This is my short 3d animation film submission for the 350 festival here in Egypt.

It is about climate change, so not only will you get a laugh out of it, you may also get a feeling of accomplishment just for watching it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eStjtu0Tjts

p.s. The novel comes out tomorrow in Cairo bookshops

A part of him felt sheepish for not choosing to read something from one of the many medical books included in the upcoming exams. Then again, he reminded himself that it was a virtue to balance the intellectual and the spiritual in order or one’s life to be complete. And for God to perhaps help him in his exams, though he would never think this particular thought out loud.

Saif’s eyes darted around the words on the page as the bus came to a halt at yet another stop. He felt happy for his Arabic was obviously improving with time, a fact that in turn made his parents very happy. They were the ones who had initially pushed him to reconnect with his language and culture, fearing that living abroad would turn their son into just another teenage english punk, going to drug-filled raves and getting girls pregnant left and right.

He looked up temporarily from his reading and watched the people board the bus. A jamaican-looking lady carrying a big bag. An Indian couple. Several British professionally dressed people obviously going home from work, somewhere in the middle of a long commute. A couple of prep students still in uniform, chatting loudly as they usually do. This was one of the good things about London, the multicultural environment. Saif realized that if his parents had instead decided to immigrate to, say Germany, he would have felt his differences much, much more.

Though it still wasn’t the best thing in the world being an Arab abroad who’s name means ‘Sword of God’ at times like these.

The last passenger who stepped onto the bus looked weird, even from a distance. It wasn’t anything particular that Saif could notice, there was was just something…odd about him. As he walked further down the bus and closer to Saif things became a bit clearer. He was dressed well, but his clothes were dirty and ruffled. He walked slowly and mechanically and his eyes looked incredibly tired and never seemed to blink. He just stared ahead and came to a halt in the middle, leaning on a pole.

He looked drugged. Or mad. Or both.
Anyway, I’ve redesigned the website.

And the book should be out around october 15th.

Cool?

June 17^th, 2009

New York City

Emily had initially thought that there would at least be some precedent, any sort of build up.

She would first take a few seconds outside, looking inconspicuous, glancing around at her phone as if waiting for someone to arrive and meet her. Then she would follow the first person who doesn’t look like a textbook pervert in, her head down, avoiding any and all possible eye contact with both customers and staff inside. There would probably be a few minutes of wandering around looking for it. Most likely she would at some point have to swallow what’s left of her dignity and just ask a member of staff if they have it.

But there she found herself, barely at the first stage of the mental plan, standing outside the shop called “Naughty Pussycat” staring at the fluffy pink panties.

“But why?” she had asked her boyfriend Mark the night before.

Mark shoveled yoghurt into his mouth as his eyes remained fixed on the TV show, which featured minorities beating each other in front of a live studio audience.

“I dunno…I just like it” he casually explained.

“And it has to be pink?”

“Absolutely. Pink and fluffy.”

“Well what’s wrong with the ones I wear to bed?”

He shoveled a few spoons into his mouth and remained focused on the tv, ignoring her completely.

Finally he replied, “They’re not pink and fluffy.”

You really can’t argue with that sort of logic, so she didn’t.

“Well why do I have to go buy them myself?! This is for your pleasure so YOU get it!”

He turned to her and exclaimed, “Hell no! I’m not about to walk into a sex shop where they know me and buy fluffy pink panties…”

“And why not?”

“They’ll think I’m some sort of fag…they’ll think I’m getting it for myself!”

“Why do you care what people in a sex shop will think?!”

Mark turned back to the TV and didn’t answer.

“Well at least let’s go together then!”

Marks face scrunched up with an expression of boredom and annoyance as it had done many times before.

Emily immediately shrank.

Not physically. She didn’t magically get smaller. This isn’t science fiction.

Her ego is what shrank once again from the technique Mark had pulled many times to get his way. She was afraid of him, for he held her time hostage. They had been dating for years. She was climbing her thirties and she was never pretty. She was desperate. And sometimes when you’re desperate you have to swallow your pride and put on fluffy pink panties for a man who eats yoghurt like a pig.

“Ok…okay baby” she whispered as she stroked his arm, “I’ll get them tomorrow.”

“Cool.”

The manipulative prick had triumphed once again. She placed her head on his shoulder and immediately began the self brainwashing most desperate women become experts at:

It’s okay. There’s nothing wrong with this. Actually, it’s healthy. He’s being honest about what he likes, honesty is a good thing. I am glad I’m with such an open man, our sex life will always be exciting, even after we’re married. And of course we will get married. Maybe by the end of this year! Maybe this is a final test before he pops the question!

And so it continued in her mind until the following afternoon she stood outside the shop.

Well…it doesn’t look so bad. Actually it’s sexy…well maybe not, but he will find it sexy which will in turn make me feel sexy. Maybe this is a new, open chapter in our relationship. Maybe I can start telling him what I like and don’t like! Well…not right away of course but someday perhaps…

There was a brief moment of silence in the street, as is common before something horrible is about to happen in fiction.

