I’m not pretty sure if Saudi women are getting the rights they deserve here or not, but I know for sure that they are making more headlines lately.

The thing that everybody was talking about last week is about two women who were arrested because they were working at a restaurant behind closed doors. Legally, there is no such thing says women cannot work at restaurants, but as usual, police got it their own way by saying the two women have no “health permission.” Abdul-Rahman Al-Rashed made some really good points related to this issue in his column.

While Saudi women are not allowed to drive cars here, our super girls are enjoying driving all kinds of vehicles abroad on their vacations. A Saudi eye-witness told Asharq Al-Awsat from Beirut “Saudi women are good at driving cars. I was just behind them, and a Saudi girl was driving well all the way to Brummana.”

150 driving licenses from Bahrain, hundreds of licenses from Dubai plus unknown number of international licenses from other parts of the world; all that proves that Saudi women do not need our stupid system to get their very own rides. If they are not allowed to vote; why they will need to drive cars? It’s just the way people are thinking here. I know; this whole thing just sucks!

zChocolat.com offer some of the finest chocs over the internet. They are expensive because they are free of preservatives and coloring; just pure chocolates.The good thing is you can refill the box with a lower cost later.

The locals page of Asharq Al-Awsat on Saturday was filled with some pretty interesting articles. If you can’t read Arabic, it’s not my fault :) but you can use Ajeeb to translate some, however, I can’t grantee you anything. So, let’s kick off.

“Saudi. Elections. I thought I would never hear these two words at the same sentence.” I read this comment several times by several columnists in the past few weeks, and Husein Shubukshi is making no exception here. He says one can only hope. Where did I read that before? Yeah, I can remember, that was Zaydoun.

Let’s move on and take a look at the Saudi boys who decide to get rid of their Riyadh and go some place where they can dance and have fun. Wait a minute, did I say have fun? At/near Riyadh? You gotta be kiddin’ me! Because as soon as you arrive to your fun spot, you will be followed by some young men who wanted to volunteer to help the Religious Policemen and make sure to ruin your party.

Feel sad about the party? Well, I don’t think you will be sad as much as Hassa’s people (including me) who lost their historical Qaisriah market after it was burnt to the ground by anonymous in 2001. Also, I can’t forget to thank the firemen who helped in destroying our living legend forever.

This photo was taken by a local photographer called Zaki Ghawwas for a place near the city center of my hometown Hassa. If you u-turn the red light you might be able to see Ibrahim Palace, the home of the old Turkish ruler of the city. More photos to come later.

“There is no greater wealth than wisdom, no greater poverty than ignorance; no greater heritage than culture and no greater support than consultation.”

Imam Ali Ibn Abi Talib

Fourth Caliph of Islam

(via: Subzero Blue)

Falafel is a popular meal in the Middle East, and this free flash game will challenge you to become the Falafel King. You have to move your hand and finger very quickly. If you lose it easily, consider changing your antique mouse :)

To explore the differences between college life in KSU and that one in KFUPM, I went to Dhahran with my cousin and spent tow days in the KFUPM dorm. Now I can understand the difference. When you live in the KFUPM dorm, you live in your own room, while here in KSU we are living in the university housing.

You can do whatever you want in your room. You can paint it the color you want and you can host whoever you want. In the other hand, in the university housing, you are not allowed to stick a poster on the wall!

The KSU housing list of the disallowed things is too long. Here’s my favourites:

– No TV

– No guests between 2200-1600

– No modifications to anything in the room

And here’s some photos form the trip..

A warning on the door (Exams period, Do Not Enter!)

My cousin is trying to cover all the space with pics, notes, whatever

When it comes to food, my cousin’s room-mate is the man

My cousin’s room-mate is not a geek, but his mom made him this beautiful curtain, if you like it you can order from here!

Anyway, I may get back to this topic soon after I get back to school. This trip is the reason of my absence of blogging in the past few days. Now I’m back to the job full-time ;) By the way, this is my first post using my new laptop. I know the IBM Thinkpad R32 is not ultra-sexy like the X40, but it’s OK for a college student who needed a financial aid from his dad to make it happen :)