I have a friend whose brother is called Rodger and he insisted that it is Rodger and not Roger. When i asked him why adding the “d”, he said his parents insisted on adding the “d” because they thought the kid was special.
I am not sure he is aware of it but rodgering means shagging someone in slang dictionary and was related to Roger Moore as “the spy who rogers more” when he played Bond. I didn’t know myself until i googled it but that should provide a good explanation of his name.
Funnily enough, my friend is called Richard but without the “T”. He’s no special kid, at least according to his parents heh!
There are a lot of funny names in Lebanon, with people still calling their kids Hitler and Mussolini or Malfoufe and Khasse. According to WikiAnswers, the weirdest and funniest name in Lebanon is Adonis Zibara.
I heard it in the morning on Radio One and just read it on autoblog:
“Following a series of high-profile fires in its new 458 Italia, it is rumoured by US car blog Jalopnik that Ferrari will today announce a recall of all 458 Italia models worldwide to fix the problem.”
And to think i asked Marie-Claire to let me drive the car and was even considering buying it (yeah right!).
While i was checking out the duty free in Moscow airport on my way back, i saw a Russian paper with Mar Charbel’s picture on its front page. I have no clue what the paper says or what’s its name and the few people i asked there did not help much. All i know is the title said something like “Mar Charbel blood cures millions” or something like that.
It is hard to believe but throughout my 5 days trip, i could not find one single Russian who spoke decent English except our trainer of course.
Lebanon won his first game at the World Basketball championship being held in Turkey against Canada 81-71. The best scorer was Fadi el Khatib with 31 points.
This is relatively Lebanon’s easiest game. The hard part is yet to come.
A month ago, Rami Chemali, a Lebanese national and Star Academy participant, was killed in a car accident in Egypt. Mahmoud Shukri, Rami’s friend and also part of Star Academy was severely injured.
Rumors spread that Rami was the one driving and a week ago, Rami’s mother pledged to sue Shukri’s family for falsely accusing her son of being the one responsible of the accident.
Now the question is why don’t the Lebanese authorities bother to investigate the issue further? And how come no updates on the accident were heard since then? Is someone trying to hide the truth?
On a final note, i found more pictures of Rami Chemali on an Israeli site than on all other Arab websites. Now why would Israeli websites be interested that much in a Lebanese star? And how did they get “Copyright” pictures of his funeral?
More than 10 people were wounded in an overnight fight during a wedding in the southern city of Tyre.
State-run National News Agency said the clash pitted the bride’s family against the groom’s, both from al-Zein clan.
NNA said sticks, knives and empty bottles were used in the fight.
[Naharnet]
Lol, now we need army backups for weddings in Lebanon as well.
Lebanon, Beirut (CNN) — In Lebanon, you’re never far from the whiff of cigarette smoke.
In restaurants and cafes, on the streets, in the airport and even in elevators, Lebanese delight in lighting up. The World Health Organization (WHO) says Lebanon has one of the highest smoking rates in the world.
CNN’s Schams Elwazer reports
I would love to see a “No Smoking” Lebanon but I doubt that will ever happen in my lifetime. On a side note my favorite pub is featured in the video which is Torino. [YouTube]
In my third piece about the foreign creative influences that all designers should be aware of when looking for a fresh perspective, I’m going to talk about THE place that has left THE biggest impression on me recently: Beirut, Lebanon – a city with more texture than diamond-studded sandpaper.
Brands – some local – are emerging everywhere and there’s a healthy smattering of the home-grown reinterpretations of Lebanese cuisine, like Al Mandaloun, Cafe Blanc, La Plage and the very impressive Al Falamanki.
Art and design is literally everywhere. Old meeting new, East meeting West, all fusing together to create a mezze of image, culture and style that is on a fast track to make a global impression.
The Lebanese village Kab Elias, located in the Bekaa, prepared the largest fattoush plate in the world, weighing up to 4432 Kg to enter the Guinness book of records.
It took 100 people working for 3 hours and 20 minutes and involved the following ingredients:
85 kilos of Ba2le.
150 kilos of tomato.
105 kilos of onions.
105 kilos of radish.
42 kilos of na3na3.
