La Brasserie LIPP

When I was in Paris last week we went for dinner at “La Brasserie LIPP” 151, Boulevard Sait-Germain 75006 Paris. My boss suggested to go there saying it has been founded in 1880 and over the years it became the meeting place for artistic, literary , political and journalistic figures in Paris.

As we walked in the famous Brasserie the four of us I felt that I do not belong, I was wearing a shirt and jeans while everyone was in suits, they started giving me the dirty look.

The tables are so close to each other that in order to be able to sit the waiters have to pull the tables, which will allow you to pass then they will place the table back, then you are jailed. If you need to go to the loo forget it because if the meal is served they would need to pull the table again and then you will create a mess :) Anyways this is not the problem.

Seated next to us there was an American couple in their 50s I wanted to light a cigarette but I did not want to bother them so I asked my boss if it is OK to smoke in here. He said oh yes. I said but what if these people next to us are bothered. He said I was here 2 years ago and I was smoking a cigar the table next to me 4 Americans complained so I asked the waiter to move us on another table not to annoy them, the waiter replied if they are not happy they can leave.

My boss ordered their famous Choucroute, so did another colleague, I ordered veal liver and the 4th guy ordered Steak Tartare. This raw meat steak was definitely a horrible choice as our colleague suffered terribly the next morning, so be ware.

One of my colleagues a French man said that the last time he was in here was 15 years ago, he came with an American customer who had brought his wife and daughter. They asked for English menus of course they are non existing, he got tired of translating so he ordered 4 steaks and fries. The steaks were served in a long metal plate so the American guy served his family with his fingers, and this was it, the biggest faux pas. The waiter who was rude to start with became unbearably impolite, of course when my colleague asked for a Coke for his guest the waiter looked and it and just ignored him as if he had insulted his mother, and this is why my colleague had never stepped a foot in that place until our boss decided that we should eat here!!!

After telling me this story I felt thirsty and asked do you think I will get a Coke today 15 years later? So my French colleague said of course things changed. We ordered a Coke and the waiter replied rudely we don’t serve sodas. Well some things never change!!!

The food was mediocre, the atmosphere is ass-tight, and snobbish. In one of online reviews someone wrote: “the mechanics you can obtain a table today are a lot easier, and a lot less arbitrary, than when Cazes (the late owner) granted or denied a table in his joint based, basically, on whether he considered you worthy.”

For me brasserie LIPP represents France and explains the Paris Syndrome post that I published earlier!!! No offence to my French friends!

“Paris Syndrome”

Did you know that “Around a dozen Japanese tourists a year need psychological treatment after visiting Paris as the reality of unfriendly locals and scruffy streets clashes with their expectations”?

“They think Parisians are going to be clean and polite and friendly – and it’s the exact opposite. What they want is the old France – full of people like Jean Gabin and Alain Delon – but it’s not like that at all.”

Military Salute?!!!

When I saw this picture it really caught my attention. This the Minister of Defense Mohamed Hussein TANTAWI attending the 6th of October Celebrations, the national anthem is playing and he is supposed to be giving the Military Salute?!!!

Straighten up Solider!!!! Pull Yourself together?!!!! What is this??? Are you too OLD??? This is a sissy’s salute! Salute like a MAN…….

US Censorship

Do you see the difference between the U.S. edition of Newsweek and the rest of the world??!!! Does that mean the US does apply Censorship??!!

Two weeks before of the US invasion of Iraq, I was in Paris on business trip. Our whole team went for dinner in a restaurant close to Versailles, while chatting with an American colleague he angrily stood up and left feeling insulted that I insinuated that his government might be lying to him! He was certain that Iraq does possess weapons of mass destruction. Mr. Forbes wherever you are I hope that by now you realized that your government does lie to you.

Mahathir Mohamad

Dr. Mahathir Mohamad (born July 10, 1925) is the former Prime Minister of Malaysia. He held the post from 1981 to 2003. During his term in office he was credited for engineering Malaysia's rapid modernization and the resulting growth of prosperity.
During his term in office, Mahathir turned Malaysia into a regional high-tech manufacturing, financial, and telecommunications hub through his economic policies based on corporate nationalism, known as the various "Malaysia Plans" which set out the government middle-term objectives. These policies remained in effect almost to the end of his tenure in office.
His pet projects have included Perwaja Steel, an attempt to emulate South Korea and Japan, the Proton car company, and Astro, a satellite television service.
Mahathir is credited with spearheading the phenomenal growth of the Malaysian economy, now one of the largest and most powerful in South East Asia. Growth between 1988 and 1997 averaged over ten percent and living standards rose twenty-fold, with poverty almost eradicated and social indicators such as literacy levels and infant mortality rates becoming on par with developed countries.

Can we borrow him?

Manners

No comment

Best Cleavage Ever

I wonder what will happen if someone wears these pants, walking around the streets of Cairo???!!! To be honest we always see crazy fashion shows but I never saw anyone dressed like that anywhere I've been. It always made me wonder who buys that stuff and where the hell they get to wear it?!!

