The One With The Apple Tree

8 08 2008

Posted By Yousef

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Neat Photoshop Trick

5 08 2008

Posted By Yousef


^Click on the picture for a bigger version. Would make a nice wallpaper, don’t you think?

Google “photoshop actions” and read about them. Great and easy to use for these types of nice outcomes.

P.S. Labeeba, those are your floweres :)



Le Carrousel

3 08 2008

Posted By Yousef

My father used to take us to this restaurant when I was a kid. Back then I didn’t care much for staying in the restaurant, I was more interested in the swings outside.

The place was run by a nice old lady, her and the cook were the only 2 people working there. Now the old lady has left and her daughter took her place. We went on friday and were greeted by the Chef, he showed us to our table, gave us the menus, brought the drinks, cooked the dishes, presented them and gave us the check!

The dishes are amazing in this little place. They’re very simple and not a whole lot of choices are there to choose from, but from my experience, you cannot go wrong with their limited variety, well.. if you’re going to order a goose liver or a monkey’s feet thats another issue.


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Le château d’Étrembières

3 08 2008

Posted By Yousef


^Click on it for a bigger version.

This castle or château as they call em here in france is not so far away from our place, its less than 10 minutes away by car, and yet this was the first time we tried to take a closer look.

I like old buildings and the history behind them. I looked this castle up in google and it turned out to be older than what I thought. It was built in 1328 and owned by the Compey family of Geneva, it was passed to other owners later. In 1589 it was taken by force by the troops of Geneva who entered the Savoie region, till 1606. it is owned by a farm now.

Castle’s Location.



Aix Les Bains

31 07 2008

Posted By Yousef


^Click on the picture for a bigger version.

Aix Les Bains is a beautiful and quiet place in france and it overlook one of the most picturistic lakes I’ve seen. The first time I ever been there was when Mom insisted we go see the place where the pasha (of an old egyptian movie) supposedly spent his summers. The pasha had a really good taste, I liked the place a lot.
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Self-Service Machines at Mcdonald’s

21 07 2008

Posted By Yousef

Forget the APM post we want this machine instead to be in every Mcdonald’s in Kuwait. I would’ve loved using the machine that day instead of waiting inline for over 10 minutes. I don’t get it, why was there a line and lots of people waiting when they could’ve easily used the machines? I would have, had I spotted them before placing my order.



Supermarche Riadh

17 07 2008

Posted By Yousef

Spend as much time as you like trying to look at different faces and places, but the sooner you realized the better that you can never escape the gulfies (khalejeyeen) and their influence.



APM?

16 07 2008

Posted By Yousef

I saw this Automated Pizza Machine (APM?) the other day and thought its really a good and practical idea. You can select the kind of pizza you want then insert the money and in 4 minutes you’ll receive your order. The machine was attached to a Pizzeria restaurant and although the restaurant was closed at the time I passed by, it did not stop serving customers.

How come this machine is not in every corner in Kuwait yet?



The Hijab is Targeted

14 07 2008

Posted By Yousef

I just read an interesting article on one of my favorite blogs, intlxpatr’s blog, the article is taken from BBC news and it says that a veiled Muslim woman was denied citizenship in france coz she, allegedly, practices “radical” islam.

Guys and Girls, Tell me, enlighten me please, Isn’t this story and countless other stories where we read that girls are not allowed to wear Hijabs to schools in certain european countries are prime examples of pure hatred and discrimination?

If I wear to say the N word I would’ve been called a racist, if I wear to say women belonged in the kitchen I would’ve been shunned by women and most men, if I were ever to say, God forbid, AC Milan suck and Qadsiya rules, I would’ve been assassinated by Milan fans. We’re always called out, without tolerance, always stopped mid sentence when something wrong is about to be said. Yet, we see the same self righteous people publicly displaying their hypocrisy without being called out often enough.

France, being the country that it is, which was responsible for so many constitution and has influence on most of the world’s constitutions as well, I think it the country I hate the most for being so hypocrite and racist. I googled and found that the french people are against the veil for 2 main reasons, the reasons are:

1-Wearing the veil symbolizes a woman’s submission to men.
2-women who wear the veil display their religious and community affiliation, which harms the unity.

My reply, respectively, to any person who believes in those 2 reasons:

1-Denying any woman education coz she wears a veil would make her even more submissive to men, coz she’ll end up with no education and no personal freedom to practice her faith, her choice of clothing and the school she wants to join.

2-So, by this reasoning, Unity will only be enforced by discriminating against minorities and their personal beliefs? is this some sort of an oxymoron? or just plain ignorance & stupidity?

This video say it best.

“Freedom of religion is guaranteed in France by the constitutional rights set forth in the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.
However, in recent years, some legislation and government actions were taken against some groups considered to be dangerous or criminal. Officials and associations fighting excesses of such groups, justified these measures by the need to have appropriate legal tools and the need to fight criminal organizations masquerading as legitimate religious groups. Critics contended that those actions unfairly targeted minority religions, jeopardized freedom of religion, and were motivated by prejudice.” - from wikipedia

Sure, yeah, now I understand their stance on the Hijab, I was so out of line with this post, coz you see.. France is a big nation that should put it’s national security and it’s people’s safety first, and those little school girls wearing the Hijab can be very dangerous! don’t be deceived by the cute faces, those girls are a threat to their national security! especially with their little scarfs on! they can smuggle weapons of mass destruction and nobody would be able to tell! You don’t want to happen, now do you!?



Foret Noir At BAUD

8 07 2008

Posted By Yousef

When I first discovered foret noir, or black forest, the cake (duh), I was not so fond of it. What is there to like anyway? it is supposed to be some kind of a chocolate cake that doesn’t taste quite like chocolate, it has this sour syrup that everybody on this earth hates with a vengeance, and its covered with this thin layer of cheap whipping cream (the ones I tried are cheap) then covered again with something that is supposed to look and taste like chocolate flakes. It is hatable. Almuhaissin, I think, is one of the main reasons why I’ve always hated the black forest, the other reason being the egyptian movies and the way they pronounce it’s name; belack foorest.

Anyway. I discovered this AMAZING cafe (actually, I didn’t discover anything. Mom took me to this cafe 2 years ago and made me try their foret noir) their foret noir is nothing like almuhaissin’s! its nothing like any other black forest i have ever tasted. First of all they got it right and won major points for cutting that sour syrup out of the recipe, then they scored even more points for including a chocolate paste (is it called paste? its a layer of melted chocolate) that works perfectly with the cake, very subtly sweet, it adds this whole other dimension to the otherwise boring cake and it kind of redefines the cake. Then there is the award winning whipped cream layer which takes it to a new level.


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