Top 13 Annoying Facebook Habits

I wanna preface this by saying that when I inevitably die in a boating accident, I don’t want any facebook groups cratered in my memory. You may keep me as a friend, but if, say after a year of my passing, you decided it’s time to move on, go ahead and remove me from your friends list. I won’t hold it against you.

I’m facebooking my life away, and in doing so, I came across some real doozies. Here is a list of different types of people/behaviors that never fails to raise an eyebrow. But before I jump in I wanna say thins: If see your name in the public newsfeed more than 4 times a day (not counting status updates) then you’re doing something wrong. Lets go.

13) Public Meltdown
Sharing is caring, except when going through some personal turmoil. If you’re having a fight with your significant other, a bad day at the office or just good old “depressed and contemplating ending it all” then keep it to yourself. Don’t spread out negative vibes all over my facebook. Get your shit together and PM the people concerned. Whatever you do, keep me out it.

12) Whining
If trying to let out a little steam by facebook stating isn’t lame enough, you could still inject the newsfeed with downers just for the fuck of it. Yes, tell us how tired, bored or angry you are and make our day.

11) Tweeting on facebook
Hey, the hashs don’t work, there are no trending topics, I don’t know half the acronyms you’re using and you’re replying to people on twitter. Need I say more?

10) Poor mans Philosopher
These nuggets of wisdom that you keep disposing encapsulate a lifetime of loneliness, and if the zero Likes didn’t tip you off then I am here to tell you that you should Just keep your epiphanies to yourself.

9) Cryptic Status
Unless there is some sort of secret code out there that I don’t know about, then this one is beyond me. Sometimes it’s an afterthought, sometimes it’s indirect (and by that I mean obvious as can be) message to a loved one. And sometimes it’s a whore-out for attention.

8) Donating your status
You’re not changing jack shit. The guy who’s collecting the status you’re donating is planning to take ‘em all and fled the country. Also, can you go to a mirror and ask yourself how could facebooking about a lost 6 years old is going to bring her back?

7) Lets Stop “them” from doing “this”
Like MJ said, if you wanna make a change, start with the man in the mirror. He didn’t say any thing about the dude whom you never seen who started a retarded group that is anti-the-thing-you-believe-in.

6) Turning into a youtube channel
The rule is, you should never ever ever ever post more than one viral video a week.

5) Lyrics or Movie Quotes as Status
Why don’t you write your own stat you lazy douche? Boil an egg, shave your pubes or do one of the 10 million other useful things-you-could-be-doing-with-your-time instead. Your lyrics/movie quotes are neither funny nor profound.

4) StUDy(@ps
iT’s e@sY t() Re@D iSn’T IT?! tAkes mE ba(k tO tHe l@te niGhtEis wHeN mIRC w@s thE pl@ce tO bE. ASL ROTFL, L@L :))))))))))))))) ;PPP <3

3) App Guru
No, I don’t want join your Mob Wars. I don’t even know what that is. And fuck FarmeVille (or is it Y’allVille?), invite me again and I’ll poke you to death (is poking still a thing?).

2) Creeper you might know
I don’t know him, and I don’t wanna know him. Just get him out of my sight and put my friends’ birthday alert there instead.

And the most annoying facebook vice of all
1) People who aren’t on facebook
Unless you’re an awkward old relative of mine, then you should get your face on that book ASAP. It’s ok, I admire that you stuck to your guns that long, but get of it! I am sick of you staying out of the loop, being all confused whenever we talk about something that happened on the book. If you’re really above it all then why don’t you throw away your cell phone too? It’s getting kinda hard maintaining that real-life friendship.

Shit on Pedestal

Hi there! Umm Kulthum can’t sing for shit. I would rather listen to technical support trying to explain to my grandma what an access point is than listen to that diva sing one more hour-long song about cryptic shit. Youssef Chahine, that talentless fruit, why does all his agitated characters have a 160-words-per-minute word count. I lose my breath trying to keep up with the dialogue. And for the knockout, Requiem for a dream is just as artistically stimulating as watching two cats trying to blow one another.

If your knees are shaking after reading these statements then you suffer from “shit on pedestal” syndrome. The symptoms include (but are not limited to) having godlike reverence for the things you admire; acting defensive when said things are put under question; brain-freeze episodes when faced with someone who does not share your affinity. To sum up, you’re just another sheep in the common denominator herd.

