Quick question

a friend pointed this out to me:

The Dutch Flag

The Luxembourgish Flag

...

THEYRE THE SAME THING!!! THE EXACT SAME THING!!! DOESENT THIS BOTHER ANYONE?!?!?

sorry, just wanted to ask.

Tags: Random, Flags, Europe, Streets of Beirut

tag test

iPod
Gravity
Streets of Beirut

copy pasted, this better work...

Live translation

im watching mehlis give a live press conference on aljazeera. the english talking is being translated into arabic on the spot via a voice over for the not-so-english savvy, as such:

Reporter 1: Will you investigate the bombing that happened after the hariri killing?
Translator: [Will you investigate the bombing that happened after the hariri killing?]

i think the translator was limited in his skills though. he continued and translated...

Reporter 2: Wann ist der Report erfolgt?
Translator: [uh...a german question...]

hahahaha nice cover. i love arabs...

Profit from pounds?

has anyone ever heard of the show "the biggest loser"? im watching it now and i think ive lost all faith in humanity. no, no...like all of it.

for those who havent seen it, its a 'game show' where overweight people are put into two groups (the 'red' and 'blue' teams) and given a rigorous diet and exercise program to help them lose weight. Sounds like a good deed, right?

Beyond wrong.

At the end of each show, the contestants are made to weigh in to see how much they lost over the week. the weight changes are added up to make up a team 'score' and to determine how much the weight the team lost all in all. from this, they determine 'the biggest loser', the team that lost the most, and give them a gourmet health meal while the 'biggest winner'(?) are forced to choose a team member to vote off. this is usually the person who looses the least weight and is hence holding the team back.

this is sick...beyond sick. people around the world are getting televised entertainment watching fat people struggle to get thin. its like racing crippled people up stairs without wheelchairs and replacing the loser's wheels with octagonal ones for a week to punish him for being 'more paralyzed than everyone else'

this is entertainment? reality tv has gone too far. and whats worse is that its actually entertaining. i would be lying to you if i said i didnt watch the whole episode to see what would happen next, would aaron lose enough weight for the blue team or would his fatness make him a failure? find out after the commercial break! and coming up next, martha stewart will show us how to cook babies for breakfast!

this world is coming to an end...

tags: Entertainment, Humanity, Television, Streets of Beirut

Arabic wisdom

some wisdom from the sands of arabia:

[my ink is black, so dont ask my to draw a rainbow]

what i think is most brilliant about it is that it is actually done in black ink, as if to say 'look what i can do with black ink, just dont ask me the impossible. ' saying "My ink is black" is not stating a shortcoming or weakness, just a situation that the artist/poet has to work with.

then again what do i know about art, im an engineer...

better than the airforce...

Yet another treasure from the past, this one from my pixel art days.

ud actually be suprised at how accurate that is.

Whats missing?

I ordered a hamburger in a restaurant in athens...this is what i got:


can you tell whats missing? this should provide you with many many fun filled seconds...

And the people rejoiced

Mehlis's report is out. We move from one aticipation to another...from waiting for the report to come out to waiting to see what will hapen next. hopefully my earlier post will be proven wrong, but mehils definatley did not draw a series of pretty pictures. oh well...maybe the next invistegation...

the report blames syrian and lebanese officials specifically, but gives few names. lahoud was mentioned, however, as having received calls from phone numbers involved in the assassination plot, giving rise to a general feeling of "Aha!" and calling for his resignation.

the presidential palace replied by saying "well, when the president receives a call, it dosent mean he will answer it neccicarily...we have alot of people in the palace you see..." brilliant rhetoric thats on the level of syria's "everything is a lie! we didnt do it!" they have the collective argumentative skills of a pinecone, and that makes me giggle.

a pine cone...not very argumentative now is it?

the immediate reactions in the streets were those of celebration. the future youth held a rally at hariri's grave last night. a friend of mine who was there described it as intense, with some new chants like "Ya lahoud, yalla nzel...hal kirseh bada rjel!" (lahoud, step down...this [presidential] chair needs a man!). nothing like political tension to rouse national creativity.

