Arabs & Camels / Canadians & Penguins

I just read this on the Where is Raed ? blog, and it made me laugh my ass off, lol…

“One of the restless questions in my head is about camels, why are camels related to Arabs in the western media? (besides the question of why my italiana girlfriend dumped me, this camel thing is really annoying me)
I mean .. it’s just like me having an image in my mind about canadians and penguin .. Hey! are you really Canadian? Cool! Do you have a penguin in your bedroom? Do you eat them?”

It’s totally true, there’s this very wrong stereotype image of arabs in the west. They imagine an arab as a turban-head with a camel, which is so damn wrong !
It bugs me a lot too, and i think that it’s a sign of how uneducated and uninformed the people who think that way are.

Religions

I think i’ve always been a very open person when it comes to religion, willing to listen and learn more about all religions and beliefs, a topic that truly interests me.

As a muslim, i find Christianity and Judaism very close to Islam, which is only normal as they are all the words of the same God, and as Islam tells us to believe in all the prophets that were sent by God including Jesus and Moses.
The only differences between these religions’ holy books and teachings are the ones that were influenced and changed with time, resulting in a number of versions of the Bible and the Torah.
Thankfully the Quran didn’t go through this versioning problem, and only one version is available, which is the very same one there was when prophet Mohamed was around.

Another religion that really interests me is Buddhism.
I’ve always been really curious about it, and last year when i visited Thailand it got me even more interested in learning more about this religion and it’s ideas and teachings.
So, i started searching online and reading books to get an idea about this religion, and well i found that most of it is very logical.
I say most not all because there are some details like reincarnation that i don’t see logical proof to in the sense of the same spirit living on, i do believe though that life carries on, and that when one life ends, life goes on and another starts, but the spirit for whom life has ended is never reborn.

Anyway back to what i was saying, i found that the main ideas and truths that Buddha reached when he was enlightened are very logical ones.
And what i found even more interesting is that they don’t contrast at all with my beliefs as a muslim, in fact they offer explanations to some of the things God has asked of us.
After all, i believe that any religion has to be logical, and there have to be reasons why we were told to do certain things and avoid others, if that is not the case then the religion just makes no sense, and why would anyone follow something that doesn’t make sense ?

I think that in the end of the day, if we put all these logical religions together, and go deep into their main concepts, ideas and teachings, we’ll find they all rotate around the same principles that point us in the direction of peace, happiness and love of all humans and beings.
So, why is it that we keep fighting among us and sticking it to religion differences, when in fact our religions are not all that different ?!

Kill Bill – Vol. 1

“Revenge is a dish best served cold !”
Now that’s the opening line of the movie, and from that early on, i knew i’d love it.

Yep, i saw Kill Bill – Vol. 1 last night, and i loved every second of it.
Tarantino is truly THE man.
His movies and style are just so unique and great.

I love what Quentin did with this movie.
You get all sorts of cool stuff going on, from moving back and forward in time, to switching to Japanese manga animation at times, to using black and white in a big combat scene, to fighting with the lights turned off, and mostly a lot of violence and gore.
The soundtrack is awesome and is a very important character in the movie.

The story is great and fun too. I’m always for good revenge stories.
All in all, this is one hell of a great movie, and i can’t wait to see Volume 2. Till then i’ll keep on watching this one over and over again 😉

Knowing Fish

One day Chuang Tzu and a friend were walking by a river. “Look at the fish swimming about,” said Chuang Tzu, “They are really enjoying themselves.”

“You are not a fish,” replied the friend, “So you can’t truly know that they are enjoying themselves.”

“You are not me,” said Chuang Tzu. “So how do you know that I do not know that the fish are enjoying themselves?”

‘Foot in mouth’ prize for Rumsfeld

Rumsfeld, the US tough guy with his trademark tough talk, received the “Foot in Mouth” prize by Britain’s Plain English Campaign for a comment he made.

“Reports that say something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know, We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don’t know we don’t know.”

Now what the hell is that supposed to mean ??!!
Speak english man !!!

The Final Decision

Last night, a new game show started on Tunisian TV, which i have to say is the best game show i’ve ever seen on Tunisian TV in my whole life.

The show is called “The Final Decision”, and it’s kind of a hybrid of “Who wants to be a millionaire ?” & “The Weakest Link”.
The grand prize is 200 Thousand Dinars, which is pretty neat, i don’t think any other Tunisian game show threw away that much money, but well i just said it they’re Tunisians, so they’re not gonna just throw that away, they’re gonna make it damn hard and frustrating to get it.

The game starts with 6 contestants who are asked a number of multiple choice questions. The person who answers right the fastest gets to give any other player a yellow card, and if he answers wrong, he himself gets a yellow card. And of course, just like in football, 2 yellow cards means they’re out of the game.
This goes on until only 2 players are left, and they move on to the next round.

