Year: 2005

Hotel Rwanda

On the plane back to Tunisia, I finally got to see Hotel Rwanda, starring Don Cheadle.

I heard a lot about this movie and saw the trailer, which really made me want to see it.

It tells the true life story of Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager who housed over a thousand Tutsis refugees during their struggle against the Hutu militia in Rwanda.

It’s a really great, powerful and touching movie, a must-see for sure. Don Cheadle does an amazing job in it, with so much passion.
It portrays how one man put everything on the line to help his countrymen while the west and the whole world turned their backs on them, starting with Belgium which played a big role in the creation of the problem.

I highly recommend this movie. It was nominated for 3 Oscars and 3 Golden Globes, as well as a bunch of other awards that it was nominated for or won.

My score for it is: 8/10.

Eats, Shoots and Leaves

A few days ago, I finished reading Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss. The book self-describes itself as “The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation”, and it sure is. This woman is very passionate about punctuation.

I first knew about this book when Newsweek reviewed it upon its release, and I’ve been wanting to get it ever since.

What caught me is this funny little story on the back of the book:

A panda walks into a café. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.”Why?” asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.
“I’m a panda,” he says at the door. “Look it up.”
The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.
“Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.”

So, punctuation does really does matter, even if it is only occasionally a matter of life and death.

 

I’ve always wanted a handy book about punctuation to keep as reference, as I sometimes do find myself in situations when I’m not too sure what do with it all. This book does a really good job at showing you how important punctuation is, as well as giving you all the golden rules on how, where and when to use it.

My score for this book would be: 8/10.

(PS: I’m gonna start rating everything from books, to movies, to music cds, to places …etc.)

 

Radiohead’s “OK Computer” Top Album of last 20 Years

Spin magazine named Radiohead’s “OK Computer” the top album of the past 20 years, praising a futuristic sound that manages to feel alive “even when its words are spoken by a robot.”

“Between Thom Yorke’s orange-alert worldview and the band’s meld of epic guitar rock and electronic glitch, (‘OK Computer’) not only forecast a decade of music but uncannily predicted our global culture of communal distress,” reads the editorial note.

The top 10 albums of the last 20 years, according to Spin Magazine, are:

1. “OK Computer,” Radiohead
2. “It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back,” Public Enemy
3. “Nevermind,” Nirvana
4. “Slanted and Enchanted,” Pavement
5. “The Queen Is Dead,” Smiths
6. “Surfer Rosa,” Pixies
7. “3 Feet High and Rising,” De La Soul
8. “Sign ‘O’ the Times,” Prince
9. “Rid of Me,” PJ Harvey
10. “Straight Outta Compton,” N.W.A

[Source: CNN]

Back in Tunisia

We’re back in Tunisia…

We just got here a few hours ago.
Nothing has really changed; Nothing I’ve noticed at least.

We found a bunch of letters from the bank, the phone bill (Yikes!), useless brochures, a DB2 Magazine and a notification that I have something to pick up at the post office.

It turns out that thing I have to pick up is “The Da Vinci Code” by Dan Brown, which I ordered online a week ago. Cool! Can’t wait to read it.

We’re going out for dinner at my parent’s place just after I take a shower for refreshment.

We’re expected back at work tomorrow morning…
That sucks big time of course!
I wish we could have a couple of days to get back in shape and mood for work, anyway I guess we’ll just have to manage.

Ciao…

Japanese Tea Ceremony

Last night, we had the pleasure of visiting and spending time with a great, great friend of mine. If you’ve been to my blog often, you’ll certainly have come across some comments by him under the name Saqf.

He told me beforehand that he was going to treat us to a Japanese Tea Ceremony, but honestly I didn’t think that would be much more than us sitting around drinking tea; When I saw him wearing full traditional Japanese clothing, I knew we were in for a much bigger surprise.

He was totally serious about giving us a full traditional Japanese Tea Party in all its glory, splendor and spirituality: from his clothes, to his room decoration, to the ceremony procedures, down to every single detail.
And what we thought was just about drinking tea turned out to be a full meal and dessert, that reached their climax with the whole tea preparation and drinking rituals.

It was really funny seeing Saqf suddenly flip into his Japanese persona, but it was so cool and nice. We truly enjoyed ourselves and relaxed.
I also learned how to use chopsticks at last, although I ended up with a small cramp in my hand afterwards.

We drank a lot of different teas with different exotic tastes from Saqf’s tea cupboard, one of his priceless possesions.

After the ceremony, Saqf switched back to his everyday self and clothes, and we were allowed to talk about worldly matters at last. It was great catching up, talking and simply having fun together. Time just flew by and if it didn’t get really late we would’ve surely stayed a lot longer.

A huge thank you to Saqf for a truly fun night and experience, for the gift books, and for being the amazing friend and brother he is 🙂

Here are some photos I took from last night:

Japanese tea ceremony

Berlusconi Soap sells for $18,000

Perhaps the oddest piece of work at Art Basel is a bar of soap, displayed on a square of black velvet, purportedly made from Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s fat, removed during liposuction.

Gianni Monti’s work called ‘Clean Hands’ sold in less than an hour for 15,000 euros ($18,000) to a private Swiss collector, according to Monti’s Galerie Nicola von Senger of Zurich.

This is both disgusting and crazy!!
Only a mad person would pay that much money for a bar of soap made out of human fat!

[Source: CNN]

Guess Who

Guess WhoA few days ago we went to see “Guess Who” featuring Ashton Kutcher and Bernie Mac.

We saw the trailer for this movie a number of times and it looked really cool and funny. It turned out it really was, although I expected it to be just a bit funnier.

The story is about a white guy and black girl who fall in love, and who want to announce their engagement to her parents while visiting and attending their vow renewals. It has some really hilarious moments, and it reminds me a lot of “Meet The Parents”.

Ashton Kutcher did an ok job in this movie too. I believe stuff like this is what suits him the most. Bernie Mac was very funny in this movie. I don’t like his sitcom, but he’s a lot better in movies.

All in all, it was a really nice and funny movie.

My score for it would be: 7/10

You’ve got to find what you love

“You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle.”

— Steve Jobs

I totally fully extremely agree!
I couldn’t have said it better if I wanted to.

Jordan Blogger Meetup

Tonight we attended a Jordan blogger meetup.

It was really great and so much fun meeting everyone, putting faces to the blogs and chatting with everyone.
It felt like we all knew each other really well but still were meeting for the first time, lol. Weird.

The meetup went on from 7PM to 11:15PM at Wild Jordan Caf