Adleih Roundabout

As many of you know, I suffer a major case of road rage... I have near death experiences driving, almost everyday, and the 30-45 minutes drive to work, although not too long by some standards, is actually one of the factors why I moved to a house closer to where I work. 

Anyways, I realize that some drivers are pure jack asses who should be gunned down (and also the people who gave them their driving license and their cars should be gunned down); however, it has also come to my attention, mostly due to the fact that I have so many friends in the civilized world, that there is a substantial lack of knowledge of basic rules of driving. When people start driving in Dubai, they discover that there are traffic laws that did apply in Lebanon that they never knew about. This can be attributed to many reasons, such as if the law is not enforced, I shouldn't follow it, and hence I shouldn't care to know it or be scared of it. It's also due to the fact that many people actually have gotten their driver's license by bribing the dudes at the test center. 

PANIC!

The Lebanese people, I am realizing, are an adrenaline junkie people(s)!!!
We can't just live our lives like normal human beings, which isn't that surprising considering there's nothing normal about us, but I'm starting to wonder really what is wrong with us...


(Or maybe, I should just NOT go there!! Can of worms anyone?!?!)

So I postponed writing a post about New Year's eve's soothsayers until it was chronologically obsolete, but today another topic re-opened the opportunity for me to write it. 

New Year's Resolutions

No I am not one of my uber cool friends that keep saying that new year's day is just another day and that there is no reason to highlight it as anything more special than it is: yet another day. I'm just not that cool!

Life is broken down into phases: birth, school (sub-divided), uni, job, pre-marriage, post-marriage, the twenties, the thirties, etc, etc... And just like a car's steering wheel, every so often we need get revised and re-calibrate! A year is a perfect unit of time to do so!
To that end, it also helps to reflect and realize that you have to set certain goals to achieve. Some will be forgotten; some may take more than a year to achieve, but you have to set goals in your life!! 

And that my friends brings me to my 2012 resolutions!!! Yes! I am inking them on my blog for people to see and to call me on them! And I am also sharing this post on Facebook to get as much ass kicking as possible if/when I don't commit to them!

So here goes:
Resolution number 1: BE MORE PUNCTUAL
Those who know me are rolling on the floor now in disbelief... I admit this will probably be the hardest resolution to implement. My team will probably the people who abuse this one the most against me.

Resolution number 2: Be more rigorous with my gym routine
This will include documenting progress and doing more weight training (v.s. cardio classes) and attempting to watch what I eat and drink. I've been working out for almost seven years, but I am so inconsistent that it barely shows.

Resolution number 3: TomorrowLand
Everyone's saying good luck getting tickets! I'm scared of not getting them! 

Resolution number 4: Not shoot self at thirtieth birthday (12/12/12) and instead have a kick ass party!

Resolution number 5: Set a realizable goal for advancement in 2013. 
I moved from Management Consulting into IT, and grew within my company. However some things there don't satisfy my needs; if they continue to be that way, I will need to leave. The question is where to? Am I doing an MBA? Master's in HCI? Going back to consulting?! I need to set a plan and 2012 will be the year to draw it up!

Resolution number 6: Blog more often!

So those are mine. What are yours? Come on: set them, write them down and look at them every now and then and ask someone to harass you about committing to them! 

Mecanique & the Unpaid Tickets

As is customary, I get the thrill of paying my Mecanique road/car tax in December. 

So this year, avoiding the rush that I faced last year, when I procrastinated and paid in the last week of the year when all the Lebanese decide to do so as well, I paid my tax during the first week of the month.

And I was surprised.... because it worked!!!

Now I know, it sounds weird to think that PAYING taxes wouldn't work, but my wonderment stems from the fact that I have three outstanding tickets to pay. Two of those are speeding tickets and one is one of those yellow tickets that you find on your windscreen and you use to clean the mirrors with before throwing it in the nearest Sukleen barrel. 

Speeding Tickets

Now I know many of you hear me complain, especially the ones that haven't met me and don't know that I am in fact a happy go lucky cheery person (Yes I am, believe it), but I do believe in citizenship and I do believe that despite Lebanon's many flaws, you need to be a good citizen to attempt to make this country better. 

