Posts filed under ‘Pop Culture’
Try Something Different this Christmas.
A friend of mine Lynn El Bizri (and if you’re an active Lebanese blogger or tweep you definitely know her) posted this status today that I just had to share because the message is wonderful:
Buy Christmas gifts from small businesses this year: from a handcraft shop, from a friend who makes unique jewellery, from the little bookshop round the corner, from the guy from your street that does everything he can to maintain his shop next to a supermarket..
Let’s give our money to ordinary people who need them, not to international tycoons and big entrepreneurs who underpay their employees and relocate their factories to the other end of the world.
If you do so, more people will be happy for Christmas.
Check out some creative suggestions of local designers, shops and boutiques below. This year, consider getting your gift items from them and let’s encourage local talent with our purchases this Christmas season (and check back here often as will keep adding to the list in the coming days):
My top picks for the season: 1. FlashBag camera case 2. Cupcake bra by Bras for a Cause ME 3. Earrings by Lylus Jewelry 4. Scarf by Viola for Sarah's Bag 5. Pin by Luanatic 6. Rings by Ctrl+Z Jewelry 7. Candle by Art Candles
* ACCESORIES *
- Ctrl+Z Jewelry by Zinab Chahine
- Nada G: Jewelry Boutique (shared by Nisrine Sabbagh)
- plastic pills (shared by We Run Beirut)
- Elsa’s J: High Fashion Silver Jewelry with Precious Stones (shared via Rouba Abou Zeid)
- Lylus Jewelry (shared by Lynn El Bizri)
- Rima K - Handmade Jewelry
- Over the Rainbow – Unique Handmade Glass Jewelry
- Satish Creations (shared by Lynn El Bizri)
- Concepts by Dima – Unique Handbags and Clutches (shared by Dima)
* CLOTHING *
- Jujule Lemonie (shared by Lynn El Bizri)
* HOME DECOR *
- Shop the Old-Fashioned Way by Layla Totah
- Lamia Saab Muhtar - Custom hand-made painted and/or mixed media gifts
- Double U As Wood: “What wood would become once married to other media…” (shared by Rouba Abou Zeid)
* GENERAL GIFT ITEMS *
- Carilou: Gift Design (shared by Marie Nakhle)
- Luana el Turk/Luanatic (shared by Marie Nakle)
- ArchArt (shared by Marie Nakle)
- Tamyras‘s 2012 Agenda (shared by Marie Nakle)
- Viola’ Line of Illustrated Bags, Prints and Postcards by Nadine Feghali
* CHOCOLATE AND YUMMIES *
- Chocolat Fée (shared by Rouba Abou Zeid)
* FOR THE KIDS *
- Dee Little (shared by Lynn El Bizri)
* GET ARTSY *
- Ceramics & More (shared by Lynn El Bizri)
- Ceramics Lounge (shared by Lynn El Bizri)
* SHOP LOCAL EVENTS *
- Fashion for a Cause‘s Christmas Sale (Dec. 2-4)
- Join Jancouz the Clown to collect and distribute toys to street children with(Dec. 15)
- “Christmas Bra-zar” for Bras for a Cause ME (Dec. 21 and 22)
- Afkart Fair: The Lebanese Designers’ Christmas Week – A semi-annual event for self-starting designers at BIEL (Dec. 16-22)
* SPECIAL: FOR AND BY PHOTOGRAPHERS *
- FlashBag – inspired by and for photographers (via Fustany.com)
- Give your friends and loved ones prints of your photos nicely framed with Pic N’Print
- Memento Photo-Boutique - print your photos in cute little books or other keepsakes.
Feel free to recommend more for this list. Spread the message and the cheer this year!
Good Night SMS
You know you’re in a relationship when you suddenly start getting (and sending) good night texts on your phone.
That’s romance for this generation’s couples and one of the small ways to show you’re thinking about that special someone in the next-to-most-intimate-way you can reach them – via their phone. No matter how silly or corny these messages are, they’ll invariably put a smile on your face. And if you don’t receive one of those messages one night, you get to wondering: Is something wrong? Is he/she ok? Are we ok?
Has our phone’s inbox become a the cupid of romance? You can say so in keeping up with technology and society’s habits. In my opinion, love texts remain somewhat more intimate than love emails yet nothing beats a handwritten love letter (feel free to call me old-school). One day when you’re old and you’ve discarded of your iPhone and Blackberry (that day will happen), all that will remain is that which can be put in your hands. Printed out love texts or emails don’t have the same sentiment as someone’s actual handwriting
For all of you that disagree and find phone texts incredibly sexy, here’s some ultra-corny good night texts to spark some romance:
I’ve gone to bed happy, i’ve gone to bed mad, and sometimes I’ve even gone to bed sad, but when I go to bed thinking of you, that’s when you know I’ve gone to bed glad!
