Author: Mohamed Marwen Meddah

Mohamed Marwen Meddah is a Tunisian-Canadian, web aficionado, software engineering leader, blogger, and amateur photographer.

Traveler – Season One (ABC TV Series)

TravelerLast night, we finished watching the first season, and maybe only season, of ABC’s TV series “Traveler“.

The show is pretty much along the same style as FOX’s “Prison Break“. It has a really interesting and catchy storyline, and is very well done that it keeps you sucked in throughout the whole season.

The series is about two graduate students, Jay Burchell and Tyler Fog, who are framed by their long time friend Will Traveler to make them look like they are terrortists responsible for bombing a museum in New York. When they tell the FBI about Traveler they are told that no one exists by that name. Cornered, suspects of terrorism and on the run, the boys realise that the only way to prove their innocence and clear their names is to find Traveler, find out who he is, why he’s trying to frame them and who is behind him; all this throughout an ongoing manhunt by the FBI.

I personally enjoyed this show a lot, I wish the first season was a bit longer than the eight episodes it was made to be. It did feel like it was compressed and cut short towards the end.

ABC apparently have dropped the series and won’t be renewing it for a second season, which I think is a big big shame. This show has potential to become one of the best on TV, at least as big as Prison Break, if not more.
There’s already a petition asking ABC to renew Traveler for a second season with over 18310 signatures including mine.

Anyway, whether the show is renewed or not, I recommend you check out the first season if you get a chance to. It’s really a fun and exciting series to watch.

My Top 5 Firefox Extensions

Ever since I converted to Firefox, I haven’t really looked back; I have tested other browsers for the sake of it, but never really considered moving to another one.

What makes Firefox even more interesting and exciting for me as a user is the various extensions I can plug into to it to extend its functionalities.

The following is the list of my top 5 Firefox extensions:

1. Web Developer: This is an essential extension for anyone who is involved with web development or design in any way.

2. Firebug: Another great plugin for web developers and designers; enabling you to edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page

3. Fireftp: Everything you need in an ftp client right from the comfort of your Firefox browser.

4. SearchStatus: A handy little plugin that gives you an idea about how each site you visit is performing search- and rank-wise.

5. Google Notebook: I’ve been using this extension more and more lately to jot down notes and thoughts or save info on the fly.

I could go on forever listing extension after extension, but I thought I’d limit it to five only here.
What about you: what are your favourite Firefox extensions?

Subzero Blue’s Top Search Engine Keywords

One of the things I find most amusing and interesting to check in a site’s statistics are the keywords people typed into search engines to find it; sometimes you’ll find some really funny and unexpected stuff in there.

Here are some of the top keywords people type and the pages they end up on for Subzero Blue:

– Arab Porn / Arabic Porn: Arab Porn Singers
– Madonna dancers: Hung Up On Madonna
– Nicole kidman sex: Sex with Nicole Kidman
– Last day at work: Last Day At Work
– What is happiness: What Is Happiness?
– Describe me / words to describe a person: 10 Words That Best Describe Me
– Robot sex dolls: Robot Sex Dolls
– Sami Yusuf: Sami Yusuf
– Middle east sex: First Middle East Sex Survey Results
– ass.com: ASS.COM TUNISIA

Interesting…
A lot of sex related stuff in there, further confirming that sex does sell.
No worries though, I won’t be turning this into a 100% sex related blog just to get more traffic.

You Know You’re Arab If…

I already posted something like this before called You know you’re an Arab when…. Anyway I came across another such list, and thought I’d pick some of the best ones and put them up here. So, basically, you know you’re Arab if…

– You go to Arabic restaurants abroad, tell the owners you’re Arab, and think you’re going to get free food.

– You fight over who pays the dinner bill.

– You don’t use the word “tease” in English cause you feel weird.

– At weddings it takes the bride and groom 4 hours to kiss all the guests.

– You have a gold necklace of your name written in Arabic.

