Madeleine Lichaa! (Since Ivy was obviously dying to know)

I don’t know which one the winner is in the picture but I am guessing the one sitting in the middle. She’s the nicest looking of all.

Funny though how Lebanese like to sneak in a beauty pageant competition into every festival or event. I wonder what were the questions they asked them?

- How can one become a mermaid?
- How’s the sea doing these days? Chou se3er el le2oss?
- We hear a lot of pirates are stealing boats these days. What will you mermaids do to take out that threat?
- If you had 10 sea pearls, what will you buy with them (Except your voice)?

Check out Balotelli’s attempt at a back heel shot. Instead of blasting the ball in, he turned to shoot it with his back heel but he missed. What an idiot.

If you are wondering who’s Awana Diab, he’s the Emirati guy who shot the penalty with his back heel in a friendly against Lebanon, causing a controversy. [Link]

I was sent an email today listing more than twenty restaurants to avoid in Lebanon. The email said the list was from Marcel Ghanem’s blog. However I searched and could not find any blog for Marcel, just a website, a facebook page, and a twitter and YouTube account.

So if anyone has any reliable link to such a list, please share it with us so we post the list, cause otherwise we would be damaging some restaurants’ pages unjustly.

PS: LBCI news send a text message last night and denied such list. Good thing I did not post it.

Anyone remember this?

I didn’t enjoy at all last year’s Red Bull Car Park Drift event but this year was a complete different story only because that I had VIP passes or “Friend” passes as they were called.

I never thought the difference would be that colossal, but it was, to a point where I felt bad for the “regular” viewers.

I left home around 7:15 pm and reached the Forum de Beyrouth by 7:55 pm and traffic was all over the place and I thought we won’t find a place to park, but then I see the Red Bull Friend sign and follow it until I reach an almost empty parking lot just for VIP guests. It’s like hell out there and there’s this small passage for VIP.

Once parked, we could have waited for designated cars to drive us to the entrance door but we thought we’d walk instead as it was near.

Entrance was very easy anywhere we showed the VIP passes and we finally got to the VIP lounge which is two floors above the ground. On the other hand, crowds had to wait endlessly to get searched and allowed in the public entrance gate.

Inside the lounge, there were comfy chairs and couches everywhere, an open and delicious buffet at every corner with small snacks, a Frank Wurst Kiosk, a Crepe Kiosk, a Cotton Candy Kiosk and Ice cream stand. There were also stands for alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks and all were for free of course.

Added to that, the lounge was very spacious and reasonably crowded and we didn’t have to wait in turn for anything, except the PS3 gaming zone since there were two seats only. To make things better, there were waiters serving us at all time in case we needed anything.

As far as the drifting was concerned, we had an amazing view almost from anywhere inside the lounge and there were screens at every corner to cover what’s happening outside. Also and if you wanted a closer view of the car, you could go down two floors to a VIP designated area where you’d be few meters away from the car, but safely protected unlike the safety barriers outside.

I took lots of pictures and videos which I will be uploading later on and I really enjoyed the whole thing. Of course it was nothing like that outside where people were stacked on the highway and behind barriers steps away from the track, with all the heat and Garbage Mountain’s aweful smells and of course the tyres’ smell from the drifting.

This being said, as much as I loved it, I think organizers should take better care of those without VIP passes as it is unacceptable that they can’t find a safe place to park, a spot to watch from and a bottle of water or some refreshments. Also, I believe organizers should find a better location better suited to welcome large crowds and far away from the busy highway.

You can check out more pictures on the event [Here].

Mahmoud Mabsout, best known as Fehman, had a heart attack while performing on stage in a local festival in Kfarssir, South Lebanon. He was rushed to a nearby hospital but died few hours later. [Link]

His shows used to be (and probably still are) broadcasted on Tele Liban.

I saw this in front of the Forum. The person was probably speeding like crazy to be able to move a concrete block that big.

[YouTube]

Blogger and teacher “Miss Farah” was recently on MTV discussing new techniques to avoid stress. You can watch her interview above or visit her blog [Here]

Amy Winehouse, one of the most talented singers of her generation whose hit song “Rehab” summed up her personal struggles with addiction, died in London on Saturday at the age of 27. [Link]

We all knew she was a drug addict but I never thought she’d die that soon. What a tragic end to such a great artist. Too bad we never even got to see her perform in Lebanon.

I’ve never tasted Lebanese brew until yesterday and It’s a disappointment to say the least. It’s very light and too sweet and it’s no way near Almaza.

You can check out their facebook page as their website has no content on it.

Correction: A friend called and clarified the issue as he knows the man behind this beer.The label apparently says “Fi” not “min” (it is a bit torn and unclear), and this beer was sent to Syria for distribution and somehow made its way back to Lebanon. However, bottles could be coming in from Kuwait if not from Lebanon, that remains to be confirmed.

Song against abusing foreign domestic workers. [YouTube]

PS: Strong Lyrics.

Via BeirutSpring

Mark emailed me this piece of article [DailyStar] a week ago and I honestly don’t know what to think of it. There are positive and negative aspects to this training but I don’t think it will make things better overall.

1- From one side, training is good specially when the maid in question didn’t even have a house to live in. One of my friends’ maid did not know how to use the toilet when she came and used to wash her face with it. Those may seem like basic issues, but let us not forget where those workers are coming from and most importantly that we are not doing much better in terms of poverty and poor areas in Lebanon.

2- From another side, training maids will not stop racist Lebanese from beating them or treating them badly. If anything, those Lebanese should be the ones trained and slapped in the face to realize they are dealing with human beings.

3- There’s something very worrying about those training centers, is that agencies providing them would start demanding higher salaries for the trained domestic workers, and consequently start a bidding on those human beings as if they’re goods to sell.

4- Last but not least, there are no guarantees that these trainings are of any use, and for that purpose, the government or even better (Since we cannot rely on the gov doing anything) the embassies concerned should demand such a training for all their workers in Lebanon. There are many offices who pretend to train maids before providing them with employment but they could be beating them just as well.

In all, the training center could prove useful and harmful at the same time and is still not tackling the main problem which is our society and the mentalities we still have. I leave you with few made-up testimonies by Angie from NowLebanon blogs on that training center [NowLebanon].

“I’ll admit it, I did give Maria an insane beating Tuesday night after she failed to answer the front door for a guest because she was too busy using the plastic pail we placed especially for her on the balcony to urinate in.”

“What she does with the contents of the pail once it’s filled remains a mystery to me. But my point is, I can’t *not* beat her for something like that, right?”

Another academy participant, Zeinab Khattar, says she’s learned that physical abuse is actually counter-productive. “After a while, the pain from beating my maid was slowing her down. Now I just threaten to kill her in her sleep instead.”

“I hope one day I can make my home a safe place for maids, but until then, I just look at the four dead bodies I’ve racked up over the last few years as another reason to feel superior to my neighbor, Nadine, who’s had the same woman working for her for 8 months now. Ptfff. Commoner.”

So basically he shot the man dead because he kept him awake.

Guess again.

It’s O&C’s valet parking staff on standby for upcoming cars. So much for clearing the rumors about them spying for local parties. [Article] [YouTube]

Nevertheless, it doesn’t matter to me as I am doing my best not to give out my car to any valet guy anymore. No harm in a walking a bit.

The Red Bull Car Park Drift Middle East Finals will take place tonight at the Forum de Beyrouth and will feature 14 drivers from 10 countries.

Last year’s event was average and I sense we will still have the same safety concerns this year. The track is unsafe, the barriers can’t hold off a bike and the audience is all over the place and almost blocking the highway.

To learn more about this event, check [Here]