It’s summertime so you know what that means! [YouTube]

The comment below was just left under the post “On the Safra fire and Crisis Management in Lebanon“:

Hello! im just gona reply on some of the critics you published about our fire department and helicopter pilots.
Well about the fire truck that had no water? that is wrong, i am sure its a rumor! but i can tell you this, the equipment that they had wasnt enough to enter the building! – fire fighting equipment is very very expencive and delicate(the helmet, the breathing gear the cover clothes the boots the personnal fire hose: have one thing missing, u cant do anything)! in our department in my town we take greaaat care of them, but usualy when an internal fire happens (building fire) and when we’re second to arrive, its always us who provide the equipment because usualy others are regardles. But NO truck is parked in his station without water!!
So at safra, they waited for another fire station to provide the needed equipment.
Note that our truck’s tires are 7 years old. The government cant even provide us with our vital needs.
Im a new volunteer, this was my 6th mission, and all my training is what my friend (volunteer for 3 years now) tells me to do. They dont give us training, we learn in missions.

So please, im beggin every single critic, when you’re talking about the Civil Defence, notice that they are very brave hard core men, who are willingly and couragiously fighting for our safety, but everything comes at a price, and honestly, its not us (members of the civil defence) who should pay the needs of this department, its the government.

About the Helicopter pilots, the whole idea was messed up, it was wrong. It wasnt suggested by our colonel, but by a millitairy person. how can you EVER extinguish a fire under a cover ? ( the fire was covered by the roof!!!) its impossible! the materials inside are flamable fibers, and colorants, it needs specialy picked Foam (the white material we put in our trucks’ water reservoirs, specialy designed for particular fires) not just sea water! it helped in one thing, it delayed the section collaption. it cooled it.
Yeah and your friend who got showered? aahaha, this bucket is designed for forest fires, where u need to spread about 200L of water on the biggest area u can cover! if you want to put them in on place, the pilot needs to hover(yejmad ma7allo) above the building by as little as 15 meters and throw them, but listen up, its a helicopter, the tempreture beneath them got to 1200 degreess, that makes the air above it SUPER unstable because of the heat! so it was impossible…

One more thing i have to say, look at the photo above,picture from TheDailyStar, a fire reaching this point and in this situation, is impossible to extinguish. No fire brigade in the world can do it.
No equipment can handle 1200 degrees, to alow a man to get inside of the building with a fire hose.. The only possible thing to do is to Blockade (men 7asser) the fire from all sides and wait untill it burns out.
The cause of the building collapting is simple: the iron rods inside the concrete walls melted, and the heavy duty structure failed. So blockading the fire was a bit useless, because there was so much flamable material inside that the collaption was eminent! there should have been like 7 or 8 fire hoses shooting water at the building from all sides at the same time.. but think a bit, (they dont give us new tires) were they good enough to provide about 6 tones of diesle and about 100 tones of water every 6 hours? that’s about 20 000$..
hahahaha That’s the big joke! but that joke made a all the workers inside cry.
There was a rumor that there was no small fire extinguishers inside the factory.. if it was true, that would be the cause of this catastrophy, cz every fire starts with a little match.. But i dont know.
Because of that fire the image of the civil defence is decreasing, but im trying everything to show that those men are one of the bravest men i have ever met! Other men shoot bullets to kill and save our country, We shoot water, to stop fire and Save our people!
Sorry about the long post.

-Charbel

I can’t get enough of her videos, she’s just too out of it. [YouTube]

A a friend of mine contacted me around two weeks back asking me if I wanted to review his McLaren and of course I said yes. After spending the day with it this weekend I can easily review the car with 3 words… “I want one”. Seriously I want one. I can’t afford to buy it but that doesn’t change the fact I really really want it.

There are a lot of reviews of the McLaren online and Top Gear have a great one which you can watch on YouTube. So, not wanting to come about this review in the same way I decided to look at the car differently. It’s obviously a fast super car and everyone already knows that but I was curious to how the car would perform as a daily driver. I would hate to spend this much on a car and then only drive it on weekends. I’d want to drive the car to work, to the gym or even to TSC to pick up some groceries.

First thing I looked for after getting into the car was cup holders and I ended up finding two right behind the center console. Cup holders are great for holding your drinks but they’re also more useful for storing items like your phone or sunglasses. The McLaren not only has two easy to access cup holders but there is also a 12v socket inside one of them which means you can plug in your phone charger as well. That’s practical. Another practical feature is the AC, both the driver and passenger have separate control panels which is a feature you usually find in large cars but not super cars.