So one would ask, then why didn't I pay my tickets?!

Here's why:

Ticket number 1: See below.

Ticket number 2: On March 14, 2011, I was in BROUMMANA... My company had rented out an hotel there for some team activities and workshops and lessons in stuff like not wearing white socks (money well spent btw boss). I remember during the breaks that day that we'd go to the TV and watch the mostly Future Movement demo and Saad Haririr's strip tease!! Btw, that's hot! After that, I went home. Those wondering, I live in Jnah, next to TSC and the newly opened BHV. I can GUARANTEE YOU that I have enough brain cells not to drive from Broummana to Jnah using any routes that go through Jounieh. And yet somehow, the above image says that I got a speeding ticket in Jounieh. Also, when Minister Baroud left office and the other guy took his place, he suspended the speeding radars because apparently 65,000 tickets were issued in erratum! And that is why I decided not to bother paying the first ticket, nor the second ticket, and figured I'd contest them when it comes time to pay my Mecanique, IF they prevented me from paying it! They didn't!

Ticket number 3: I was parked in Monot, in one of those parking meter designated areas, and it was late at night!! SO, we deduce that I was parked in a legal parking space! There was that stupid yellow line that the police use when they want to seal off an area, but that line had no paper stapled on it, as is the custom from our technically (and other things) degenerate ISF. So I figured it could be left over yellow tape from the days of yore. It wasn't. When I got back, I found a ticket. Of course I was so pissed off, I just shoved it in the car and never gave it a second thought!

Now, while I contest the above tickets and think that the process with which I got them was wrong, I also recognize them as lost revenue; this is money that could have gone to the governments' accounts, along with thousands like me, but didn't, thus contributing to the great government deficit that we have. How do we solve the deficit? Borrow or raise taxes, both of which will harm me too!

And yet, in the manual processes of the government and in light of the inexistence of any e-government portal, holes exist and people like me, whether right or wrong get away with not paying their taxes. 

And yes I am not worried about the ISF finding this. I remember that when bloggers were arrested for "insulting" fakhamto, that that happened because they blogged in Arabic! No need for worry!! :)

Lebanese & Proud

So several things have happened over the span of the last week relating to Lebanon as a nation.
(And if you're saying thank God this isn't another airport/travel post, then I understand)
Firstly there was that whole Jeita thing. Our cave/grotto/dunnothedifference was nominated by a privately owned non-UNESCO endorsed company to be one of the "new seven wonders" of the world. Now if like Harvard, you don't need certifications to boost your self confidence and your actual ranking, then you're better off, but Jeita and the Lebanon felt the need; and we went nuts with it. Phones, social media channels, and even advertising campaigns were going all out to support voting for Jeita. A guy or two went further to fabricate lies that voting (via SMS) was now free and people started sharing that news on Facebook and Twitter to increase  voting. I did my part by sending two or three SMSs figuring it couldn't hurt to win this thing, but alas we lost. On announcing the loss, there was seriously a national feeling of torment. People were as disappointed as they were eager that we win before the results.

But we got over it a couple of days later!

And got what I can only call the ridiculousness of our political system manifested in the fight that broke out on live TV between an anti-Syria MP and the head of a pro-Syrian party. I won't even BOTHER linking the video, gone viral, on my blog for fear of stooping and desecrating it. For those that didn't see it, the pro-Syrian* guy was offended because a figure "divine" to him was insulted. Now I'm not sure if the guy was a Christian or a Muslim, but I'm pretty sure if the anti-Syrian MP said Jesus and/or Mohammed were liars (which he called Assad) then the pro-Syrian MP wouldn't have had the same reaction; the reaction was throwing a glass of water** and an ashtray at him, calling him and his mother a few names, and getting up to start a fist fight. #Bless. The next day, I got to work, started my laptop and did what every workaholic does: log in to the Facebook. The video of the fist fight had gone viral and was shared a staggering TWENTY FIVE TIMES which in my news feed is a BIG thing. Our political class yet again disgraced us, but the best thing about it was the united sense of loathing that could have been easily quantified on the social networks. No one was saying it was his fault or that's fault or he started it or whatever. Everyone was condemning both as children who made fools out of themselves. And of us. Apparently we made international news. Again.

