January 31, 2006
Posted on January 31, 2006 11:23 AM under:
Islam
I would like to wish everyone a Happy New Hijri Year 1427. May it be a blessed, happy and joyful new year for you all bringing you prosperity, success and great health. Most households in Tunisia cook Mloukhia on this day, because Mloukhia is green, as a way of hoping there'll be a green and fruitful new year ahead. We'll be going over to my parent's place for lunch, then enjoying the rest of the day off relaxing at home....
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January 30, 2006
Posted on January 30, 2006 10:20 PM under:
Link Dump
The Top 10 Most Wanted Games 2006 A list of the top 10 video games to look forward to in the year 2006. (tags: list video games 2006) Office Tech Pranks Some office tech pranks that could turn out pretty funny if tried, and some of which would be a quick and effective way to getting fired. (tags: office tech pranks) Standpoint / What do you believe? A 43things style service where people can list their beliefs and stand up for their convictions. What next? (tags: standpoint share belief) Dual-Booting Windows XP on a Macintel A way to dual...
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January 29, 2006
Posted on January 29, 2006 10:06 PM under:
Tunisia
We just came home from the 10th Tunisian blogger meetup, which was a big success, in which we broke the record in the number of participants and had to keep adding table after table to accomodate the bloggers who came. What I think is the greatest thing about this meetup is that we had the biggest number of new faces, all thanks to Infinity who took the time to go around blogs and invite them to the meetup. I think we should do more stuff like that with the next meetups. So, all in all, we were 23 in...
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January 28, 2006
Posted on January 28, 2006 09:44 PM under:
Cinema
Last night, I finally got to watch the new King Kong movie, by Peter Jackson, featuring Naomi Watts, Jack Black and Adrien Brody. I've read a lot of mixed reviews about this movie, some though it was a great movie, and some didn't like it saying that the only good thing in it was the special effects. Personally, I really liked the movie and enjoyed it. It was a bit long, but who cares when it's good. The special effects were amazing, some of the best I've ever seen on film. As for the story, well I disagree with the...
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Posted on January 28, 2006 06:17 PM under:
Link Dump
A Website about Corporate Identity A massive collection of worldwide company logos including who created them, when, the typeface, ...etc (tags: corporate identity logo collection details) Advertising slogans, mottos, taglines A collection of marketing and advertising slogans, mottos, taglines. (tags: advertising marketing slogans mottos taglines)...
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January 27, 2006
Posted on January 27, 2006 06:17 PM under:
Link Dump
GROU.PS A new web 2.0 application that brings a bunch of services together: del.icio.us, flickr, google maps, blogs, wikis...etc. (tags: web2.0 sharing platform social groups) $6000 To Who Can Dual Boot OSX and Windows XP on New Intel-Macs Recent attempts at installing Windows XP have left users scratching their heads. This $6000 prize might proobably inspire some creative thinking. (tags: award prize windows xp intel mac apple osx) Sex before stressful events keeps you calm I'm sure it does... (tags: sex stress stressful events calm)...
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How come the Japanese always get all these best special edition collector pack gold platinum whatever music album releases, with a bunch load of extra unreleased tracks, live recordings, exclusive photos, videos, cooler cover art, 100 page booklets featuring lyrics, photos, biographies and what not, ...etc. ?!! This is something that has always pissed me off. It's like the whole world gets this one shitty edition of the album while they get a perfect cool one. And it doesn't stop there, they also get the best music DVDs with extra features, exclusive star interviews, backstage footage, different camera angles and...
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January 26, 2006
Posted on January 26, 2006 12:48 PM under:
Tunisia
So, it seems more people are ok with Sunday than those who aren't, so the 10th Tunisian Blogger Meetup will be held this Sunday, January 29th at 1PM in Biwa. The bloggers will be getting together for a nice lunch and for the usual fun. A special guest who will be attending this meetup is Mrs. Senda Baccar, editor in chief of Tunisian women magazine "Femmes", that's published by Réalités. I hope everyone will do their best to come to the meetup and to spread the news about it on their blogs or by email. Hopefully a number of new...
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January 25, 2006
Posted on January 25, 2006 05:38 PM under:
Tunisia
So, the 10th Tunisian blogger meetup will be this week, but when is not clear yet. The two dates that have come up are as follows: - Friday 27th, 7PM at Biwa in Les Berges du Lac - Sunday 29th, Early afternoon at Biwa in Les Berges du Lac. Personally, I'm more for having it on Friday. But it seems we have people who can't come on Friday, just like there are some other people who can't come on Sunday. So I guess we'll have to put this up for a little vote. So, Friday or Sunday?...