My day may be hectic, my schedule may be tight, but I would never let the day end without saying “Goodnight”.
As you go to bed tonight,I beg the moon to give you light, telling my angels to hug you tight and make sure you will be alright. I ask the gentle breeze to kiss you goodnight!
I ran up the door, closed the stairs, said my pajamas, put on my prayers, turned off the bed, and hopped into the light, all because you kissed me goodnight! (I just realized that someone once sent me this one. Sounded familiar!)
If you find yourself in a room filled with bloody walls and thumping sounds, don’t worry – you’re just in my heart. (Kinda creepy, no?)
This generations love letters. Image Source: Gather.com
If you simply can’t get enough of these texts and want more, visit this link.
Now readers, I want to hear from you: what was the most romantic good night text you’ve ever received or sent?
Tips from an OCD Blogger
I’m a bit OCD when it comes to blogs. Granted, I’m juggling a few blogs so you may already know that, but I also follow quite a few blogs regularly and this OCD has had a chance to really develop with each blog I come across.
Any regular blogger will tell you that there are a few golden rules to follow when blogging. There’s more to blogging than simply creating a blog on wordpress or blogspot and “expressing yourself”. Fine-tune a few of the details and your blog will surely stand out and eliminate any doubt that you’re still a rookie in the blogging arena:
1. Customize, customize and customize! One of the best features of blogging platforms like wordpress is that it offers you plenty of well-designed templates to choose from. Rather than fit the mold of other blogs you’ve seen, try to see beyond what’s being offered in the template selection. Can you customize the banner? (major plus) Does it reflect the style of your writing or content you’re going to be blogging about? Even taking as little as one hour to design a snazzy header banner will make all the difference. Do your best to avoid a template that many others around you are using.
2. Let’s get social. Blogging is all about community so you want your readers to be able to tweet or share your link with others. Standard wordpress templates offer that but you need to get it running yourself by clicking through a few options in the back-end (very user-friendly, don’t worry). One feature I particularly enjoy is the ‘Publicize” feature on wordpress blogs that get your post tweeted through your account the instant you click “Publish”. It also saves you that extra step of going into Twitter to share the link with others. Some people admit they only blog for themselves and don’t care about others reading or sharing their links, but what’s the point of owning a blog then? Write in your journal or if you enjoy typing on your laptop instead, save your thoughts in a Word document. Otherwise, you might as well have your blog listed as private for your (or selected few) eyes only.
Image Source: LiveBinary
3. Where’d you get that? Blogging also comes with blogging etiquette. An unwritten rule, but something you’ll pick up on quickly when you get into blogging more regularly. If you pull an image from Google or elsewhere online, be courteous and source the link you got the image from. I tend to include an “Image Source: -” under the images I get from other websites and then link the image itself to the source. Put yourself in others’ shoes, how would you feel if someone pulled an image from your website, that perhaps you shot yourself or purchased, and didn’t reference you for it? Same for information or other content you get from somewhere else. In a way, you can call it blogging karma: Do good unto others and they’ll do good unto you.
4. The devil is in the advertising. (Just kidding, or am I?) For some reason, GoogleAds plugs in ads into my blogs whenever they’re viewed on mobile. It bugs the hell out of me, especially when the banner itself has no relevance to the post it’s appearing in. Am I getting anything in return for these ads? Nope – and they’re just added clutter on my blogs I’d rather do without. If anyone knows how to remove these ads, let me know please. Advertising can however be a choice for some bloggers. Maybe they have sponsors or an organization they’re working with that they’d like to publicize. That’s fine so long as it doesn’t get spammy. Two to three advertisements distributed across the blog are fine but not more or else you risk your blog looking like a classifieds ad.
5. You, the Blogger. When I stumble upon a new blog I enjoy, I’m always curious to find out more or connect with that person via Facebook page or Twitter. It helps to include a brief description about yourself (funny, sarcastic, minimal, personals ad-ish,.. whatever). With all the scams going on online, it’s nice to put a real person behind the blog. Widgets are a big help for building more connections with your readers and it’s just a click away to activate. I don’t know how that works in blogger and other platforms, but I’m a die-hard wordpress fan because they make everything so easy to set up in this way. If you’re into photography too, include a Flickr Widget to show your work. Your blog then becomes that central hub to connect your social media platforms in one spot.
