Isn’t this picture really gorgeous? You can see the Abu Darwish Mosque, which I had no idea we could see from our rooftop. What do I know I guess… Amman is constantly proving to be smaller than I think. It’s amazing how much snow there is on the mountains, and this is East Amman, which isn’t as high as West Amman.
How long do you think my car needs to get out of this mess?
Snow men we came across on our walk:
I’m very, very, very excited about the newest toot additions, and I feel really good about them. This week, toot has grown new branches of different colors and flavors that I am absolutely looking forward to enjoying!
Politically, we have several new Lebanese blogs that will give us interesting thoughts in these hard times, as well as the blogs of several young Palestinians with “different” perspectives.
Geographically, we also added more blogs from Arab countries that we thought were underrepresented in our toot tree so this time round, we have more Arab African blogs, and more Syrian blogs.
Culturally, and this is of course my favorite bit, we have expanded toot in a way I never thought possible. The amount of culture-centric blogs that have come up in the Arab world in the past year is just wonderful! In toot, we added several design blogs, several advertising blogs, a fashion blog, an Arabic art blog, and a caricature blog. How awesome is that?! Life is good.
Finally, we also have handfuls of very interesting blogs. Some of my personal favorites include Billa Faransia, The Arab Observer, and Z-District.
But these are just a few of the new toot blogs, for a complete list check out our post on toot. So exciting! My toot resolution for 2008 is to make toot more interesting and more active, so keep your eyes open for a hopefully tooteriffic 2008.
Events are being canceled because the weather-people are forecasting a weekend of snow in Amman. My gut tells me it won’t, at least not anymore than it did last Tuesday (ex. maskhara).
What do you think?
From the Jordan Times:
On Tuesday, the depression will deepen and start building up, Abu Hazim told The Jordan Times. Gradually, the depression will bring snowfall, which is expected to intensify during evening hours. Temperatures will dip well below their annual average of this year, which stands at 12ºC, to 3ºC during the day and -1ºC overnight in the capital. On Wednesday, the polar air mass will continue to affect the country with increasing chances of heavy snowfall. The depression is expected to continue affecting the country on Thursday.
The JMD warned citizens of further low visibility due to heavy fog formation. With the depression and snowfall nearing, the Civil Defence Department (CDD) urged citizens to take precautionary measures during the expected blizzard by purchasing supplies of fuel and food ahead of time. The department also warned motorists, particularly in hilly areas, to drive carefully and not to venture out in case roads get slippery because of snow.
Cute.
Anyway, check out these absolutely gorgeous pictures of the frost spell that hit the country last week, from Rani the Brainy. Check out his blog for more picures.
Open Firefox window. Open AndFarAway tab. Ctrl+R. Nothing. Work a little.
Open Firefox window. Open AndFarAway tab. Ctrl+R. Nothing. Check my email.
Open Firefox window. Open AndFarAway tab. Ctrl+R. Nothing. Stare blankly at window.
Open Firefox window. Open AndFarAway tab. Ctrl+R. Nothing. Make more coffee.
Open Firefox window. Open AndFarAway tab. Ctrl+R. Nothing. Work some more.
Open Firefox window. Open AndFarAway tab. Ctrl+R. Nothing. Bitch to anyone who listens.
Open Firefox window. Open AndFarAway tab. Ctrl+R. Nothing. Start screaming uncontrollably.
That was exactly what the past 3 days were like for me, a case of Ctrl+R OCD, thanks to Yahoo’s unreliable webhosting. The moment my blog rendered after a Ctrl+R, I felt one of the best feelings ever. I never thought I’d be that kind of person, but what do you know.
Anyway, back up and running I guess, unless the gods of servers decide to change their minds, and then… I’ll probably have a heart attack. Otherwise, thanks to everyone who emailed, the guys at the office for putting up with my constant nagging, Ibrahim for letting me steal his blog, Tim and Hal for being super nice, Naseem for making me feel normal about my withdrawal symptoms, and my parents for freaking out along with me.
Wow, that feels like an Oscar speech. I haven’t watched a SINGLE Oscar nominated-movie for the year.
The Rose Period signifies the time when the style of Pablo Picasso’s painting used cheerful orange and pink colours in contrast to the cool, somber tones of the previous Blue Period. It lasted from 1904 to 1906. Harlequins, circus performers and clowns appear frequently in the Rose Period and will populate Picasso’s paintings at various stages through the rest of his long career. [link]
Thank you for giving me an art high.
… capped bandwidth.
you have a deadline and you need images and you can’t browse the net for the life of you because even the most simple websites cannot load because of the stupid internet connection ra7 anjilet somone should make capped bandwidth illegal
urghhhhhhhhhhhhhh
I think I have a thing for Super Mario. These cupcakes look so amazing to me that I even googled a marzipan recipe.