Difference between looking and reading - Arabic

saw a cool post at Impart Art - Daily called The difference between Looking and Reading. i quote:

I'd be interested to know if the same thing is true of pictographic languages,
but I'd guess that it is.

well, i decided to try and reproduce the excersise in arabic to see if its still works. its not exactly a pictographic language, but it has a non-latin alphabet, which should be fun to try. anyway here it goes...

Try to read the colors below as fast as possible:

now try to say out loud the color of the word bellow with out reading the actual word:

Mary Ann explains in the original post that anyone profecient in the language (arabic in this case) should need to make an effort to supress the tendancy to read.

my arabic isnt strong enough to rate whether or not it is as hard as the english version (im illiterate in several languages, you see). any fluent arabic speakers feel free to comment.

this should be made a meme, i think, and try to gather as many languages as it can...for scientific purposes and for the hell of it.

A massive erection

random pic from my old phone files during 12th grade:


ud think wed have been busier, what with impending IB exams coming up and all...

Hariri report is due soon

After a flailed attempt at an extension, Mehlis will be submitting his report on harriri's assassination tomorrow. I've never seen a whole nation in tense anticipation the way lebanon is now. Everyone is talking about it, from the highest minister to (this)the lowly engineering student. While no one has any idea whats in the report (those germans and their secrecy!), pretty much everyone is sure that regardless of what Mehlis says, there will be direct reactions in lebanon, and not necessarily good ones. Heres a quick (i have class in 30 min, type nasser type! )rundown of some possible scenarios:

Mehlis blames the syrians

Car bomb(s). Simple as that. The syrian remnant in lebanon loves to blow things up when the world dosent go there way. like a child with a tantrum and a supply of c4, we dont really want to upset our neighbors to the east, but stepped up lebanese security should help...maybe. based on recent events, this is the most possible outcome. lebanese would rejoice.

Mehlis blames the lebanese

by lebanese i mean the ones tied into syria. this would spark an internal problem. supporters of the blamed (sounds like a new metal band) would lash out against the rest of the country, calling them names and being big poopoo heads. violence would depend on who was blamed, since different people have different groups with different weapons. a good possibility that this can happen, although it would result in the disappointment of most of lebanon, who really really really want syria to be blamed.

Mehlis blames hezballah

bad mehlis! no pudding for you! not only is it illogical (explanation in another post), but it would result in a very very very divided and confused nation. all the lebanese are behind hezballah, and to blame them would be to blame the lebanese themselves. i for one would be offended by it, as would just about everyone i know. the danger here is not in what would happen internally (we would probably reject the report and go about our own business), but what the world would want done to hezballah, and how they would react (again, in another post). i was worried this would happen for a while, but it seems now unlikely they would be blamed.

Mehlis report is 'inconclusive'

a new investigation will have to be started into Mehlis's assassination.

Mehlis draws a series of pretty pictures

We would all smile and say things like "oh, Mehlis...that Jokester!" this would be the least violent, and, as compared to the above scenarios, the most desirable.

So basically, we are in for a ride that is "interesting" to Say the least. But as always, I am illogically optimistic about this country, so lets just hope that Mehlis has his crayons ready.

The first of many (?)

12:30am...'Whose line' just finished...and here i am. I seem to have a fetish for nocturnalism (a word?).

First post in my blog. Hopefully, the first of many. If this is like anything else in my life, however, this post should be it. so enjoy it. im serious, read it a few times if you like, this might be the last post.

Eventually, i will fix the layout, the formating, the design etc. its not that easy for me, you know, being artistically constipated and all. For now, revel in the warmth of defaultness that is my blog. i can pretend that the content makes up for the design...then i can cry...

well, just in case i do ass out of this, ill make the first post interesting. heres a shirt i found in a 'store' in 'greece':

hahaha i love piracy. thats all for tonight. goodnight (rhyme! yes!)