Still toy guns?

Another season ends and just as I feared in this post ten months ago, no trophies for Arsenal FC. Although the reasons I cited were off, I wasn't too far. The main reason for Arsenal's problems lie in defense. Our best defenders left in the names of Kolo Toure and William Gallas, sure we had Vermaelen but how can one young defender replace two seasoned champions? Johan Djourou rose to the occasion and Koscielny put in brave performances for many occasions, but it felt like they were still a bit too frail at the back.

Every Arsenal fan likes to make his own deduction of what's going wrong with the team, many blamed experience, others blamed it on quality, the seasons before it was depth, and I myself thought it was because we needed a superstar. Chelsea have Drogba, Barcelona have Messi, Man-United had Ronaldo and now Rooney. It makes me wonder "does Arsenal have someone like that?" a player that would strike fear to all who play against us; we used to have Henry. If you asked me that question half way through the season, I would've told you no. I was proven wrong however towards the end of the season; we have Robin Van Persie. As it turns out, he has made the English record for most goals scored within a half season as well as a record for most consecutive away goals; imagine if he'd been fit all season. Then again we say that every season.

There are so many positives to take away from this season, we have improved collectively, our goalscoring is top of the league, many of our players have become stars with the likes of Nasri, Walcott, Alex Song, and of course, Jack Wilshere who is our player of the season. Great things to come from that boy, I remember watching the reserve videos just to see him play. We are top of the mini-top four league, have a strong team and to improve it will be very difficult, a solid goalkeeping trio. I think the key for next season will be to keep our best players.

So another season to wait for during the summer, and another run to put something in the trophy-less cabinet, another year to try and get something other than the Emirates Cup; this year will be different. We've all been saying that for the past 6 years and rightly so, because we believe in this team just as much as the boss does. We're doing the right things and we are unbelievably close to something really big. People forget that Sir Alex once had a trophy-less run, and look at what happened after. These Gunners no longer use toy guns, and our guns will surely be well loaded and rationed for next season.

Freakonomics - The Documentary

"If you can understand what people's incentives are, you have a good chance of knowing how they're going to behave".

Those were the words of Steven Levitt who, along, with Stephen Dubner, wrote the book: 'Freakonomics'. It's hard to see what the general topic of this documentary was about, as you move along you begin to understand the words mentioned at the beginning of the documentary; its about incentives. Maybe it was just me not used to a certain theme being described at the beginning of every documentary. I like watching documentaries, whether they're about science, history, life, or economics. I think the best stories are told in the format of documentaries. This film portrays 4 different topics which revolve around the idea of incentives and shows how sometimes they work and sometimes they don't.

I never knew how a name could impact someones life so much. The movie shows a small story of a girl who was named 'Temptress' by mistake. She ended up doing everything wrong in life, the question asked 'was her name the cause of that?' It was interesting to see that names reflect peoples positions, class, and ethnicity of all things, among Americans (and probably other nations). Some people believe that if you had a name like Barbie or Cindy you could end up a striper; or if you had a name like Ashley or Sarah, you're most likely to be an upper class white woman. Did you know that there are 228 unique versions of the name 'Unique' amongst Americans? examples include: 'Uneek' 'Uneqqee' and 'Uneque'. What drives people to do that? What are their 'Incentives'?

With Sumo wrestling regarded as a very pure and holy sport, it seems to carry an image that is contrary to some of the match fixing scandals that go on unpunished. Japan apparently regards image very highly, to the point that police pick out the crimes they want to solve or not, sometimes covering up other crimes in order to keep the conviction rate up.

From talking about those issues all the way to paying students to get better grades, to teaching a child how to go 'pee-pee'. It was a very interesting watch. It makes me love documentaries all the more. The book and documentary truly depict 'The hidden side of everything'

Thanks for reading, don't forget to comment!

A Pirates Life For Me? Meh.

Watching the long extended trailer for 'Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides' made me feel like it was going to be a mediocre Disney movie pushed out in order to make money from an extended franchise. Once again, another 3D scam. That's what I'll be calling them from now on; ''3D Scams'': Movies which are made into 3D for no reason but to get an extra 10-20 Dhs out of you.

The way the movie poster was made into 3D made people feel a bit exited at the fact that it was going to be in 3D. I took one look at the trailer and I knew it wasn't going to have much.

I felt the movie's script was a bit unplanned. For one, why was there a need to have the Spanish in the movie? Not only were they flat characters, they had little effect on the storyline for the screen time they had. It felt as if they were trying to push a Christian spiritual theme to the movie. From the king of England declaring how he "won't have a catholic king reach the fountain" to the priest on board trying to save the whole crew, and the Spanish making it all the way just to destroy the fountain saying "only god lives forever and allows such; Not pagan fountains" or something like that. I think the infamous 'Blackbeard' should've had a MUCH bigger role, it honestly felt like he wasn't very important to the story; come on! It's Blackbeard! But in fact none of the characters did. I missed the British Colonizer presence in the movie.

Notice how when Blackbeard was cutting into Jack's puppet he carved a trident symbol on his chest. I found it weird that I've seen that symbol in so many places including 'Planet Of The Apes' and the 'Quake' game series. Apparently it symbolizes 'The Devil's Pitchfork'. Was there a need for that in the movie?

It was a nice movie to watch and I would say was at least as funny as 'At World's End'. It deserves its 7.7 rating on IMDB.

Arab Stars

What a great example of a misleading title! The stars I'm talking about aren't the actors and actresses or the singers of the Arab world; they are the actual stars in the night sky that many of us Arabs tend to forget that many of them possess Arabic names! In fact, a lot of the sciences we learn today carry Arabic names. What? did you think the 'Al' behind Algebra, Alchemy, Algorithm, and Alcohol was all convention?