In the second round, each player is joined by a partner, and they are each asked 5 multiple choice questions. Each question has a value of 40000 Dinars, and they can split that 40000 and bet it on different answers if they’re not sure.
In the end of round 2, there’s another fastest answering question that decides who moves on to the final round.

The final round is all about putting your money where your mouth is, which is very frustrating and nerve wrecking.
The contestant and his partner are seperated, and the contestant has to answer 5 multiple choice questions, betting his money on the answers he thinks are right, and losing any money he bets on a wrong answer.
The partner has only one chance to veto the contestant’s answer, and if they do, they have to answer the rest of the questions alone.

Yesterday was the first show, and a young couple won. They got out of round 2 with 160000 Dinars, and lost most of it in the final round, only winning 15000 Dinars at the end.

The questions are mostly general knowledge questions and they aren’t that hard. But then again, home spectators always think so 😛

I think it’s really great and fun, and i’m truly considering giving it a shot.
Maybe, just maybe, i could get out of it with a nice amount of money 🙂

Thikra Mohamed R.I.P

I didn’t blog about this when it happened a few days ago, as i thought it was better to let the whole thing sink in and wait for the story to become clearer.

Thikra Mohamed, or as she was called in Egypt Zekra, a female Tunisian singer living in Egypt, was shot dead on Friday by her Egyptian husband, who shot her, her secretary, her business manager and then committed suicide.

It was circulated that the husband was drunk when he committed the crimes, but recent evidence proves that the whole thing was planned in advance.
And just a look at the details of the crime confirm that; she received 26 bullets, her secretary 22, and the business manager 18 before they passed away.
And then the husband changed the gun to kill himself.
That doesn’t sound like something you just do all of a sudden just because you’re drunk, it’s obvious it was planned.
He also left his brother a letter requesting him to smuggle all his money outside Egypt and sell all his lands and flee the country.

Thikra’s corpse was flown back to Tunisia to be buried in the Sidi Yahia burial grounds.
A large group of Arab artists and Tunisian figures attended the funeral.

Thikra’s singing career was a good and successful one. She started in Tunisia and then moved to Egypt where she found true fame across the arab world.
Her tragedic death came at the height of her career life, and is a true loss for the Tunisian and Arab music scene.

Pirates of the Carribean

Watched “Pirates of the Carribean” last night at last, after hearing about how great it is from everyone and anyone, and i have to say that i agree.

I’ve never been much into pirate movies and stuff, but this one is cool and fun.

Johnny Depp is great in this one. I’ve always liked his movies and his style, but this one shows a whole other side of him, and it’s great. He’s so funny and he dominates every scene he’s in.

The story is a light and fun one, very disney-like and quite different from other pirate movies i’ve seen, maybe that’s why it did very well.

The special effects looked good too, although most of it rotated around the skeleton pirates and all.

A must-see if you’re into cool fun light movies.

I might be watching Matrix Revolutions again tonight, so my opinion could change if, and only if, i find something that was worth me re-watching it 😉
If that ever happens, i’ll post again about it 😛

Matrix Revolutions

So, i saw Matrix Revolutions yesterday as planned, and well here’s what i think.

Well, overall, i think it’s quite an ok movie, and a must see for people who started the trilogy, as this ends it all and kind of answers the questions you’ve carried on from the first 2 movies.
I do think the first 2 movies are better than this one though.

After coming out of the experience of watching Matrix 3 times and then Matrix Reloaded 5 times earlier in the year, i was awed, and it got my mind thinking about all these different possibilities and trying to find complex answers to the questions the movies threw on my back. Reading online forums and message boards only got me lost deeper into the complexity.
But this movie comes and gives us very simple answers to those questions, so simple in fact, you feel it’s stupid. I mean, for a movie with a ground-breaking idea and so much suspense and manufactered philosophy, you’d expect some truly great answers and stuff that would leave you thinking: “WOW”, “Damn ! How did they think of that ?!” or even “??!!!”. But you wouldn’t expect to be thinking : “That’s it ?!!”, “What the **** ??!” or “Oh ! How stupid !!!”.
So, story-wise, this movie made the whole thing not as magical and cool as we thought and wished it was.

No new ground-shattering special effects in this one either, just more and more of the stuff they created in the first 2 movies.
Fights, impact effects, flying (i hate it when Neo flies), …etc.
The scenes where the sentinels attack zion must have taken a lot of special effects work, and it looks good, but nothing really breath-taking.

Acting, well let’s admit it, movies like this aren’t about acting. So don’t expect much of it.

The music is more techno-like, and it’s quite good, although i didn’t pay much attention to it. I’ll try to listen out more for it if i watch the movie again.

Oh well, in short, it’s an ok movie, but well below my expectations for it.
I was wishing for something a lot more meaningful and philosophical.