Is it just my imagination or did Roadster fix their burger buns? I remember I complained about their buns a few times but the last time I passed by the buns looked and felt different… in a good way (picture above). Did they finally end up fixing their buns?

No this is not another Red Bull event, but something that occurs spontaneously every night at Marina Dbayyeh. Chahe was telling me about his friends who race on the Marina road but I thought he was joking until I saw it on Saturday night.

I was on my way back from Beirut heading to take the maritime road that gets you to ChopSticks Dbayyeh when I saw three cars blocking the road. I approached slowly and then stopped as they were going on reverse. Two cars were parked next to one another and another was on the right with its driver standing outside.

Then they started warming up and as the third car horned, they accelerated all the way until Chopsticks. The cars were an old Golf (90s) and an old BMW 3 series. The Golf won.

Next time I should park in the middle of the road and film it as it happens.

PS: Note that the ISF headquarters in the region is at the end of this road.

Remember the old days when you actually had to light a candle at church and then say a prayer? Well not anymore! With the new pray-o-matic 3000, you don’t have to go through the hassle of actually lighting a candle, you can just insert a donation in the slot, press the button and one of the light bulbs will light up at random. All that’s left is for you to pray.

Happy Mar Maroun!

This new trend of Turkish Syrian-translated series and now Lebanese series is seriously starting to get on my nerves. Everytime I go back home, all the family is hooked on those series, even my dad which is quite sad.

Few weeks back, I was in my room when I heard the most annoying song ever on TV, turns out it is the song for Louna, a new Lebanese series. The song is just horrible and goes on for 5 freakin’ minutes, but no one from the Louna lovers seems to mind it.

So what I decided to do is put it as a ringtone until I make everyone “yel3ano el se3a li 7abbouwa”.

You can download it from the FB group for Lebanese series (yeah they have a group for that too now!). If you are also in the mood of listening to terrible Lebanese singers, check out this Lebanese dude called Pavo sing I feel good on MTV’s new show. Kudos to Grace Deeb though, she has a great voice!

I just finished reading an article on CNN about human trafficking in Europe. It describes how kids from impoverished countries are sold in Europe via Romania.

One of the examples of traffickers in the article is about a Lebanese businessman who was employing 13 slaves in his factory!

Romanian authorities say that during the past two years, a Lebanese businessman, Hassan Awdi, persuaded 13 Honduran men and women to travel to Romania under the auspices of helping them find a job. Upon entering the country, officials say, Awdi confiscated their passports and forced them to work without pay for a factory of which he is part owner. The Hondurans eventually managed to escape their trafficker, yet found themselves in a foreign country without identification, resources, or shelter. Not For Sale intervened and helped the victims receive favorable treatment from the Romanian courts and government. The victims recently were repatriated home to Honduras. Awdi was charged with multiple offenses, including human trafficking, but has not yet gone to trial.

I sincerely hope that they put him in jail for life.

Article via CNN

I have a friend who bought a Blackberry one month ago and is now getting an Iphone and wants to sell his BB. It is a BlackBerry 9780 bold3 and it’s been used for barely one month. He bought it at 540$ and will sell for a reasonable price.

If anyone is interested, let me know.

Talk about speeding on the roads, F1 driver Robert Kubica had a crash while driving in a rally that almost cost him his life. At first surgeons were fighting to save his right hand but now he is moving fingers and much better. He needs a year or less to be back.

Even though I am a big fan of motorsports, I never understood those rally tracks where you are within centimetres from hitting a wall or falling down the cliff. I mean seriously! Who sets the safety standards for rally championships? The Lebanese ministry of public works?

Just watch the movie and you will know what I mean.

I was eating my almond pie from Diet Shop when I drew mistakenly a pacwoman. It might not be the funniest of things but amidst work and stress, it’s a good cheer.

I am definitly gonna download Pacman tonight though. Awesome game.

