Category: Everyday Me

More Random Thoughts From Paris

I’m starting to like Paris more and more each day as I discover new places in it and get used to moving around. I don’t really feel like it’s the kind of city I could live in, but still it’s a really nice place to visit.

It’s amazing how many churches and cathedrals this city has; almost every road has a great big beautiful one sitting at its end.
It’s almost as if there was a law that was passed in the old ages saying: “Every street gets its own church, every boulevard its own cathedral, and if there isn’t enough space for one, at least throw in a nice arch!”

Last night, after work, I took Drako’s advice and went for a walk by the St. Martin Canal. Very nice place; maybe if I had more time, I’d take a book and go back to relax and read there. But time is short, and there are still many things to discover.

Why the hell do fast food restaurants here have a big scary black guy in a suit standing there staring at you? It’s quite freaky…
By the way, just to make things clear, this is not a racist comment, he’s not scary because he’s black, he’s scary because he’s a big hunk who looks like he’s so hungry from having to smell food all day long, that he’s going to eat you next.
Maybe it’s for security reasons or maybe it’s to scare people into eating quickly and leaving, I don’t know, but it’s a bit weird.

What is it with bicycle lanes here?
One moment you’re walking on the pavement in peace, and the second after, all of a sudden, that part of the pavement has turned into a bicycle lane and some guy or girl is ringing their bell at you.
It’s either there’s a bicycle lane throughout the whole length of the pavement or there isn’t. Make up your minds.

I came across a KFC yesterday. Shame I can’t eat there, though. I had to just turn around and go find somewhere else with Halal meat to eat.
Why can’t these big chains in countries that have a big number of Muslims or Jews at least have a few restaurants that provide Halal or Kosher food?

As there is no TV in the appartment I’m staying in, I’d get really bored once I got home. So a couple of days ago, as I was wandering around, I found a used CD and DVD shop, and I bought the first season of “The 4400“, which is a really cool series a friend in Tunis told me about. So every night, before going to sleep, I’ve been enjoying an episode or two of it. Very cool stuff.

Random Thoughts From Paris

Don’t they have Burger King in France?!
Shit, they don’t have Burger King in France!
It turns out there was, but this Belgian group Quick, yeah it turned out to be from Belgium, bought the whole French chain of Burger Kings some years ago.
I had dinner at a Quick last night, and it was nothing close to the Burger King experience or taste. What a shame!

Went to the nearby Virgin Megastore last night; it’s pretty unorganized compared to the ones in London. I browsed through some DVDs but got fed up of it because whenever I thought of a specific movie, I wouldn’t be able to find it because it had a totally different name in French.
What is it with the French and their totally unrelated movie title translations? They really suck!

On my way to Virgin Megastore I passed through a small alley which was full of African restaurants, especially Senegali cuisine. The smell was spread throughout the alley and it reminded me of my childhood in Zimbabwe and the smell of the food there.
It didn’t make me want to eat there, in fact, it nearly made me not want to eat anywhere, but well it was nice unearthing a few memories.

Ah, last night…
It’s either that my upstairs neighbours are a couple of horny energizer bunnies or that there’s a very friendly woman living up there, because last night there was certainly a lot of action going on with 5.1 surround sound effects and all.
Very interesting…
Note to self: Your studio is on the second floor, definitely not the third!

Paris, Paris…

So, here I am in Paris…
Yes, you read it right, I’m in Paris, France; The city of lights, romance, fashion and whatever else they came up with…

But wait a second, the last time I wrote I was mumbling about how the world has more billionaires now and us getting peanuts, now all of a sudden, I’m in Paris??! How did that happen?
Well, let me do a quick rewind then fast forward through the weekend.

Saturday was my birthday, yeah no big post about that this year, phone line is screwed at home, so no connection, so of course no post, plus I’m not sure I’d have posted about it anyway, I mean enough about that already. So, birthday; small gathering at our place with Eman’s parents and mine; gifts were mostly clothes.
Note to self: This is certainly a good solution to get rid of shopping, I have to either have more birthdays or more people at my birthdays.

Sunday: I woke up early, well relatively early for a weekend, got myself ready and headed to the airport in time for my flight to Paris.
I had a bad experience at the airport that I’d rather not get into now, but I made it to Paris in the end, where I’ll be spending two weeks training for my new job. So no, it’s no tourism travel, but I’ll be trying to wander around a bit and take some photos after work and on weekends.

I haven’t been to Paris for such a long time; last time I was like 10 years old or something, so yeah very long time.
This time I’m all alone, staying in a small studio the company rented in Barb

10 Other Things You Didn’t Know About Me

The blog has been pretty serious lately, so I thought I’d do something lighter and put up part 2 of the 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Me, and make more stuff about me available for public scrutiny 😛

  1. A number of people who know me think I have multiple personalities. I think that’s an understatement.
  2. You know that movie hitch? I used to do a similar job with my friends, giving them directions and tips on how to win over the affection of girls they liked or had crushes on. And it worked.
  3. I curse and swear a lot, especially when I’m with my guy friends. I’m trying to get that under control though.
  4. When I was a teenager, I used to daydream about ruling the world. I actually still do sometimes.
  5. I have “The Lord Of The Rings” trilogy books in both French and English, but I still haven’t mustered up the courage to go through reading it all. Shame on me, I know.
  6. I don’t have any phobias. I’m only afraid of stuff you should normally be afraid of.
  7. Two movies haunted my childhood dreams “House of Wax” and “Why Me?“.
  8. I didn’t believe in marriage, and wanted to spend my whole life as a bachelor. But then I met Eman and everything changed, as you might have already noticed.
  9. I’m quite dirty-minded when I want to be. I could turn almost anything around into some dirty-minded joke.
  10. When I was younger, I desperately wanted to become a singer. The closest I got was singing at a friend’s birthday party in the Hard Rock Caf

Last Day At Work

Today’s my last day at work…
Days like this always feel weird and sad.
Weird because you’re leaving something you’ve come to know so well to venture off into a somehow unknown future, sad because you’re leaving behind a load of memories and mainly because you know you’ll be missing the people, you actually spent most of your day with for over 3.5 years, so much.

