Year: 2004

Tunisia 2004 : The Semi Finals

Yesterday were the semi finals of the African Cup of Nations, with 2 big matches between Tunisia and Nigeria, and with Morroco against Mali.

Tunisia’s match was at 4PM, during working hours, but there was no way we could miss a match like that. so we turned the TV on and got an antenna and we were ready to go.

Tunisia turned into a ghost country during the period of the match, with almost no one on the streets, and everyone was glued to their TV set.

The match was one of the most stressful matches I’ve ever seen. Tunisia played well and controlled the match but missed a lot of chances. And then came the false Nigerian penalty, and we went one under.
Happily, Tunisia got a penalty later on, scored and tied.
The rest of the match and the extra time went on (1-1), and it was time for the shootouts, and God was that scary.
The Tunisian goalie who had made a number of mistakes during the match managed to fix that by catching one of Nigeria’s shots, and the Tunisian shooters were successful at driving each ball in.
And so, after over 130 minutes of stress, Tunisia won and passed to the final on Saturday.

Hooooorrrraaaaaayyyyy 🙂

Anyway, in Sousse, a couple of driving hours away, Morroco and Mali started playing, in a match that turned out to be a big surprise, for me at least. I was expecting Mali to win easily over Morroco, but no that didn’t happen, in fact Morroco won (4-0) in what was mostly a one-sided match.

So, the final on saturday will be Tunisia vs. Morroco.
A winnable match for Tunisia if they focus, play as well as they played against Senegal and Nigeria, and if they put in the hard work needed to score.
Morroco has a tough team and even tougher goalie, so the Tunisian team should really work hard on this one.
I wish them all the luck and i really hope we win the cup 🙂

Nigeria and Mali will be playing on Friday for Third and Fourth place.

The Truman Show

No, I didn’t see the movie again, it just crossed my mind again.

The Truman Show is one of my favourite movies, for the simple reason that i truly relate to it.
I didn’t go through the same experience of course or you’d have known about it for sure, but i thought about it a lot when i was a child.

There were times when I’d just think: what if all this is just a big show, a movie, plain and simple acting ?
What if all these people around me are just actors, playing their roles to give me a fake feeling that everything is normal ?

I don’t know what made me think that way sometimes, but it would occur to me very often.
Just like some kids were scared of turning out to be adopted, I was scared of my whole life turning out to be one hell of a big act.

I don’t remember when, how or why I grew out of it and stopped worrying. But when I come to think of it now, I don’t really feel that I was wrong, life really is a big act, and the people around us are just actors. We are just moving pieces on one big chess board.
Who’s watching ?
We watch each other. And God watches us all.

Africa 2015 : For an AIDS-free Generation

Africa 2015
Everyday on my way to work I pass by a bunch of posters with the slogan Africa 2015 : For an AIDS-free Generation, and everyday I say to myself, I’m gonna check this out and blog about it, but I always forget.
So here it goes today 🙂

Africa 2015 is an initiative to promote awareness and achievement of the eight Millennium Development Goals that world leaders adopted at the Millennium Summit in 2000.

It focuses initially on combating HIV/AIDS, part of Goal 6. The target by 2015 is to halt and begin to reverse the spread of the disease, which has spread to 42 million people worldwide, more than 30 million in Africa.

… By targeting HIV/AIDS, the initiative also aims to help achieve the other goals – eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equality and empowering women, reducing child mortality, improving maternal health, ensuring environmental sustainability, and developing a global partnership for development.

I think this is a great initiative, and I truly hope it gets enough support to go on and make Africa a better place for everyone.

For more information on this initiative, check out the official Africa 2015 website.

Bruce Almighty Again

Last night I watched Bruce Almighty again, this time in English, and God what a difference there was.
When i first saw this movie last year in French, i thought it was funny, but yesterday it was so so much funnier and cooler.
I just love the part when Bruce is making a fool out of Evan (the news anchor) during the news bulletin.

I hate watching movies in a language other than their original one because so much is lost in translation, especially the little bits and pieces that make all the difference.
For example, you’d have a side-splitting hilarious movie in English, and then you watch it in French and it’s just a mediocre movie which is sometimes not even funny at all.
Biggest example for me is Dumb & Dumber which got me rolling on the floor in laughter when i saw it in English, but was rather boring in French.

Something else that is lost in translation is the movie title itself, and it really gets on my nerves.
French translated movie titles for example are so bad and sometimes even plain stupid. And to make it even worse sometimes they’ve got nothing to do with the movie’s original title or subject.
What is even weirder is that sometimes they don’t really translate the title, they just make up another English title for it, I just don’t get the point in that.

I’ll try to put together a list of badly translated movie titles to post here soon and you’ll see what I mean.

Complete History of Tux, The Linux Penguin

Just came across a cool site detailing the history of Tux (The Linux penguin).

Why a penguin ?
How was it created ?
And every other question is answered.
It’s quite funny and cool.

Here’s a funny part that Linus wrote describing the penguin he wants for a logo:

… So when you think “penguin”, you should be imagining a slighly overweight penguin (*), sitting down after having gorged itself, and having just burped. It’s sitting there with a beatific smile – the world is a good place to be when you have just eaten a few gallons of raw fish and you can feel another “burp” coming.

