Several Saudi bloggers meetups have taken place in the past few months, and I was not able to attend any of them because I either was out of town, or they were girls exclusive ;-) I’m thinking about a meetup for Riyadh bloggers this weekend, and I want it to be big and great. The suggested date is Thursday March 2, 2006, and the place is to be decided later, depending on the number of those coming. If you are coming, please leave a comment here, and it would be also nice if you could write about it on your blog. Thanks.

Sometimes I work very hard on a post, hoping it would sparkle a discussion, provoke a controversy, or at least attract a decent number of comments. But then I get frustrated because that post would go unheard of, as if it never was. And sometime I carelessly write a one-line post, out of boredom or because I had nothing better to do, and I find myself faced with some very interesting comments from readers; comments that worth to be a separate blog posts by themselves. Most bloggers know that, and know how does it feel (and no, I’m not talking about those newbies who write two posts and start complaining about traffic).

Few months ago, I wrote a post out of frustration, and thought it won’t receive any comments, because, well, it was not that good. However, the post received some comments, one of which has accused me that my only point of writing the post was to hook up with girls. Actually, that post has a story. I started writing it after I was back from Ikea frustrated, and as I usually do with posts that contain more than one paragraph, I slept on it for several days.

When I returned to the post, I read it and found it dry and tasteless, so I thought I would spice things up a little by adding an innocent joke at the end; nothing more, nothing less. I was just trying to be sarcastic, which I apparently failed to do. But few days ago, I received some new comments on that post, and one of them actually included a real mobile number (I removed the comment). I was surprised, to say the least. How about you? What do you think?

Here is a story from the NY Times on the emails that college students send to their teachers. The story says that “e-mail has made professors much more approachable. But many say it has made them too accessible, erasing boundaries that traditionally kept students at a healthy distance.” However, in KSU the story is quite different. I remember one of my biochemistry teachers who told us that if any of us has any question, “he can come to my office at anytime.” He did not provide us with any way to contact him; not even the phone number of his office. So, being the geek that I am, I asked him if he could provide us with at least his email address. “What? What did I just tell you? I said come to my office!” he said angrily. I never found him in his office.

Do you remember what happened when some pilgrims wanted to visit the Uhud Cave in Medina? Actually, this is not just the case in that location; it is the same thing with almost all what is left of the historic Islamic sites in Saudi Arabia. The Wahabbis don’t believe in the importance of such sites, and therefore they either destroy them or build walls around them to prevent others from seeing them. By sticking to the Wahabbis’ narrow interpretation of Islam, I think that our country is missing on some exceptional opportunities in religious tourism, and if SCT are serious about making tourism a real part of the national economy they should work very hard to change the current situation.

In a recent column, Abdul Aziz Al-Thukair suggests that the Ministry of Pilgrimage could arrange trips to Islamic sites, but I don’t see this as the best solution. I think such trips should be arranged by tourism companies, and can be supervised by SCT, but it is certainly has nothing to do any other part of the government, especially not the Ministry of Pilgrimage, the Ministry of Islamic Affairs, and the Religious Police. Tourism is a business, and these three entities clearly don’t know business.

A recent study has shown that men in Saudi Arabia spend more than women on their personal care. In fact, the Kingdom is the largest market in the region for men’s personal care products with about US$ 31m in sales in 2005. I have a question, though: where does all that money go? I can’t see the effect of such large spending on the state of “handsomeness” of Saudi men. Probably I just wasn’t paying enough attention. Or, maybe, you know what they say: you can’t buy good taste!

Haya Abdul Aziz gives a typical story on how new marriages in Saudi Arabia go on, and says newlyweds should realize that starting a new life is difficult under the best of circumstances and it should never be done under a weight of loans and pressing financial obligations. The thing is, there is no other choice. A cousin of mine who is getting engaged this year told me that there is no way he is getting married without taking a loan. “Even though this loan would be from some family members, and I’m under no pressure to payback immediately, but I hate to take loans from anybody, even my family.” However, “there is no way I’m getting married without taking a loan,” he kept saying.

Those who know me personally know very well that I don’t agree with the mechanism of marriage in our society. How will I ever get married? I try to ignore questions like this because it is simply depressing. If you can read Arabic and want to know what kind of hell we have to go through in order to get married, take a look at Ibrahim’s blog, which is, btw, quite amusing and one of my favourite Saudi blogs.

Do toilet seat covers provide any real protection? The answer is NO. Actually, you have more to fear from bathroom door handles and faucets than from commodes.