Author: Mohamed Marwen Meddah

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

Is That Your Son?

Last night, after some quick shopping at Geant (TunisCity’s hyper market), just after paying, putting everything back into the cart, and seating Adam in the cart’s child seat; a security guy came up to me, pointed at some point behind me and asked if the boy he was pointing at was my son.

What was really weird is that I actually turned around, looked at the boy and then replied that he wasn’t my son.

As I was saying the words, I realized how stupid and absent-minded that all was; I mean, I just seated my only son in the cart in front of me, but then there I was looking behind me to see if some other kid was my son.

Eman laughed her head off at me, joking that I must have some hidden secret.

All I could think of is “Damn, I really need that vacation!”

Southern Fried Chicken Opens In Al Nasr 2

SFCThis past weekend we discovered and tried out a new fast food place called Southern Fried Chicken on the Hedi Nouria road in Al Nasr 2.

I had passed in front of the place a few weeks ago, and it was still not open yet, and thought I’d check back on it when it was open, and this weekend we did and went in and tried it, twice.

Southern Fried Chicken (SFC) is as its name suggests a fast food restaurant mainly specializing in chicken meals, à la KFC for those who have had the pleasure.

SFC is a UK food franchise, and now that I come to think of it, I think I saw a couple of SFC restaurants in the UK before, but never got around to trying their food.

I really liked the setting and decor, the food is pretty good and the prices are quite ok too. I tried two menus up to now, one consisting of pieces of chicken and the other a chicken burger, and they both were good.

I hope we see other international food chains and franchises opening up in Tunisia soon. And please, if you’re one of those people who are thinking of commenting right now to tell me that we don’t want that kind of internationalization, and that you’d rather stick to lablabi and kaftaji, or that they’re unhealthy, you can spare yourself the effort, I’ve heard it all on several previous posts, and I respectfully disagree.

I love lablabi, I love kaftaji, I love a good s’han tounsi, …etc; But I also love a good burger every once in a while, some nicely cooked chicken every other while, or a yummy stuffed crust pizza some other times, …etc.
It’s up to me to take care of my health and choose when to go eat at these places and how often. I demand my freedom to eat whatever I choose 😛

Anyway, SFC is worth checking out for those who are fast food fans like me. They claim it has a lip licking flavour, which falls a bit short from KFC’s finger lickin’ goodness, but well, worth the try.

Mozzarella’s Open Sauce Browser In Tunis Hebdo Newspaper

Today’s Tunis Hebdo newspaper has the following bit of “interesting” news in it:

Mozzarella Open Sauce
La fondation Mozzarella veut faire entrer son navigateur Open Sauce Firefox 3 dans le Livre Guinness des Records…

Which in English means:

The Mozzarella foundation wants to enter its Open Sauce browser Firefox 3 in the Guinness book of records…

Neat, huh? So yeah, it’s Internet meets Pizza. The guy must’ve been hungry while writing the article.

But it doesn’t stop there, this article is actually a rip-off from another website, the content is basically copy-pasted.

So they’re not only guilty of stupidity, but also of plagiarism at the same time.

Certainly makes a person proud of the high level of journalistic professionalism available in the country.

Of course what they really wanted to talk about what was the Mozilla foundation asking fans of their Firefox browser to download Firefox 3 when it’s released so that they can break the record of most downloaded software in a day and get into the Guinness book of records.
Now would it have been so hard for them to check their facts and write a correct mini-article about this?
What a shame!

[Via: Montassar]

Caramel (Sukkar Banat)

A few days ago we watched Caramel (Sukkar Banat), a Lebanese movie directed by Nadine Labaki.

I heard a lot about the movie and read many reviews of it on several blogs, and had wanted to check it out for months before I got the chance to.

The title Caramel refers to an epilation method used in the Middle East that consists of heating sugar, water and lemon juice.

