I would like to wish everyone a Happy New Hijri Year 1427.
May it be a blessed, happy and joyful new year for you all bringing you prosperity, success and great health.
Most households in Tunisia cook Mloukhia on this day, because Mloukhia is green, as a way of hoping there’ll be a green and fruitful new year ahead.
We’ll be going over to my parent’s place for lunch, then enjoying the rest of the day off relaxing at home.
We just came home from the 10th Tunisian blogger meetup, which was a big success, in which we broke the record in the number of participants and had to keep adding table after table to accomodate the bloggers who came.
What I think is the greatest thing about this meetup is that we had the biggest number of new faces, all thanks to Infinity who took the time to go around blogs and invite them to the meetup. I think we should do more stuff like that with the next meetups.
So, all in all, we were 23 in this meetup, and only 4 were non bloggers. Mrs Senda Baccar, the editor in chief of Femmes Magazine attended the meetup with us and will be writing an article about blogging in Tunisia soon.
The meetup was held at Biwa, which has emerged as a favourite location for our meetups. It started at 1PM and ended a bit after 7PM.
As usual it was a lot of fun, and it was even greater because of all the new faces who were present. I’m looking forward to seeing everyone again in the future meetups and hoping that we’ll have even more people. Maybe in the near future we’ll have to reserve all of Biwa for our meetups 😛
Update: Another thing I liked about this meetup is how it felt a lot like the first meetup all over again because of all the new people who came. Over the past few months, the same faces kept coming, which was great because we became really good friends, but it also meant that we talked less about blogging and more about ourselves and our lives. This time around, with all the new people present we went back to the basics, getting to know each other, talking about our views of blogging, why we do it, …etc.
Plus with a journalist being there with us asking all sorts of questions about blogging, we had to eventually talk about it.
We didn’t come to this meetup with a predefined agenda for what we should talk about and as the number was big, every corner of the table went off in a number of different discussions.
Anyway as usual, the discussions went from talks about blogging to an analysis of the recent weird Egyptian fatwa that says that it is forbidden for a husband and his wife to get naked while making love, just to show you how wide the range is 😛
Hopefully we’ll try to be more organized in the coming meetups with a number of predefined issues of discussion and ideas that we can all debate.
Last night, I finally got to watch the new King Kong movie, by Peter Jackson, featuring Naomi Watts, Jack Black and Adrien Brody.
I’ve read a lot of mixed reviews about this movie, some though it was a great movie, and some didn’t like it saying that the only good thing in it was the special effects.
Personally, I really liked the movie and enjoyed it. It was a bit long, but who cares when it’s good. The special effects were amazing, some of the best I’ve ever seen on film.
As for the story, well I disagree with the people who thought it was weak. It’s just a simple, straightforward and clear story with a very obvious meaning, and it was told pretty well.
I didn’t see the original, ok I know that it may seem absurd to some of you that I haven’t seen a classic like that one, but I just didn’t, so I can’t compare. But it’s quite understandable that some people think the old movie is better than the new one, it’s always like that, it’s just like reading a book then watching the movie, the movie never meets your expectations even if it’s really great.
Anyway, to end it all, I really liked the movie and I do recommend watching it for movie lovers.
My score for it is: 8/10.
How come the Japanese always get all these best special edition collector pack gold platinum whatever music album releases, with a bunch load of extra unreleased tracks, live recordings, exclusive photos, videos, cooler cover art, 100 page booklets featuring lyrics, photos, biographies and what not, …etc. ?!!
This is something that has always pissed me off.
It’s like the whole world gets this one shitty edition of the album while they get a perfect cool one.
And it doesn’t stop there, they also get the best music DVDs with extra features, exclusive star interviews, backstage footage, different camera angles and another fat booklet.
Plus all the stars love jumping over to Japan for live concerts, in-store performances, public appearances and this or that!
Why, why, why do they get all the cool stuff while we get second rate shit?!
Why do I have to be Japanese to enjoy some good material from my favourite music artists?
It’s so unfair…
So, it seems more people are ok with Sunday than those who aren’t, so the 10th Tunisian Blogger Meetup will be held this Sunday, January 29th at 1PM in Biwa.
The bloggers will be getting together for a nice lunch and for the usual fun.
A special guest who will be attending this meetup is Mrs. Senda Baccar, editor in chief of Tunisian women magazine “Femmes”, that’s published by R
So, the 10th Tunisian blogger meetup will be this week, but when is not clear yet.
The two dates that have come up are as follows:
– Friday 27th, 7PM at Biwa in Les Berges du Lac
– Sunday 29th, Early afternoon at Biwa in Les Berges du Lac.
Personally, I’m more for having it on Friday. But it seems we have people who can’t come on Friday, just like there are some other people who can’t come on Sunday. So I guess we’ll have to put this up for a little vote.
So, Friday or Sunday?
As for you, my friend from Peace Now… You boil with anger at the Palestinians because they spoiled your celebrations and refuse to let you continue living the illusion that the occupation is concluding and that peace rules the land. Peace is a tango that takes two equal partners dancing in unity; it is not a dance of one who drags around his partner at will. And what do you say? “If that’s the way it is, they are not partners.” This time you’re right. In your dance of peace you have no partners, only enemies. For your peace is his occupation; for your success is his loss; for your reconciliation is a closing of the door on reconciliation with the Palestinians.
… [P]eace is still far away, because peace demands honesty, because peace demands equality. You want to force them to lie, you want of them a peace of surrender, you are celebrating a peace of master and slave. Under such conditions there will perhaps be peace-and-quiet, but Peace, no. Not until you open your eyes and your heart. Not until we are ready for a peace of partnership and equality.
— Michael Warschawski, An Open Letter to a Friend In Peace Now; October 2000.
[Via: Lawrence of Cyberia]
