Whomever said that Lebanese basketball died after President Choueiri,(R.I.P) stopped sponsoring teams was not wrong at all!

The Lebanese Basketball Federation is a complete joke and has proudly proven so throughout the years. I just saw their selection for the 2010 FIBA World Championship in Turkey and Roy Samaha was excluded from the squad. He also barely played in the Stankovic cup which Lebanon kind of struggled to win despite the absence of any major team.

I am not sure what this new coach is thinking, but the teams we are facing in Turkey require big guys and he somehow managed to exclude the biggest guy on the team!

Now one might argue that he hasn’t been showing his best game lately, though he averaged almost 10 points and 10 rebounds in the 2009 season, but to be replaced by Ghaleb Rida and Ali Kanaan is quite outrageous. Rida is almost retired and Kanaan is everything but a center!

Funnily enough, Lebanese scouts are busy looking for old retired Lebanese players outside Lebanon (Matt Frangieh for example) or foreign retired players to naturalize (Jackson Froman) instead of recruiting new Lebanese talents. The last real team we had goes back to Elie Mechantaf’s days. Now all we got are a bunch of individuals trying to show off, on top of them Fadi el Khatib who knows nothing about team work.

Let’s just hope we don’t get humiliated too much in Turkey and this stupid-ass coach they got is fired soon enough.

Here’s the schedule for the 2010 FIBA championship.

First, i wanna wish all our Muslim readers a happy Ramadan.

Second, i always had the impression Muslims liked to go out and have Iftars in restaurants and all during Ramadan, but then i started realizing they’d rather have their Iftars home with their families and all. I am not sure for what reason they prefer home-made Iftars, but i will take a wild guess and say Iftars in restaurants really suck!

I’ve been invited in the past few years to many Iftars and some in really good restaurants and the food is just less tastier than the usual and very average and dry. For example, i’ve had an Iftar in Phoenicia two years back, food was average and i barely had any time to finish it before the waiter took away my plate. Another Iftar i had was in La Plage in Ain el Mraisse. Food was average and the combination of dishes was prone to turning someone sick for a week. Hommos and Fattoush and Soup and then Kebbe bi Labniyye as a main dish.
Sweets are also not that good, starting with Kellej and that weird baklawa lookalike that they do in Ramadan (I forgot its name).

Honestly, if i were fasting for 8 hours, i would expect a much much better food quality than the one i’ve seen being offered in Lebanese restaurants.

I was out yesterday for dinner with a group of people and at one point, they opened up a very “insightful” talk on horoscopes that went on for half an hour or so. It usually takes years and years of studies to figure out the human character, but not for some of the people i was listening to. They didn’t need Freud or Nietszche but had it all figured out based on Maguy Farah’s horoscopes.

” Burj el Jawzaa(Virgin) ma byittifi2 ma3 Burj el Taur (Taurus) ”

“mich ma32oul keef kel jame3it el 7out (Pisces) byichbaho ba3ed!”

“Ana 2ebne ken badde ye yekhla2 bi Kanoun la2anno el Jadi (Capricorn) bi2a33id charactero”

“El Dalou (Aquarius) kteer neji7 bi 7ayeto wou hané”

Ya3ne ya ma7la chauffeur el taxi wou khbaro !!!

In an effort to raise awareness and funding through donations to the Children’s Cancer Center of St Judes in Beirut, a group of 6 Lebanese are hiking, on their own expenses, for 6 days to the top of mount Kilimanjaro (6800m) starting the 27th of this month.

People can help by joining the facebook group of Hike of Hope and asking their friends to join as well. They can donate through a link on the website. The tab “Donate” will direct them to the donations page on the Children’s Cancer Centre website.

I think it’s great initiative to help raise social responsibility in Lebanon and the Middle East.

“The Messiah” is not offensive as claimed by Angie, not when it is presented as what he really is. I am all for freedom of speech, but some parties in Lebanon think they are above all laws and as a result their “TVs” think they can broadcast whatever they want.

if you don’t like the idea of a show or disagree with the content…. change the channel.

I might be supportive of that thought but i beg to disagree once again Angie because this quote might work in the United States or Europe but not in Lebanon.

However, the point i wish to highlight is not the broadcasting of the movie itself, but the stations that were behind it, which are Manar (Hezbollah) TV and NBN (Nabih Berri News) TV.