It’s stupefying how unwieldy normal conversation can get as a result of this. Why I’m suppose to feel like imbecilic just because I don’t think Teer Enta is the most significant cinematic event of this decade, It was a funny movie, but when a movie shines compared to other Hassan Hosni joints it does it really mean that much?

I don’t mind giving qualities to things don’t merit them, what I do mind is refusing to think for yourself and putting down the ones who do. This better be a byproduct of our –already 50 years overstaying its welcome– inferiority complex. It served us good not to question prevailing stances back when we forming a nation and fighting a war, but right now it only solidified odd cultural icons reputation as being historically significant. Who wants to see another autobiographical drama about some schmuck who’s only claim to fame is that he physically existed during the midd-20^th-century.

I know it radiates mad sex appeal to be opinionated, but if you don’t know your foot from your butthole then I would advice a different game plan; not knowing shit and caring less about it. It’s sexy and gets the girls motor going, but If you’re going to stick to your ignorant guns on that one then why don’t you go back to your room and watch that Bravehaert again. There are some details that you don’t get until the 6542^nd viewing.

Taxi Drivers

Like any Nile drinking Egyptian, I love a good “fucked a hooker without a condom” story, but truth by known, I am getting tired of the confined intimacy of taxi drivers, maybe not for so long.

We are now living through a taxi paradigm shift. One by one, these boxy-black eco frienemies are falling out. In their place we’re getting these slick white air-conditioned joy rides, yet there are some things that I’m going to miss. The personal touch for example, BW taxis used to be decorated employing very tacky DIY aesthetic. The element of surprise, where else would you pay an arbitrary fee, depending on your ability to read the person infront of you, for the same exact service.

One thing I wouldn’t miss is the casual relation taxi drivers had with their customer. I don’t know how it started or why but all of sudden it became kind of rude not to sit beside the taxi driver and hold his hand while he’s driving you to your destination. The new taxis offer a much colder and more distant experience, but I’ll take it anyway. In fact hustling with taxi drivers is a very pivotal Egyptian experience and a constant source of agony, one that we all bitch and whine about to the point that writing about it is just so obvious and uninspired. Yet, no list of Egyptian crap would be half complete without it.

I can clearly see the taxi drivers side of this, fuck, they are the ones who live life through this never ending sham that is Egyptian traffic. But you know what, all this bullshit they soak all day, they take it out on me someway or another, and while I don’t wanna say something harsh like that I hate them, I centrality have no love in my heart for these jerks what so ever. Bellow is a list of the different breeds of taxi drivers one might come across, some of the drivers are hybrids of two different breeds so feel free to mix-n-match.

The Storyteller Guy:
The plain vanilla of taxi driver. Storytelling abilities vary as the stories themselves. You got a wide variety of stories ranging from your basic you-wont-believe-what-happened-to-me-today, to the I-fucked-a-hooker and in some rare instances fables in real life context.

The Push It To The Limit Guy:
You say you’ll pay 10, he’s gonna ask for 15. You start with 15 he’s gonna go for that 20. They are harmless as long as they do it in a I-might-as-well-ask manner, but some of them get real rowdy, avoid those at all costs.

The Daredevil Guy:
Hard to tell at first, but within seconds of hitting the road you’ll notice that things keep getting progressively fucked. Like a frog in boiling water you won’t notice that one until it’s too late. A common excuse they tend to give is that some daddy’s boy cut them off or is pushing their buttons.

The “Walked Into The Middle Of A Story” Guy:
A psychedelic variation of the storyteller; You hop in and the minute your ass touches the seat it hits the resume button on some story he’s been telling the passenger before you. Feels like walking 15 minutes late to a movie, you’re confused and don’t know what the hell is going on. Caution: don’t ask him to fill you in, show any signs of confusion or else you’ll be walking right into his trap.

The Zawahiri Guy:
Easy to tell; Load Quran or Islamic lecture, occasionally asks you if you prayed or not. Harmless but potentially annoying, depending on your mood.