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January 23, 2006
As for you, my friend from Peace Now... You boil with anger at the Palestinians because they spoiled your celebrations and refuse to let you continue living the illusion that the occupation is concluding and that peace rules the land. Peace is a tango that takes two equal partners dancing in unity; it is not a dance of one who drags around his partner at will. And what do you say? "If that's the way it is, they are not partners." This time you're right. In your dance of peace you have no partners, only enemies. For your peace is...
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Posted on January 23, 2006 03:34 PM under:
Cinema
On Saturday, we watched "Flightplan", featuring Jodie Foster, Sean Bean and Peter Sarsgaard. I saw the trailer for the movie a couple of times, and it looked like an ok movie. Anyway, when we were in London, it was playing there, and I didn't think it was worth paying two cinema tickets for, so I just decided to wait and rent it on DVD. The movie is a drama/thriller about a bereaved woman and her daughter who are flying home from Berlin to America. At 30,000 feet the child vanishes and nobody admits she was ever on that plane. I...
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Thanks to all your nominations and to the votes of the Bloggies 2006 panel, Subzero Blue is a finalist for "Best African or Middle Eastern Weblog" for the third year in a row. Please pass by the Bloggies 2006 site and vote for me, and don't forget to tell all your friends to vote for me too. It's up to you to give Subzero Blue the award this year or not, so I'm counting on you guys. Thanks a bunch in advance :) Vote for me here: Bloggies 2006....
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January 20, 2006
It seems like an Arabic version of Apple's hugely popular iPod will hit the market soon. Elias Abou-Rustom, general manager of Arab Business Machine, Apple's independent marketing company for the Middle East, says that Apple is working on it and that a prototype has already been made available to them. He predicts it will be launched in the Middle East in the coming months. I think this is a really good move by Apple. The Middle Eastern market should be a very interesting one for Apple, and I think that up to now they hadn't realized it's full potential and...
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January 19, 2006
Posted on January 19, 2006 01:00 PM under:
Tunisia
It's nearly a month since we had our last Tunisian blogger meetup, so that means that it's about time for us to have another one, which will actually be our 10th meetup. So if you have any suggestions for the date, time and place. Please leave a comment here. I hope we'll have more new faces in this meetup. My personal suggestion is to have it on a Friday afternoon after work, so maybe Friday 27th at 7PM, in a nice café, somewhere central and near to everyone. What do you guys think? and what are your ideas and suggestions?...
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Posted on January 19, 2006 09:14 AM under:
Books
Last night, I finished reading Nick Hornby's bestseller "High Fidelity". I've been wanting to read this book ever since I saw the movie, starring John Cusack and Jack Black, which I really really liked. I enjoyed the book a lot, and now I see what a great job they did with the movie transforming the book to film. I really like Nick Hornby's humour and his first-person narrator style of writing. The book is about a thirtysomething English guy who runs a London record store called "Championship Vinyl". He's very serious about music and sells all these rare albums and...
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January 18, 2006
A new study by some Canadian researchers has found that it only takes an internet user one-twentieth of a second, which is less than half the time it takes to blink, to judge a web site aesthetically, a judgment that influences the rest of their experience with the site. The study was published in the latest issue of the Behavior and Information Technology journal. The author said the findings had powerful implications for the field of Web site design. "It really is just a physiological response," Gitte Lindgaard told Reuters on Tuesday. "So Web designers have to make sure they're...
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Posted on January 18, 2006 11:12 AM under:
Cinema
"Paradise Now" won the award for the Best Foreign Language Film category in the 63rd Annual Golden Globe Awards, that were held on Monday. The film was directed by Palestinian Hany Abu-Assad from a screenplay he cowrote with Bero Beyer, the film's Dutch producer, both of whom ascended to the podium to collect the award. Paradise Now chronicles the 48 hours before two best friends in Nablus are sent on a suicide mission to Israel. The New York Times said it “accomplishes the tricky feat of humanising the suicide bombers depicted in the film”. The paper dubbed the film "a...
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January 17, 2006
Posted on January 17, 2006 04:28 PM under:
Music
These past couple of days, I've been listening to Santana's new album "All That I Am", which is another magnificent work of pure art. Santana's guitar does another set of wonders on this album, in which he collaborates with artists like Joss Stone, Michelle Branch, Mary J. Blige, Will.i.Am, Steven Tyler, Bo Bice, sean Paul and others. My favourite songs off this album are: "El Fuego", "I Am Somebody", "I'm feeling you", "Twisted", "Cry Baby Cry", "Brown Skin Girl", "I Don't Wan't Wanna Lose Your Love"...etc. In fact every song on this album is a potential hit and favourite, making...