The typewriter picked up speed as it left the sixth floor window and by the time it plummeted into her head it had been almost shot out of a cannon.

Emily died instantly.

The typewriter met a similar fate.

Keys Q, A, D, F & G went tumbling down the drainpipe, never to be seen again. Most of the other keys scattered all over the street.

Near the body, the letters S,I & X had fallen together and spelled out the word SIX…

But this was quite random and has no significance whatsoever. 

Click Here to watch.

But moving on to bigger and better things!! I have just uploaded my first recorded sketch, which is serving as a promo to my next project called PolyTics, a play that I’m currently working on. A word of warning though, it contains some statements that have probably never been said in Arabic in the entire history of Arabic…enjoy.

PolyTics Promo: إبر

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAmoP0m6J9I

p.s. Feel free to leave a comment there or pass it on to your friends if you think they would like it…

And I wrote the luceferian novel, father. And it is getting published.

And I slept with your wife.

Chapter 1 : The Thrilling Conclusion

I sat cross-legged at my favorite spot on the beach. It was exactly halfway between the water and the boardwalk, where the sand was softest and had the perfect level of dampness. The sun had disappeared into the ocean a few minutes earlier and the sky had became a dazzling gradient from deep blue to bright purple. Birds squawked above me as the wind whispered into my ears. The envelope, still unopened in my hand, flapped noisily in the breeze. Other than that, there was absolutely no human noise, not a person for miles. I dug my free hand into the sand, then pulled it out and watched the grains fly away softly into the distance. I closed my eyes and took it all in.

I couldn’t have asked for a better climactic scene than this. I admit, this is one of the more peculiar things about me (though I’ll leave that up to you to decide); for having grown up on a healthy dose of film I now see any moment in my life, no matter how serious, as a scene from a movie. I am the star, God is the director. Between my natural ability for drama and his divine artistic vision, I find that we make a winning team. Of course, I sometimes help out with the script, like how I just drove a few hours to the north coast to make this scene a reality…

Gradually a foreign noise invaded my ears, what sounded like panting was slowly increasing. I turned to find a stray brown dog had crept up behind me from out of nowhere. I knew it was stray because it had the kind of ‘about to die’ physique and look of ultimate misery in its eyes that only a stray dog in Egypt can have. It approached until it was standing right next to me, panting and drooling. For a few seconds it was just me and this stray dog, staring at each other in the middle of an empty beach during a beautiful sunset. I smiled and pet his head gently. He nodded in appreciation, then turned halfway around, lifted his leg and before you could say “dog bladder” he was peeing on me. Usually people have an inbuilt reflex system that goes into action whenever another creature is about to pee on them, but on that day mine seemed to be defunct. He put his leg back down, glared at me and trotted off, his tail wagging joyously.

This…was not part of the script.

As soon as things seemed stable again, detective Basil Fateen pulled himself up and continued upwards, unphased. He glanced nervously at his watch as he ran up the stairs while frantically trying to avoid small flames and debris. It was 11:50PM; he had only ten minutes to reach the eighth floor, where the superbomb was ticking away to the apocalypse.

If you had told Basil two months ago, when he was in the grips of a harrowing depression and about to commit suicide, that he’d soon be in a building in El Tahrir square trying to prevent the end of the world, he would have laughed so hard that it might have given him a reason to live.

But fate would have it that he would not take his own life, for duty called at the opportune moment; the opportune moment being him standing atop a chair about to put his head through a noose. Oddly enough, as he was making his final preparations he blankly put his cellphone in his trouser pocket, for had it been left off or simply far away the call from headquarters informing him of the devastating situation that only he could stop…might not have come through.

But Basil was a true professional.

He put his suicide on a ‘todo list’ and went about his supercop ways to save the world.

150 nameless henchmen and two evil masterminds dead later…he was trying hard to ignore the soaring pains in his legs as he bravely leaped up flights of stairs. Had he known that he’d ever be in this situation he might’ve worked out more. And perhaps quit smoking. As he struggled to continue he couldn’t help but think to himself that this would make a great ‘quit smoking’ ad: a man about save the world is unable to reach the bomb in time…because he is a smoker and totally out of breath…

Yet just like Olympic athletes in the final round, a force greater than stamina made him continue despite the pain.

He flung open the eighth floor door and fell to his knees, gasping. He wiped the layer of dust and sweat that had gathered on his watch and checked the time. 6 minutes left.

After looking around for a while he found himself standing at the foot of the giant timebomb with 5 minutes left. There was a giant timer counting down in the center, which was exactly the same time as Basil had on his watch (apparently the makers of the bomb also set their time by the clock on channel one). Under the giant timer was a big red button that said ‘abort’ in Arabic.

Basil extended his arm, then paused and retracted it. Why would evil lunatic masterminds planning for apocalypse put an ‘abort’ button on their doomsday device? Were they neurotic? Had they perhaps assumed that they might back out on the idea at some point? Or was it a precautionary function in case the timer malfunctioned and would blow the world up at a time different to that they had planned??

