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The good, the bad and the ugly!

By on February 14, 2009 in Lebanon

The good:

Today was the 4th commemoration of Rafic Hariri’s assassination. Most of the companies were off today (except the one I work for) so the best thing was the empty streets in the morning, the road from Sodeco to Jdeideh took 7 minutes via Achrafiyyeh! Ya3ne reit kil yom 14 shbat.

The bad:

In the afternoon we got amused in our neighborhood by fights between people retruning back from the martyr’s square and others from Amal and Hizbullah (I assume).

I witnessed a Mercedes being literally destroyed by around 15 guys armored with iron rods (w mish 7a ni3lon 3an mouyoulon il siyeisiyyeh halla2 3al hawa).

The ugly:

The Mercedes I mentioned above had 5 passengers, and the 15 guys with the rods were beating the hell out of them INSIDE the car. I don’t know the reason why the car has stopped by these guys or why the driver was unable to drive it away of them… but anyway it was a very disturbing scene.

Update:

The horrible:

One of the readers asked wether I reported what I saw to the authorities or not. I was actually in my car with my brother, and there ware soldiers 20 meters away from the fight, so when we passed by them my brother was like “What are you doing here? There’s a fight there and people are getting beaten!!”. Now guess what one soldier answered, “3am nshimm il haw”… (w no comment).

I hope “anon” has an answer by now.

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My photography page!

By on February 9, 2009 in Blog news

I usually use flickr to publish my photos online, and lately I’ve been searching for some script that would pull my photostream from flickr and publish it on some dedicated page here. I finally found FlickrViewer which does a great job, not to forget that it’s easy to setup.

So today, I present to you my humble set of photos on the following link:
http://plus961.com/photos (I also added a link to it under “Blogroll” on the right).

Enjoy the collection and keep coming! the page will be frequently updated.

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Waiting…

By on February 4, 2009 in Random

I hate waiting… I HATE WAITING!

All I am waiting for is a SMALL e-mail and I am running out of patience…

Update:

Never mind, I got it! What a relief!! 😛

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Cedar Island

By on January 29, 2009 in Lebanon

It all started in Dubai with the Palm islands, followed by the Pearl island in Qatar, and soon we might have the Cedar Island here in Lebanon at the cost of Damour!

Covering an area of 3.311.731.60 squared meters in the touristic coastal area of Lebanon, the Cedar Island lends itself as a luxurious residential, commercial, and touristic project. Its geographical location along the Lebanese coast allows it to play a vital role in attracting tourists and VIP residents looking for an exotic lifestyle or escaping from the city.

I’ve read about this project in different new sources and to my knowledge there are still some doubts about realizing it. However, if you check the project’s website, you notice like the project is on its way to be started.

An interesting project indeed, but the question is: What is the enviromental cost for this artificial Cedar Island??

Updates:

  1. There are a couple of groups on Facebook, one supporting the project, and the other is opposing it.
    Via Nihil Declaro.
  2. I tend to agree with this guy, who wrote a post titled “The island of Dr. Moron“.
  3. Check this interesting article about the environmental cost of the artificial islands in Dubai, the article is followed by a response by an environmental scientist from the Nakheel project of Dubai.
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Download Waltz With Bashir

By on January 25, 2009 in Lebanon

Just in case you still have not heard of this Israeli movie which has been banned in Lebanon.

In 1982, Ari Folman was a 19-year-old infantry soldier in the Israel Defense Forces. In 2006, he meets with a friend from the army service period, who tells him of the nightmares connected to his experiences from the 1982 Lebanon War. Folman is surprised to find out that he does not remember a thing from the same period. Later that night he has a vision from the night of the Sabra and Shatila massacre the reality of which he is unable to tell. In his memory he and his soldier friends are bathing at night by the seaside in Beirut to the light of flares descending over the city. Folman rushes off to meet another friend from his army service, who advises him to discuss it with other people who were in Beirut at the same time to understand what happened there and to relive his own memory. The film follows Folman in his conversations with friends, a psychologist and the reporter Ron Ben-Yishai who was in Beirut at the same time.

The film takes its title from a scene in which one of the interviewees, the commander of Folman’s infantry unit at the time of the film’s events, grabs a light machine gun and “dances an insane waltz” amid heavy enemy fire, on a street festooned with huge posters of Bashir Gemayel.

