Ten Things I Loved And Hated About 2007

Every year has its good points and its points of contention. Two-Thousand and 7 has been no exception.

On the world arena, there was, on the negative side, wars, food poisoning; on the positive side, it was heartwarming to see so the shawerma bans, Lebanese democracy and more.

Turning to my keyboard, here is a look back and ahead.

Ten Things I’d like to see Ending with 2007:

1. Weak and expensive wi-fi spots around the city & limited internet.
2. Advertisements full of misspellings and bad concepts.
3. Beggars everywhere near fast food restaurants in Jordan that’d not let you enjoy your food.
4. The Sarsari accent of many.
5. K.Fucking.C
6. Not smiling in Jordan?
7. Zain’s ugly advertisements?
8. Babies thrown in garbage because they’re not wanted.
9. People running around with Carrefour trolleys in CityMall.
10. TAXES! TAXES! TAXES!

Ten Things I liked in 2007 (and want to see more of in 2008):

1. Great new restaurants/hang outs popping up. (hint: Subway)
   OH, OH & FRED THE CHICKEN.
2. Events such as Distant Head and Tiesto in Petra.
3. New malls, CityMall alike.
4. Brands of young men strutting around the malls with tight, bright clothes and hair styled skywards – I like that, we had enough being regular.
5. Decent people sharing same interests with me (I met many nice people/bloggers this year).
6. Advertising wars in Jordan.
7. Gadgets, like the iPhone, new iPods & Operating Systems.
8. Sites like ikbis & watwet.
9. Megastores… I enjoyed Virgin & Prime this year.
10. Less whore-y looking Hijbabis.

I think 2007 was another successful year, being elected the most annoying blogger in the Jordanian blogosphere according to Ibrahim’s readers, also many people chose me as their favorite blogger on the favorite blogger day competition, thank you for choosing me and I hope you like my new stuff too, I also ranked first between Jordanian most popular bloggers, 9th on Jordanian bloggers worldwide on Alexa stats & 8th on technorati, I was also mentioned on Global Voices Online & many other blogs (thanks for having me on your blogroll list everyone) + Katy Perry’s official MySpace page as a news source.

Many other “bloggers” wrote about me under the most anonymous names of “mab3oos”, “the critic”. I met a lot of nice bloggers in real life, and I hope they liked me because I don’t believe in this “I hope I gave them a good impression” crap, I am whatever I want to be, and I don’t care if no one likes me. (take that for a motto)

I can say 2007 was beyond expectations, I had the chance to intern/work at a high-profile advertising agency in Kuwait, learned a lot, and now working at another high-profile well known advertising agency in Amman while studying. Now talking about 2007 in other fields, like studying for example… Well, last semester was nice, I dropped one class this semester and I think I might need an extra semester to finish the studying plan since some friends ended up taking 18 credits the past summer courses and took more credits than I did the past semesters.

In general, I was soaked into depression during January/February, I shaved my head for the first time in my life, put new piercings & grew a beard, shaved it, opened up, started doing new things again, grew my hair, done a few podcasts, got a new macbook, ipod, iphone and did a lot of shopping, missed many people especially steve, kloude, mohkha & josh, I engraved on linocut & plywood, met international artists, helped tourists not to get raped by the airport taxi prices, fought stores with the worse spelling/english ever, my tartool project, liked a nasheed, talked about my converse obsession, hating people who add ketchup to their pizza, missing mother and more…

On Radiohead

I think it’s really smart what they’re doing and all. I’m not the biggest Radiohead fan in the world, but I admit that they put out good stuff. It just crashes me to hear people say things like “It’s about time someone offered good music for free”.

The music industry has done a lot to piss people off, that I understand. It’s just the entitlement part that bugs me. So let me get this straight… If an artist doesn’t have a contract with some major label, and they go through creating music, paying someone to make it sound polished, and setting up distribution and …etc

you STILL don’t think you should buy their stuff to help them KEEP doing it

Buy Radiohead (like I did) Discbox or Download, Music has always been undervalued, and MP3s have only worsened that. A freaky number of people believe that all musicians are fantastically wealthy, and thus everyone should be entitled to music for free. They say things like “since there’s no physical product, there’s no cost to produce it, therefore I shouldn’t have to pay for it“. Or they justify having massive leeched MP3 collections by saying things like “nobody’s losing any money, because I wouldn’t have paid for any of it anyway“. And yet the same people will spend alot of money for designer clothes and other items which are made of materials that cost a fraction of what they sell for (when they can get them cheaper online). Amazing how some people will value something but regard another as worthless.

Only musicians who are successful for the long-term make big money, The bands who are huge for a year and then vanish make nothing. There are countless stories of who sold millions and ended up in debt after paying for their advances, promoters, lawyers, and labels. Not to mention how the entire industry is without integrity, and labels lie about how much they’ve sold or simply don’t care.

Getting back to the value perception: it still amazes me that a lot of people would pay out 50 JDs for DVD box sets of their favourite TV shows from Prime or Virgin megastores, which were originally broadcast for free on TV or will air on MBC4 sooner or later, and which they will watch exactly once or twice and then file them away. Yet paying 15 JDs for an album which they will listen to hundreds of times is a “ripoff”.

Viva La Wast El-Balad, center of piracy! My 5 Groosh, Stuff it!

Update: The Discbox is for 40 pounds, the Download is unlimited, pay as much as you think they worth!

I of course paid more

In Jordan: ADSL for 89 JD/Year

Splendor Telecom Jordan is a new fully licensed Telecommunication operator based in Jordan, offering advanced voice, internet, data, and value added services to residential and business customers. Partnering with tier1 Telecom providers such as Dutch Telecom, VZB, AT&T and BT, Splendor Telecom is committed to offer superior quality of service at competitive prices.

Our new offers on the ADSL Home Packages: (no installation fees)*

• 128 Kbps (unlimited downloads) for 89 JD/year.
• 512 Kbps (10 GB monthly limit) for 170 JD/year +3 MONTHS FOR FREE (15 months).
• 512 Kbps (16 GB monthly limit) for 245 JD/year +3 MONTHS FOR FREE (15 months).
• 1 Mbps (10 GB monthly limit) for 250 JD/year +3 MONTHS FOR FREE (15 months).
• 1 Mbps (16 GB monthly limit) for 325 JD/year +3 MONTHS FOR FREE (15 months).
• 2 Mbps (10 GB monthly limit) for 320 JD/year +3 MONTHS FOR FREE (15 months).
• 2 Mbps (16 GB monthly limit) for 395 JD/year +3 MONTHS FOR FREE (15 months).

*Note: Splendor Telecom pays the installation fees (70 JD’s) for new ADSL subscribers.
**3 MONTHS will be GRANTED for existing ADSL users for FREE.

So what are you waiting for? subscribe now, call Laith Al-Kassih 079-5942925. Mention “Moey’s blog” for the discounts.

Jordan Telecom monthly fees are 8.9 JD for 128Kbps, 10.9 JD for 512Kbps, 11.9 for 1024Kbps and 12.9 JD for 2048Kbps, Prices are subject to 16% sales tax.

What’s so good about Splendor?
Download limitations are offered on monthly bases and a drop of 1/4 the speed is imposed once the limit is reached. Not back to 128 Kbps when you pay for 2 Mbps.