The Eyeballer Guy:
If you’re a fella riding with him, he’ll slow down everytime he comes across any thing with two holes between its legs, then proceed to eye rape the shit out it. Some of them also are whiny as fuck. Hate those dipshits because they are the personification of hypocrisy.

The Cool As Ice Guy:
Mid 20’s, listening to Nogoom FM or some badass (read shitty) Arabic pop via his mp3 player, car all pimped out, wholesome and very friendly. Some though, suffer from The Fast and The furious syndrome.

The Shortcut Guy:
Would rather die than take a regular route.

The Carpooler guy:
Always stopping to trying to persuade people to join his party. Sometimes the taxi would be full but he would still stop for people as if it’s a freaky gag reflex.

The Bold Face Lair:
You agree on a fee, you get it and then he starts sweet talking his way into getting more. By the end of the ride he’ll say that he didn’t really agree, he was merely just going along, and that there is no way in hell he would’ve picked you up if he knew that you really were planning to pay what you said you’ll pay. It’s the same logic that drives men to kill their family to “protect” them.

The “I Don’t Know The Way But I’ll Act As If I Know Any Way” Guy:
This one is the worst, they’ll say yes to any thing, and by the time you find out that he’s acres full of shit and he realizes he’s getting way to little money for the drive the real ride begins. These guys are extra shitty because you can’t really tell them until it’s way too late. Fuck them, fuck them up their stupid asses.

Ramadan Traffic

Growing up, Ramadan was THE time for gulping trans-fat goodness while I reevaluate my favorite teenage mutant ninja turtle; Michael Angelo loved to party, but his surfer dude doozy cracks were over the top. The angsty “Raphael” and the tech-wiz “Donatello” felt so been-there-done-that, so I was left with Leonardo. He was the coolest, most grounded turtle I have ever seen, and he wasn’t even trying. Not to mention his weapon of choice were two swords. I’d love to see a ninja turtle pick a cooler instrument of death. Now fast forward to the time they dubbed the Simpsons and Ramadans synonymity with good ol’fashion fun was over and done.

Nowadays you got the distasteful choice of watching horrid dramatization of social phobias on LCD, or, going to a tent where you watch them with a bigger group of people (speaking of Ramadan tents, the idea is low rent that it’s doesn’t even have to be an actual tent.)

During Ramadan one must refrain from eating, drinking, smoking, and indulging in anything that is in excess or ill-natured. Enduring the absence of these worldly pleasures can be somewhat challenging, but in practice all of them get dwarfed by Ramadan’s real test of endurance, one that even transcends religious beliefs. I am talking about—drum roll please—the traffic.

Traffic in Cairo is bad as is. Now take it, condense this run-of-the-mill 24-hour jam into a 2 hour cluster-phobic sauna session and you’ll end up with Ramadan Traffic. Remember these gigantic spaceships looming in the sky in Independence Day and how everyone made a run for it, think that, only people are less eager to get to their destination and more likely push you over the 6 of October Bridge.

I also wanna give a shout-out to the unsung hero of Ramadan Traffic. I am talking about the guy who—when you finally get off the bridge and into the streets—bolts at you and hurls you with a bag of tamr. Good for him, he found a Ramadan loophole: Help break someone fasting and you get to score a grip with god. It’s like micro banking on a spiritual level–Way to go you cheap fuck, why don’t you assault me with something I can’t buy for less that a pound, like say, a cup-o-nodels.

Alas, there aint no more weekends at the Sahel. So why don’t take off your skimpy bikinis, hop on and put your seat belt tight because you’ll be driving to speeds up to 16 KM an hour. And don’t worry about losing your cool, Yehia El-Fakharany got paid an 7 million just so he turn your frown upside down, so be sure to watch his show, otherwise he’ll be only getting paid to fulfill his life long dream of having a swimming pool filled with condoms. And remember if you’re setting beside someone who’s been still driving you to home, distract him from the pain by looking him dead in the eye and asking “are you fasting or is it like every year.”

Car Hiving

Car Hive: verb, engage in the nighttime activity of (sitting in/standing out) a parked car with a group of friends.
Example: I can hear these fagots car hiving all the way from my room.

