Reporters Without Borders say that Saudi Arabia is one of the enemies of the interent.

Several fellow bloggers have talked about, linked to the campaign to boycott STC, and called to sign this petition. I have criticized STC before, and I will hopelessly keep on criticizing them until they fix their shit. It is, then, no surprise that the best topic to start a conversation here is not weather, which happens to be very nice these days, but to complain about STC and their unreliable services.

Actually, it is the only thing that all Saudis agree on. We may argue about any and every aspect of our crappy life, but this is the one thing that we all agree on.

On October 24, I called them to install a landline for our new apartment in Riyadh. The process of recording my information (name, ID no, address, etc.) by the customer service employee lasted over 20 minutes. After many “hang on, I’ll get back to you” and many pauses that I can’t even remember, he told that they will call me after two days to give me an appointment.

Two days, three days, five days; it is a whole week and they have not called yet. As I was leaving to Hassa, I have decided to wait for their call as long as it takes. If I got back to Riyadh and they have not called yet, then I will call them. So, I was back this week. This morning I called, and when I told the guy about the situation he asked me about my order number. “You did not give me an order number,” I said.

It took him few seconds to find information about my order using my ID no. “Are you Ahmed?” he asked, and I said yes. “The cabinet you asked to install your phone line on needs expansion. This will take three months,” he said. I was like WTF?! Am I living in some sub-Saharan country where the bureaucratic government is the only communications provider?!

I told him that three months is a very long time. “What can I do for you?” he yelled at me. To avoid any more insults, I hung up. The crazy thing: I am not even going to use the landline. I only need one because I want to subscribe to the overpriced DSL service, and according to the rules of our crappy telecommunications infrastructure, I can’t subscribe to DSL if I don’t own a landline.

This article, was one of the first pieces I read about blogs, and one that really inspired me to get into blogging. I was interested to know how that story would end up, and now I know it is a happy ending. Meg Hourihan and Jason Kottke are getting married early next year. Congratulations.

I like Simplicity.

What song was No.1 on the day you were born?

Novartis, the Swiss pharmaceutical giant, has acquired Cheron, an American pharmaceutical company known to be pioneer in the flu vaccine market.

Khlaed al-Ghanami writes a good column on the case of Mohammed al-Harbi, the chemistry teacher that was sentenced to three years and four months in jail, and 750 lashes after he was accused with some silly accusations such as mocking religion, posing a threat to students and their beliefs, and shutting the windows during the call for prayer. Gainan al-Ghamdi, another columnist, has asked King Abdullah to deal with this case personally, in the same way he did with the case of Dr. Hamza al-Mizeini. I hope the King will interfere to bring this to an end.