Year: 2004

The Art of Storytelling

While thinking of my different hobbies and all the stuff I truly enjoy, I found out they weren’t really that different after all. They all revolve around the art of storytelling.

Being a book fan, every book tells a different story, takes you different places, paints different worlds, picks you up out of reality and throws you into a beautiful world of imagination.

As for music, every song tells a new story too, new events, new ways to express the feelings, new feelings to express the meaning.

In cinema, every movie is a story, it portrays a world for you to live during the length of the movie, a set of new characters to know, an idea it tries to pass, a life it’s trying to show you.

When it comes to photography, every photo captures a moment, a moment from a life, from a story, stimulating your imagination to pick up the bits and pieces in that picture and construct the story your own way.

And it goes on and on for every other hobby of mine.

Actually, I think every form of art is nothing but another way of telling a story and another way of passing it’s idea.

So I’d like to think of myself as a fan of the art of storytelling in all it’s forms and colors. I love being told stories and I love telling stories too.

Quotes on Terrorism

“Everybody’s worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there’s a really easy way: stop participating in it.”

— Noam Chomsky

“We all have to be concerned about terrorism, but you will never end terrorism by terrorizing others.”

— Martin Luther King III

“Because I do it with one small ship, I am called a terrorist. You do it with a whole fleet and are called an emperor.”

— A pirate, from St. Augustine’s “City of God”

The loss of Muslim lives matters, too

… Beslan, endless kidnappings in Iraq and the barbaric decapitation of aid workers and other civilians have forced Muslim leaders into a new activism.

In France, since the kidnapping of two journalists in Iraq, Muslims of influence have pushed their people to embrace French nationhood even though there are serious conflicts between them and their state….
The Muslim Association of Britain has issued straight statements condemning the inhumane hostage-taking by Muslims worldwide.

But only if there is reciprocity. Muslims have put their lives and reputations on the line to save Mr Bigley and others. The allies hold thousands of Muslims in illegal incarceration; they are tortured and killed too….

Where are the “official” Christian delegations to protect Muslim victims in Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantanamo Bay? Why do our baying newspapers not call for these faith communities to condemn the savagery perpetrated by the allies?..

[Source: Global Echo]

[Via: Je Blog, Bouillabaisse]

Speak Out

“First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists, but I was neither, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.”

— Martin Niemoeller

The Future

How true is it when we say that the future is what we make of it? And that our past has nothing to do with it and that it should not haunt us?

I think it’s true that our present is the result of the decisions we took in our past, and that the future is the result of the decisions we take today.
But, still our decisions today are based on whatever elements and consequences we have today, which have come to exist because of our old decision in our past.

Let’s say a person took the decision to study Computer Science a number of years ago, and today he is a programmer because of that choice and others he took along the way.
Today he also wants to take another decision for the future. And even though he could go and take a totally unrelated decision of becoming a professional photographer, thereby throwing away a lot of stuff from his past and many of the decisions he took, it’s most likely he won’t and that he will follow the path he started carving out for himself in the past and go for something IT related.

So, even though we don’t like to admit it, the past does somehow haunt us. It affects the decisions we take, it limits our scope of options, it tries to put us into a box we can’t get out of.

But life shouldn’t be that way.
What if we took a wrong decision along the way, or a decision we don’t like anymore?
I mean we’re human after all, and we’re built to make errors.
We should always have an option to undo what we did, and as that is impossible, then we at least should have the option to right our wrong by taking a good decision later on.

It takes courage to take such a decision though, because it means you’re admitting you were wrong, you’re admitting that a period of your life was somehow a waste of time, you’re admitting that you’re throwing a lot away and starting some things from scratch.
It’s not easy. And it’ll certainly feel unlogical to take such a step.

But what’s better to take a hard and “unlogical” step that will make our lives a lot better or to let our old wrong decision haunt us and control our lives making them miserable?
I’d choose the hard way any day!

So, after all, the future is what we make of it, it’s a direct result of the decisions we take today and it doesn’t have to be haunted by the past.
So we should learn from the errors we made in our past and take better decisions for our future, we can’t go on making mistakes and then trying to fix them forever.

My First Game of Tennis

Today, I played my first game of Tennis and it was GREAT!

My wife has been wanting to play Tennis for some time now, so yesterday we passed by Carrefour and we bought me a Tennis racket. And today, we headed to El Saada Park (formerly El Saada Palace) in La Marsa, rented ourselves a Tennis court and had some really good fun.

Now, this is my first time to ever hold a Tennis racket and try to play the game, but it was still a hell of a lot of fun.

It was also very funny. It was my first time, and my wife hasn’t played for over 2 years. So there definitely were some stupid moments, but incredibly there were some really good moments too, when I felt like I’ve been playing the game for a while now.

Thanks to my dear wife for introducing me to this new pleasure and teaching me how to play.

I truly can’t wait for the next time we play.
I think we’ll most probably be getting a membership card so that we can play as much as we want 🙂

Champion Lafayette

So, this morning in between paying our rent, bills and other stuff, we passed by Champion, the new mall that opened this week in Lafayette in downtown Tunis.

It looks really nice from the front and on the inside, but it’s a bit too small to be called a mall actually, so maybe mini-mall would be more suitable.

A lot of the shops and boutiques still haven’t opened yet and the food court is still under way but the supermarket section is working and already over-crowded.

The first thought I got when I walked into the supermarket was: this is more like a Monoprix loaded with the exact same stuff that’s in Carrefour but packed into a smaller area.

Anyway, even though I found myself thinking of how the lanes, counters and some other little things here and there were shopper unfriendly, I think it’s really nice and a great addition to the Tunisian shopping scene.

I hope it takes off some of the load Carrefour gets so that the latter can go back to being a good shopping experience.

Breast Boosting Ringtones

A Japanese guru claims to have invented a mobile phone ring tone that can help women’s breasts to grow bigger.

Hideto Tomabechi’s Rockmelon tone registered more than 10,000 downloads in the first week alone.

He claims his ring tone has “sounds that make the brain and body move unconsciously”.

Tomabechio calls the subliminal breast booster a kind of “positive brainwashing” and says it draws on his teachings of the “powers of cognitive science”.

One satisfied user told Japanese media: “I listened to the tune for a week expecting all the time that I was being duped. But, incredibly, my 34-inch bust grew to 35 inches. It was awesome.”

Tomabechi says he’s now planning other ring tones to help people quit smoking, combat baldness and attract a mate.

Source: Ananova

LOL…
With the whole bust upsizing obsession going on in the world these days, this guy would make a fortune selling these ringtones 😛

A curious question though, what happens if a guy uses these ringtones?