1050 kilos of cucumber.
315 kilos of lettuce.
126 kilos of semma2.
30 kilos of salt.
210 kilos of olive oil.
336 kilos of lemon sauce.
336 kilos of bread.
The United Arab Emirates, citing security concerns, said Sunday that it would suspend BlackBerry mobile services like e-mail and text messaging beginning in October, the latest high-stakes clash between governments and communications providers over the flow of digital information.
And it looks like other countries will follow.
The decision could have significant implications for BlackBerry use in the Persian Gulf region, where Saudi Arabia has been closely studying the issue and may follow suit. Other countries, including Kuwait and Bahrain, have also raised concerns.
But that night he seemed to be in the mood for something else. So he asked the driver for a virgin girl he could “have fun with” for the night in exchange for $50,000. The driver came back an hour later with his 17-year-old daughter.
According to Nabil, when the taxi driver picked up his daughter in the morning, the prince paid him $5,000 extra “for the damages.” The teenager was taken to the hospital and treated for internal bleeding. The taxi driver took his daughter and disappeared without a trace after the incident. “I just hope she will be able to live with it,” Nabil said.
I was just informed today by a friend that we can get a detailed statement of our phone bill every month via email and for free!
I remember we had to go to Alfa and ask for an official bill and even pay for it or something. Anyway the procedure is very simple:
Fax your full name, phone number, valid email address and signature to Alfa at : +961 3 391124
They will call you to confirm some information and then start emailing you on a monthly basis. I’ve always wondered why sometimes my bill is that high, guess i can stop wondering now.
I was headed the other day towards the City mall on the maritime road when i saw some traffic near City Mall’s entrance. As i was getting closer to the parking entrance, i spotted a police car and two police motorcycles and a prison truck. The truck was stopped at the start of the bridge leading towards Roumieh. Cars were being forced back and the truck was slowly backing up from the bridge.
I start wondering what’s happening then i see a big truck blocking the road some 100 meters ahead of the prison truck. There was no accident or anything. The prison truck kept going backwards and then left using a different road.
It appeared like they were transferring some major prisoner as more police backups were coming. Not sure if it was a decoy to free the prisoner but the police officers looked pretty freaked out.
Prison breaks are not that rare in Roumieh and the last one saw 8 terrorists escape with one only succeeding but eventually getting caught hours later.
So much for this much expected internet cable that will enhance the download and upload rates and make our lifes better. Yesterday, there was a press conference at the Ministry of Telecommunications and the outcome was as expected, talks and talks and empty promises.
According to Matt Nash, a blogger on nowlebanon who attended the conference, Lebanon is still awaiting a response from Egypt indefinitly. It appears to me the Egyptians emailed us the response with a large attachment and our ministry needs few weeks to download it!
However, until we receive an answer, the government will increase in the next 18 months bandwidth at 42 Ogero central offices by 15 Mbytes, which is better than nothing.
On a final note, and this is addressed to Matt Nash, he seemed pretty upset by the addition of only 15 Mbytes and justifies his anger by giving the following example:
With a BlackBerry plan you get 50 megabits of free downloading per month. And that’s for one person, not the whole damn neighborhood. Good god.
Bandwidth rate has nothing to do with how much mbytes you are allowed to download per month. If the whole Achrafieh area has 500 users who presumably download at 512 Kps rate but can only reach 394 kps, adding 15 mbytes to the whole Achrafieh Bandwidth will allow those users to maybe reach the 512 kps as it is spread among them.
A Kuwaiti businessman’s plane is still being held for investigation by the Italian police in Napoli after it was fired at when leaving the Beirut Airport three weeks ago.
The plane is a Challenger 604 and was departing from the Beirut Airport when gun shots were fired at it causing several holes in the plane’s body.
Now here’s the funniest part of the story.
International investigators handling this case are claiming that Lebanese living next to the airport could have shot at the airport by mistake in post-game celebrations during the World Cup. [lebanonfiles]
If this turns out to be true, we should be very relieved to know that anyone can sneak in Beirut’s Airport and get on a plane without anyone noticing and that every plane is in shooting range from the airport’s nearby habitats.
