So what are your plans for this new year’s eve?

I usually love spending new year’s in houses or chalets with a group of friends and avoid parties and events. This year though, given that no plans worked out for an in-house party, i will be watching Comedy Night at Hotel Le Royal.

It’s taken the world by storm and got lots of governments trembling and a lot of politicians hiding away, but honestly i think it is a very bad idea or at least a very badly executed plan.

Why a very bad idea?
1- Because anyone could come up with some transcript or document or theory and submit it and cause a shitstorm based on nonsense.

2- Whatever comes out of a minister’s mouth does not mean is going to happen nor necessarily reflects any truth. Some talks might have been side talks or talks when getting drunk with some friends.

If i am having dinner with a prominent politician and he’s joking on how Israel could have did this or that to infiltrate Lebanon and i leak it to Wikileaks, it doesn’t really mean he is an Israeli collaborator helping the Jewish state defeat Hezbollah even though it will be portrayed that way.

I am not trying to discuss politics here, nor want to drag this post into a political one as we don’t do that here, but what i am trying to point out is how this Assange guy is not invading privacy only, but allowing fraud people who come up with the crappiest of reports based on James Bond Theories to be taken seriously and threaten a country’s safety.

I really hope he stays in prison and for a long time.

I was checking the blog BeirutSpring this morning when I noticed it got hacked. I am not sure but I think it is the same guy who hacked Al-Akhbar website few weeks back, or at least both are Saudis or claim they are.

Hope the site will be back asap and let us know if we can help you in anyway Mustapha.

Update: BeirutSpring is back on!

A weeks ago, i took a cab from Achrafieh to Hamra and for some reason the driver decided to go into one of the inner roads thinking it’s a good shortcut. Anyway, he was recklessly speeding in one of Achrafieh’s tight roads when a car coming out of an underground parking surprises him and he managed somehow to stop the car before hitting her.

Both drivers were mistaken as he was speeding carelessly and the woman driver did not bother check her right before going out, but the discussion that occured next between the driver and the woman made me wanna go down and give the woman a good slap.

Driver: Chou beke ya 3amme tal3a mitil 2ejrik??

Woman: Bassita, Bassita …

Driver: Eh Bassita, ma inta assurance “touriste” (he meant tout risque lol) chou fer2a ma3ik? ana bit3attal wou inte ekhir hammik.

Woman: Khallas, Mouhem ma 7ada sarlo chi.

Woman: Aslan bta3rif, khallik we2if, tali3 3a bele chouf 3ala 2adde zamatna, badde farjiya la as7abe.

(Then the driver just drove away).

I was going through the news when i noticed that some guy called al-Sahmarani was killed in a Palestinian camp in Lebanon. I checked out his first name, turns out it’s Ghandy.

Ya m3attar ya Ghandy!

I found those really cool greeting cards at Megastore in Maameltein. They are for all occasions and have Lebanese messages on them like “Happy New Year Habibi”, “I knew you could do it, wilililili” and others.

I overheard the other day that the winner of the 3.5 million dollars last week is yet to claim his prize? I also heard the winner is an Egyptian worker in a gas station.

This whole Lotto thing in Lebanon is very suspicious to be honest. What are the odds that every year during Christmas, the lotto is unwon for consecutive weeks?

For the past couple of days I was trying a new commenting system called Disqus. Due to some complaints I decided to uninstall it but sadly I couldn’t retrieve the comments from the past 2 days. Even though I am supposed to be able to recover the comments I kept getting an error so I had to make a choice, either uninstall Disqus and lose the comments from the past two days or leave Disqus so not to lose any comments. I decided to uninstall Disqus and lose the comments since in the long run it’s a better move.

On the bright side you can now subscribe to comments by ticking the box below the comments submit button.

Sorry about all this.

Found a bunch of these in monot street.

Any clue what’s the message between their “history does not tolerate sales” slogan? Does that mean we have overpriced carpets and we don’t plan on taking out some 20 or 30% of the 500% profit we are making?

