So after much suspense and 23 votes... 35% of you... the majority... guessed correctly! the answer to the question...

Which of these is considered improper in our area...

Walking while eating!

I discovered this recently because i was wondering why everyone was looking at me funny. i was eating some schwerma (a yummy beef or chicken sandwich concoction thingy) and i noticed i was getting some funny looks... and then i realized that i never saw anyone walking while they ate. i do it sometimes because i am soooo busy!

well there ya go... learn something new everyday!

So I'm finally blogging... that's right... this is Yvonne... I know you were all holding your breath. Landon and his friend were playing and we were able to catch these priceless pics. Aren't they the cutest?!

ahlan wa sahlan = welcome

so... welcome bird flu.
the bird flu has been detected in our city and they are in the process of a big bird cull (a.k.a. they be killin' a lot of chickens).

well anyway... we're not worried even though all of the nationals here are very paranoid. our favorite street chicken place is basically out of business for the time being because everyone seems to think you can get it from eating chicken... which isn't true for all y'all uninformed folks out there. you basically have to come in contact with bird poo. there have been a total of 90 recorded cases of bird flu in humans... ever... but 1/2 of those 90 have died. it is thought that most of them got it by being near areas heavily populated by chickens... farms, etc... and some poopy dried up, flaked off into the air and then the humans inhaled it. so anyway... all that to say that we are pretty confident that we have nothing to worry about. (click here if you want some info on bird flu from the World Health Organization)

so this discussion was brought up by a friend and she mentioned that we needed to watch out for balady (local) eggs because they sometimes have a little poopy on them. so that prompted the question of what orrifice do the eggs come out of. My choice was that they come out the same spot or the chicken equivalent as all other babes. the ladies seemed to think that they were pooped out. me, being a man of utmost sophistication and logic stated, "that just don't make no sense." so i googled it (gotta love google) and i discovered that the eggs do indeed exit the same orifice as all other babes. now i'll go and do the right thing and call my friend and tell her how wrong she was! :)

tim

so don't worry about us and that whole avian influenza thingy. we're cautious but not freaked out at all.

okay everyone...

i need to know if you're getting pop-ups... the company that i am using for the weekly poll services and my counter puts ads up... i know that once you vote it takes you to a display that has a clean tasteful ad for investing... and i'm pretty sure i don't ever have to worry about nasty ads... but are you getting any ads at all that pop-up on the main blog page when you come and visit... please let me know by commenting (click on the little number next to title of this post to comment).

if we're getting pop-ups, i will research other companies to serve us with what we want... without ads.

timmy

okay... i love arabish... you love arabish. so for this reason i decided to make a central location for all past, current and future arabish posts. this is that spot... this is just a blog post but i will continually edit it to have a centralized link location for all my arabish!

this post will have a link to it on the right panel in between the contact us and the weekly quiz. just click the link that says arabish archives and it brings you here... on to the arabish...

Arabish strikes again... (23 Feb 2006)

• Bat-Man Chevy
• Spesial Dishis
  

new arabish and from the classic collection... (18 Feb 2006)

• Cook Door
• Capputchino

Arabish installment #1 (11 Feb 2006)

• no friends
• lowyer
• pet waste removal services

by the way... i really really don't like the way the above links are an orangey red... after much struggle i discovered that it is something in the blogger template code that turns links that color if... and only if... the links point to any blogger post. poopoo.

here is the newest arabish:

a restaurant called cook door? whatever.















and now from the classic collection (arabish found on previous trips to the region)...


nothing is quite as savory as a wonderful cup of capputchino.

No matter how far we move away from the destructive influence of american gangsta rap... this little O.G. refuses to comply with our no saggin' family policy!

okay y'all the comments section is finally working on the blog. if you so desire to leave a comment then all you have to do is click on the little number just to the right of the title of the post you want to comment about and then enter your comment.

after that it will come to me for approval to keep people from leaving inappropriate comments. after that... voila! your comment will appear on the blog! let the races begin!

tim

Eid El Hob = The Day of Love and they do the flower bit and everything here too...

i made dessert... yum...

strawberries injected with sweetened condensed milk... then dipped in chocolate and then drizzled with white chocolate... and we done did it all ourselves!

mmm...

so we have this guy, Moussad, who is our building caretaker (he makes sure everything is working and clean). here his job title is a "boab" and it is also his job to wash our car everyday... if we had one... and also help us up the stairs with our groceries, etc.

well that right there is the sticking point... he never helps us unless i go find him (technically he should be waiting outside of the building to help people). recently however he did offer up some help without and solicitation. i was shocked and later i told one of my friends that i almost had a heart attack that day because Moussad had helped me. my friend laughed and when i asked why he told me that Moussad's name, in Arabic, means "help".

haha

i've been having issues as of late with posting pictures... it has been really lame because i have had to use internet explorer (ewww!) instead of the more civilized firefox .

so this is a test to do it in picasa 2, which is still a pain in the butt... but pretty much anything is better than internet explorer! 

today we bring you the conclusion of our first ever weekly quiz and we begin a new weekly culture quiz... check it out over there in the right panel of the page.

here are the results for last weeks VCD quiz...















so most people thought that the answer was LOST... and the answer is...

we love it because it uses such simple arabic that we actually understand a good bit! i love hawadeet!

hello sir,

would you like to have a picture taken for free since you have your loved one?

we were just trying to leave carrefore (a super wal-mart type place... but on crack) when we were asked that question. what was i supposed to say? so we got a picture in front of the heart, which was really just a promotion for toothpaste. hehe.

people here crack me up... here is the picture...

if only they would ask for some help from a native english speaker... we see so many funny signs because they are either misspelled or just plum don't make no sense (horrible english intended). we will keep you up to date with the latest Arabish as we get the pics on my camera phone :)

here are a few...

i guess he knew i was coming...
