Or was it simply a decoy that would make it go off immediately in case a supercop like him reached it in time??!

4 minutes left.

After quick deliberation he decided that he had no other options anyway, so he might as well push the button. He extended his arm…then, to his own surprise, found himself once again retracting it!

What was makng him not push the button?? Though it would seem like a ‘no brainer’ to anyone else on the planet…at that moment Basil had all the reasons in the world not to push the button. His collasped relationships with everyone he loves, all those people that stabbed him in the back and hurt him, his existence that seemed only pointless until now.

Perhaps his importance might not have been in saving the world…but in having the wisdom to know it should end…

3 minutes left.

His thoughts became flooded until he couldn’t even see the bomb in front of him. The sickness he felt two months ago for the entire human race, including himself, suddenly returned with a vengeance. Inevitable death. War. Injustice. Capitalism. Conspiracy. Ignorance. Delusion. Mass Hysteria.

When a destructive virus is aware of its own hideous nature…the only good thing it can do is to end its own existence…right?

2 minutes left.

The fact that the human race is one big designer clothes wearing, mind-numbing television watching, so called ‘God’ fearing, planet destroying, self destructive, selfish, hateful, stupid layer of mucous on the planet…and almost no one can overlook their egos to see this…

1 minute left.

Anyone…anyone in their right mind would choose death over life if they are aware of the real truths of life…those devastating truths that make everything you’ve ever dreamed, everything you’ve ever loved, everything you’ve ever believed in…completely meaningless and irrelevant. It is the only real choice you have.

40 seconds left.

No one even knows he’s there, risking his life to save them as they buy their quarter pounders with cheese, fill up their gas tanks, add another facebook status message and continue fucking themselves and fucking each other over.

20 seconds left.

Or is it not his choice to make, he wonders, and extends his arm again. But there must be some reason why he is there and not someone else, someone who would have pushed the abort button over five minutes ago and already be on the news as a hero! There MUST BE!

10 Seconds left.

Oh but all that god damn effort, killing all those henchmen…was it all for nothing? Should he have just not answered the phone, had nothing to do with it and just put his head through that noose?

5 seconds left.

And what if there IS a God?? Will he be responsible for the billions of lives? And how exactly does that translate, hell and punishment wise?

3 seconds left.

But in his heart this is for the good, this is what any smart person would do. This just…feels right.

1 second left.

Basil pulled his arm back and closed his eyes. Fuck it.

BOOM.

The moral of this story: Never send a suicidal Egyptian called Basil to prevent the end of the world.

I’m so terribly sorry. I love each and every faceless one of you. Please don’t stop reading my blog. It’s my whole reason for being. Well, maybe not, but it still makes me happy to find that there are still those who are interested in what I have to say. Would you so coldly ignore a dying mans wish? Okay, i’m not actually dying per se, but we’re all gonna die one day…

So the REAL reason I haven’t been updating is that I’m taking the Mad World series and turning it into a book that will hopefully one day get published here in Egypt and get me put into prison for political incorectness and blasphemy. Wish me luck!

And just to prove that this isn’t just a lame excuse, here’s a small excerpt from the new material:

The official time of arrival is 9AM, but they gave us a leniency period of half an hour after that (bless their kind hearts) in case of traffic jams and what not, both of which occur rather frequently in Cairo (especially the ‘what not’). After 9:30 they deduct one day from your holidays. After 10, your arrival does not count at all. After 11AM, they castrate you, set you on fire then throw you off the roof flying downwards towards your death in a screaming, ball-less fireball.

So needless to say, everyone sets their targets on 9:29AM, including me, resulting in a huge crowd at the 4 elevators.

Now this is a scene to behold. Like sheep in suits everyone stands shoulder to shoulder in a giant heaving mass; “Baaaa baaaa excuse me baaaa pardon me baaaaa baaaaa” Every single person is trying to coyly maneuver themselves to be near to the elevator which is scheduled to arrive first. The best way to do this without being scolded by the rest, so I learned, is to find someone already near that elevator and go over to say hi. Even if you met them only once before and don’t really like them.

And everyday I see a certain something happen that drives me insane…every single god damn morning: smart, grown up and very well educated people…pressing the god damn elevator button repeatedly, as if thinking that this would bring it faster. I realize we’re all already late and only 90 minutes away from being castrated, set on fire and thrown off the roof…but is that a reason to completely forgo common sense and look like a jack ass?? Pressing the button repeatedly is exactly the same as shouting at the elevator door, assholes.

After promising I wouldn’t.

Again.

But instead of apologizing and putting myself through a grueling punishment once more to atone for my blogging sins, I’ve decided to make it up to u…

…by bringing u an exclusive, mind blowing report from the forefronts of microscopic technology that finally explains why us egyptians drive like…egyptians!

It’s not the food.

It’s not the television.

It’s in the genes, man.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oo_uMB9V5LU

p.s. This is the result of me not sleeping for the last 2 days. Apologies in advance.