Us homeboys like to chill. We like to ramble, and since having hos in your crew is a commodity in Egypt, our appetite for bro-ing out got exponentially bigger. And what better way to quench that bro-thirst than car hiving, the quintessential Egyptian-man leisure activity. It’s cheap, it gets you out of your house where mom is sewing a burka, and it marginally counts as something “you did last night.”

it’s also the bread and butter of the kiosk industry. In fact car hives must hatch with close proximity to a kiosk. I don’t know which came first, the kiosk egg or the car hive chicken, but I know that one can’t survive without the other.

Now in order to initiate a successful car hiving session one must

1. Assemble his crew.
2. Go to his favorite kiosk.
   (one that’s named after the jerk that runs it)
3. Park his car near said place.
4. Open all/some doors.
5. Put on some shitty music.
   (some choice House circa 2005 will suffice)
6. Engage in some playful banter with his bros.
7. Create awesome memories.
   (e.g. being your friend’s watchdog while he’s takes a piss on the corner)

That seem to scratch some right where they itch, and I can tell from their faces that they are having the time of their life. I’ll see them laughing it up and slapping one another, pulling off almost every acceptable form of affection short of full-on french kissing. And that led me to a conclusion: Car hiving is for checkpoint-fearful fagots, while cruising is for real men.

Compared to the lackluster car hiving, cruising is awesome. It leaves a hefty carbon footprint, just like a man. You also have the heterosexually reaffirming option of hustling the ladies, car stocking them, and good old picking them up. Unless you’re under age and can’t get your license, you should never settle for car hiving.

I don’t think there is enough shitty hash out there to make me put up with such bull shit, if I wanna have a jolly good old time with my buddies and I am short on the brown I’ll go to one of these shisha-cafes or fool stands or even fucking sket-elmatar, but I won’t be caught dead eating Doritos in the backseat of my friend’s parked car. it’s called dignity, and I still have some left.

Pink Floyd Heads

In Egypt we are more prone to put anything on a pedestal. We think of our selves as the center of existence, thus the rules do not apply, and that in part explains why someone could spend all day barking after broads but outburst in fury when the shoe gets on the other foot. We like things to be epic, and we are ready to stake our credibility on jive. Naturally, Pink Floyd is the perfect fit for all that, and then some more.

Pink Floyd resonated with us like no other band. They struck a chord and morphed into this representation of Egyptian despair, embraced for all the wrong reasons. They also inspired the worst kind of wry arrogance amongst my peers, and that’s when things started to crumble. See I never heard Pink Floyd before I meet their fans, and they are the worst group of douche bags out there.

I couldn’t care less about the band. my beef is with the fans. I’ll admit to liking the some of their songs; My 17 year old self woke up one day to “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” playing on the radio and thought it was fucking badass. I also had a similar experience with ABBA’s “One Of Us,” so that might things in perspective. I think “Dark Side of the Rainbow” and “Another Brick in the WALL-E” are like the coolest thing ever and that Arabic version of comfortably numb is wicked awesome. But enough yakking, this is about Pink Floyd heads.

Some of common traits of the PF head business:

1. With Pink Floyd above all of course, they tend to favor some other bands like Led Zeppelin, Scorpions, Metallica, Guns & Roses, Airosmith, Gary Moore, The Doors and basically any band that would play in a typical mid-nineties Episode of “The Midnight Cartoon show.”
2. Having long-winded tales about shitty PF trivialities as their go-to topics every time they open their mouth.
3. Not listening to any music made after 1990
4. Having a condescending tone and inducing a I-wanna-kick-the-shit-out-you like compulsion.
5. Doing Drugs (there are some exceptions thoguh).

See, I grew up with these mother fuckers putting me down, telling me I know nothing and I am musically crippled. They would look at me all gooey eyed in pity; How sad it is that I am gonna live my whole life without experiencing this flux of bliss, and at first I bought into their bullcrap. But much like finding out that your dad wasn’t the precocious boy wonder he claimed to be, I saw through their lies, and Just to prove a point, from now on,  when people ask me about this blog I am going describe it as the Pink Floyd of Egyptian blogs.

Cellphone Boomboxing

Using public transportation is embarrassing as is. In Egypt your means of transportation is an indication for your class, oh you can mask it by saying you’re trying to be more green, or you hate parking, or that you’re trying socialism for size, but the truth is no one would dare set foot in those dutch-ovens unless he had to.

