Month: December 2004

Imaginary Friends

Sixty-five percent of children say that by age seven, they’ve played with an imaginary companion.

Children interviewed for a study by psychologists at the University of Washington and University of Oregon were considered to have an imaginary companion if they were able to discuss its psychological traits, such as ‘She is nice to me.’

The study also showed that:

  • While preschool girls were more likely to have an imaginary companion, by age 7 boys were just as likely as girls to have one.
  • 27 percent of the children described an imaginary friend that their parents did not know about.
  • 57 percent of the imaginary companions of school-age youngsters were humans and 41 percent were animals. One companion was a human capable of transforming herself into any animal the child wanted.
  • Not all imaginary companions are friendly. A number were quite uncontrollable and some were a nuisance.

[Source: University of Washington News]

This is a very interesting study.
I knew a number of kids who had imaginary friends.

As for myself, I don’t remember ever having one when I was a kid, although I do now.
I don’t know his name, but he’s from Nigeria, and he pisses me off every night because that’s when he feels like turning the TV on loud to watch CNN or some African tribal videos.
Well, actually he’s not my imaginary friend, he’s my upstairs neighbour, but I try to convince myself he’s imaginary to keep myself from rushing up to kill the shithead.

What I’ve Learned…

As I’ve Matured…

I’ve learned that you cannot make someone love you. All you can do is stalk them and hope they panic and give in…

I’ve learned that no matter how much I care, some people are just jackasses.

I’ve learned that you shouldn’t compare yourself to others – they are more screwed up than you think.

I’ve learned age is a very high price to pay for maturity.

I’ve learned that I don’t suffer from insanity, I enjoy it.

I’ve learned that artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.

I’ve learned that the people you care most about in life are taken from you too soon and all the less important ones just never go away. And the real pains in the ass are permanent.

Continue reading What I’ve Learned…

Thunderbird 1.0

Mozilla have released version 1.0 of their email client Thunderbird.

Featuring a global inbox, message grouping, saved search folders, comprehensive data migration, RSS integration, improved privacy controls and improved quick search, it seems it’s ripe enough to remplace Outlook on many a computer.

I have just started testing this release.
And even though I installed and tested previous versions too, I never switched to Thunderbird because even though I could easily import my outlook emails into it, they were imported without their attachments which held me back from moving to it.
Obviously this has been solved with this version.

Other than that, every release was getting better and better, and when they first introduced the global inbox, I felt it had everything needed for an email client.

What I love most about Thunderbird though is it’s logo / icon. It’s beautiful. Very catchy.

At War With Islam…

“It is time we admitted that we are not at war with “terrorism.” We are at war with Islam. This is not to say that we are at war with all Muslims, but we are absolutely at war with the vision of life that is prescribed to all Muslims in the Koran. The only reason Muslim fundamentalism is a threat to us is because the fundamentals of Islam are a threat to us. Every American should read the Koran and discover the relentlessness with which non-Muslims are vilified in its pages. The idea that Islam is a “peaceful religion hijacked by extremists” is a dangerous fantasy

Hollowness of War on Terror

Juan Cole reflects on the US reaction to the bombing in Madrid by ETA, a Basque separatist group:

I was struck at how little coverage US news organizations were giving this terrorist strike. If the Bush administration were serious about fighting terrorism, surely the FBI and CIA would be flying off to Madrid and trying to catch the perpetrators? There would be extensive consultations between Bush and Prime Minister Zapatero about cooperation in fighting these groups.

If these bombings had been carried out by al-Qaeda, it would be front-page news and something of concern to Washington.

That it isn’t raises the question of anti-Muslimism. Is the difference in the way that the American press responds to ETA from the way it responds to al-Qaeda a form of racism?

It seems like not all terrorism is terrorism, and not all terrorism is considered a threat!

Tito

On Saturday afternoon, we picked ourselves out of our weekend laziness and headed to downtown Tunis for a change of setting and maybe to catch a movie or something.

We found the Egyptian movie “Tito“, featuring Ahmed El Saqqa and Hanan Turk and directed by Tarek El-Aryan, playing in one of the cinemas. So we thought we’d check it out.

It was great!. Certainly one of the best movies Egyptian cinema has produced lately.
The script, the story line, the characters, the acting, the directing, the cinematography and even the stunts were really good.

It’s great how this new wave of actors and directors in Egypt are ushering in a new age in Egyptian cinema, some sort of renaissance after the ugly movies of the 80’s and 90’s.

Tito tells the story of an ex-con who tries to escape his sinful life and start a new clean one, but his past comes back to haunt him.

I loved how they built the characters and gave them real depth and developed them througout the movie.
I also find it great they’re talking about really important issues in the society.

I truly recommend this movie to everyone.
You should really check it out.

Miss World 2004 is Miss Peru

Today, we watched the Miss World 2004 pageant live from China.
I don’t usually watch these kinds of shows and the last Miss World I ever saw was in 1994 maybe or even earlier, but well there was nothing more interesting to see on TV.

I kind of have an expert eye when it comes to stuff like this though :P, and after they showed the 107 ladies from all over the world, I immediately told my wife that Miss Peru would win, and well she did.

Maria Julia Mantilla Garcia is her name, she’s 20 years old and honestly she deserves it.

The show was even more boring than usual because of the change in how it works, as now people from all over the world vote for who they want to be Miss World instead of the judges choosing during the night.

Anyway, the video footage of the Chinese island of Sanya was great and the Chinese dances and music during the show were beautiful. I also enjoyed the performances by Lionel Richie and Il Divo.