The seats are also fully electric and have 3 memory positions which is convenient if the car is being shared between say a couple or family members. The sound system is naturally located in the center console and is made by the high end audio guru’s Meridian. The sound system control panel is a large touch screen that is more than double the size of the iPhone and is 100% iPhone/iPod compatible. Once you connect your iPhone or iPod to the car you can then navigate your music by touch and even view album art beautifully all on the center console screen. I think it has the best iPod integrated system I’ve seen so far. The car boot is a lot bigger than I expected. I wouldn’t take the car to Khoury Home if I need to get a 50inch screen, but it’s definitely supermarket friendly.

The McLaren is very comfortable to drive. I actually found it more comfortable and forgiving on worn out roads when compared to say my old Z4. I’m also pretty tall (6’1) and I didn’t feel claustrophobic or cramped in the car neither did I have problems finding my correct seating position (the seats are incredibly adjustable). Driving the car I was actually impressed by the fact I could cruise in it at 80km/h and not feel like I should be driving it a lot faster. Of course once you step on the gas the car is breathtakingly fast but as a daily driver you want to be able to drive on regular roads at regular speeds and the McLaren does that really well. Even the car’s gas mileage is pretty good at 15mpg which is similar to my FJ Cruiser. I did find the brake peddle a bit too stiff to press but it’s something you would get used to after a few hours in the car.

The only two things that hurt the car as a daily driver is the ride height and the doors. It’s a pretty low ride since it’s a sports car which means the majority of the speed bumps you’ll need to take sideways. The second issue is the doors, they swing open upwards which means you can’t park in very tight spots. If the parking spot is tight you won’t be able to open the doors so you always need to make sure you have ample room on the sides. But again if you’ve paid this much for the car, I doubt you’re going to be squeezing it anywhere. Valet wouldn’t be an issue on weekends since it’s a car that every club would love to have parked right at the main entrance. Just drive up and point to the valet where you want to park and they’ll move whatever car is in that spot for you.

I love the car but then again who wouldn’t? The thing is I don’t only love it because it’s a super car, I love it because it’s a super car you can actually use every day. I wasn’t kidding when I said I want one, I do I just can’t afford it. But, if anyone from McLaren is reading this, give me a fat discount (like 75%) and you’ve got yourself another customer.

The video above of Abdo Feghali making his way up the mountain in an Evo found its way to the popular Jalopnik blog. Pretty cool. [Link]

According to a source of mine Alshaya have purchased the franchise rights to open The Cheesecake Factory throughout the Middle East including Turkey, Russia and Beirut. The Cheesecake Factory is expected to open at the end of the year in Kuwait but I don’t have information on when the Beirut branch is planning to launch. Shake Shack on the other hand is opening this July.

A dog roaming the Corniche of the coastal city of Sidon for nearly an hour frightened bystanders early Thursday morning before a policeman subdued the animal and took it away.

…

Sidon Municipality Police arrived at the scene and were about to sedate the animal using a stun gun. However, a policeman from the Internal Security Forces who is a longtime pet owner was able to calm the dog without using force and put a chain leash on it.

Hard to believe no one tried to shoot it or run it over. Even the cops were planning to use a stun gun and not real bullets. I’m impressed. [Link]

A documentary directed by Bachir Bensaddek about the rap scene in Morocco, Lebanon and Syria. [YouTube]

When I was in Lebanon over the weekend I tried to book a table at MAD but it was fully packed so we ended up going to Life instead. When we first got there the music wasn’t so bad but that’s probably the only good thing I have to say about the place.

I basically didn’t like it.

Firstly the majority of the people there were either men and women aged 40 and up or really old men in their 60′s and 70′s with young bimbos or Eastern Europeans. The style of people kinda reminded me of Medusa in Jounieh. If you’ve never been to Medusa by the way that’s a good thing so don’t worry about it.

The music also went downhill or maybe I’m just old and lame but the kinda music they started playing would make even Skybar’s seem better. There was a “show” around 1AM where they two girls got up on the cat walk to dance. It was girl on girl action and it lasted for maybe one full song or two and then it was over and they were gone. Too short of a show and there should have been more girls (preferably also stripping).

Then there were a bunch of little things that stuck out as well. I thought the place looked a lot better when it was dimly lit (like in the photo above) but most of the time they had bright lights flashing and so the general ambiance was too bright and it looked tacky. When the girls were dancing they had these bright lights on behind them which brought to notice a huge dirty smear all over the glass window behind the girls. It was so distracting that I was noticing the glass more than the girls! Out table was up on a balcony and there was a horrible make shift bar underneath us. It looked like it was built after the place was finished and it looked cheap, old, broken and dirty. It really wasn’t a pleasant sight to see. The waiters also dressed like those in Lebanese restaurants (black pants, white shirt and black vests) which isn’t very cool. When we ordered a bottle of whiskey they brought us 18 years instead of the regular 12. When we ordered a bottle of vodka they got us the larger 1L bottle instead of the regular .75L. Doesn’t sound like a big issue but it felt like they were trying to get all these extra charges off us whenever they could.