First, i want to wish all our readers the Love, Peace, and Happiness that the true meaning of Christmas brings and hope they enjoyed the past 12 days of crazy giveaways on our blog, which are not done yet by the way. I am a big fan of my mum’s cooking (who isn’t?), so i thought i share with you and my brother who’s abroad what we had yesterday for dinner.

Starters included an assortment of cheeses and “charcuterie”, along with Salmon rolls with small lemon slices, Avocados filled with Shrimps and cocktail sauce and a noodle-based salad.

Then came the hot dishes, starting with an asparagus quiche, meat rolls with melted cheese, and coq au vin, which is a French braise of chicken cooked with wine, lardons, mushrooms, and optionally garlic.

Last but not least, and this is the only dish my mum didn’t prepare, the famous Kitchen Market turkey i told you about a week ago.

Hope you all have a blessed Christmas day!

If you’re a regular reader of the blog, you probably saw the article I posted a couple of months ago about the definition of the word “FAP”. If not, just go through it to understand what I’m talking about. FAP is a well known company that manufactures mattresses in Lebanon.

The FAP Christmas ad looks innocent if you don’t know the definition of the word FAP, but if you do, it’s just down right disgusting…

My new year’s resolutions are to become H & H; Healthy and Happy!
Very simple:
Healthy:
1. Cut down on drinking
2. Cut down on chocolate
3. Eat more food that grow on plants and trees
4. Exercise & Exercise
5. Sleep more at night and less in the morning.

Happy:
6. Once I’ll be Healthy I’ll be Happy
7. Make people around me Happy
8. Go more often to Kuwait to see my precious one
9. I’ll allow my mother to kiss me once a week (Not sure how would this make me happy but definitely will make her happy which means less nagging, which means eventually I’ll be happy)
10. Join a cigar club!

What about yours?

Dear kids, there is no Santa.
Those presents are from your parents.
Love,
Wikileaks.

I know i promised ten days of giveaways and most of you are not expecting any gifts today. Well on the contrary, today we’ll be giving away the campaign’s grand prize:

A Samsung 8.2 Megapixels Digital Camera courtesy of Khoury Home!

Yup, you heard me right. Today’s giveaway is the Samsung L100 8.2 megapixels with a digital image stabilisation and face detection function.

Khoury Home is Lebanon’s leading retailer of household products and was voted the Number 1 Levant Retailer for 2010. Their vision is to become in the upcoming years the clear leader in the retail business of household products and appliances, in Lebanon, the Levant and the Middle East.

Their goal is to support a business environment that provides “best in class” service for our customers delivered by “best in class” professionals.

[Taken from Website]

I mostly go to Khoury Home whenever i need to buy household products and very rarely to other places. I find everything i need there at fair prices and the customer service is quite remarkable. I love how spacious the place is too, you don’t feel it’s too crowded yet there’s everything. Also, Khoury Home is probably the only retailer in Lebanon that allows you to purchase online and deposit online payments for wedding lists.

Last but not least, i wish to thank the Khoury Home staff for their generosity and for this great gift that is “la Cerise sur le Gâteau” that we needed for our campaign.

We will exceptionally keep the post open until tomorrow morning and hold the draw at exactly 2:48am.

Why 2:48am? Well for two reasons:
1- Everyone would be too busy having dinner and exchanging gifts at night and maybe attending the Christmas mass at midnight. That way they will still have time to come back and comment.
2- I am a big fan of the 248am blog and the time fits well so why not?

Good luck everyone!

Update: I am noticing a lot of people posting from the same ip. I will deliberately delete comments that i find suspicious or duplicated or originating from the same person.

Update2: The poll was closed and the winner is [Here]

Comment #46, you’ve got mail!

Alfa Mabrouk to Roniabinader and Merry Christmas everyone!

NB: You need to put your proper email in the email field when commenting since the winner will be contacted by email. You can only comment once, anyone caught commenting more than once will get disqualified.

Update: The comments got deleted when uninstalling Disqus. Check [Here]