The movie is a romantic comedy that revolves around the intersecting lives of five Lebanese women. Layale works in a beauty salon in Beirut along with two other women, Nisrine and Rima. Each one has a problem: Layale is stuck in a dead-end relationship with a married man; Nisrine is no longer a virgin but is set to be married to a Muslim; Rima is attracted to women; Jamale, a regular customer and wannabe actress, is worried about getting old; Rose, a tailor with a shop next to the salon, is an old woman who had devoted her life to taking care of her mentally unbalanced older sister Lili, but has found her first love.

The film doesn’t refer to any of the political problems or recent warfare that has troubled Lebanon. Rather, Labaki’s tale paints everyday people with everyday problems.

I have to confirm the reviews; I really enjoyed this movie and think it’s a great effort from Nadine Labaki as her first feature film. I totally recommend it to everyone.

[More: IMDB, Amazon]

links for 2008-05-28

Back From Casablanca

I got back from Casablanca (Morocco) last night, after a very busy couple of days.

I was there to participate in the “Maghreb Citizen Journalism Workshop” organized by IREX and MEPI.

The event went really well, with some really great presentations, input and discussions from the panelists and participants. I personally talked about “Emerging Technologies for Citizen Journalists”, touching on stuff like micro-blogging, RSS, mashups, and social networking.

It was awesome to meet so many interesting people in one place, some I had already met before, others I only knew online, and of course some I was introduced to for the first time.

Due to the tight schedule, I didn’t really get to go anywhere in Casablanca, other than the old souqs of Bab Marrakech. I really wanted to visit the Hassan II Mosque at least, but wasn’t able to. Hopefully I’ll get to do that in another visit to Morocco.

Casablanca, to me, felt like a cross between Tunis and Damascus. Tunis because of the architecture and the people, and Damascus because of the full streets and the mad driving.

My flights in and out of Casablanca were aboard Royal Air Maroc, the Moroccan national carrier, and based on some feedback I heard, I was really expecting the worst, but it turned out a lot better than I expected. In all aspects, it’s a lot better than the Air France flights between Tunis and Paris.

links for 2008-05-22

Maghreb Citizen Journalism Workshop In Casablanca

These past couple of days, a number of my friends, who happen to be bloggers or who follow the Tunisian blogosphere more closely than I have been able to do recently, have been telling me about the the “BIG” discussion, and in some cases fight going on in the blogosphere about the “Maghreb Citizen Journalism Workshop”, being held in Casablanca this coming weekend.

Last night and this morning, I thought I’d check things out myself and see what the whole fuss was about.

Well, it turns out that a number of Tunisian bloggers are totally against this workshop, and are calling out for everyone to boycott it, and putting labels on bloggers who are participating in it. Why? Well, because the workshop is organized by IREX and MEPI, who are financed by the US department of state; hence a connection with George W. Bush and the conspiracy theory that this workshop plays right into his evil plans for the region, or something like that.

Well, I’ll tell you what; I’m participating in this workshop, and not only that, I’m a panelist at the event, talking about “Emerging Technologies for Citizen Journalists”.
And most of all, I don’t care what anyone thinks of me or labels me for it.

My views have been made clear time and again on this blog on various issues, especially when it comes to Bush and the US government’s policies in the Middle East, and how wrong they have been and continue to be.

But, whether this be the simple blogger workshop that it is, limited only to blogging and citizen journalism issues; or even it were bigger in scope, taking in some geo-political aspects as well; I’d still take the same decision and go.

Any such event is an opportunity to pass your thoughts and opinions, and it’d be a shame to miss that; boycotting such an event would just be a passive act, which I can only view as negative.
The keywords for me are: “Engage”, “Dialogue” and “Being Heard”.

On the other hand, I respect the decision of people who hold views other than mine, and I don’t feel the need to label them or accuse them of anything, everyone has their way of doing things and their way of seeing things, the key is for us all to respect our different opinions.

Nakba

In my name, and in the name of Jewish people throughout the world, an indigenous population was almost completely expelled. Village names have been removed from the map, houses blown up, and new forests planted. In Arabic, this is called the Nakba, or catastrophe. In Israel, this is called “independence.”

— This land was theirs by Hannah Mermelstein; The Jewish Advocate, 24 Apr 2008.

[Via: Lawrence of Cyberia]

links for 2008-05-14