My biggest beef with public transportation isn’t how sweaty stink or crowded it is, it’s these fucks who take out their cells and blast there favorite jam with complete disregard for the rest of the passengers, the balls on them. Nobody seems to mind though; within the working class sharing is accepted if not celebrated, but this ain’t no satellite hookup or ADSL, so why am I should I put up with this bull shit.

Sometimes people wanna share the love, and instead of playing a secular song they opt for playing the Quran instead. For them it’s a win-win, for me it’s my worst bus-riding nightmare. I don’t want to listen to Quran on the bus, and I hate justifying my bus-napping fetish to people, so I always end up with having to choose the lesser of two evils, either to man up , voice my complaint and risk coming off as an infidel, or shut the fuck up. I shut the fuck up.

Tony Robbins believes that people are drivin by six needs: certainty, uncertainty, significance, connection or love, growth, contribution beyond oneself. This list is incomplete because he forgot to add the most important need according to Egyptian people: To annoy the living fuck out of a person.

Arguably the lowest form of Egyptian self-expression, this behavior has its deep roots in the time old tradition of making one’s presence known. People must take notice of you or else why even exist? It’s the same drive that make some ass superimpose his name and email on comedy clips before posting them on you tube, or crediting trailer makers, or Egyptian actors being on every single frame of their one-man-show movies.

And hey guy who must listen to shitty songs on the bus, they’re called earphones, you’ll find them in the same box that your cellphone came in. And if you bought yours third hand for less dough than what you dish out on your hair gel, splurge an extra 5 on an earpiece, you’re the cock of the walk and you deserve a treat.

Me, Myself and Mega

There is a negative correlation between how easy is it to get laid in a place and the gayness of said place. Case in point, the billboard Ads Featuring adult men playfully sucking on ice cream cocks. These images (that I’ve grown to loath) are the dreadful conclusion to this summer Mega ice cream campaign “Me, Myself and Mega,” a campaign that maintained its self-set level of low standards all the way to the end.

I am flabbergasted that nobody else seems to pick on the homoeroticism of these Ads. Can you people even get more desensitized, or has this become our way of channeling our sexual frustration. Sigmund Freud realized that almost everything is about sex (although he understood that “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar”) and his words rings a billion times truer every time my eyeballs falls one of these Ads. In Saudi Arabia, boys fucking/sucking each other in high school is not considered gay but just a “phase”, a sexy rite of passage on your way of becoming a man. The way things are moving now I don’t think we’re that far behind.

Also, since I’m talking about my Saudi brothers, I wanna point to that shit-smeared look that our Ad-boys are busting. There are different schools of facial hair grooming, and that rough look is not exclusive to the gulf, but these homies have a different game. I can’t point my finger on it but I can smell that kabsa reeking from these stubbles and I don’t like it.

Now this campaign got its kick-start by a radio Ad, the one with the unmistakably seductive voice of a woman. When I first heard it I thought I must’ve left a Redtube window open or something–it’s straight up dirty talk, and her tone! she was talking on the It’s-time-to-fuck frequency. It’s like that Bill Hicks bit about the perfect ad, a woman holding a product while sitting comfortably in the nude. See, when a guy gets in that zoon, part of his brain shuts down, and it’s the same part that tells you not to photoshoot your self in such compromising position.

Anyway, this isn’t about the big picture, this is about things that makes you stop, things that when combined create what is greater than the sum of their parts. This campaign, along with other cultural pillars, are all poisoning the air with their lethal paradox, one that suggest to guys that fagging out to impress a lady is totally legit—I call bullshit.

Cussing in Arabic

Wesley Willis is the shit, his songs are like hugs wrapped with love and dipped in tenderness. He tells it like it is, using crayons made out of panda dicks and ibex bootyholes to paint his pictures. Hearing him holler about Saddam Hussein’s ass or tasting a mountain goat’s anus always perks me up. The guy has his way with swearword and we all can relate; Peppering your speech with F-bombs and S-bombs gives it a sense of edge and urgency. Yet, something most definitely gets lost in translation when you shift gears to Arabic.

