[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]

The guy threatening and swearing is Mustapha Qawas, the head of the Baath party in Saida and he made all this fuss because his nephew was denied some medicine because he didn’t have money to pay for it. Very manly of him to take it against a woman.

Will the poor pharmacy owner dare press charges against him? I guess not.

Will we hear about this guy getting arrested anytime soon? I don’t think so.

via NowLebanon

Update: The guy was arrested and put in jail. Glad I was wrong for a change. He will be out in a few days but I guess he learned his lesson. Thank you Rana!

Jerusalem | Filmed in Imax 3D from JerusalemGiantScreen on Vimeo.

Jerusalem looks really beautiful. Someone should film Lebanon in Imax 3D since it would be interesting to see if bumper to bumper traffic and electric cables look better on the big screen.

via Frankom

Cool video by White on Clubbing in Lebanon.

Via Gino’s Blog

[YouTube]

Two more commercials brought to you by Cheyef 7alak.

[YouTube]

Do we really need to fire weapons to separate football players who are fighting? Seriously? Machine gun fire starts at 1:49 [YouTube]

I went to Skybar last night and I have to say the place looks amazing with the huge screen walls all around. Jimmy’z was at Skybar last night which I would have figured would mean we’d finally get some good music but it was still crap. The music is actually the worst part of Skybar, they might as well have been tuned in to Mix FM or Radio One. Actually I wish they were tuned in to NRJ last night since they had Jade from BASEMENT playing. At least then we would have had some decent music.

The service last night was really good since my group had a table which for some odd reason came with a butler/waiter? I thought it was pretty awkward having a butler standing at the end of our table the whole night but I could imagine some people liking that plus you don’t have to search for a waiter when you need something. I shot a few videos but since the connection is pretty slow I only managed to upload the one above. [YouTube]

Russell Peters poking fun out of Lebanon and Dubai. Disappointingly it’s not that funny. [YouTube]

As part of the Red Bull car park drift campaign it seems they’re releasing some videos of different passengers with Abdo Feghali. I had previously seen the video of Abdo with a guy from the Gulf but awhile ago I watched the one above with a Lebanese girl. Nice boobs idea. [YouTube]

via Brake Banzeen

Obama’s limo nicknamed “The Beast” was revealed in 2009 and is supposed to be the world’s most indestructible limo. It has 8in thick armor-plated doors, its own oxygen supply, pump-action shotguns, night-vision cameras, Obama’s own personal storage of blood, Kevlar-reinforced tires that are puncture and shred-resistant, and special steel wheels that can drive without the tire attached.

Yet with all these features and it got stuck on a ramp! [YouTube]

I just heard about this from BoingBoing. Telfezion is a website that emulates Lebanese television in the 90s. The website is created by Nadim Kobeissi and this is what he told BoingBoing about the project:

I grew up in Lebanon and didn’t move to Montreal until I was 18. I had very strong memories of how Television in Lebanon was during my childhood in the 90′s, and made telfezion.com as a project to emulate those memories as accurately as possible.

I spent days looking through YouTube/obscure Arabic websites for the footage, which is highly nostalgic Lebanese ads, political videos, cartoons that were popular in Lebanon during my childhood, etc. I’ve sent it to Lebanese friends – many got tears of nostalgia.

Some facts:
* “Telfezion” is how television is referred to in Lebanese Arabic
* Contains almost an hour of footage, adding more every day.
* It uses sessions and a sorting algorithm to queue the footage randomly but with proper spacing

I plan to find and add more news/political footage, as Lebanon was only beginning to emerge from a highly political 25-year civil war in the 90′s.

My motive for making this site is just that it’s so much fun. All my Lebanese friends recognize how valuable it is – it’s so weird for them see the Internet mirror intimate and highly relevant childhood memories and I love working on that.

Sadly Nadim forgot to emulate Lebanese internet in 2011 and so I’m currently having trouble watching it. Takes me like a minute to watch 5 seconds of footage. [Link]

I don’t really enjoy watching Lebanese movies or TV shows because I always have the impression that they’re shot using cameras made for home use with bad lighting, horrible sound and really unconvincing actors. I feel there is always an echo, and to add to that, almost all the stories are the same: guy and girl are in love, girls parents refuse to acknowledge that, guy and girl need to find a way to make it work. Sometimes there is a drunk uncle who ends up killing the guy or the girl.

Let’s not talk about the acting… every actor has the same look in every scene. They all look like they’re really thinking veeeeeeery hard.

A couple of weeks ago I started watching a series on YouTube called Beirut I love you [Link]. It’s a series of short films (~2 to 4 minutes) and the story revolves around the lives of a group of friends who live in Beirut.

I really enjoy the way the clips are shot. For a team of amateurs, I think they do a better job than the pros we have in Lebanon. The two main actors also write and direct the show.

You might recognize the main actor, Cyril Aris, from a recent bank commercial for car loans. My Dad loves that commercial, he laughs every time he sees it. Can’t find a clip online though. It’s the one where a girl asks a guy to drop her off after a party, and the guy agrees and stops a service and opens the doors for her. He says he has a dentist appointment and ends up going home on his mobilette.

The clips are in Arabic with English subtitles.

Here’s a link to the YouTube account of Orange Dog Productions, which produces these short films [Link]

I think my biggest issue with this video is the horrible song playing in the background. [YouTube]

Thanks Alf

When will it ever stop? [YouTube]

I’ve seen a lot of falsh mob/viral/whatever videos but I don’t think I’ve seen anything as strange as the one above. I’m completely at loss for words. [YouTube]