Month: February 2004

RIP Webmonkey, 1996 – 2004

WebmonkeySo, after 8 years of existence and following a round of layoffs at Terra Lycos, Webmonkey‘s online journey has come to an end.

It’s a real shame.
Even though I rarely used it, it was always great to know that there was a cool source of information there that I could tap into whenever I needed it.

The content was simple, straight to the point and well written by everyday programmers; picking you out of the world of professional writers and all the jargon to simply give you the stuff you really need.

This is one of the sites that truly don’t deserve to go.

Interesting Quotes

Cherie Blair, wife of British Prime Minister Tony Blair said this at a charity event for Medical Aid for Palestine, June 2002:

“As long as young people feel they have got no hope but to blow themselves up you are never going to make progress.”

Liberal Democrat member of the British Parliament Janet Tonge said this on Sky News:

“I do not condone suicide bombers but I do understand why people out there become suicide bombers ? it is out of desperation. If I was in their situation…I might just think about it myself. They are in a terrible plight and the world is standing by and watching. Something needs to be done.”

Professor Leighton Armitage, adjunct political science professor at Foothill College in the US has dared to say this of the Israeli treatment of Palestinians:

“And what are they doing with Palestinians, every day? They’re killing them. They’re walling them in, they’re essentially doing the same thing that was done to them… It’s exactly what Hitler did to the Jews.”

[via Jalan-Jalan]

Quote of the day

John F. Kerry is a practising catholic, but his grandfather Fritz Kohn was a Czech national of Jewish descent.
In the Students for Israel publication “Perspectives: An Israel Review” he wrote an article entitled “A Powerful Journey, an Essential Dream”, in which he said:

“In this difficult time we must again reaffirm we are enlisted for the duration – and reaffirm our belief that the cause of Israel must be the cause of America – and the cause of people of conscience everywhere.” — J.F.Kerry, in “Perspectives: An Israel Review”

Seems like whoever wins the next US elections won’t really change anything in how the US treats the Middle East problem.
Israel will always get it’s way, and the Palestinians will always be shot down.

[via Jalan Jalan]

Dean Out Of Race

So Howard Dean is out of the US presidential race.
I heard it last night on CNN, and I can’t say I was shocked. After the wins John Kerry has been packing under his belt, I was expecting Dean to pull out.

It’s a shame, I think. Dean was the only person who was thinking the right way and who really wanted and could make a change.

Now, John Kerry and John Edwards are left in the race, and it’s almost obvious Kerry is going to get the nomination.

I haven’t posted my opinion about Kerry before, so here it is.
I think Kerry is just another special interests driven politician who won’t really bring much new or change.
Of course, lining up with the Anyone But Bush Americans, I think he should become President of the US.
But honestly, I think the US needs a President who can make a change for the American people and the world. Someone who is in touch with what the people need and what their priorities are. Someone who can keep the US the greatest power but also make it respected and loved.
I felt Howard Dean could make a step towards something like that.

Anyway, Good luck to whoever wins the nomination.

Satellite

Well, last Sunday morning, we woke up and we thought: Let’s go buy a receiver!

In the buildings we’re living in now, a number of satellite dishes are installed with wires going into each appartment, so all you need is a receiver and you can plug in and get all the glorious channels on the satellites the dishes point to.

After thinking about getting a whole installation of our own in the past, we thought we’d go for what’s available through the building now and then upgrade to something of our own later.

So, we went to the Moncef Bey Shopping Mall, lol, oh ok it’s just a big hectic market of some sort for stuff that is sold cheaper because it was brought in (legally or maybe even illegally) from Algeria or Libya.
Anyway, we looked around, bought a receiver and went home.

We only got it installed yesterday, but that’s a whole other story 😛
Anyway, I ended up spending last night doing what I always made fun of other people for doing, which is zapping through the channels without staying longer than a few seconds on each one.
I didn’t enjoy doing it, but it was necessary for me to do so to get to know what options I have and narrow down the scope to the channels that I find interesting and watch-worthy.
I’m still not sure I got anywhere last night, but at least I have a better idea of what’s there, where it is and what’s interesting to keep an eye on.

Ah, what a delight…
At last I’ve rejoined the world 😉

Asia House

Time and again we’ve passed in front of Asia House in the food court of Carrefour and felt curious to try their stuff, but yet we never did. Till last saturday that is.

On Saturday, after doing a bit of shopping and getting all the goodies needed for the final match of the African Cup of Nations starring Tunisia vs. Morroco, we thought we’d treat ourselves to a meal at Asia House.

It turns out it’s mainly Thai food, which is great.
It reminded me of the delicious room service we used to order in the Phuket resort we stayed in.

They have a Thai chef who actually has a very good Tunisian accent, lol…

The food was great and really tasty. It’s a shame we couldn’t eat more of it when we were in Thailand itself because most restaurants offered meat that was not Halal, and so we had to go on a sea food diet throughout our stay, which I can’t actually complain about 😛 I love seafood.

Anyway, Asia House has officially entered my Good Places to Eat At list in Tunisia, and to confirm it, we had dinner there on Monday too 🙂

Firefox

Firefox
So the Phoenix that changed it’s name to Firebird has now changed it’s name again to Firefox.

I know everyone must have talked about the new version of Mozilla’s Firefox browser, but I thought I’d mention it too because I just finished downloading and installing it.
I still don’t have much to say, and still haven’t found much difference between this version and the older one, apart from the installer and the name.

Up to now, I still prefer Opera which has basically become my default browser. Fast and effective. There are only a small number of things I actually need IE for.

To check out Firefox, go here.
To check out Opera, go here.

Tunisia 2004 : The Finals

So, today was the big day, and the Tunisia vs. Morroco match started at 3PM with millions of people’s hopes and dreams on the line.

Thousand of people a the stadium, thousands of others at different places watching the match on giant screens scattered around Tunisia and the rest pinned to their TV sets at home.

The match started, and everyone’s hearts started beating at abnormal rates, wishful but afraid of what’s to come.

It was obvious from the beginning that it was going to be a hard match, with both sides trying to take control of the game, but quickly Tunisia took over and pressed more and in the 5th minute the first goal came for Tunisia.
With a goal under their belts, the Tunisian team started playing with more confidence and ease, pressing even more and venturing even further into Morroco’s sacred 18m space, only to waste chance after chance.

Morroco shocked by the goal did everything they could to come back into the match and a mistake by the Tunisian defence gave them a gap to score their first goal.

The rest of the first part of the match was counter attack after counter attack with no resulting goals, and you could sense the stress on both sides.

After half time, the teams came back, and Tunisia pressed again to score their second goal after only 6 minutes.
Morroco pushed as hard as they could to come back into the match after this one, but the Tunisian defence and goalie just denied them that till the very end of the match, giving Tunisia a beautiful and precious win 🙂

Hoooorrrraaaaaayyyy…
Tunisia won the African Cup of Nations for the very first time in it’s history of football and they truly deserve it.
They played very well as a whole team and got better match after match both technically and physically.
I hope the Tunisian team goes on to bigger and better things, why not even the World Cup soon.

As for yesterday’s match between Nigeria and Mali, Nigeria won (2-1) and came in at third place.