Then that day, things changed.

Our Lebanese team was playing a World Cup qualifier match against the very mighty South Korea. And we won. Before that, everyone was wishing the Lebanese team the best of luck and after that people exploded with joy. As did I. I was quite proud especially knowing that the South Korean team is a tough one to beat. After going nuts in the office (and having one of the worst days productivity wise) I realized that in fact we didn't qualify to the 2014 World Cup. But apparently we are significantly closer!

Anywho...

The point is, these occasions above gave us the chance to see the Lebanese united as one and not divided into sects and/or political parties. It proved that we could all get behind our country and showed, or at least I choose to believe, that the Lebanese are ever so slightly starting to get sick of the political class governing us. I know that all it would take is a little bit of mobilization and we'll be divided in twain again, but one can hope for the best.

At least of my 644 friends on Facebook, it looks promising!

*Pro-Anti Syrian = Pro/Anti Syrian REGIME
**Please do NOT comment if you're going to be saying that no Alloush threw the glass of water cause the water direction was the other way. This is not significant to the post and I will kill you.

Beirut Airport's Travelators

Yes this is another post about our beloved airport, the Rafic Harriri International Airport, or if you lie in the March 8 camp, especially if you are an Aounist, you would refuse to call it that and want to call it the Beirut International Airport. Frankly, I don't care much. 

What I care about is using the airport. 

And like it or not, the airport does have its issues, like the many degenerates that work there, the fact that you can smoke anywhere you want and the fact that my bags don't get checked when I arrive into Lebanon... But I shan't comment on those issues, lest Mr. Nassrallah bark at me with another May 7! 

Instead, I shall question the airport's operators about the yellow guys blocking all the travelators in the airport. If you have used the airport within the vicinity of more than one-two years, you are very likely to have come across the gentlemen below:

These hardworking little lemming-like-non-violated-migrant-workers block access to our beloved travelators day and night. Now granted, we're not talking about Dubai International Airport here or Charles De Gaulle, and more often than not, I would have probably walked on static ground versus those moving ones, but the question is, why are all those travelators (in the departures section) non operational, and why have they been that way for months, if not to say years? 

This is truly shameful. I know the airport is a completely money making institution making piles of green, so I am pretty sure that the people running it can afford to fix those walkways. Ya khayi if you don't want to fix them, remove them, but don't just keep them like that reminding us that yet another thing in this country stands in a broken state, needing to be fixed and is not.

Beirut Airport Parking

I'm a person who travels, relatively, a lot. At least once a month. Sometimes more. But more than that, I tend to make a lot of airport trips to pick people off and drop them to the airport, cause you know, we live in Lebanon and not too many people want to! 


Last time I was at Rafic Hariri International Airport to a pick friend up, I was a bit late, so when I got to the airport, I decided not to park there. I figured I'd just pick my friend up from the arrivals "terminal" and leave. My friend, whom I called, and said he was on his way out, got held up at some point (probably by those ridiculous people who decide on random victims to pick on just before you exit). So while I was parked on the side waiting for said friend to come, a police dude came and started yelling at all the cars that were parked on the side. Now it seems logical that one should not be able to park for too long by the side of the road, but then again, I wasn't going to pay a hefty LL5,000 for less than five minutes. 


As I left my spot to take a turn around the airport and come back, hopefully to find my friend out already, a sad pathetic truth dawned on me. There were three police cars there and what seemed like ten cops at least managing the traffic. And this was just the arrival part. I'm sure there were more at the departure part up! And we're talking 1AM to give you some perspective. Not like the roads are congested and the highways are blocked. 


It dawned me how pathetic our traffic regulators are. I remember minister Qabbani once in the previous government saying that Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, with over one million cars flowing in it everyday, had only EIGHTY police officers to control the traffic at any time during the day. The rest have been allocated for the convoys of the dignitaries (read shit holes) such as our MPs, ministers, etc. 


And yet they managed to have 10-15% of those alone at the airport to stop people from parking on the side of the airport and force them to park in the parking so that the parking's owners, who already make a shit load of money, would be able to make more??

That's just pathetic.