Who said Israeli planes trespassing over our land can’t be fun and enjoyable to watch? Joumana caught some nice pictures of them doing artworks over the Cedars Forest.

Here’s an awesome cake from the chive!

… For everyone’s sake!

We received an email from a reader sharing with us his experience while driving in Lebanon after having spent years abroad. He is not only horrified by the crazy Lebanese driving but mostly with the Lebanese’s take on the seat belt, be it front or rear seat belts. The typical response you get here on wearing rear seatbelts is “wallaw men wara kamen? bale7a!”

I must say that i did not appreciate the need for those seatbelts until i’ve seen those commercials and there are many more [Video1, Video2, Video3]. I wish only that our dear ministry of interior focuses further on promoting awareness on such issues and others like texting while driving before giving us speeding tickets for going 60 kph on a 50 kph road.

Thanks Ralph!

I truly thought we will have a fully operational speed ticket system this time despite all its flaws but it seems to me there are no more radars?

I went from Jounieh to Jbeil yesterday and could not spot any radars on the highway nor any flashes even though most of the cards were violating the speeds.

I don’t really get the point of launching something then forgetting about it. This is like the nth time they talk about radars and then few weeks later it’s forgotten.

I truly hope Mr.Baroud can give us a clear answer on this issue. Are the fixed radars activated or not yet?

Since we consider the 6th of January as a national holiday in Lebanon, we decided we will have a 1 day give away and give out Nestle Toll House cookies. Nestle Toll House is open at ABC Dbayyeh and in Saida Mall and has the best cookies in town!

Mark and Chahe have already been there and they loved it!

My favorite cookies are the regular ones and the ones with smarties.

Merry Christmas to all Armenians in Lebanon and best of luck in winning those cookies!

Update: The poll is closed and the winners are comments #6,#7 and # 12

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.

I love galette des rois!
Wish they do it more than just once a year!

This is an email I received from Karim, a big fan of the blog.

Man yesterday i was at work n forgot to get food from home, so i decided to go to zwz to have the famous jibneh wu hotdog which i usually like to have.
usually it’s for 7,500 L.L maftou7a mashrou7a which I believe is expensive but whatever…

I was shocked to find out that it is now 10,500 LL ! copy of bill attached… for some extra pieces of hotdog! so ur paying 3,000 LL FOR FEW EXTRA PIECES OF HOTDOG!!! the whole friggin canister of hotdog containing like 8 full hotdogs is less than 3,000 LL.

Not only that, when I was upon eating what do i find?!?! some za3tar & oil on my jibneh wu hotdog!!
at least have the courtesy of using a clean knife when cutting my way way way overly priced jibneh wu hotdog!

As you might have heard, the venerable 2ahwet el 2zez will be definitely closing its doors in a few days.
We want to give it the proper final goodbye it deserves.

Save Beirut Heritage invites you to share one last cup of coffee with the locals at Café Gemmayzé on January 5, 2011 at 7:30 pm.
Come tell us your stories…

This will be Followed at 8:30 by a farewell concert with great live performances by:

ZEID AND THE WINGS, ADONIS AND TINA YAMOUT
Prince Giorgio will also be playing music from Lebanon’s golden days.

Tickets are on sale at Café Gemmayzé for 20 000 L.L.and at the tequila pub gemmayze including one beer.
For more info or reservations , call 71 319 167

For those of you who don’t know, the building was purchased by Bank Audi and shall be demolished. Ahwet el e2zez has opened in a new location in Antelias.

In order for us to plan better our 2011 year, here are some of Michel Hayek’s predictions:

You can click here for the full list in arabic.

- Fayez Karam will not be a forgotten name in prison.
- A lot of investment will be directed towards the medical sector
- Ain Alak bombing will be repeated through several terrorist attempts
- Adel Imam’s leadership under threat
- An incident related to MTV
- KSA to accomplish major sports achievements
- A major twist in the Suzanne Tamim indictment
- Demonstration including large crowds all wearing uniform clothes.
- Rumors and some incidents in Star Academy.
-UAE will be busy with the security of some of its towers
- Darkness presides over some heads of the Copt Church

I was hoping for some bad news that might drop the real estate prices a little bit at the beginning of the year, but it appears prices will stagnate.

A good friend of mine Elie Keyrouz sent me some pictures he took last week skiing at the Cedars. The one above is my favorite and I thought I would post it here and share it with everyone. I hope the snow will still be there once I come down to Lebanon in 2 weeks time since I haven’t skied for 10 years now! He took the picture with an iPhone 4.

I used to wonder why there wasn’t a decent rock band in Lebanon but then a few weeks back I got introduced to Meen. What saddened me is that the band has been around since 2006 and is pretty popular, yet I hadn’t heard about them before. I also realized after checking their website that they were the ones singing Jongar during their live concert at USJ back in March 2010.

Nevertheless I thought I introduce our readers to Meen since I’ve listened to some of their songs and they’re really good. One song I loved was ’3anna wizarat’. I don’t know how much time it took them to come up with the video clip but it’s awesome!

So who are Meen?

Meen is a Lebanese rock band with a twist. The band was founded by Fouad and Toni Yammine, the warped minds behind the quirky lyrics and catchy melodies.

What’s Meen’s mission ?

They hold the noble mission of promoting Lebanese rock music as their main objective, followed by other worthy goals such as getting rich and impressing lots of chicks.

What’s the story behind the name?

Meen is the name of an ancient Lebanese goddess who was worshiped for having killer legs. Legend has it that she lived in Bqeseen and died in mysterious circumstances. Folklore has it that she committed suicide by leaping off a ninth-floor balcony, but historians suggest she may have choked on her arguileh.

As you might have noticed, sarcasm is all over the place and seems to be the trademark of this band!

Meen band has held concerts all across Lebanon in the past few years and has issued more than 5 albums that you can listen to online. Their latest concert was a Christmas concert at Nova cafe in Sin el Fil.

For all Meen band lovers out there and all those curious to know more about their music, we’ve agreed with the band founders to give away 3 copies of Meen’s live cd and 3 copies of Meen’s Christmas album.

All you need to do is to leave a comment with your name and a valid email and we’ll make a draw at the end of the day to determine the winners.

Winners of the free Meen albums are:

Comment#2: ElHaddad

Comment#8: Zeina Gabriel

Comment#11: Omar

Comment#13: Annie

Comment #16: Nour K

Comment #24: Elie Dagher

This guy means business.

Happy New Year everyone!

Hope you all had a great time and that 2011 will be filled with wealth and happiness for you and your families, and of course that you keep coming back to visit BlogBaladi every day!