Now that’s an original idea!

The classic 80′s arcade game Pac-Man found its way to the streets of Hamra. The project was the latest installment of The Workshop as they took an innovative approach to better understanding urban navigation and enhancing the cognitive mapping and urban knowledge of individual travelers. [Link]

Legendary Algerian singer Warda al-Jazairia passed away on Thursday at the age of 73 after suffering a heart attack at her residence in the Egyptian capital Cairo. [Naharnet]

She was one of the very few Arab singers I listen to. What a great loss.

Not gonna happen anytime soon.

I was at the opening of the Beirut Boat Show 2012 this afternoon at the Marina Joseph Khoury and I must say it wasn’t at all what I expected. In fact it wasn’t just boats and yachts aligned next to each other but there were a lot of stands with the latest boats, engines, electronics and marine accessories as well as many cool stands such as the Castania and Almaza stand, the Grey Goose and an ice cream stand. Moreover, there was a Lebanese Army Navy warship that everyone was allowed to visit.

There were also a lot of top models, with at least one at every stand. Some of them were even dressed up in sexy bikinis like the one in the picture. Price-wise, boats are insanely expensive, even renting them costs at least 2000$ per day.

The Boat Show will take place from May 16th till May 20th.

You can check out some of the pictures I took below:

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

Al Saniour Sea view has opened few weeks back in Maameltein right before Al Balad and Schtrumpf restaurants and facing Platea. The place is huge and has a terrace that overlooks the entire Jounieh bay and the Harissa Mountain.

The good thing about Al Saniour Sea View is that you don’t feel like you’re walking into a smoke cloud like other Saniour branches, especially if you choose to sit out on the terrace. Added to that, Saniour partnered with O&C Fresh Market to serve Fresh Sea Food and Sushi to its customers. I’ve tasted O&C’s fish and Sushi and both are good. Aside from seafood, Saniour has a large menu offering everything from Manakish, Salads, burgers (not so great), Lebanese Mezza and various platters. There’s also arguile of course.

A word of advice though: Avoid going there on weekends if you don’t like crowded places like myself. The best time for me is on weekdays late in the afternoon where I can have an Almaza and chill with some friends.

PS: For some reason, Saniour does not serve Almaza in bottles but only as draught. They only have Heineken bottles.

I don’t know what that car is, but it looks very much like a golf cart to me. The sure thing is that I would never drive one of those on the Lebanese roads.

I remember arguing with someone over that picture asking him how did he identify the gunmen as being Sunnite? The answer was the photo is from Associated Press and it says so.

AP Photo by Hussein Malla

That ought to be a valid reason but it turns out the pictures are taken by a Lebanese called Hussein Malla and are fake. In fact, “The gunmen are purportedly taking cover (behind a useless pile of tires) and firing at an unseen enemy, but right next to them are several unconcerned bystanders who are themselves completely exposed to any return fire, and yet making no effort to hide or seek protection. Instead, many of them are standing around calmly and even laughing and smiling (as are the gunmen in some of the pictures), probably at the ridiculousness of the obviously staged battle.” [Link]

You can check out more of Hussein Malla’s fake pictures [Here].

Via BeirutSpring

Here’s an excerpt from an interview with Army Chief Jean Kahwaji’s son and Champville’s president Jad Kahwaji after Champville clinched their first Lebanese Basketball title:

وعن التسييس الذي أصبح لاعباً أساسيّاً في رياضة كرة السلة، قال قهوجي: “للأسف التسييس جزء أساس من حياتنا اليوميّة، وشاءت الظروف أن يكون هناك وضع خاص، إنّما نحن من جانبنا نعمل على إبعاد السياسة عن هذه اللعبة التي نحب، وهذا يتطلّب من الفرق كلّها العمل مع جمهورها للفصل بين السياسة واللعبة”. [Link]

English translation: Kahwaji said in regards to mixing sports with politics that despite politics being an essential part of our everyday life, they tried hard as a Champville administration to keep politics away from the game and that it requires a lot of efforts specially when dealing with the fans.

It doesn’t look like they tried so hard in the picture above. In fact, I believe it is relatively easy for any Lebanese Basketball team to ask its fans to stay away from political slogans and enjoy the game, but it seems to me they are exploiting politics to attract fans instead of keeping politics away from basketball. Shame.

The person who uploaded the video said he spotted it 3 to 4 miles from the shore near Tabarja.

