Bruce Almighty Again

Last night I watched Bruce Almighty again, this time in English, and God what a difference there was.
When i first saw this movie last year in French, i thought it was funny, but yesterday it was so so much funnier and cooler.
I just love the part when Bruce is making a fool out of Evan (the news anchor) during the news bulletin.

I hate watching movies in a language other than their original one because so much is lost in translation, especially the little bits and pieces that make all the difference.
For example, you’d have a side-splitting hilarious movie in English, and then you watch it in French and it’s just a mediocre movie which is sometimes not even funny at all.
Biggest example for me is Dumb & Dumber which got me rolling on the floor in laughter when i saw it in English, but was rather boring in French.

Something else that is lost in translation is the movie title itself, and it really gets on my nerves.
French translated movie titles for example are so bad and sometimes even plain stupid. And to make it even worse sometimes they’ve got nothing to do with the movie’s original title or subject.
What is even weirder is that sometimes they don’t really translate the title, they just make up another English title for it, I just don’t get the point in that.

I’ll try to put together a list of badly translated movie titles to post here soon and you’ll see what I mean.

Complete History of Tux, The Linux Penguin

Just came across a cool site detailing the history of Tux (The Linux penguin).

Why a penguin ?
How was it created ?
And every other question is answered.
It’s quite funny and cool.

Here’s a funny part that Linus wrote describing the penguin he wants for a logo:

… So when you think “penguin”, you should be imagining a slighly overweight penguin (*), sitting down after having gorged itself, and having just burped. It’s sitting there with a beatific smile – the world is a good place to be when you have just eaten a few gallons of raw fish and you can feel another “burp” coming.

Check out the complete history of Tux.

Joe CHAMPS

After a tip from a friend at work who seems to share my love for delicious fast food, my wife and I went to the newly opened Joe CHAMPS, an American style Restaurant & Bar in Les Berges du Lac on Friday.

I have to agree that the food is great, the setting is pretty cool, the atmosphere nice and the prices acceptable.
We truly enjoyed being there and the meals we had.

This place is already on my favourite places to go for food in Tunis, and i have a feeling i’ll be going there quite often, especially whenever i miss my beloved Burger King double whoppers 😉
They have a yummy Double-Double that fills that gap 😛

Tunisia 2004 : The Quarter Finals

So, the quarter finals stage of the African Cup of Nations hosted in Tunisia is over, and there are only 4 teams left now.

On Saturday, Mali played against Guinea and won as expected (2-1), moving on to the semi finals. Mali’s team is one of the best teams in this competition, and has a lot of chances for winning the cup.

Also on Saturday, Tunisia played against Senegal in what was a good and scary match to watch.
Attack after attack, counter-attack after counter-attack, and a lot of lost chances from both sides end up with a beautiful goal from Tunisia through the head of Jawhar El Mnari giving Tunisia a precious victory (1-0) passing it to the semi finals.

Sunday witnessed another two matches between Nigeria and Cameroon and then between Algeria and Morroco.
Nigeria won over Cameroon (2-1) and Morroco defeated Algeria (3-1).

It’s a shame though that the Morroco vs. Algeria match, which was a good game, was ruined by Algerian hooligans who went mad and let loose in the stadium and outside of it.
Nowhere near English hooligans, but really bad anyways.

So, this next Wednesday, the semi finals will be taking place and Tunisia will be playing against Nigeria, and Morroco against Mali. Both very interesting and hard matches.

My expectations ?
I expect Mali will win over Morroco and I wish that Tunisia defeats Nigeria.
Nigeria is a strong team, but not as strong as it was before, and if the Tunisian team put their minds and feet to it, they can win.
So, it’s up to the Eagles of Carthage (as they’re being called) to carry through the Tunisian hopes and dreams.

Dumbest tech moments in 2003

Here are some of the dumbest tech moments in 2003 as compiled from the Business 2 dumbest moments in business list.

  • The PC in the WC.
    On April 30, Microsoft U.K. issues a press release touting a new product called the iLoo, an Internet-enabled toilet equipped with a Wi-Fi broadband connection, a plasma flat screen, a waterproof keyboard, and sponsored toilet paper festooned with Web addresses.

     
  • Network Problems
    In October, three and a half years after buying Network Solutions for $21 billion, VeriSign sells its dotcom-registration business for $100 million.

     
  • Please don’t press shift
    After SunnComm Technologies rolls out new CD copy-protection software in September, a Princeton student figures out how to disable it. The devious hack: holding down the “Shift” key.

     
  • Rejected but welcome
    In February, Cornell University sends out an e-mail to incoming freshmen that begins, “Greetings from Cornell, your future alma mater!” The message is sent to all 1,700 students who applied for early decision, including the 550 who’ve been rejected.

