Danderma’s Weblog

It was Thursday night… i have just settled on my sofa with a lovely mug of steaming coffee and a piece of Kanafany’s Kanafraise (7leewa)… the wii remote in my hands, playing Mario Kart, unblocking cup after cup… i have just finished four consecutive races in a row coming first in each… now im about to unlock something new… when suddenly…

Darkneeessssssssss

The screen goes black. The Wii turns off, so does the surround system connected to the wii (for added effect) and my reciever! Butoote goes to check the switch… it shuts down again!

I go near the fridge… wella water is coming out of it… maskeena it was bleeding…

Not knowing how and where and when… we call an electrician…

Then when he was done, he said we had put the fridge on 7 while it should be on 3 in the summer and 1 in the winter… funny how thats the cause of it since it has been on 7 for five years now and it did not retaliate… he said there was a pipe thingy in the freezer that became too cold and it exploded… and that we should not touch the fridge until Saturday night when he can get us another pipe…

So whats to do?

We took out alllllll the stuff… we have two mini tiny fridges so we squished every thing in them, but the frozen stuff were taken to the freezer of my parents in the basement. But we had a lot of stuff that did not go anywhere… for example, we have a pan of minestrone soup! Where do we find a place for a whole pan?

So we take the minestrone, we add some stuff to it, mix it with pasta, and put every open can of veggie or food with it, then put it in the oven and cover it with the packet of mozzarella cheese we had in the fridge. While we were waiting for it to finish, we ate the yoghurts, the baby carrots and the veggies out… strange dinner and we were full but what else to do with the food? 7ram ne3mat allah!

So here is what my poor fridge look like…

To be frank i do not think the fridge will be all fine again!!!

If it does that one more time… im going to replace it. There is this beautiful retro fridges being sold at sun city… like the ones they used in the 1950’s, the doors are decorated and colorful and i think they are being sold at ali abdulwahab… oho ay na3am il fridge il wa7da ib 850 KD y3ni but it is a once in a life time buy o it would look great… it is practically a piece of art!! I just have to convice butootee…

can someone tell me, why all of a sudden every one in Q8 is headed to Souq Sharq?

A stampede of people on foot & cars. women children men q8ys non q8ys shor6a o syayeer o all the entrances closed and all the empty spaces infornt of Souq Sharq are filled with cars!?!?

Laaaaysh? Shino the avenue is closed today? Traffic is not even moving from infront of the souq?!??! WHY?

Once upon a time, everything about you annoyed me…

You would follow me always. Ever since you opened your eyes into this world i was there. Bigger, wiser, and more experienced. I would complain about you always. and i was told that one day, i will understand that you annoyed me the most because you loved me the most.

I doubted that then.

Today, i wish you could tag along like you used to do.

I still remember you naughtiness. Your arrival at my room the moment you came back from school, the first thing you would do when ur back home. You would just stay there, whether i allowed it or not, whether i was there or not, whether i wanted you or kicked you out. You have mistaken it for your own private room.

If there was a hidden piece of chocolate, you beat me to it. Scarfed it down before i could.

If there was a barbie i was fond of, she was sure to lose all her hair and have her thighs liposuctioned by my scissors.

If there was a book lying around, it would either be torn or written on.

But, since you have always been my favourite and most beloved sibling, you had been my best playmate ever… i don’t think you missed having a brother around, because i was such a tomboy, we would play make-belive karate with each other, or wrestling, rolling on the ground hitting each other, or we would go in the street and play with our bikes, or my favourite, play football! Do you remember the year they put al-haddaf on in Ramadan? When we had our own football team?! Me & You?

Remember your action figures? The thundercats castle and car? i recall the castle was supposed to cast a red beam from the panthers eyes but we broke it down… do u remember how many grandiser robots were bought and destroyed? The old ones that used to shoot mini red missles?

Then when we grew up a bit, me and you, always together, playing all the video games we could lay our hands on… remember golden axe warriors? Moral combat? oooh remember fantasia on Sega, and how we couldnt figure our what the crazy disney game was about?! Still baffles me!

and just before you know it, poof!

You were a grown man! First you think its embarrising to be seen with your sisters in public, then you graduate, you drive, you start taking vacations with your gangs of friends instead of with the family. and i got married.

and now i do not see you anymore.

I do feel your presence. When i see your car still parked at home in the morning when im already late for work, you overslept as usual! I do smell the barrel of perfume you drench your self in before you go out every day. I still come home to see my dvd collection and my chocolate stash has reduced in size because some 3etwee came in the middle of the night and borrowed it. Like always! You never change do you? 

I remember when u were still a student, you asked me for some money, a lot of money actually, and i gave it to you, next day at my birthday you ignore me completly, and i get angry at you, i go to my room, wella you took that money to buy me a birthday gift! and may i say one of the most beautiful attentive ones… somehting i have seen but didn’t buy because i felt it might be too expensive. You didn’t think so, you bought it for me… i still have it till this day…

and today at the stroke of midnight, it’s ur birthday…

I just miss you so much in my life. I do not get to see you at all! I do not think im that much of an important person anymore. You do not even know about this blog.  But i miss having you around me all the time. I know it’s not possible now, your too busy with your own life and al and i do not really fit inl. I have not seen you in like forever…

Happy Birthday my beloved and only brother :****

May you have a happy and successful life, and may all your dreams and wishes come true…

This post is for all MSX fans from the 80’s…

Remember the old innocent days?!