If my memory doesn’t deceive me, Hezbollah & Amal supporters almost started a civil war because a satiric show on LBC (Bass Met Watan) mocked their leader Hassan Nasrallah. Hence the hypocrisy.

Now unless it is God’s will to show this movie, which i strongly doubt, i would recommend that the TVs related to those parties be more attentive in displaying such a demeaning movie to Christianity like the one they did. I also urge the ISF to pay more attention to such shows and ban them in the first place.

Lebanon is yet to become a secular country unfortunatelly, and until then, we can’t ask people to change channels in the name of freedom of speech, because such provocations can ignite a civil war in no time.

The Lebanese National Basketball team won the FIBA Asia Stanković Cup 2010, which is a qualifying event for the FIBA Asia Championship that will be held in Beirut in 2011.

Lebanon defeated Japan easily in the finals, in a game that was attended by the president of the republic Michel Sleiman, Interior minister Ziad Baroud and MP Sheikh Nadim Gemayel.

I attended the semi-finals against the Phillipines but stayed home to watch the final as it is too damn hot in the stadium and very chaotic.

Nevertheless, Mabrouk la Lebnen!

PS: Lebanon is ranked 24th worldwide according to the FIBA.

Spotted this pub while driving through Monot earlier today. The funny part is that it’s located across from a nail salon called HotNail.com

I think I figured out why the airport doesn’t have enough trolleys… they’re the same damn trolley’s from the old original airport! I didn’t have any issue finding trolleys since the airport was empty when my plane landed but I did have trouble finding one that didn’t have a broken basket or one that didn’t wobble so much that it made me look like I was having a seizure. We need new trolleys.

I’ve seen this man countless times driving on his ATV on the highway. He seems handicapped and drives really slowly and his ATV makes a very loud noise. I wish we could know what’s his story so we can help him out or something. He always heads towards Tabarja or even further but i never followed him all the way to his place.

I recently put a down payment on an apartment and I would like to share my experience. Because of the crazy market prices, living in Beirut was already out of the question. I wanted to find an apartment that was close to Beirut somehow but didn’t want to go over budget.

After going through the traditional methods (newspaper ads, real estate agents, private brokers, personal contacts etc..) and visiting apartment after apartment, I was ready to give up. However I managed, through personal contacts, to find a really great apartment outside Beirut. The good thing is that the owner of the project is a bank, so I managed to obtain a loan from them fairly quickly.

I went into this “adventure” without any guidance. Every person I’d ask would give me a different answer. The following couple of paragraphs detail my experience and what to expect when buying an apartment / house

The contract: The owner of the project prepares a contract where the payment dates are mentioned. It is expected for the potential client to put 15-20% as a down payment and pay around 10 to 15% whenever a milestone is reached.

Examples of milestones:

- Completed excavation
- Finished the concrete structure
- Finished external and internal blockwork
- Finished electrical and sanitary works
- Completed the project
- etc…

The contract must stipulate a penalty clause in favor of the potential client and one in favor of the contractor. If you’re buying an apartment, make sure it exists in your contract.

This is the traditional payment method, but since not everyone has that much money in the bank, people take out loans. In this case, the agreement takes place between the contractor and the bank, and the potential client pays back the bank over the 15, 20 or 30 year period.

Some information about what to expect when dealing with the bank that could be useful to people who want to buy an apartment (I don’t have much info about Isken, but you can find out more through their website):

1- The bank will not give you a loan unless the building has been completed inside out and sub-divided officially into apartments.
2- The bank will not cover 100% of the price of the house, you will have to pay at least 20% down, sometimes more. In some cases the contractor might add 20% to the price of the house on paper to allow the buyer to obtain the full amount of the house as a loan without putting a down payment.
3- The monthly loan installment cannot exceed 1/3 of your monthly income. This can be played around with. If, for example, a couple is buying a house, they can combine their salaries to obtain a bigger loan.
4- You need to provide official papers such as your salary certificate, criminal record, passport photos, ID etc…
5- Along with your loan, you are obliged to purchase a compulsory life insurance, through the bank’s channels of course. e.g.: if you already have a life insurance policy with company ABC, the bank will not accept ABC’s terms but will force to purchase a life insurance policy from XYZ. It can range from anywhere between 200$/year up into the thousands depending on the price of the apartment.
6- Once you sign the contract, you have to pay LL155,000 to the bank in stamps.
7- The contract must be authenticated by the “Keteb 3adl”, to protect your interest. He/she takes around 20 dollars
8- You have to pay 0.3% of the price of the house to the Ministry of Finance to obtain an official version of the contract approved by the government
9- In some cases, you have to have your monthly salary transfered directly to the bank in question.
10- Registration: this is a big payment. It is 6.5% of the price of the house. e.g.: House price $200,000 then registration is $13,500. But contractors know “people” who can play around with the price of the house apparently. They lower the value of the house in paper in order to lower the registration fee

I hope this information helps in case someone is looking to buy an apartment soon!

