Open your eyes, you spammer!

This probably is something most people don’t do, but I am one of those who take a few seconds to read the titles of bulk messages before clearing the box. The reason why I developed this habit sounds logical. Sometimes emails which should normally go to your inbox are somehow sorted out as bulk messages and sent to the spam file. This explains why all email boxes have a “not spam” button which allows you to prevent this kind of mistakes to happen in the future with emails coming from the same sender.

But there’s another (rather crazy) reason why I read the titles of my junk emails before deleting them. The reason is that some of them make me laugh! There’s first that so silly kind of titles which is supposed to attract you like “your check is waiting” or “I have a secret to tell you”, and which seem implausible from the outset, especially that they are coming from names you never heard of before.

But sometimes coincidence helps those spammers a bit. Today for example, my bulk file included an email sent by someone called “Dr. Susanne”. So when I read this name, I stopped a little longer because I do know a Dr. Susanne, whom I met in a professional context and with whom I did have some slightly personal conversations. But our conversations could never have reached the stage that would make her send me an email saying: “This is why you’re fat”! lol

And then, the funniest of all are those endless male-oriented commercials about Viagra (and other related issues – I spare you all the other details :p). These emails don’t stop landing in my email box, although I am a woman!!!! Junk emails are sent randomly I guess, but the huge numbers of similar emails I receive make me wonder if it has anything to do with my name which presents no female sign. An “A” at the end of my name for example would officially announce, especially for non-Arabic speakers, that this kind of emails has nothing to do in my email box!

If advertising people ;) spend hours considering nuances of communication devices they use, trying to make them as perfectly adapted to the target audience as possible, then spam commercials are brilliantly… missing the mark!

DABATEATR is back!

Le metteur en scène Jaouad Essounani nous revient avec une nouvelle création : « D’HOMMAGES! » La tournée commence aujourd'hui même à Bruxelles. Je n'y serai pas malheureusement, mais j'attendrai que DABATEATR arrivent en tournée au Maroc... notre première à nous débutera le 19 Mars 2008 au Théatre Mohammed V à Rabat.

Bon courage les artistes! You're the best!

"Devant le grand Miroir des grandes toilettes de la grande villa, quelques heures avant l'enterrement du grand General qui a marqué l'Histoire de notre grande Nation. Des personnages défilent : des histoires, des images, des musiques des chants et des gestes reviennent de loin pour célébrer le présent, le passé et l'espoir d'un petit peuple de notre histoire commune et peut être ce qui reste ancré dans notre Mémoire après un Départ. De quoi demain ?

« D'hommages ! » est un essai de mise en mosaïque d'un ensemble de clins d'œil aux petits sentiers de notre Mémoire, d'une certaine Mémoire toujours incertaine, fort heureusement.

« D'hommages ! » le clin d'œil est aussi une expérimentation de « l'effet miroir » dans une société en transition, en croisé de chemin où le non dit fait toujours toile de fond."

Jaouad Essounani.

Facebook and I

Was I expressing amazement just a few months ago about Google and the way we’ve become addicted to it ? How old fashioned any kind of amazement about Google would seem now that newer and revolutionary trends like Youtube, Myspace and Facebook have conquered the net, and with it, our very habits.

Facebook. I first heard of it about a year and a half ago during a casual conversation, when a friend of mine told another that she had forgotten to accept Flana’s invitation on facebook. What did I do then? Did I go straight home, straight to my room, straight to my computer and try to figure out how this thing worked? No. Fortunately I would say now. It was only last September that I stepped in the chaotic world of Facebook.

What Facebook has brought to my life? People would talk about the possibility of keeping in touch! This might be true, but can we still call it “keeping in touch” when it means “hey, here I will put my pictures, describe my mood from time to time, and be tagged here and there, and this thing will do the rest of the job. It will be spying on me all day long and reporting my activities . So just come and look for my news –if you care to "keep in touch" with me of course”!!

Hmmm what alse?? Facebook has also increased my awareness that the world around us is intermingled, a complex network with endless meeting points… A more accurate word for this would be (for Moroccans): mchebbek!!

Here’s a small example from my own account on Facebook: My friend S. whom I’ve just met in Egypt turned out to be a friend of A. who’s been a close friend of mine for years now. And A. turned out to be also the friend of the cousin of SABA who is, more than a friend, a sister. F. whom I met at university 5 years ago (outch! I’m getting old!) turned out to be the friend of N, who by the way has just joined a group created by no one but D. whom I interviewed a few months ago when I used to work at Morocco Times... Not to talk about a bunch of people whose existence you had forgotten, or who you thought belong to different worlds, and whom you suddenly find gathered as the Admins of the same group… I know it’s complicated and this is my point! (And by the way, I wouldn’t mind if I know that you have skipped this paragraph!) :D

But didn’t you notice something? I used the word “friend” a lot in the last few lines. This brings me to something else about Facebook (and Myspace too, among others). It dilutes some deep concepts like friendship. Anyone anywhere around the globe can become “my friend” just by accepting an invitation which might be sent randomly.

Does this mean that I will stop using Facebook? I don’t think I will. Facebook does keep a group of really special people I have met gathered in one place. So although it does not help me “keep in touch" with each of them, it does allow me… say…. to “hear from them” on a regular basis. But will I become a Facebook-addict? I don’t think I will. Because in this regard, and compared to the chaotic Facebook, my old fashioned Google does win the deal - with excellence!!

OUT OF TOPIC:

Happy new years 2008 and 1429 to all :)

Heeeeeeeelp! I have a new addiction!

It's on the blog of SABA that I knew about the test. I have made it and my score is 65%!!

God!! Aren't Google, chewing-gum, the internet, my mobile phone, and my hand watch enough on my list of addictions??

If you want to know the degree of your blog-addiction, try the 14-question test!! :)

SABA, here's another shared belya ;) lol

Modern addiction

Majdouline laughed a lot at my endless tendency to resort to Google!! Whenever she asked about something, new words, expressions, or any kind of information, my answer was obvious: “Go to Google!” After a few days working at the same office, she even started replying on her own questions before I uttered a word. “Go to Google,” she would say imitating me! Fortunately, thanks to Narjis ;) I knew that I wasn’t the only Google-addict in the place. So from time to time, we shared reflection about how life looked in the pre-internet era!!

Just a few years ago, when the Internet wasn’t accessible to everyone as it is now, we didn’t have the possibility to share documents or pictures and receive feedback right away. We couldn’t have the world’s libraries brought within seconds to our desks, nor could we keep daily contact with people living in the four corners of the world.

But was life normal then? Yes it was! We didn’t feel anything was missing. We used the methods available to make research and keep in touch. Life was not impossible without the internet. There were business deals concluded, PhDs obtained, and all sorts of information shared using simpler and slower methods. Had there been no Google, no Yahoo, no MSN, no Internet at all, we would have still found ways to communicate and do research normally. That’s why I think that more than anything, it’s the NEED such services as the internet and mobile phones have successfully created in our lives which make us unable to imagine life without them.

Now I don’t know if this addiction is beneficial, and whether I will ever be able to confirm that it was worth it. All I know for the moment is that it would be great if Google could develop a bit more and help me find the door keys I always keep losing :)