     
  • Party like it’s Yom Kippur
    In August, online “social planning destination” Evite sends an apology to its users for having cited Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement, as a “reason to party” in an earlier e-mail newsletter.

     
  • Tiny, tinier, gone
    After years of bombarding Web surfers with annoying pop-up ads, wireless camera maker X10 files for bankruptcy in October, listing debts of more than $10 million. Among the parties stiffed: AOL, Google, Yahoo, and AdvertisementBanners.com, which won $4 million in a lawsuit against X10 shortly before the bankruptcy filing.

     
  • America Offline
    In September, less than three years after AOL “acquired” Time Warner, the board of AOL Time Warner decides to drop AOL from the company’s name and change its ticker symbol from AOL back to the original TWX.

     
  • Make way
    Despite claims that it “allows people to go farther and move more quickly anywhere they currently walk,” Segway finds few buyers for the $4,000 Human Transporter scooter in its first year on sale after it’s banned for use on sidewalks by local governments from San Francisco to Key West. In June, its “self-balancing” claims are also put to the test when photos of George W. Bush “riding” a Segway begin circulating on the Internet.

     
  • Just peeking
    “We looked at a document in the public domain. It’s not some protected preserve with lots of protected content.” Larry Lunetta, an executive at security startup ArcSight, claiming that his firm did nothing wrong after an employee was caught red-handed poking around in password-protected files on a competitor’s Web site.

     

My Everyday Places

The other day I was thinking about my life, I tend to think a lot actually, and I realized that my life these days revolves around certain pre-defined places.

At any given moment in time, there’s a 90% possibility I’ll be at one of the following places:

  • Work in Charguia 2
  • Home in Diar Soukra
  • Champs Disques at Centre Kenzet in Les Berges du Lac
  • Carrefour (and for even higher probability: near the CD/DVD/Computer sections)
  • My parents’ place in La Marsa
  • Habib Bourguiba street in downtown Tunis

The other 10% I’m either out of Tunis alltogether, at some restaurant, visiting someone, or wherever else.

I think I certainly need to add more places to that list 😛

Enough about Janet Jackson already

I’ve really had enough about Janet Jackson and her boob flash at the Super Bowl.
Wherever i go online, all i find is more and more talk and pics about Janet and her tits.

What is it with people ?
What’s so disturbing in an accidental boob flash ?
Movies, TV ads, magazines and the internet always show women’s breasts intentionally, but no one ever complained.

Little kids were watching ?
So ?
Do you really think that’s the first time they’ve seen one ?
With all the movies, satellite channels, internet sites, …etc
For god’s sake, they can even see them in the streets if they know where to look 😛

Of course, i don’t think it’s a good thing to have some singer flash her boob on live television, but it happened, she said it was accidental, she said sorry, Justin Timberlake said sorry, that’s it, move on, no need for such a big fuss.

Exposure, Voyeurism, Stalking…

Something that comes to my mind quite often is how much some people expose themselves on their personal blogs.
They talk about so many aspects of their everyday lives, their thoughts and so much more, and it’s all so normal. They know that anybody and everybody can read it, and yet it satisfies them to write it and know that someone is out there reading it.

And then i look at it from the reader point of view, and i realize that we all sort of have this hidden voyeur inside of us, and that we like reading about and going into other people’s lives and thoughts whether it’s through a blog, biography, movie or whatever else.
It’s so normal to us.

Another thought that arises though is: If a blog reader becomes a frequent and loyal reader to a blog, couldn’t that somehow be considered as stalking ?

Will there be a day when we hear of some blogger getting a restraining order against a blog reader to stay away from his blog because of that reader stalking him ?

You never know, huh ?
In this weird world, everything is possible.

PS: Don’t worry, you can keep coming back to this blog as often as you wish, i won’t be taking you to court for it 😉
PS2: This blog’s title should sure get some sex-surfers to pass by here, don’t you think ? 😛 Won’t they be dissapointed, lol…

Mad Driving & Crazy Pedestrians

This is really killing me…
Everyday, on the streets, i’m faced with millions of mad drivers, people who look like they’ve just escaped from a mental hospital and who have one and only one goal in mind: to crash their cars into whatever obstacle in front of them.
I don’t get it. How did these people get driving licenses ? Why are they allowed to be out there on the streets ?
They’re psychos for god’s sake.

And the pedestrians ?
Oh please, i don’t want to even remember the pedestrians !
It seems they’re badly on something, sort of in a spiritual high, so high in fact they don’t even think of or fear death.
They throw themselves into the middle of a highway without even caring to look and just walk across so slowly, as if they were walking down the aisle on their wedding day, and should you even dare to honk your horn you’ll get one hell of a look and a long list of swearing to follow.

The roads are becoming an everyday hell that i have to pass through everyday. And sometimes i just barely resist the temptation to simply let go and bring my Grand Theft Auto game-playing skills to reality 😛
Now that would be a blast 😉