If I didn’t know better I could’ve sworn that Arabic profanity have the ability to summon demons that fart Lord-of-the-Rings Balrogs, it could open the gates of hell on itself and turn all existence into pure concentrated agony. The sounds these words produce is so potent, whoever is wasting their time trying to find a cure to cancer should drop that shit and study their vibration, it holds the key that is going to unlock some end-of-the-world kind of shit.

As a rule of thumb, one should keep his potty mouth tendencies to a minimum when conversing in Arabic. One should only make do with the wholly trinity, A7A, Kos, Bedan. Ars, Sharmota, and Khawel are also acceptable but should be used sparingly and only for emphasis. Under no circumstances should one ever try to get creative using such words, don’t mix and match, verbalize, coin new phrases, or make analogies using them. That goes double for the ladies, if you break these rules you’re automatically demoted to a whore. I know it’s super sexist but these are the rules, I didn’t make ‘em but I sure as hell take them into consideration.

I suppose there is only one instant of casting a K word came to be one of the sweetest things to ever grace the servers of youtube. Only a sprit as pure as Natalie Portman’s could utter such filth and make it sound so heavenly (have no idea what I’m talking about? check Natalie Portman’s favorite word). It’s simultaneously mindfucking and super cute.

I can’t foresee a future where Arabic Cussing gets trendy, the odds are all stacked against it. Oh attempts have been made, but it’s just not possible. Something is fundamentally wrong with the music of said words, you can’t tame them, and even divorced from their working class association they are just too raw for human exchange. Or maybe I am clueless, maybe when movies finally reflect the raunchy reality we live in Arabic vulgarity well finally get its fair chance. Until then keep the shakher to a minimum.

Tamer Hosny

I was listening to Dan Savage’s podcast the other day and some asshole was letting his dog lick the jizz out of his hands. “He seems to like it,” the guy said, but that doesn’t make it right. Just because something is so good you want to lick it doesn’t mean you should. Thinking about Tamer Honsy later that day it was obvious that there was a correlation. Both the cum licking dog and Tamer Hosny fandom have one thing in common: They are gay as fuck.

Tamer Hosny caused a steep rift in our nation’s solid rock, more so than Shiites and Sunnis did in Iraq. It would make more sense to mull over the Facebook honesty box or the proper way to read car plates (is it left to right, or right to left?) Following Hosny’s first Free-Mix release people got divided into those who love him, those who hate him, and those who wanna snatch that fucking guitar out of his hands and shove it all way up his shitty ass. No one was left undecided.

Why is it so easy to pick on the guy? Why are so many Facebook groups, angry TV hosts, and wordy articles filling the newspapers bitching about him? Well, he’s practically asking for it; Releasing two movies just weeks apart, having posters on the street that outnumber those of an entire election campaign, and his face uttering the shittiest shit on every fucking TV channel. He’s such an attention whore who just won’t leave you alone and, as anybody that has piled it on him knows, it feels balls out awesome.

Tamer didn’t earn his flock of fans by embracing the fake-it-till-you-make-it stance alone. The motherfucker can push some buttons. For the guys he’s the cocky underdog, and for the gals he’s the crackpot romantic douche; both of which are equally relatable and misguiding. A stint in prison for avoiding conscription helped milk some sympathy too, more so than it did for his partner in crime Haisam Shaker (but that may be due to Shaker’s crass inhibitions). It added to the allure and gave birth to one of the best home-brewed fashion trends: the “We Miss You Tamer” t-shirt.

Arguing how misguided kids are for admiring such a shady icon is a tiresome and flaky argument. There will always be a need for an asshole to fill the teen idol role and for hormone-driven teens to obsess over him. Dealing with the trauma of having been such a fan (and the realization of how big of a loser you were) helps build character. I just wish those kids could have someone with at least one ball; maybe someone with a less conflicted saga: The macho-metrosexual-fag in search of pussy.

All this Tamer lovin’ (for more be sure to check out Tamer lovers) is nothing if not misplaced affection, and Tamer is a byproduct of an insular pop culture that celebrates its mere existence. It’s sad for the kids to have him as an outlet for their frustration, so can we please let them fuck already?! They’re one gay pube shy from publicly jerking off to TH posters on the 6th of October Bridge. You think it’s jammed now? Just wait until the Tamer Hosny J.O. parties break. And hey Tamer, Michael Jackson just like totally died and your pulling his rig out. Dude, show some fucking respect.