@HaifaWehbe: my gym game is still on point! I’m actually lighter. Paris delicious food didn’t defeat me lol #bootcamp twitpic.com/85nm8f

Is it me or do her proportions look a bit off?

[Source]

This ad is so freaking lame! It’s like they have no creativity whatsoever.

Beirut/NTSC on the other hand sure knows how to mock them.

[Link]

- We closed 2010 with a bit more than 420 blogs. But this year, we have 639 blogs! This means +219 blogs have been added during 2011 alone.
- 7.3% of blogs are in Arabic. The rest are in English, with few in French.
- Many bloggers have been invited to talk on different TV shows about their blogs/causes/initiatives such as Miss Farah, The Cube, Ontornet, Beirut Street Photographers, Beirut Public Space, …
- Bloggers turned their blogs into books such as Our Man in Beirut and T0om Extra

To read more facts about figures about the Lebanese blogosphere in 2011, click [Here].

This is the second time I see a car on fire on the road from Jdeideh to Achrafieh in less than 2 months. Someone caught a good picture of it this time though.

It’s quite surprising that it’s happening in winter and on a road where there’s no traffic relatively.

I heard on the radio this morning that unknown individuals broke into Crepaway-Mzaar and stole 30 million liras (Almost 20,000$). What surprised me when reading this piece of news is that this specific Crepaway branch is located inside the Mzaar intercontinental facing the hotel’s entrance and is almost impossible to steal.

Whomever did this knew his/her way around the hotel or maybe works in it or in Crepaway.

A march against Lebanon’s backwards rape laws is being organized by Nasawiya on January the 14th at 12pm from the Ministry of Interior in Sanayeh to the Parliament in Downtown.

This march comes after the large media campaign Kafa has initiated two weeks ago in an attempt to fight marital rape in Lebanon, which is not considered a crime, where they incited Lebanese not to vote for MPs against passing the law. [Link]

While I am all supportive of these demands, I unfortunately don’t see any change in this matter occurring anytime soon for all the reasons Mustapha pointed out earlier.

I can also add that most MPs and political parties rely on religious figures to get their votes and will not risk losing their support for passing a law against marital rape.

Nevertheless, there’s no harm in showing support for this righteous cause and spreading awareness.

This cracked me up so much! [YouTube]

[YouTube]

Tirashrash according to this report by Al-Jadeed TV means throwing Dollars and Riyals at women, basically like this Iraqi guy [Here]. Having said that, the song still doesn’t make any sense but it’s a good Dabke song.

Aside from the traditional Galette des rois that we have on Epiphany, there’s also “Zlebieh” (زلابية) which is a deep fried dough that is mixed with sugar. They don’t look delicious (see pic below) but they are good specially when hot.

Aside from the striking resemblance to Britney Spears’ Toxic Video that Ivy pointed out, I think that’s the first time we see robots dancing Dabke in a music video.

What was missing though was Clauda Chemaly giving some guy a toxic kiss.

I’ve been hearing a lot about Stone restaurant which opened recently in the Old Souks in Zouk so I decided to pass by yesterday to see how it looks like. The first thing that caught my attention was how big and how beautiful this restaurant is. I don’t think I’ve seen bigger in Lebanon. It is also very nicely located and has a great view of the Jounieh bay and of Beirut.

Stone serves international food and its prices are affordable from what I hear. In fact, their Sunday lunch menu which includes Appetizers, Salad, Main Course, Dessert and Drinks is for 30$ only which is very reasonable.

They are also featuring Il Tenor Eliya Francis every Thursday starting December 22. This guy is amazing and performs at Mandaloun. He’s probably the only Tenor we have in Lebanon. They charge 10$ extra for the show.

I was told the food is excellent but I will have to try it and judge for myself, hopefully very soon. Also, I hope it will revive the old Zouk a bit because it’s a beautiful yet forgotten area.

You can check out its website [Here].

Women pumping gas might seem like a strange sight in Lebanon, but that could change with the Queen, the first and only gas station in the country run and operated by a group of women. Queen, “a gas station with a feminine sensation” as it labels itself, was opened with the idea of giving women the opportunity to work in a traditionally men’s job. [Link]

I am not sure if they got inspired from the post I had written back in April 2011 about opening a women car wash in Lebanon but those are not the women I had in mind. Also, if you read the whole article, you will notice there are men working at the station, which pretty much goes against the original idea.