Update: I just noticed the upload date is in 2010 not 2012. I must have misread it but no one mentioned it yet (not that I know of), so it’s worthy sharing.

Via @Ismail

Everything that’s been happening lately in Lebanon suggests that either everyone’s smoking weed or just gone crazy. As you might have heard or not, the Muslim girl who willingly and freely converted to Christianity almost a week ago is being brought back to her father after the latter threatened to wage a civil war and accused priests of kidnapping her and throwing magic spells on her. He also labeled his girl as being mentally-ill.

Why did the girl flee?

Qataya, who had converted to Christianity from Islam three years ago, had fled her home following psychological and physical abuse from her father as a result of her conversion, said Semaan. [Naharnet]

Instead of arresting the Sheikh and putting the girl somewhere safe, they give him back his girl? Who the hell allowed this? What about those who abducted the priest for few hours? Why aren’t they arrested?

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

It was the summer of 82, when a priest, about to be ordered, was exhausted by temptations and an arrogant girl felt passionately in love… A sifted memory and a personal history of a narrator who tells with nostalgia and poetry the meeting of his parents until their marriage. [IMDb]

The Church apparently didn’t like Joe Bou Eid’s movie and saw it offending to priests and Christianity. It’s simple though: If you don’t like it, don’t go watch it because banning it will not get more people to Church.

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

A huge fire erupted at a parking lot of the Awtar shopping complex in Kaslik, Lebanon, the National News Agency reported on Monday.

Firefighters rushed to the scene to put out the blaze.

“The floor on which the fire erupted was a parking lot, and the complex is made up of 10 floors over the ground and five underground,” said the report, adding that the building was evacuated. [NowLebanon]

Update: A fire erupted just now in Hamra in a Credit Bank branch.

Update2: Below is a picture from Kaslik via @itsRomyy

وكان يقال عن لبنان سويســرا الشرق، انا اقول: سويسرا هي لبنان الغرب [Link]

English Translation: There’s an old saying that Lebanon is the Switzerland of the Middle East; I say that Switzerland is the Lebanon of the West.

The author of this blasphemous quote is our Interior Minister Marwan Charbel. Don’t get me wrong I am proud of my country Lebanon and its beautiful nature, but comparing it to the Swiss landscapes and sceneries is a complete joke.

in other words, “Badna Ndalna 3al 2ared wou nrou2 bi 2ouwwe!”.

Photo by Mark

Whatever I say about the unpreparedness and inexperience of our fire department, security forces, ministry of interior, army helicopters and other factions won’t change the fact that the Safra carpet factory will be demolished today or tomorrow never to be rebuilt again.

For those of you who don’t know, the carpet factory was one of the Middle East’s oldest and biggest factories and its owner a renowned Lebanese businessman. Moreover, the factory was well-equipped against fires but given the amount and quality of electricity we get, you can never be safe from electricity shortcuts or whatever caused the fire.

Having said all that, I leave you with this entertaining (yet tragic) series of actions and measures that the various concerned parties took when the fire erupted:

- Once the fire erupted, the first fire department trucks to reach the location had no water. It took some time and hundreds of phone calls and wastas for water-filled fire trucks to arrive.

- Fire-Fighting Helicopters did not show up until hours later when the fire had spread quickly. The pilots were inexperienced and throwing water all over the place. My friend who was on the highway near the factory got showered twice.

- The Lebanese Interior Minister consulted few experts and decided that the factory should be demolished on Saturday and decided to close down the highway on both sides. That was a wise decision as the building was a threat to cars passing by.

- On Sunday, two bulldozers and a crane were deployed to bring down the factory even though one of the engineers on site, the factory owner’s relative, advised that a wrecking ball is needed.

- Few hours later, and after several failed attempts, officials decide to bring a wrecking ball which needs a day or two to install.

- Instead of keeping the roads closed, they decide to re-open them (Building on the verge of collapsing is no longer a threat now?) before removing the dust and clearing them properly. As a result, some idiot behind the wheels drifted and hit a Syrian worker standing on the side of the highway, injuring him gravely. Road is closed again for some time then re-opened later on.

MTV showed yesterday a footage of the car that drifted and hit the poor man. It’s at Minute 24:52 of the news. I will try to find it on YouTube later on today.

All in all, I don’t think I need to elaborate further to make my point clear on how responsive our government and authorities are in fighting fires and protecting our industries.