I decided to finally take that elusive Astronomy class at University this semester. It felt like a lot of knowledge that had been hidden in my brain from centuries long had just been burst out into a projector screen in front of me. Arab and Muslim society was on top of the world; something I had already known, but knowing it and seeing, learning, and wondering about it is a whole different thing.

I found out that there are over 1000 stars that have Arabic origin names, of course today scientists prefer to give them a Greek classification. One star in particular made me take a specific interest in it. 'Kappa Orionis', of the Orion constellation, carries the Arabic name 'Saiph' or 'Saiph Al Jabbar' which is in the position of The Hunter's sword. I felt very good about myself that my name was somewhere in the sky. What I also found out was that the whole constellation had Arabic names such as 'Mintaka', 'AlNilam'. 'Rigel', and 'Betelgeuse'. If you're interested in Harry Potter (which I'm not), Bellatrix is up there somewhere!

Here's some interesting Wikipedia links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Arabic_star_names

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Arabic_loanwords_in_English

UNICEF to the back please

Just read some news about the 'Qatar Foundation' getting its name on the new Barcelona FC kit. I thought they got rid of the UNICEF logo they were so proud of having until I realized it was only pushed to the back. Just on top of one's backside!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1388372/Barcelona-unveil-new-kits.html

Seems like even the mighty Barca can't hold back the temptations of sponsorship money. They're in debt I hear. Well when you're winning like Barca you don't really care about trivial things like that.

Speaking of sponsorships, Arsenal aren't quite happy with their own. The Emirates Stadium outfit are displeased with the amount they've been receiving from their sponsors, Emirates Airlines, demanding just as much as other sponsors would. Considering that Emirates don't even provide club holiday packages or football weekend trip offers (which upsets me), is reason enough to stop having them as sponsors. Etihad airways is doing all they can to push the Manchester City firm. Agreed; there are more reasons for an Abu Dhabi based airline to support an Abu Dhabi sheikh owned club than for a Dubai based to support a executive owned club.

Lion's Still Roar...

Class assignment today was to make an analysis of the movie 'Lion Of The Desert'; the story of the freedom fighter 'Omar Al Mukhtar' during the Italian invasion of Libya. I wish they still made movies like these; well made movies with historical accuracy. Mohammad Akkad (Director) was truly an exceptional talent. His work on 'The Message' was also quite notable. The movie was incorporated into our syllabus prior to the events in Libya; impeccable timing.

It was very nostalgic in a media res sense. Hearing the words: 'Tripoli! Benghazi!' gave me goosebumps as I remembered that these were the same names of the cities being fought for today. Although the reasons different, it tells me that these same places are still strategically important. It also tells me that the spirit of Omar Al Mukhtar is still fresh in the hearts of Libyans. Seeing Anthony Quinn play Omar really made me feel like I was looking at Al Mukhtar himself. Seeing the scene with the 'Peace negotiations' sent more goosebumps as it showed that these were also very much like how the world works today; nothing has changed.

Technology changes, and maybe human appearance changes but human behavior does not. People feel so disconnected with themselves and believe that the world is a better place because of all the technology and medicine. I would agree that maybe the world is a 'funner' place to live in, but people are the same no matter what they're form of transport, communication, and living look like. Maybe we should take a look at a lot of the African countries and see how progressive we've become. We see the same in the Arab world, and this is why Lion's will continue to roar through the ages.

I don't mean to sound pessimistic and angry; its probably the affect of the movie. Its just amazing what people can do to each other; well intentions and otherwise.

Thorsday is Pay day

So just recently another Marvel Comics movie was released called 'Thor'. I've always known about Thor from my younger days but never really got to like him. Mainly because I wasn't a real Marvel fan, but also because I didn't think it was very original since he was based on the hammer wielding norse deity of Thunder, Fertility, Strength, and a number of other things. The film was made to be viewed, sadly, in 3D.



The movie was a good watch all be it with a rushed pace. I can't imagine how people can be so calm at discovering Norse deities and a huge walking war machine that was likened to one of Tony Stark's machines. It was funny a lot of the time and I have to say I enjoyed it overall. A good friend of mine and I decided to go to the front on the theater and watch the end credits up close. That was probably the most 3D we saw the whole movie. Just as I'm typing this my friend online was telling me he forgot it was in 3D.

Sometimes I feel like the theaters here are taking advantage of the whole 3D movie craze. On a Thursday (ironically) I decided to watch this film even though I hadn't intended to at first. I discovered that the movie was only available in 3D and began to think: "Crap, thats gonna bite through my wallet". Is it me? or is every hit blockbuster movie in 3D nowadays? Often do I feel like theres no need for the 3D in the movie.

Looking at it from the theater's perspective, making the movie only available in 3D means they can charge an extra 20 Dhs for the movie plus glasses(which are usually given back). ITS A RIPOFF! Movies are soon going to be only in 3D and if people get used to these prices then they're going to be paying 50 Dhs for a movie. That more than covers the costs that theaters wanted some time ago when they hiked the movie prices to 40 Dhs and blamed it on rents. Pirates of the Carribean 4 is coming soon and its going to be in 3D; seriously?.

Thanks for reading and hopefully more to come soon!

Change of Style.

It has been too long since I last posted anything on this blog (any blog for that matter) and now that I've bought a new laptop, I feel as though I should get back to writing again. I've made big changes in the past year and I see my future heading in a preferred direction. Keeping this blog going is something I believe will not only keep me entertained but also help prepare me for my future career.

I may not have any followers; This place probably hasn't had anyone reading. Nonetheless, I hope to keep this thing going and I especially hope I can keep things interesting.

I've decided to change the format of my blog and add whatever goes to mind instead of having different blogs for different topics. So without further due "Thorsday" COMING SOON