When the movie was banned, Dr. Tarek Mitri (Minister of Information) said the ban is silly because people can get anything from the internet. And he was right, the movie is widely available on the internet now.

So how to download it?

  1. It is available through torrent sites. You first have to install a torrent client, I recommend BitTorrent wich you can download from here.
  2. Get the torrent file that will let you download the movie. I already uploaded the torrent file to +961, and you can click here to get it.
  3. Assuming you have installed the BitTorrent client by now, double click on the torrent file and wait for the movie to completely download.

Update:

Download the english subtitles for Waltz With Bashir by clicking here.

Note that you should place the subtitles file in the same directory as the movie file, the subtitles will then appear automatically when you play the movie in your media player.

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Free whoper for deleting 10 Facebook friends

By on January 15, 2009 in Funny

Here’s a funny news from cnet.com

Facebook’s developer platform has been used for a zillion marketing campaigns so far, but this one is actually dead-on hilarious.

Fast-food chain Burger King has created “Whopper Sacrifice,” a Facebook app that will give you a coupon for a free hamburger if you delete 10 people from your friends list.

Burger King has put out some interesting campaigns as of late (“Whopper Virgin,” “Subservient Chicken”), but this one piques our interest because of how gleefully it pokes fun at our social-networking obsessions. “Now is the time to put your fair-weather Web friendships to the test,” the Whopper Sacrifice site explains. “Install Whopper Sacrifice on your Facebook profile, and we’ll reward you with a free flame-broiled Whopper when you sacrifice ten of your friends.

The funniest part: The “sacrifices” show up in your activity feed. So it’ll say, for example, “Caroline sacrificed Josh Lowensohn for a free Whopper.” Unfortunately, you can’t delete your whole friends list and eat free (however unhealthily) for a week. The promotion is limited to one coupon per Facebook account.

That would be lot of fun if it was applicable in Lebanon. 😛

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Orascom & Zain: Welcome to Lebanon!

By on January 14, 2009 in Lebanon

I assume you all know it by now, the 2 new mobile operators to replace Alfa and MTC Touch will be Orascom and Zain (formerly MTC).

We have been promised since Gibran Bassil became the minister of telecommunication that a third operator might be introduced to the market and hopefully impose competition, which will result in lowering prices (happy us!). I was surprised though that this didn’t happen…

Anyway, while checking the Tayyar.org website today I came across this flash new:

“The contracts between the new operators and the government are different now, the two companies will be profiting from the working phone lines, which will help in lowering prices and providing a better service” (It seems like Alfa and MTC Touch were previously getting management fees only).

Well, let me tell you something Mr. Bassil, what we have in the mobile telephony sector right now is a duopoly, it’s actually a monopoly since the two operators are controlled by the government, but let’s assume it’s a duopoly. Do you know what kind of pricing strategies are followed in such cases? ANYTHING but price wars!

Seriously, come to think of it! They both have almost the same prices, and they’re sharing the market almost equally. Why would they want to go into price wars and risk lowering their profits? In case there will be a price decrease, they will BOTH agree on it. No marketer will ever work against the good of their firm. I doubt there will be a significant decrease in price by the way, we will never reach what’s set in Egypt and other Arab countries for example.

So, Mr. Bassil, you seem to be just like all the previous ministers (until time proves me wrong), you promised us the stars and delivered nothing until now. We’re being robbed and we will always be robbed!

Ya3neh we’re getting raped and might as well like it! Otherwise we get no phone line!

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The top place to visit

By on January 13, 2009 in Lebanon

… is BEIRUT!

Among the top 44 places to visit in 2009, published in the New York Times, Beirut is ranking number ONE. That is, people are recommended to choose Beirut as their next destination instead of Barcelona, Venice, Paris or New York for example.

Don’t ask how and why we’re ranking number one, all I know is that people are invited to Beirut to enjoy a good drive on the seaside while trying to avoid falling into potholes, then go to Hamra and get stuck in traffic, and why not going to ABC for shopping and spending 30 minutes before finding a car parking.

Not to forget Gemmayze akid! There’s only one Gemmayze street in the world and it’s right here in Beirut.

Bkaffeh? tab khalas bikaffeh…

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