Month: April 2006

Angelina Jolie is Buying Ethiopia

So Angelina Jolie is buying her own country to help impoverished Africans. The ‘Tomb Raider’ star, who is currently pregnant with boyfriend Brad Pitt’s child, is buying a man-made version of Ethiopia, located in Dubai’s The World project.

The project consists of 300 country-shaped luxury island developments built, to form a map of the world, being sold to anyone rich enough to afford them.

The 30-year-old actress, who is due to give birth early in May, is
reportedly planning to turn her new purchase into a fair-trade paradise for
hundreds of Africans.

It seems Angelina has been obsessed with Ethiopia ever since she
adopted her second child Zahara from there.

I remember looking for the island that would mark Tunisia in “The World” project, but it seems Tunisia was too small to get an island of its own. So I’m boycotting the project and not buying any countries in it.

Update: UAE Newspapers are denying the reports. Hamza Mustafa, general manager of The World, said:

Subzero Blue By Email

I’ve added a new option to the blog for people who don’t use feed readers and would rather have a little digest sent to them by email with the latest entries that I’ve put up here.

The service is powered by FeedBurner and will send a daily email with my newest entries.

The email addresses are kept private, and I personally promise that I won’t use them for any other reason.

To subscribe to this service, you can use the following form, or the one on the blog’s right sidebar.

Enter your email address here to get a little digest of my latest posts sent to your inbox.

Neil Young’s Protest Album Online First

Neil Young’s newly recorded protest album “Living With War,” including a song calling for the impeachment of President Bush, will be posted for free Internet streaming next week.

Starting April 28, fans can log onto Neil Young’s Web site, and listen to the 10-track collection in its entirety, free of charge.

The Canadian-born Young, 60, who has tackled social and political themes through four decades as a singer-songwriter, wrote and recorded his latest studio offering over a two-week period this month, backed by a 100-member choir.

Much of the album conveys a sense of outrage, vowing repeatedly in the title track “to never kill again,” mocking Bush’s conduct of the Iraq war in “Shock and Awe” and calling for his removal from office in a provocative song titled “Let’s Impeach the President.”

The album also strikes a chord of empathy with soldiers separated from their families, and features lyrics ridiculing America’s consumer culture, political corruption and religious fundamentalism.

[Source: Yahoo! News]

Machiavelli Personality Test

Shit, it turns out I’m evil!!!

I just took the Machiavelli Personality Test on Salon.

The results say:
Your Machiavelli score is: 78
You are a high Mach, you endorse Machiavelli’s opinions.

High Machs constitute a distinct type: charming, confident and glib, but also arrogant, calculating and cynical, prone to manipulate and exploit. (Think Rupert Murdoch, or if your politics permit it, President Clinton.)

But come on, I’m not like that, I’m not an arrogant, manipulative, exploiting person, in fact I’m the complete opposite.

Is this my multiple personality thingie kicking in again?
Nah, it’s most probably just a crappy test in the first place. Or is it?

New Michael Jackson Album Due Next Year

Michael Jackson has returned to the studio and plans to release a new album next year for a record label owned by the son of Bahrain’s king.

2 Seas Records, which is owned by Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad Al Khalifa, said Tuesday it had signed an exclusive recording agreement with Jackson, and the new album was tentatively scheduled for release in late 2007.

The label, which is due to release Jackson’s long-promised Hurricane Katrina benefit single, “I Have This Dream”, said British music executive Guy Holmes had been named chief executive of the company. It said Holmes would oversee the making of the new album “and the management of Michael’s other business interests.”

Michael moved to live in Bahrain last year, soon after being acquitted of child molestation charges in California.

Personally, I think Michael Jackson is one of the musical geniuses of our age, and that he still holds the title King of Pop. A lot of people don’t think his latest music has been as good as his 80’s or early 90’s stuff, but I disagree.
Of course he has a number of classics from the 80’s and 90’s, but up to his last album “Invincible” he had some really cool songs, that I truly enjoyed.

I can’t wait for this new album. I wonder if there will be any mild middle eastern influences in the new music though.

[Source: Yahoo! News]

Asterix & Obelix

Ok, this might be one of those posts that leave you thinking “Why the hell am I even wasting my time reading this?!”, but well you’re here and you might as well read it anyway.

Well, the whole thing is that I think Asterix & Obelix cartoons are very unfair.
I’ve felt this way ever since I was a child, and everytime I read one of the new books, I get pissed off again.

I was introduced to Asterix & Obelix by my very cool uncle, who is a big fan and used to collect all their comic books. They were all in French, a language I used to suck in; In fact I still do. Anyway the comic books helped me gain a minimum of understanding for the language, enough to understand what the hell is going on and what they’re saying in those bubbles.

Going back to the idea of the post, reading those comics and watching the movies later on when they were made, rang so unfair to me. In fact it’s their titles that got to me.
Why the hell are they all Asterix and something? Asterix and the vikings, Asterix and Cleopatra, Asterix and the romans, and the list goes on…
Why the hell is Asterix the main character?
He’s really short, he has no special powers, he’s not that handsome and he depends on a little pouch of magic potion to be able to do anything…
On the other hand, Obelix fell into the magic potion when he was a baby, meaning that he doesn’t need to take a sip of potion in between punches, he’s the one who is the most effective in battle, piling those romans up like pyramids, and well he’s also showed a more affectionate side to him.

Of course they try to make it out as Brains vs. Power, and so Asterix is made out to be smarter, resulting in him being the main character, and Obelix a secondary one. But I think that’s unfair.
Obelix is clearly being exploited.

They should at least always use the two names, like “Asterix & Obelix Against The Vikings” or something like that.
Because, honestly, Asterix is not much on his own, he’d surely get his ass kicked in the blink of an eye.

Zaghouan Blogger Meetup

In my post about the last blogger meetup, I hinted that the long talked of Zaghouan blogger meetup would be following shortly.

Well guess what, it’s this upcoming Sunday; organized by our friend Karim.

The program is as follows:
– Meeting at 1PM in front of the Municipality on Carthage Avenue.
– Drive to Zaghouan.
– Lunch
– Picnic in the mountains of Zaghouan

As not everyone has a car, we’ll all be meeting together so that we can split ourselves between the available cars and then go together.

Please try to confirm your attendance by leaving a comment here, on Karim’s blog, or even on Tom‘s, in order to make the organization a bit easier.

Man Trades Paper Clip For House

A Canadian man who set out to trade a paper clip to get a house says he is coming close to achieving his dream.

After a year of swapping items on the internet, Kyle MacDonald, 26, has been offered a year in a house in Phoenix, Arizona, rent-free.

Mr MacDonald, who lives in Montreal, initially exchanged his paper clip for a fish-shaped pen. A series of trades ensued till the latest deal to exchange the Phoenix house for a music contract.

He says that he’s going to keep trading for bigger or better things until he gets a house of his own at the end.

Man, you just have to love the internet! It’s so cool…

This reminds me of this idea I had once of putting up a website where people would donate a fixed amount of money to buy a brick for a house I would build. The website would cover the whole process with photos and all, and when it would be all done, the website would include a full list of the names of all the people who own a brick or more in the house.

[Source: BBC]