Month: September 2005

Tunisian Handicrafts

I really admire handicrafts and think they’re marvellous works of art.

I remember when I was a kid, after school, I’d go to my grandmother’s house where I’d have lunch then go for my Arabic lessons. After I was done with my Arabic lessons, I’d just go wandering around discovering new places in the city.

One of the places I discovered and loved passing by every now and then was a little workshop where a number of men would be sitting on stools working on these beautiful copper plates. With a small hammer and chisel, they tapped away, carving all these amazing shapes and texts with magnificent calligraphy.

I’d just say hi and stand there watching and admiring their work. It was really so inspiring.
To this day, whenever I pass through the souks in the old medina of Tunis and see all the copper plates with their different designs, my memories take me back to that little workshop where I saw that art being created.

Copper Plate

President Bush Drinking Again

Faced with the biggest crisis of his political life, President Bush has hit the bottle again, The National Enquirer reveals.

Bush, who said he quit drinking the morning after his 40th birthday, has started boozing amid the Katrina catastrophe.

Bush is under the worst pressure of his two terms in office and his popularity is near an all-time low. The handling of the Katrina crisis and troop losses in Iraq have fueled public discontent and pushed Bush back to drink.

A Washington source said: “The sad fact is that he has been sneaking drinks for weeks now. Laura may have only just caught him

Soccer World Cup Qualifier Tickets Online in Tunisia

Next month, October 8th, will witness one of the hottest soccer games of the year which is the match between Tunisia and Morocco, where both teams will be fighting for the qualification to the World Cup 2006.

Tunisia needs one point to qualify, so a draw is fine. Morocco on the other hand need to win to qualify.

Tickets still aren’t on sale for now at the regular outlets, but 10000 tickets were released for sale online on the site of the Tunisian Football Federation, using the Tunisian Post’s e-Dinar solution, and they all dissapeared in a few hours.
The pressure was so big that the web server was brought down to it’s knees and the site crashed.

I think these soccer match tickets must be the most successful e-commerce effort in Tunisia to this day, as other e-commerce sites haven’t been successful at all.

Maybe sports can make people trust buying online more and fuel a growth in e-commerce in Tunisia. I certainly hope so.

links for 2005-09-23

Bahrain Ends Israel Trade Boycott

Bahrain took the decision to end the boycott of Israeli goods because it is one of the conditions of the free trade agreement with the United States.

Bahrain, which hosts the base of the US Navy’s 5th Fleet, signed the free trade deal with the United States last year, becoming the first Gulf state to do so.

The move makes Bahrain the first of the six Arab states of the Gulf to abolish its trade boycott of Israel, although others, such as Qatar and Oman, have taken limited steps in that direction.

The repeal coincides with signs of a thaw in relations between Israel and Arab and Muslim states following its withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

I personally think it’s too early for Arab countries to rush into lifting trade boycotts, building diplomatic relations and being friendly with Israel just because it withdrawed from Gaza.

Things are still not clear enough and a process towards a lasting solution isn’t on track yet.
Until that happens, I think it’s still premature to take any steps towards full normalization with Israel by the Arab countries.

Handbook for Bloggers & Cyber-Dissidents

Reporters Without Borders released a Handbook For Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents yesterday (in English, French, Chinese, Arabic and Persian). Click here to download the full booklet.

The Handbook for Bloggers is for people who want to be serious participants in the emergent online global conversation: How to set up a quality, credible blog. How to get it noticed. And.. if you

Airliner Fakes Emergency For Soccer Game

A chartered jet carrying 289 Gambian soccer fans pretended it needed to make an emergency landing so they could watch their team compete in the FIFA Under 17 World Championships.

The plane, claiming to be low on fuel, landed Tuesday near the stadium in Peru’s northern coast city of Piura.

The Air Rum plane, which she said was chartered by Gambian President Yahya Jammeh, should have made its approach to the capital, Lima, but instead flew directly to Piura, entering Peruvian air space “without permission.”

The passengers were permitted to attend African team’s 3-1 victory over Qatar on Tuesday night, she added, but the plane remained in Piura on Wednesday while authorities determined what penalty, if any, to levy against the airline.

This is so funny and mad…
Imagine what people are ready to do for a game of soccer!

[Via: 2:48AM]
[Source: CNN]

Thai House

A couple of days ago after finishing work, I wanted to grab some take-away dinner before going home, and a friend from work suggested I check out “Thai House”, a Thai restaurant in Ariana I obviously didn’t know about.

I didn’t go for it that day because I was feeling a bit lazy and Ariana was out of my way. Anyway, today after work, my wife and I headed there directly.

It’s a small take-away restaurant in Al Kahina street (It seems they’ve recently changed the name though) in New Ariana.
It has a really interesting menu with stuff that brought back memories of our honeymoon days in Thailand, which actually influenced my decision on what to get: Sweet and Sour Shrimps with Rice confined (Riz cantonnais + Crevette Sauce Aigre-Douce).
I wish there was some Fried rice with Crab, that was so yummy.

The chef is a Thai woman who actually speaks in a pretty good Tunisian accent.
The food is really delicious and the prices are pretty good too. It’s the best Asian food place I’ve tried in Tunisia up to now.

Really worth trying out. I’m sure I’ll be going back there often.

Future Arab SuperStar 3

A year has passed since the 2004 season of SuperStar, the Arab version of “Pop Idol”, which is known as “American Idol” in the US.

Last year’s winner was Libyan Ayman El Aatar, whose debut single called “Ahebbak” was released a few weeks ago.

Now, the new season of SuperStar will start airing on Lebanese Future TV this Sunday, 25th of September.

What they’ll be doing in the first episodes is airing a selection of the thousands of auditions, which is really funny, and showing the people who made it through to the second stage.

I can’t wait for the new season to begin. SuperStar is the best musical talent show as the people who make it through are really talented and have great voices unlike other stupid shows like Star Academy or whatever.

Plus I love how it brings us all to know and appreciate our Arab music more.

I fully covered the show last year and will most probably be covering it this year too.

Dentist, Finally…

Today, I finally went to a dentist…
And what a small world it is; It turns out his older brother used to work in the Tunisian embassy in Jordan and I know him very well.

He took a look at my teeth and told me there was a lot of work to be done, as if I didn’t know that already. In fact, I could’ve told him what each tooth needed, but well, I’m paying him for that, so no need to help him out.

He said it seemed like I really liked sweets and that I must’ve been to many dentists in my lifetime; I just smiled, I thought it better to keep my feelings of hatred towards dentists to myself at this moment, especially with me lying on a horizontal chair and him staring into my mouth with a bunch of drills nearby.

I told him which tooth was hurting me the most, and we decided to start with that one.
I knew it needed root canal treatment, and I knew the exact procedure so well I could’ve actually guided him through it, so I didn’t even bother to ask what he was going to do and he didn’t elaborate much either.

After injecting around my tooth with a local anesthetic, he started drilling, drilling and drilling until I felt like there was nothing actually left of my tooth.
I remember feeling that same feeling the last time I had a root canal treatment on the parallel tooth a few years back in Jordan.
That’s when he pulled out this tiny screw-like thingie, that hints at his hidden intentions with this tool. He injected more anesthetic into the tooth (Ouch! Pain!) and started cleaning up the 3 root canals (Yucky feeling!).

Then he just stuffed some cotton in my tooth and told me to go home and come back next week for more work and to finish that tooth up.

I’m now at home writing this, still not feeling the left side of my mouth and with a numb lower lip and tongue, passionately waiting for next week’s appointment.

Aren’t dentists just a bunch of fun to be around?!