while sailing , each has it's own perks and it's own unique aura so enjoy each island as you can cause you might not get to visit it again...

Wonderland , Stand up comedy and stage cats make one hell of a day !

I've been always a big fan of stand up comedy , it's a relatively new thing in Egypt though so when The guys from Axis of Evil Comedy Tour first came to Egypt i was so psyched and wanted to go but none of my too-cool-for-stand-up-comedy friends wanted to so i ended up at home.So when i saw the Todo Stand-up comedy weekend commercial i was determined, this time i'm going and luckily two friends decided to come along.

So it's friday , the weather was great so we decided to catch a movie before the show , we went to see Alice in Wonderland (Yeah, I know what you are all thinking and i don't care) , it was AMAZING! Johnny Depp made a great Mad Hatter , it's like the guy got hundreds and hundreds of faces and personalities , each role he plays is one of a kind and doesn't look anything like any of the other characters he played and that's what i call acting.

After the movie we grabbed a quick lunch and we headed to the CICC where the show was taking place , it was supposed to start at 5:30 PM ad the entrance starts an hour earlier but like everything in Egypt it was a bit late , we were seated in the green zone (the 150 LE) tickets and it was better than i expected actually , the event was more organized than i anticipated.

The show was hosted by Ahmed Ahmed and featuring Maz Jobrani, Dean Obeidallah , Dean Edwards, Sugar Sammy and Mu'taz Attallah , they were all great especially Sugar Sammy and Dean Edwards , A cat came on the stage while Sugar Sammy was on , and to his bigger surprise people didn't consider it weird, actually one of the audience told him you can find it at hospitals , talk about dirty laundry..hehe.

Some didn't like Mu'taz Atallah's performance but i found it okay, i mean the guy is surrounded by big names and he's still kinda new at this , plus i guess he never performed in front of a crowd this big , eventually he will get there , nobody was born a star.What's important that i got to laugh non stop for 2 and half hours and adding to that seeing Alice in Wonderland it turned out to be a great day, and i really needed that.

What we learn from this : Wonderland + Stand-up comedy = perfect Friday

Reading now : One Hunderd Years Of Solitude

I've always wanted to read this book and now that i started doing so , I'm really enjoying it , with all the exotic places and the huge number of characters , I've just started but i can tell it's gonna be one of my all time favorites.

On a totally different subject i just found out that i only had one post between my this year and last year's Oscars post ,apparently that's all i did last year...so much for being productive !

The 82nd Academy Awards

I did my annual ritual of watching The Oscars live and here are the results :

Best Picture :
The Hurt Locker

Actor in a Leading Role :
Jeff Bridges

Actor in a Supporting Role :
Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds)

Actress in a Leading Role :
Sandra Bullock(The Blind Side)

Actress in a Supporting Role :
Mo'Nique(Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire)

Animated Feature Film :

Up

Art Direction :
Avatar , Rick Carter and Robert Stromberg (Art Direction); Kim Sinclair (Set Decoration)

Cinematography :
Avatar , Mauro Fiore


Costume Design :
The Young Victoria , Sandy Powell

Directing :
The Hurt Locker , Kathryn Bigelow


Documentary Feature :
The Cove , Louie Psihoyos and Fisher Stevens Documentary Short

Documentary Short :

Music by Prudence , Roger Ross Williams and Elinor Burkett


Film Editing :
The Hurt Locker , Bob Murawski and Chris Innis

Foreign Language Film :
The Secret in Their Eyes (El Secreto de Sus Ojos)
Argentina , Directed by Juan José Campanella

Makeup :
Star Trek
Barney Burman, Mindy Hall and Joel Harlow

Music (Original Score) :
Up
Michael Giacchino

Music (Original Song) :
Crazy Heart
"The Weary Kind (Theme from Crazy Heart)"Music and Lyric by Ryan Bingham and T Bone Burnett

Short Film (Animated) :
Logorama
Nicolas Schmerkin

Short Film (Live Action) :
The New Tenants
Joachim Back and Tivi Magnusson

Sound Editing :
The Hurt Locker
Paul N.J. Ottosson


Sound Mixing :
The Hurt Locker
Paul N.J. Ottosson and Ray Beckett

Visual Effects :
Avatar
Joe Letteri, Stephen Rosenbaum, Richard Baneham and Andrew R. Jones

Writing (Adapted Screenplay) :
Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire
Screenplay by Geoffrey Fletcher


Writing (Original Screenplay) :
The Hurt Locker
Written by Mark Boal

No Lo Vamos a Olvidar !

The Suit incident...or in the words of Barney Stinson : Suit up !

Well...it's been a while since i wrote anything here, but i kinda have my reasons;i spent a month in Hungary and traveling in Europe but we will get back to that later , and then it was Ramadan followed by Eid EL Fitr and my cousin's wedding and spending time with the family...and the fact i was actually bored which i still am but i promised Emma that i will write something so here goes...

It all started with my cousin's wedding day being the same day as the 1st day in Eid EL fitr and since the whole family gathered from all around the globe for the wedding , i decided to spend some time with the family which were in Cairo setting up for the wedding, and since the wedding was set to be on Sunday and my brother and parents weren't going to Cairo till Saturday , so i finished my work at the hospital on Wednesday and i went and bought some stuff i needed for the wedding and i got home and packed my stuff so i will leave the first thing in the next morning and nice i don't drive i was taking the bus to Cairo ,so i only had a small back pack with some T-shirts and i left my suit ,tie , shirt and shoes with the rents so they bring them on Saturday when they arrive. the wedding day came and i took a shower and started getting ready , i took the suit out , started wearing the pants which felt kinda big but i thought that's cause i lost some weight while i was traveling , i tried to button it up but it did far away from my waist , and i was thinking like "that's too big , that's not my pants , damn that's not my suit , that's my dad's !"

Yup, my mother brought the wrong suit ! and it was already 7:30 and we were supposed to be there at 8:30 tops to set things up and have family photos , so i started calling up my cousins trying to find someone's suit that fits but i couldn't , i started thinking of all the possible solutions to the situations and i reached the only rational one which was to buy a new suit...but wait it was the first day of Eid El fitr and many of the shops were closed , i decided to take my chances and i went searching for a suit and luckily i found one at the first shop i went to but the pants needed to be fixed and the guy there told me u can have it tomorrow so i just took it as it is and arrived at the hotel where they were having the wedding i went to my cousin's room and i called the hotel for a sewing kit and my mom actually helped fixing the pants. and here goes , a catastrophe averted , and i made it to the wedding in time and it was one of the best weddings i 've been to and it was really fun and that means something comin' out from me cause i really HATE weddings !

and that was the suit incident...