On the other hand their roof is actually pretty cool. It’s similar to BO18 and opens up and closes so it’s an outdoor and indoor place at the same time. Their sound system was also pretty good with a lot of deep bass but if they only used it to play some decent music…

Anyway you can check out the place for yourself, they’re located behind BO18 right next to Sleep Comfort.

Najib posted about how awesome MTC were two weeks ago for helping his friend out when he had a problem. Well I ran into a problem today and it was like a big WTF.

My previous MTC line got killed because I didn’t recharge it so since I’m in Lebanon for 5 days I figured I’d get another line so I could get online from my iphone so I can tweet and stuff. I went bought a line from a store, put the sim card in my phone and called 111 to get internet activated. Mobile Internet was the second option in the menu so I pressed 2 and listened to instructions on how to activate the internet which is sending and SMS with the word “mi” to 1188. I do that and get a message that mobile internet will be activated in 24 hours.

So I think great. But the automated system said something about a 25MB limit, I wanted at least 100 so I called 111 to talk to a customer support agent and while I am going through the menu options I get to around option #7 or 8 and I hear 3.9G Internet. I was curious to what that was and go into the menu and realize they have a package I wanted which was 19$ for 500MB. I hangup send the SMS “hs2″ to 1188 to activate that package and to my surprise I get the following:

“Dear Customer, you cannot subscribe to 3.9G – 500MB Service because you are subscribed to Mobile Internet Service. You can subscribe as of 2012-05-08″

I was like WTF? So I call and talk to a customer support agent, I tell him I wanted internet on my phone and the first option that came up I signed up to but I want to upgrade it to 3.9G and I am getting an error. He tells me I need to wait till next month. I was like you can take the $5 I paid for mobile internet, cancel it and let me sign up to the 19$ package. He was like he can’t do that. After like 5 minutes of arguing I was like ok fine, so whats the difference anyway? He’s like what phone do you have? I was like an iPhone. He was like Mobile Internet doesn’t work on your iPhone since mobile internet is WAP.

That’s where I blew it. I was like WTF? WAP? Who the hell still uses WAP? Why the hell are you calling it Mobile Internet and why is it the second option in the automated menu? I mean seriously? I got a new phone line, called 111, got an option for mobile internet which I assumed meant internet on my mobile and it turns out you have ANOTHER mobile internet option called 3.9G hidden later in the options and what’s even more confusing is what you call mobile internet is actually WAP?

I was super pissed and the guy wouldn’t do anything about it. I couldn’t throw money at the problem, I asked to talk to the technical department and he refused to transfer me and I was getting really pissed. Finally I asked to file a complaint so that at least MTC know how stupid and confusing their terminology and menu layout is and he wouldn’t even do that. He told me he can’t take or file complaints. WTF?!! I then asked to speak to the person in charge at the call center and although it took some convincing I finally got through to him. The call center manager was much more understanding and unlike the first guy I spoke to was aware of this issue which seems to happen with a lot of people and was very apologetic. Still though nothing could be done about it.

So now my only solution is to buy another line so I can get internet on my phone. That’s ridiculous and MTC really need to fix this crap.

Not sure how new these two bottles are but I spotted them today at the supermarket. I ended picking up a few Light bottles to try them out and they’re actually not bad. Best of all they have 38% less calories than the regular beer which is great.

[Source]

If you don’t have an iPad = Yes
If you have the iPad 1 = Yes
If you have the iPad 2 = Depends

I got the new iPad last week and compared to the iPad 1 I was replacing it’s a world of a difference. The new iPad is a lot faster than the original iPad and the increase in memory is obvious while browsing the web with multiple tabs open or running multiple apps. Of course though the biggest difference everyone is talking about is the new retina display which I have to admit is ridiculously good. I didn’t think anything was wrong with my old iPad screen until I got the new iPad and now I can’t go abck. It’s really a big difference and one that’s easily noticeable right from the minute you turn the iPad on for the first time.

If you have an iPad 1 and actually use it then getting the new iPad is a no brainer. On the other hand if you have the iPad 2 the only difference you’ll notice is the new screen and as long as you don’t experience it in person then you don’t really need to get the new iPad. Just make sure you don’t see the new screen.

It looked pretty good in this picture. You can see more photos including of the interior by following this [Link]

I need to hit the slopes before the snow melts. [YouTube]