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January 15, 2006
Posted on January 15, 2006 08:29 PM under:
Cinema
Today, I finally got around to seeing "Chocolat", a movie featuring Juliette Binoche, Johnny Depp, Alfred Molina and Carrie-Ann Moss. I heard a lot about this movie, and I know that it was nominated for 5 Oscars, and I know that it has great actors in it, but I don't know why I only chose to rent it yesterday and see it today. As the name suggests, this is quite a delicious light movie. Very nice story, good acting, cool music and a little lesson behind it all. The movie is about a woman and her daughter, who open a...
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January 14, 2006
You know those days when the only thing missing is to have a big red sign bouncing in front of you telling you in capital letters that "This is a shitty day!"? Well today is one of those days... I had to wake up early to go for this "thing" in downtown Tunis, and it turned out a complete waste of time. Blah blah blah... Ah shutup already! Then I had to go pay my car insurance. I'm with Star Assurances, and my contract was done at this small branch in La Marsa, next to my parents' place. I used...
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January 13, 2006
The blue whales of the Antarctic are still at less than 1 percent of their original abundance despite 40 years of complete protection. Some populations of whales are recovering but some are not. Only one population, the East Pacific grey whale, is thought to be near its original abundance but the closely related West Pacific grey whale population is the most endangered in the world hovering on the edge of extinction with just over 100 remaining. The number of Antarctic whales is less than 10 percent of what it was before whaling began. The International Whaling Commission imposed a moratorium...
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January 12, 2006
A Norwegian Christian magazine has published a set of controversial caricatures of the prophet Mohammed after months of uproar in the Muslim world over a Danish paper's decision to print the same cartoons. Repeating a move by conservative Danish paper Jyllands-Posten last September, Magazinet published the controversial drawings in the name of "freedom of expression". The editor said he was not afraid of the prospect of facing the same indignation and even death threats that faced the Danish paper after it published the cartoons. [Source: Al Jazeera] Since when has racism and disrespect for other people's beliefs and religions been...
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So, what do you know? The Apple iPod has gone to bed with a pair of Levi Strauss jeans, and the result is the world's first iPod-compatible pair of jeans, called the RedWire DLX. Designed for both men and women, The RedWire DLX jean comes complete with a built-in docking cradle, retractable headphones and a joystick in the watch pocket to enable easy operation. The new Levi's RedWire DLX jeans have been developed to be practical and leading-edge in their aesthetic. A crisp white leather patch and joystick, bluffed back pockets with hidden stitching, and clean minimalist buttons and rivets...
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January 11, 2006
Posted on January 11, 2006 07:17 PM under:
Cinema
Today I watched "The Brothers Grimm" featuring Matt Damon, Heath Ledger and Monica Bellucci. The reviews I read about the movie weren't that good, but I went on and rented it anyway, I don't know why. And no, it's not because Monica Bellucci is in it. Maybe it's because I was a fan of the Grimm tales when I was a kid. Anyway, the reviews were right, this movie sort of sucks. It tells the story of brothers Will and Jake Grimm who are travelling con-artists, and how they encounter a genuine fairy-tale curse which requires genuine courage instead of...
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January 09, 2006
The prices of fuel keep on rising all over the world, and no one is winning except the big oil companies. The consumer is losing more and more money on fuel for transport and other uses, and the environment continues to be suffocated by our fuel emissions. It's just those big oil companies that happily sit on very fat wallets while the whole world goes to hell. Us Tunisians are luckier than others because the government subsidizes a percentage of the fuel price to keep it lower for us, but the country won't be able to go on doing that...
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I spent a big part of this past weekend playing Pro Evolution Soccer 5 on Playstation 2, which is a really cool game, although I think I've worn out my beginner's luck in it now, and it seems that the more I play, the worse I'm getting at it. Anyway, PES5 was developed by a company called Konami, and well the first thing that comes to my mind when I hear the name Konami is this game they developed back in 1986 which was called "Penguin Adventure". The story of the game follows Pentarou, a cute penguin who has to...
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Eid El Adha, or the big Eid, as we Tunisians call it, is tomorrow. The big Eid comes with the end of the Hajj, and is the day in which muslims worldwide sacrifice sheep in commemoration of the prophet Abraham's story with his son. It's also a day of sharing, as people are supposed to give away some of the sheep meat to the poor. Prices for sheep have sky-rocketed this year, even more than previous years, it's as if they run on oil or something. Yet that hasn't stood in the way of Tunisians obsessively competing to buy their...