"Lowyer"

i guess he isn't very good at it... if he were he would be for "high-yer"

haha





and we've saved the best for last... this is a sweatshirt we found in the children's department of a local store. it says "wellcome doc" and i think it was supposed to say "welcome dog".

i don't know what the "mutt maids" is about.

and the best part... at the bottom... for some reason it says "Pet Waste Removal Services"

oky dokey

al hamdulillâh means "Praise to God" and i offer this particular al hamdulillâh because i finally got a cable i have been waiting on for nearly a month. now i can connect my phone to my computer to get the photos off and post them! i have a camera to capture all those "unique" moments around town and share them with y'all. get ready cause here comes a wave of them... i've been storing them up. :)

we took landon to my barbershop yesterday to get his first real big boy haircut. he had a trim before... but nothing like this.

for your viewing pleasure, i put the splendid *free* picture program, Picasa 2, to work in creating a lovely photo college... did i mention that the program is free? i love it! following the lovely photo grid collage, is a shot that better shows off his big boy haircut.

okay y'all...

it has been over an entire hour and there hasn't been one comment yet. actually no one has visited in the last hour... yeah... that's right... i can see when people visit and stuff. i may not know who you are and when you're visiting but i know that people are indeed visiting. i have a counter now. i wanted to see how much time blogging was worth. according to the new handy-dandy counter 31 people have visited in the last 48 hours. that makes me happy.

hi everyone.
bye everyone.

btw... i put a *NEW* link on the right side panel so that people can request to become a member of this blog... and that my friends will give you the right... no... the privilege... to make wonderfully interesting comments about all of our experiences Just comment... i'll moderate all the comments for now :)

someone please comment about how yvonne never blogs... she needs to get off her butt and do some blogging... it is extremely lopsided at the moment with just me and stuff. and plus... she is a good writer, but i'm sure she would make some type of objection to that comment... so anyway... let's give it up and encourage her to start putting those little fingers to good use on this here keyboard.

PS... i ran a spell check on this post just now and i found it rather hilarious that the blogger based dictionary doesn't know the following words:

• blogging
• blog
• blogs

one would fathom that they would have added those to thier dictionary. guess not.

hey all,

i am going to turn on the option to comment on my posts... it is a way to share back with us what you're thinking and just say stuff. anyone who wants to do this however has to become a member of my blog. this is only possible by invitation... therefore, if you wish to comment on my blog posts you have to write me a quick email and talk to me about it. i'll give you the 411 and then you'll be off. so write me an email already... I want to comment on your blog posts... so I'm going to click here! It's open season on my blog... i made it so that you don't have to be a member... just go right on and post to your heart's content. i have moderation on though so i get to read it all before it ever goes public. :)

bye

so i had a lesson with my feluca boat friend on his boat. after that we hung out for a little while. we went and got some juice and walked around. we crossed several busy busy streets and he kept grabbing my elbow and saying "halley ballack" which means "take care" or "be careful"... what this guy doesn't understand is that i was like the frogger champion back in the day on the atari 2600. crossing streets here is like frogger. you need to get halfway across and sometimes wait while cars pass you on both sides and then run across at the next opening. this is old school style baby!

Click on the picture to see the exciting Tim version of frogger!

i was visiting a friends blog today and noticed that she had a weekly culture quiz.
i figured that seeing that i am the total computer and blog nerd that i had to have one too! so i hooked it all up and got our first poll up and running.

we'll start the culture quiz part soon because i really like that idea. we just need to start jotting down some questions to quiz ya with. as soon as we come up with a few we will start that up instead of what we have now. PLEASE PARTICIPATE!

so we did a story about UNO (they say "ooooono") in english tonight and then used a language helper to translate it into arabic... actually it wasn't a story... we had her help us translate the directions into arabic. afterwards we put our translation into action and played about 7 rounds with her. she loved it! everyone i have taught loves UNO. it is a game that crosses cultures... uno knows no race, no color, no creed... look at all of the races represented in uno... all the blue, yellow, green and red people of the world!

he's a cute little guy... no?

what a fun game!

i turned on the tv at 7pm and couldn't tune in a thing! after messing around with the tv with no luck i decided it was time to bust out some mcgyver skizllz. i took the coaxial cable coming going into the wall (which is suppsed to be jooked up to some an arial... but apparently isn't!) and hooked an unwrapped hanger into it. then i took the jook of the hanger and hooked it up to the curtain rod.... check it out.

before... nada






















after... gameel ouwi! (very beautiful!)

this is nearly a religion here!

there is a big competition going on right now called the africa cup of nations. being in the middle east & north africa everyone in our region is football crazy right now. yvonne and i have really gotten into the games. they are a lot like hockey... but on grass, the puck is a ball, the players don't wear quite the same quanittiy of padding, there are no penalties for icing (perhaps because there is no ice) or any other penalty that is similar to icing, the clock rarely, if ever, stops, most of the players are black (i think the nhl has like 3 black hockey players in all) and the fans are much more psychotic than hockey fans. can you see all the similarities?

earlier today there was a game between senegal and guinea. tonight there is a big competition between the democratic republic of congo and egypt. should be quite a good game. hopefully i will be able to tune it in on the television!