I was driving from Jounieh to Beirut on Sunday morning when I was passed by a BMW M3 (2009 or 2010 model), a Golf GTI (2010 model), a Volkswagen Scirocco and a white Porsche GT3. A Picanto was funnily trying to cope with them and almost crashed into another car. I was doing 100 kph so you can imagine how fast they were going.

All four cars were racing down the highway doing some crazy maneuvers all the way until they got to Beirut. I accidentally saw one of them parked near Annahar when I had gotten there some 10 minutes later.

Having said that, I ask again:
- Which is more dangerous? a car driving 50 on a 30 kph road or four cars doing some Need for Speed tricks on the highway?
- How is it possible that there’s not one single police officer all the way from Jounieh to Beirut to stop them?
- Are those speeding radars so well hidden they can’t spot cars anymore?

Beirut – A Frenchman was killed Friday in an avalanche on a skiing trek on Lebanon’s highest mountain peak, the Lebanese Army and Red Cross officials said.The man, whose name was not released, was with 10 other skiers, who escaped unharmed.

After a four-hour rescue mission, Lebanese Army troops and Red Cross volunteers managed to reach the 10 tourists in the mountainous area of Qornet Sawda in northern Lebanon, the Lebanese Army said. [Source]

The body was found few days ago by the Lebanese army ski team. Here are two additional pictures I got by email, one taken by a certain Fadi Taouk and another from the Lebanese army website. The skier’s name was Baptiste. May he rest in peace.

Three Lebanese were on board of the private plane that crashed in Iraq yesterday. Their bodies arrived at the Beirut Airport today. The cause of the crash was reportedly bad weather but nothing was officially released. The three Lebanese killed were Stephanie Louqa, the hostess, Abdullah Yazbech, and Abdullah Youssef Lahoud, a partner in MerchantBridge company.

The other 4 killed were three business executives, among which MerchantBridge CEO Basil al-Rahim and two JPMorgan executives.

May they rest in peace and God be with their families.

PS: No reports were released yet on the Ethiopian plane that crashed almost a year ago killing all 90 passengers (mostly Lebanese) on board.

(Picture taken from inside Le Yen and you can see the parking in front)

It is either all Lebanese like to show off or are plain stupid. That’s the only rational conclusion I could come up with yesterday while having dinner at Le Yen in Antelias. Le Yen is a really good Sushi place for those unaware of it.

Why am I saying that about the Lebanese?
Because I usually try to avoid giving my car to the valet parking people in Lebanon since they are not trustworthy and could wreck your car (And most importantly they make sure they mention on the small ticket they give you that they are not responsible of any damages or thefts that might occur to your car).

The great thing about Le Yen and Carlito’s is that there is a parking right across the street as you can see in the picture below meaning that you never need to give it to the Valet parking there, yet throughout the night, most people who visited the place gave it to the Valet instead of parking and we are not talking fancy cars here, just random cars.

Is it this hard to park your own car? or to walk for barely 1 minute? or maybe it is harmful to the public image that you don’t give the valet your car?

I am looking forward to watching Nadine Labaki in this new Lebanese movie . Caramel or “Succar Banet” was one of the best Lebanese movies I’ve seen and has earned many awards locally and internationally. She’s now the main actress in that new movie directed by Georges Hachem.

Here’s a storyline provided by imdb.

Noha is about to get married. Her family is relieved to see her take advantage of this last chance before officially becoming a spinster just like her sister. Everything seems to be going well. However, on this special Sunday of August 1976 in Lebanon, on the same evening her elder brother is organizing a dinner in her honor 15 days prior to the wedding, Noha changes her mind

Rsasa Tayche or Stray Bullet is showing at the following theatres.

I never saw this ad by Kunhadi until recently and I loved it!
I hope they keep doing such a great job and spread more awareness among Lebanese drivers.

I spotted this sign on Sursock street. It roughly translates to “Street with traditional character” and the addition is “Was a”.

That one word makes the sign so much more plausible because walking up and down Sursock street there are only a few traditional houses and the rest are high rises