6. Menus misuse. Remember, your blog is a BLOG, not a website. A blog with too many menu tabs makes me cringe and I get the sense it’s trying too hard to do more than it was made for. If you find yourself piling on the the tabs, find a way to distribute or reorganize your content so there’s 5-6 main menu buttons and the rest is organized by categories instead.
7. Keep it short and visual. (No puns intended.) Long blog posts are fun when you’re on the commute and have the leisure to read it from start to end, but scroll more than three times and you’ve lost your reader. When I come across a long blog post, I’ll read the first two or three paragraphs, check out the photos and maybe read the ending paragraphs (unless it’s really interesting in which case I’ll read the full post). People have short attention spans and few will read the full post if there’s too much details or it sounds like a diary entry. I also recommend posting at least one image per post, depending on if the topic allows (and the designer in me will say: have it expand the width of the post space and not a tiny thumbnail that you need to click. The less the person needs to click within your post, the better).
8. Little quirks. A few things that are also pluses in blogs is the search bar option which can help you find a post on a topic you’re interested in. Rather than have people scroll painfully through your previous posts for hours on end, they can type in the subject or the title of a post they remember reading before and it’s there. Other little quirks I enjoy are customized Twitter and Facebook Page buttons. That also fits with point #1 to give your blog that certain edge and to also reflect the theme of your blog in general. Much respect goes out to blogs without the “.wordpress.com” or “.blogspot.com” extremities. It only costs $17 a year to get a full-out domain name and will position you as more of a professional blogger at that.
Anything else I missed? Hope these tips help and feel free to share your own tips or comments below. I’ll admit I didn’t follow tip #7 on this post, but I get a bit carried away when it gets to this topic. Feel free to skim through the points and focus on the ones that catch your eye.
Happy blogging!
“Tweeting” the Knot
As Prince William and Kate Middleton were tying the knot last Friday – glamor, glitz and all – I was no where near a TV, so my best alternative was the online community. After scrolling through a few photos on various news websites (mostly to see the dress Kate wore) and reading the unavoidable Facebook updates ooh-ing and ahh-ing over the festivities, it got boring pretty quick.
Enter Twitter and one of my all-time favorite comedians Maz Jobrani, live-tweeting about the event. Below his most memorable tweets of the day:
@MazJobrani: Taking Prince William to Amsterdam for 1 last hurrah b4 the big day. Gonna see some royal stripping!
@MazJobrani: @ The Royal Wedding. Mortified! I’m wearing the exact same red jacket as William. What are the chances?
@MazJobrani: They just exchanged vows. He claimed “I Doth” and she claimed “I doth too!” I’m looking up the word “doth” 2 c what’s going on
@MazJobrani: This reception is taking waaaay too long. Can’t wait for the tequila shots. Shots! Shots! Shots! Shots! Shots! Shots!
@MazJobrani: Uh oh! William had me hold the ring to hold. Where’d I put that damn thing?
@MazJobrani: Where do I get one of those fuzzy hats that the guards r wearing? This could b the cure to my baldness!
@MazJobrani: @ Buckingham Palace. Gotta take a leak! Trying to do it with royalty. Maybe I’ll salute as I pee.
@MazJobrani: The Queen’s wearing a yellow suit and hat. My pimp in LA has that same outfit!
@MazJobrani: They just kissed. I’m strangely aroused. Is that weird?
@MazJobrani: William’s balding. Kate is hot. This is a victory for bald people all over the world! Way to go Willy!
Classic! Congrats to the married couple – and with every major wedding, may there be a funny comedian making side-jokes for the rest of us watching.
Rebranding an Icon
An iconic snack of our childhood, and Lebanese pop culture, has always been “Ras el 3abed”, the marshmellow-y chocolate covered snack with the politically-incorrect name (Ras el 3abed means negro head, a name given to its dark exterior). For years, that’s been its name but today I noticed a campaign to rebrand it as “Tarboush” (which is the fez hat of traditional Arabic folklore).
Whether the reason for the rebranding is a better social conscience, or simply a catchier name they can more easily market, I have yet to find out. For my generation and those before me, the name “Ras el 3abed” has been imprinted in our conscious when associated with this particular sweet. At least the next generation will have a different association to the name..
Do you like the new name? Share your thoughts here!