Do you remember when we used to play il Ba6reeq, o Rambo? The Castle? Baloons? Knighmare? Kingvalley?

Do you know the thrill you will get, watching that blue screen with the MSX logo appearing, something over 20 years old! It is quite a trip down memory lane! I suggest you have some Hardeez nearby and some Mango KDD ready. Some KDD ice cream is essential too, or whatever you used to have as snacks in that era, maybe bo6a6 bu 3ood o tabasco…

You would be surprised that those very hard games are now super easy! You can finally finish them… and you can play them in about 10 minutes now on ur pc (work pc anyone )

All you need is the following….

1- Download the Emulator. This is like a program that will make your computer play the old MSX games. After all, MSX was a computer! So just download it by clicking Here

Ok now you have installed it. It is quite straightforward to use. You just need to “Insert” your game cartridge. The game cartridges are called Roms now, and they are barically files of .Rom extension.

 Let me post a link to the Roms. You can download them and play with them all you want

I have listed three websites that have Roms in alphabetical order. Choose what you want and play as much as you like

1- Rom Nation

2- Rom World

3- Knightmare Rom

Play and see

Every time i open my email i see iL Tetto …

The new italian place in town… it is in marina waves… etc…

Bu Totte had heard so much about it, he was nagging me for weeks to go and try it. Going on and on about how their pasta was something very very good…

So come friday afternoon, the weather was AMAZING… a bit on the windy side, we were aimlessly driving around when i finally caved in. He has said the Word iL Tetto  6 times since i woke up.

The outside seating looked very nice, though it was too windy to sit outside 7safa…

Fa we go inside, the place is tiny with 3 tables occupied already. the colors and the setting is nice as well. I like the pastel colors and the lush sofas.

and thats the end of my liking to the place sara7a…

First, the table looked a little bit diry. I do not know why? Maybe the material of the table which was white makes it harder to scrub or something… but it didnt look very clean.

Then the cup i drank my sprite from was Plastic. the kind that looks like a glass cup but it is actually plastic. I hate that kind of cup and i really cannot stand it. Plus, it has the marks of washing on it, you know when you spray water and it dries? How it leaves a mark?

Then the plate has the same markings on them too…

and whenever some garlic was being fried or something was cooked, the smell would make it all the way to us, making us smelling like food. Awal in3ayeb 3la ma6a3em Dubai ingool mako tahweya, now this is like the third newly opened place in Q8 that smells like a kitchen!

Now to the atmosphere…

Loud loud LOUD music for a friday afternoon. I wouldn’t mind the music much, it’s just that is was some sort of mix, one moment it was english and another it was arabic, maqa6e3 y3ni… but the arabic ones are really really old, im talking nancy ajrams “a6ab6a6″ and the choice it self felt like we were in a lebanese restuarant. The music choice downgraded the experience even more…

Then…

All can be forgiven if the food was exceptional of course.

But it was not.

For appetizer we ordered Mozzarella Cheese sticks and Garlic Bread.

The cheese sticks looks yummy, and restuarant made. But, when we bit them, the thing that oozed out and stuck stubbornly to our plate was not mozzarela. It could have been a mozzarella and another cheese mix, but it is not a mozzarella cheese. 

The garlic bread was more like a pizza without tomatoe sauce. It was fine. Not bad, not good. Just average.

As for our Main Dish… 

We ordered one pizza funghi, and one Canneloni for me.

The pizza was also fine. The herbs used were really good, but the mushrooms (fresh) were a bit dull. Y3ni if u compare it to funghi pizza abroad or the one from Nino it has no survival chance.

But my canneloni?

It said on the menu (Canniloni filled with spinach and ricota and topped with tomatoe sauce and bechamel sauce)

What i got?

Pasta sheets rolled around spinach and ricotta all right, but topped with a mix of tomatoe cream sauce, with a sprinkling of grated mozzarella cheese…

Hellooooo?!

Wain il bachamel sauce?! O shino hal strips of mozzarella on top?

Taste wise. Fine. bs.

Funniest thing? When we got our food, the waiter approached us… we were listinging to “Boos Il wawa laysh il wawa doos il wawa wawawwwawawawawa” while looking at our food… and he asks us “Would you like me to bring you some Ketchup or Tabasco”

Ketchup and Tabasco?

What happened to grated parmesan cheese and freshly ground black pepper!??!!?

La La La La La

I should have known better. When people were raving about iL Forno, we went it and it was horrible, and i went to it twice. Same mistake was made when i went to the AMAZING Don Mario’s and now iL Tetto?!

From now on, if i want pizza or pasta or something with Funghi in Q8, im sticking to Nino, agazerha 3la ma arj3 UK…

Eeeh ya carluccio, chan zain min ayeebik 3ndenaa…