I guess it’s always the people you get to know, how they touch your life, the different relationships you build with them, the good times, and even the not so good ones, that gets to you.

Why did I take this step? Well, I guess, I just felt the time was right to move on, all the omens were right, maybe the stars were in place too or whatever else you believe in.
It just falls into my basic strategy of trying to set clearer goals for myself in life and to take the steps I see necessary to reach them.
Moving on to something else in my career life was simply one of those steps.

I’d like to thank all the guys at work for the great ride. It was great getting to know you all and to get a chance to work with every single one of you. I hope that we’ll get to carry our personal relationships well on into the future.

I’d like to thank the company for having me as part of the team. I’m proud of these years that I spent in it, the role I had and the work I did. I’m very happy to see the company growing further and going on to higher grounds.
I wish you all the best of luck.

Blogging, What Next?

I remember some time ago, on the way to a meeting with a client, a friend from work and I were talking about my blog and how I never imagined it’d get me into the World Summit on the Information Society, and then to London for the Global Voices Summit, …etc.
He said it was all great and stuff, but then asked: “But then what?”
This is a question a lot of non-bloggers ask, and it’s quite a logical question actually, I mean nothing really goes on forever, not even our passion for certain things, everything seems to move on, leave place for something else.

The question actually brings up two thoughts, which are:
– What will come next after blogging as a net phenomenon?
– What will come next for this blog?

Regarding the first point, I think it’s obvious that we’re moving more and more towards a more open, more social, more discussion oriented internet. So just like the old static website and discussion forum converged into a blog, I expect we’ll be seeing more and more communication technologies and ideas being merged to create the next big thing.
And with higher connectivity and faster connection speeds, more and more will be realizable and accessible to more people.

As for what will happen to my blog, well I’m having a great time with it now, and I don’t see myself letting go of it anytime soon.
I mean, in the end, I think I’ll always have something to write about, an opinion to share, a flag to raise, and a need to express myself. And the way I see it, this blog will exist as long as all that does.

So in response to my friend, and all those who ask this question, a blog is not something you do to get somewhere, you do it because you feel like it, because you have this certain need to. So when you blog, you’re not really thinking of what you’re going to do in the future.
Of couse there are the professional blogs and profit-oriented blogs, and those have specific goals, but other than that a blog is more or less a personal space for the blogger to write about his personal or professional thoughts, experiences and ideas.

Vote for me at Bloggies 2006

Thanks to all your nominations and to the votes of the Bloggies 2006 panel, Subzero Blue is a finalist for “Best African or Middle Eastern Weblog” for the third year in a row.

Please pass by the Bloggies 2006 site and vote for me, and don’t forget to tell all your friends to vote for me too.

It’s up to you to give Subzero Blue the award this year or not, so I’m counting on you guys.

Thanks a bunch in advance 🙂

Vote for me here: Bloggies 2006.

Just Not My Day!

You know those days when the only thing missing is to have a big red sign bouncing in front of you telling you in capital letters that “This is a shitty day!”?
Well today is one of those days…

I had to wake up early to go for this “thing” in downtown Tunis, and it turned out a complete waste of time. Blah blah blah… Ah shutup already!

Then I had to go pay my car insurance. I’m with Star Assurances, and my contract was done at this small branch in La Marsa, next to my parents’ place. I used to give my dad the money to pay it for me as it’s just across the street from their place, but this year, they closed that branch and merged it with a bigger one in the beginning of La Marsa.

Anyway, I was driving to La Marsa, minding my own business, not really speeding, or at least it didn’t feel like I was, especially at this place between Ain Zaghouan and Carrefour where the road is really wide and is made up of 4 or 5 lanes. Obviously the cops didn’t share my opinion, and they picked me up on their radar, waved me to the side, took away my driving license and gave me a speeding ticket!!!
They say the speed limit is 70Km/h there. What is it with these illogical speed limits we have sometimes? This specific place should at least have a 90 Km/h speed limit.

However, as if that wasn’t enough, I drove on to La Marsa and didn’t find the damn insurance company branch!
I know where it is, and I go exactly there, but nope, the sign is gone and nothing says where they went.
I ask their ex-neighbours and each one points me to a different direction. I drive all around La Marsa looking for them, and nothing!
I call the main branch on the phone, an answering machine tells me to hang on until someone replies, but no one does!!!

This is so damn unprofessional!!
You shut a branch, merge it with another branch, then shut that branch and move to somewhere else, and I, the paying client, am not notified about any of all this. All I get is a reminder that I have to pay!
I mean, it’s not enough that insurance is the biggest scam mankind ever created and that I personally believe it’s 100% legal theft, I also have to deal with all this unprofessionalism! Please!

So, after cursing the hell out of the world, I just go home in the shittiest mood.
I mean, basically, today on a weekend, I woke up early to go out, get a speeding ticket and then come back with a bad mood. Very nice!!