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January 06, 2006
Posted on January 6, 2006 06:15 PM under:
Tunisia
The year 2005 was a very important year for the Tunisian blogosphere, with the number of bloggers growing amazingly and quickly. A Tunisian blog directory and aggregator were launched, we started having our regular monthly meetups, a Tunisian blog service was created; and the first building blocks of a vibrant blogger community were put in place. Towards the end of 2005 and the beginning of this year, the number of blogs is still rising, with an even quicker pace. And it looks like 2006 is shaping up to be the year of the Tunisian blogosphere. Karim has put up a...
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Posted on January 6, 2006 09:54 AM under:
Books
Last night, I finished reading "The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho. Ok, I know you can't believe I only read it now, everyone already said that to me, and looked at me in that weird way as if I was living on Mars for the last few years. But well, I only got to read it now, and I totally loved it. A friend of mine told me a few days ago when I started reading "The Alchemist" that it was the kind of book that would either change your life or change your conception of things. Well, he was right,...
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January 04, 2006
No, I don't want to buy any Viagra, Cialis, Xanax or whatever other bullshit you're selling! Maybe in 50 years, I'll give it a thought, but now, I'm fine! No, I don't need any of your organ enhancement or enlargement products! I'm happy with all my organs the way they are now! No, I'm not interested in getting the lowest mortgage rates in the USA! Firstly because I'm not a US citizen, and secondly because I don't have anything to mortgage! No, I don't believe that your stupid rip-off money making scheme will make me rich quick! It'll get me...
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January 03, 2006
A while back, while checking my blog's statistics, I found a number of visitors coming from a site called "toot" that I didn't know about. When I checked the site, which was still in test mode, and not even in alpha, as they put it. I really liked the site's idea and got all excited about the project. I also found out that most of the people behind it are good friends of mine: Ahmad, Jad, Wael and Roba. So what is toot? toot is a handpicked aggregator for the Arab blogosphere to provide quality reading, both in Arabic and...
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The 2006 Bloggie Awards have started and they're accepting nominations. So please pass by their site and nominate my blog :) You can choose to nominate it for whatever category you want, but the main categories I'm aiming for are: Best African or Middle Eastern weblog, Best tagline of a weblog and maybe Weblog of the year :P. So please nominate me there at least. Here's the link: 2006 Bloggies. The name of this blog is: Subzero Blue and the address of course is: http://www.subzeroblue.com The blog tagline is: Echoing the voices inside my head... For the past 2 years,...
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Rumour has it that Google will this week unveil a no-frills personal computer costing as little as $200. Despite its low price it would enable users to collect and store internet-delivered content such as films, music and photos then show it on TV. Speculation is mounting that Google co-founder Larry Page will use a keynote speech at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Friday to unveil details of this low-cost computer or internet-enabled device that will run on a new operating system developed by Google. According to the LA Times, Google will announce details of the new device...
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Posted on January 3, 2006 08:57 AM under:
Books
"Memoirs of a Geisha" is one of the books I've been wanting to read for a very long time, and the fact that a movie based on the novel is out, only made me want to do it faster, because seeing the movie before reading the book would kind of put me off reading it for a while. Last night, I finished reading the novel, and well, I just loved it. It's written in such a great style, and takes you through this amazing journey, which is the life of the Geisha Sayuri Nitta. The book totally sucks you in...
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January 02, 2006
Posted on January 2, 2006 05:17 PM under:
Music
Coldplay's new CD comes with an insert that discloses all the rules enforced by the DRM they included on the disc. The rules are only visible after you've paid for the CD and brought it home, and as the disc's rules say, "Except for manufacturing problems, we do not accept product exchange, return or refund," so if you don't like the rules, that's tough. Some of the other rules go as follows: "This CD can't be burnt onto a CD or hard disc, nor can it be converted to an MP3" and "This CD may not play in DVD players,...
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January 01, 2006
A year has ended, and a new year is just starting. And so, I want to wish everyone a Happy New Year 2006. I hope it's a great and happy year for you all, and that it's full of joy and success. My friend Evil Drako said something to me yesterday, that I would like to pass on to you too: may the best thing that happened to you in 2005, be the worst thing in 2006. Another thought I have lurking around in my mind is that: ok, we ended a year yesterday, and started a new one today,...
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