– You feel proud when someone famous or a celebrity has any Arabic blood in them.

– You wear more cologne than deodorant.

– You put olive oil in and on everything and brag about how healthy it is.

– You gossip about your own family…with members of your own family.

– You cook a meal that lasts 3 days.

-You think it’s cool to dance and smoke at the same time.

You can go on here and check out the other post: You know you’re an Arab when…

Evan Almighty

This past weekend, I watched Evan Almighty, featuring Steve Carell and Morgan Freeman.

The movie is a sequel to Bruce Almighty; In this one God (Freeman) contacts Congressman Evan Baxter (Carell) and tells him to build an ark in preparation for a great flood; You can imagine the rest.

I saw the trailer for this movie a long time ago, I liked the idea and what I saw in the trailer, and thought it looked like a very promising funny summer comedy.

I was a bit dissapointed though because even though it has some good laughs here and there, it just didn’t turn out to be the great summer comedy I was waiting for. Personally, I was expecting a bit more from Steve Carell.

Some people say this movie isn’t just about comedy, it also has a message, well yeah it’s kind of true, but you can be funny and have a message at the same time.

My score for this movie would have to be: 5/10.
If I didn’t have such high expectations it might have gotten more, but well…

It’s All In The Way You Say It

At work, one of the things I’ve become known for is a saying I believe in, which is more or less translated into: “It’s all in the way you say it”.

This holds when you’re having a normal discussion with someone, passing on important information, joking with a person, telling someone about something they did wrong, asking for something, … anything; I believe it’s all in the way you say what you have to say.

This is not about sugar-coating things you have to say, it’s just about knowing how to say a certain thing to a certain someone at a certain time in a certain place in a certain mood for that person to fully accept what you have to say and react to it the way you want.

So, really when you need to say something to someone, you have to take all the different factors into consideration:

The message: what is it you really want to say? what’s the message you need to get across? how does it have to be said for full effect?

The person: what is this person like? what type of personality? what things should be avoided not to push their bad buttons?

The time: Obviously, not every time is the right time to talk about something, this should be taken into consideration. It has to be a good time for both you and the person you’re talking to; not always perfect, good can do sometimes.

The place: Where you are plays an important role in what kinds of issues you can talk about and how you talk about them.

The mood: the mood you’re in, the mood the person you want to talk to is in, the mood of the whole environment around you, all that dictates whether you can talk about a certain thing or not and how effective it would be if you talked about it.

So really it’s not just the way you say something, it’s about intelligently finding the best way to say it, taking into consideration all the different factors of the moment.

Burj Dubai World’s Tallest Building

Burj DubaiBurj Dubai, the supertall tower designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill for developer Emaar being built in Dubai, is now the tallest building in the world.

A year and a half ahead of completion and already 512m tall, the skyscraper known as Burj Dubai (Dubai Tower) has become the world’s tallest building, according to its developers.

It is is now taller than Taipei 101 in Taiwan, which officially held the record for being the tallest tower since 2004.

The final height of the Burj is a closely guarded secret. Emaar, the state-owned development company, is only willing to say that construction work will stop sometime after the tower reaches 700m.

Once finished it will have an estimated 160 floors, lifts whizzing up at speeds of 40 miles per hour, and a total of 344,000 square meters of floor-space, housing residential, commercial and retail property.

The $1bn skyscraper is being constructed in the heart of central Dubai, a 500-acre development project worth $20bn.

Eventual completion of the tower is set for December 2008.

Heroes Nominated For Emmy Awards

Superhero drama “Heroes” has been nominated for Outstanding Drama Series at the 59th annual Primetime Emmys.

Additionally, “Heroes” star Masi Oka (Hiro Nakamura) has been nominated for an award for Supporting Actor in a Drama, and David Semel for the Directing for a Drama award.

Personally, I think they should win all three awards. Heroes is the best series among the ones nominated (