Check out the complete history of Tux.

Joe CHAMPS

After a tip from a friend at work who seems to share my love for delicious fast food, my wife and I went to the newly opened Joe CHAMPS, an American style Restaurant & Bar in Les Berges du Lac on Friday.

I have to agree that the food is great, the setting is pretty cool, the atmosphere nice and the prices acceptable.
We truly enjoyed being there and the meals we had.

This place is already on my favourite places to go for food in Tunis, and i have a feeling i’ll be going there quite often, especially whenever i miss my beloved Burger King double whoppers 😉
They have a yummy Double-Double that fills that gap 😛

Tunisia 2004 : The Quarter Finals

So, the quarter finals stage of the African Cup of Nations hosted in Tunisia is over, and there are only 4 teams left now.

On Saturday, Mali played against Guinea and won as expected (2-1), moving on to the semi finals. Mali’s team is one of the best teams in this competition, and has a lot of chances for winning the cup.

Also on Saturday, Tunisia played against Senegal in what was a good and scary match to watch.
Attack after attack, counter-attack after counter-attack, and a lot of lost chances from both sides end up with a beautiful goal from Tunisia through the head of Jawhar El Mnari giving Tunisia a precious victory (1-0) passing it to the semi finals.

Sunday witnessed another two matches between Nigeria and Cameroon and then between Algeria and Morroco.
Nigeria won over Cameroon (2-1) and Morroco defeated Algeria (3-1).

It’s a shame though that the Morroco vs. Algeria match, which was a good game, was ruined by Algerian hooligans who went mad and let loose in the stadium and outside of it.
Nowhere near English hooligans, but really bad anyways.

So, this next Wednesday, the semi finals will be taking place and Tunisia will be playing against Nigeria, and Morroco against Mali. Both very interesting and hard matches.

My expectations ?
I expect Mali will win over Morroco and I wish that Tunisia defeats Nigeria.
Nigeria is a strong team, but not as strong as it was before, and if the Tunisian team put their minds and feet to it, they can win.
So, it’s up to the Eagles of Carthage (as they’re being called) to carry through the Tunisian hopes and dreams.

Dumbest tech moments in 2003

Here are some of the dumbest tech moments in 2003 as compiled from the Business 2 dumbest moments in business list.

  • The PC in the WC.
    On April 30, Microsoft U.K. issues a press release touting a new product called the iLoo, an Internet-enabled toilet equipped with a Wi-Fi broadband connection, a plasma flat screen, a waterproof keyboard, and sponsored toilet paper festooned with Web addresses.

     
  • Network Problems
    In October, three and a half years after buying Network Solutions for $21 billion, VeriSign sells its dotcom-registration business for $100 million.

     
  • Please don’t press shift
    After SunnComm Technologies rolls out new CD copy-protection software in September, a Princeton student figures out how to disable it. The devious hack: holding down the “Shift” key.

     
  • Rejected but welcome
    In February, Cornell University sends out an e-mail to incoming freshmen that begins, “Greetings from Cornell, your future alma mater!” The message is sent to all 1,700 students who applied for early decision, including the 550 who’ve been rejected.

     
  • Party like it’s Yom Kippur
    In August, online “social planning destination” Evite sends an apology to its users for having cited Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement, as a “reason to party” in an earlier e-mail newsletter.

     
  • Tiny, tinier, gone
    After years of bombarding Web surfers with annoying pop-up ads, wireless camera maker X10 files for bankruptcy in October, listing debts of more than $10 million. Among the parties stiffed: AOL, Google, Yahoo, and AdvertisementBanners.com, which won $4 million in a lawsuit against X10 shortly before the bankruptcy filing.

     
  • America Offline
    In September, less than three years after AOL “acquired” Time Warner, the board of AOL Time Warner decides to drop AOL from the company’s name and change its ticker symbol from AOL back to the original TWX.

     
  • Make way
    Despite claims that it “allows people to go farther and move more quickly anywhere they currently walk,” Segway finds few buyers for the $4,000 Human Transporter scooter in its first year on sale after it’s banned for use on sidewalks by local governments from San Francisco to Key West. In June, its “self-balancing” claims are also put to the test when photos of George W. Bush “riding” a Segway begin circulating on the Internet.

     
  • Just peeking
    “We looked at a document in the public domain. It’s not some protected preserve with lots of protected content.” Larry Lunetta, an executive at security startup ArcSight, claiming that his firm did nothing wrong after an employee was caught red-handed poking around in password-protected files on a competitor’s Web site.

     

My Everyday Places

The other day I was thinking about my life, I tend to think a lot actually, and I realized that my life these days revolves around certain pre-defined places.

At any given moment in time, there’s a 90% possibility I’ll be at one of the following places:

  • Work in Charguia 2
  • Home in Diar Soukra
  • Champs Disques at Centre Kenzet in Les Berges du Lac
  • Carrefour (and for even higher probability: near the CD/DVD/Computer sections)
  • My parents’ place in La Marsa
  • Habib Bourguiba street in downtown Tunis

The other 10% I’m either out of Tunis alltogether, at some restaurant, visiting someone, or wherever else.

I think I certainly need to add more places to that list 😛