So you missed the chance to buy the home of your dreams at The Palm near Dubai coast. Now, you have the chance to by your own island not too far from The Palm.

The same company behind The Palm is offering 300 islands resemble the world map under the name The World. For you who have much, much more money than they need, this is beautiful, isn’t it? An island of your own where you can get rid of the disturbance of this whole crazy world, and do whatever you want. It is a real fantasy.

I would be happy to share an island with anyone. You know, I’ve been saving $100 in a separate account for such times! Ooh, who am I kidding?!

Prince Naif Bin Abdul-Aziz, the minister of interiors, said women would not be allowed to participate in the coming municipal elections. “This is unthinkable,” he added. I expected that, but why didn’t he tell us why?

In addition to that, the same ministry made an announcement to warn all non-Muslim expatriates in the country from eating, drinking or smoking in public during the day in the holy month of Ramadhan. The ministry said anyone who does not obey this order would be kicked out of the country.

It’s ironic how the ministry is calling the foreigners to respect the feelings of Muslims, while the regime here is not showing any respect to people with other religions or beliefs.

I can’t believe it’s Ramadan already! I’m not saying last year was very short; it is just I wasn’t expecting the R month to come back this fast. Ramadan used to be fun. We fast from sunrise to sunset; enjoy the best kinds of food and enjoy the best TV shows all around the year. However, since I’m studying for three weeks of Ramadan this year, I’m not gonna enjoy it at all.

I think I knew from the first day I moved to study in Riyadh that Ramadan would never be as good as it used to be. The last time I spent this month at home with the family was two years ago. In the third week of Ramadan that year, I had an open-heart surgery, and I could not fast the last ten days. I spent most of my time in bed, reading, watching TV and eating good food all day, while everybody else was looking at me with envy!

Oh my God! I miss those good days.

A government official told Arab News that the reason for not allowing women to participate in the next elections is that the government did not have enough time to arrange for it!! The official said the law does not prevent women from participating in the election.

Good to know. How long do you need to arrange for that? A century?

The web usability guru Jakob Nielsen wrote this good article four years ago. However, I think some of the questions this article sparkled still alive. I liked the comment of Evan Williams who defended the blog format. What about you?

1. Do you think most people are poor writers?

2. Do you think the blog format is the best format for people to create content for the internet?

3. Do you think new services like Flickr would be a Geocities for photography?

I finished reading We’ve Got Blog. It is basically a collection of essays by some of the blogsphere superstars, plus some relatively unknown geeks and journalists. The likes of Rebecca Blood, Dan Gillmor and Dave Winer try to have a peek at how blogs are changing our culture and the ways we are using to get the news.

This book helped me to have a better understanding on how all this blogging phenomenon started, and how it kept on evolving to become a major part of the internet today.

A good read for both bloggers and non-bloggers, and the variety of voices gives it a special value. My rating: 3.5/5.

Evan Williams, the co-founder of Pyra, the company behind Blogger, decided to leave his baby in order to see the world and maybe try something new.

Can I say this was expected? I don’t know, but it seems that every acquisition (Google acquired Pyra last year) must be followed by the leaving of some key people.

I’m really looking forward to Ev‘s next project. He created Blogger with his friends just to have fun. Now let’s see what he will make next to play with, and maybe share his toy with us!

Thank you Ev for such a great contribution to our lives. Blogger changer my world and I’m sure many people out there are just like me. Thanks.