Almost done with my loan, only 14.5 years to go! lol

Anyone know where I can buy a working Betamax player? I’ve got a bunch of old tapes I want to convert and don’t have time to go and look for places that might still be selling a player. I thought about Souk Alahad but I doubt I would find it there and if I did there wouldn’t be a way to try it out to make sure it’s working before I buy it.

I’m a HUGE fan of Bourj Hammoud and I’ve mentioned it a number of times before but I have to say this is just horrible. The Bourj Hammoud municipality has put up flyers around the area telling residents if they hear sounds of gun shots not to worry they’re just hunting down stray dogs!

BETA (Beirut for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) contacted the mayor of Burj Hammoud telling him there are other more humane methods of capturing the strays and solving the problem for the long run and that they would be willing to help but the reply they got from the mayor was that bullets are cheaper.

So if you can please politely contact Mr. Antranig Missirian, the head of the Burj Hammoud Municipality on 01 260155 ext 147 or send him a fax to 01 260156 and let him know that you are against the shooting of animals.

There’s something really wrong with the real estate system in Lebanon.

If you wanna buy a house through a bank loan, then by law your monthly installment can’t be over 1/3 of your base salary.

We are all aware that salaries in Lebanon are not that high with the majority of employees earning between $500 and $2,000. So, most Lebanese who have grown up in or around Beirut and who want to purchase an apartment in their areas, can’t really afford it.

Example: if you make $1,500 / month then you could only buy something with an installment of $500/month. So if your bank loan is for 20 years, this means you would have paid by the end $120,000, including interest. This means that with the rates offered by today’s banks your initial loan amount would be approximately 60 to 70K, depending on which institution grants you the loan.

What can you get for 70K you ask? Well, nothing, or nothing livable in I guess, unless you have enough cash to fork over for a sizable down payment.

So an alternative would be to rent an apartment, but according to this recent article (it’s in French btw), Beirut is the # 10 most expensive city in terms of rent for expatriates. If you check out real estate websites, you’d find that renting a decent apartment in or around Beirut would cost you $750+ (expatriate or non-expatriate). This is not a problem if the renters are single people who can share an accommodation. It is an issue for people with kids.

The rent / buy process is not very well thought out to be honest:
Buying a house is related to your salary but renting one isn’t… So the same person who makes $1,500, by law, can only pay $500/month but is allowed to pay astronomical sums to rent a place

I was watching “Kalem El Ness” with Marcel Ghanem last Thursday. The show was dedicated to the real estate boom in Lebanon. They had invited normal citizens on the show to share their stories. One of the women was saying that with her salary, she can’t really afford to buy a house according to the 1/3 rule, but then again she pays 60% of it in rent. The only piece of advice that the people on the show (ministers, real estate agency heads etc..) gave her was: “Alla yise3dik” (God help you).

Great advice… I’m sure it’ll come in handy when the money runs out…

A month ago, Rami Chemali, a Lebanese national and Star Academy participant, was killed in a car accident in Egypt. Mahmoud Shukri, Rami’s friend and also part of Star Academy was severely injured.

Rumors spread that Rami was the one driving and a week ago, Rami’s mother pledged to sue Shukri’s family for falsely accusing her son of being the one responsible of the accident.

Now the question is why don’t the Lebanese authorities bother to investigate the issue further? And how come no updates on the accident were heard since then? Is someone trying to hide the truth?

On a final note, i found more pictures of Rami Chemali on an Israeli site than on all other Arab websites. Now why would Israeli websites be interested that much in a Lebanese star? And how did they get “Copyright” pictures of his funeral?

More than 10 people were wounded in an overnight fight during a wedding in the southern city of Tyre.
State-run National News Agency said the clash pitted the bride’s family against the groom’s, both from al-Zein clan.
NNA said sticks, knives and empty bottles were used in the fight.
[Naharnet]

Lol, now we need army backups for weddings in Lebanon as well.