Related:
Where does Mario go when he dies?
Donkey Kong Post-It Extravaganza
The coolest thing I’ve ever seen
The phone rang, and I groaned. It was 8:00 o’clock and my alarm was set for 8:30. I tried to ignore it but it rings again. I finally decided to pick-up, and I get a “Roba, get out of bed and look out of your window!”
What?
No one said anything about waking up to a snowy Amman. Quite the contrary actually…the minimum forecasted was 4 degrees Celsius, and the horribly dreary cold front that hit Amman during the past two weeks was supposed to be getting the hell out of town.
Anyway, lured by promises of hot chocolate and marshmallows, I ended up braving the snow drive and going to the office. Snow is always welcome I guess. People on watwet were going crazy with excitement. Surprises are starting to grow on me.
Taste 
Style
Vibes
Price
Parking
Staff
Moose: Long gone are the days when Jollibee was our ultimate treat as highschool kids. I remember in 1995 when Qays and I had its coupons, and we stuffed our faces with two family meals- each - followed by a one-on-one full-court basketball game. Of course, the result was a tremendous amount of puke in the school’s sink.
That’s exactly the feeling I got when we walked into Jollybee 12 years later.
Roba: It was 10:30 PM on a weekday. We got a great idea. Let’s go to Jollibee. Jollibee? I haven’t been to Jollibee in over 13 years, and I felt a dose of nostalgia that rendered the idea fantastic. The boys all agreed to tag along, as they were hungry (like usual).
When we walked in, the whole place reeked like old engine oil, and everything from the staircase to the floors was coated with a layer of grease. Surprisingly, the place was crowded for 11:00 PM on a weekday, and it had a lot more families and single guys than the Burger King across the street. Even more surprisingly, Jollibee is more expensive than Burger King, with the average meal costing around 5 JDs.
The interior of the place was crazy. Nothing has changed since I was last there- the same yellow and purple seating, the same wall murals, the same arcades. Yeah, everything was beat and greasy, but not a thing was moved out of place, not even the Arby’s tables and the Wendy’s posters with a cut-out Jollibee logo glued on in place of that of Wendy’s.
Although I’m usually gutsy with food, I decided to skip it and just rely on the boys’ tastebuds, and I was very thankful that I did when I saw the boys’ meals. The boys though claim the food wasn’t bad at all, but I’m not sure if we can rely on their them… they are teenage boys afterall.
Location: Shmesani, across from the police hut at the end of Thaqafeh Street.
Reservations: no
Phone: 568-8006
Recommended Item: Not the fries.
The biggest jolly smile and the most unsatisfiable need to fatten us all up. Lsaineh, zalabyeh, 7ali snoonak, kubet roz, za3matoot, and a plethora of other Palestinian “exoticness”.
The Palm… The iPod house… The world… and a clone of the city of Lyon.
Coming soon to a city a few hours away: a clone of the city of Lyon, France on a 700-acre plot,
roughly the size of the Latin Quarter of Paris, and will contain squares, restaurants, cafes and museums, replicating its cultural institutions.
There will also be a football training centre run by the Olympique Lyonnais
team, prompting dreams in Dubai of the little-known national XI qualifying
one day for the World Cup, and a
Paul Bocuse Institute, like the one in Lyons
named after the hallowed chef, in which students will study hotel management
and gastronomy. I guess the France’s recent smoking ban in public places
will not be exported though :)
This idea was the mindseed of an obsession of Saeed al-Gandhi, a
Dubai businessman, who apparently fell in love with Lyon while strolling along the river-bank.
One of those few friends you’d ever get to love like a brother, religious connotations aside. O nezel 3al dabkeh il lawee7 il shater…
Sami. We all miss you. It sucks that you couldn’t come this year too. Mark your calendar for late June, early July.
[self-portrait by Aziz Amoura]
“You are not looking! You can’t see what you need to see. LOOK DEEPLY. CONCENTRATE on what you’re seeing. It is amazing how you can’t see anything! How did you imagine those ugly gray scribbles over there? Open your eyes, open them wide, use them like you’re using your soul. See before you set your pencil on the paper! It is not about the pencil and the paper, it is about your eyes. It is about feeling with them. It is about seeing. Efta7i 3eineiki!”
Aziz Amoura taught me how to see images with my soul, and for that, I owe him much.
Four Lebanese jailed for rude commentary on Facebook
Four Lebanese university students have been jailed for a week for making crude remarks on the Facebook social networking site about the singing talents of a woman they met at a party, media reports said on Thursday. Local newspapers reported that the students, all male, were ordered to be detained on January 10 after the young woman’s father objected to the authorities in the western town of Zahle. The four were charged with slander and “violating public morality” and were ordered to be held in preventive detention despite objections by human-rights groups.