Lebanon and Israel

An image that equals 1000 words.

Miss Egypt 2006, Fawzeya Mohamed

With our Neighbors, I guess we win :)


Miss Egypt, Fawzeya Mohamed, left, and Miss Israel, Anastasya Yentin, pose together


Miss Lebanon 2006 Gabrielle Bou-Rached and Miss Egypt 2006 Fawzia Mohamed in California, Competition at the Wilshire Grand Hotel, Los Angeles for the 2006 Miss Universe registration and fitting.


Rehearsals

War in Iraq, will it ever stop?

Samir Mizban/The Associated Press
A man sits armed with his gun as his children play at home in Baghdad, on Friday, as efforts to curb violence in the capital failed.

The King of Thrones

Does your toilet satisfy you?



When I was in the US the last time in 2002 I met a VP in my now previous company who had lived in Japan and bought a 5000$ toilet and brought him back to the US with him?!!! Yes a 5 Thousand US Dollars for a toilet. I almost fell off my chair. But when you get to know what this toilet can do, you all your surprise is gone.

Japan is the world leader in high-tech toilets. Where else would you find a toilet whose lid automatically lifts up whenever one approaches it? A toilet whose Power Catalytic Deodorizer function engages as soon as one finishes business and rises from the seat? A toilet whose superpowered, fully adjustable, aerated warm-water spray (Bidet) sensually cleanses one's nether regions after the fact?

The toilets basically look like a standard toilet, except that clean themselves, have coatings that resist germs , and have a state of the art control pad, which sometimes comes with a digital clock to tell you how long you have been in the bathroom. Some of the buttons control the temperature of the water squirted onto your backside, or frontside. The bottom-washer function, combined with the bottom blow-dryer, is designed to do away with the need for toilet tissue. Other buttons automatically open and close the lid; the button for men lifts lid and seat; the button for women lifts the lid only. Some toilets even have a hand-held remote control: a clicker for the loo :)

You can also hit the noisemaker button that makes a flushing sound to mask any noise you might be making in the john. There is also a model that chemically analyze urine.

Many foreigners say once you get used to these toilets -- which cost $2,000 to $5,000 -- it's hard to do without them, especially the automatic seat warmer. As they stated: “These toilets are something else. They do just about everything, including warm the seat.”, and as another places it: “Open Sesame: The lid automatically rises when one approaches it. Ladies need not worry, as the automated seat then waits to see if one needs to sit or stand”

Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President

If any of you have an interest in fascinating psycho-analyses, please read Dr. Justin A. Frank (Politico's 2006, London) "Bush on the Couch, Inside the mind of the US President".

Dr. Frank opens the first chapter with a crisp summary of his own, of what he meticulously documents in the 219 pages of text that follow: "If one of my patients frequently said one thing and did another, I would want to know why. If I found that he often used words that hid their true meaning and affected a persona that obscured the nature of his actions, I would grow more concerned. If he presented an inflexible worldview characterized by an oversimplified distinction between right and wrong, good and evil, allies and enemies, I would question his ability to grasp reality. And if his actions revealed an unacknowledged—even sadistic—indifference to human suffering, wrapped in pious claims of compassion, I would worry about the safety of the people whose lives he touched.
"For the past three years, I have observed with increasing alarm the inconsistencies and denials of such an individual. But he is not one of my patients. He is our president."

“Three new psychological portraits of George W. Bush paint him as a control freak driven by rage, fear and an almost murderous Oedipal competition with his father. And that's before we get to Mom.” Laura Miller

“George W. got poor grades at daddy's schools, failed in daddy's industry, was a cheerleader when daddy was a star athlete”

Great Photojournalism 2005

An Afghan man washes his face in the river on the eastern edge of Kabul before going to evening prayers Wednesday March 9, 2005.



An Indian man, covered in red dye, is ambushed from behind by a green powder throwing friend as people in the old city of Delhi celebrate Holi, the Hindu festival of colors on March 26, 2005. The festival, originally held to celebrate the fertility of the land, is also associated with the immortal love of Hindu God Krishna and Radha.



A Nepalese woman passes by others' apartment doors and windows in the Katmandu Valley town of Bhaktapur April 10, 2005


Unemployed Afghan men wait with their tools on a Kabul street corner_ one of several gathering places in the capital city for day laborers looking for work_ in March 2005. Aid agencies in Kabul estimated an unemployment rate of as high as 50 percent in Kabul in 2005.


A Pakistani man holds his injured child in his arms as they are evacuated by in Pakistani army helicopter from a refugee camp in Balakot to be taken to a hospital in Islamabad October 13, 2005


Sabir Hussein Shah holds his nine-year-old son Zeeshan while he is treated after having his arm amputated at a field hospital in Muzaffarabad, Pakistan October 30, 2005.


Pakistani earthquake survivors perform their evening prayers on the former rooftop of a flattened mosque in Balakot, Pakistan October 14, 2005.



A Pakistani earthquake survivor shivers in the rain as he waits outside a Pakistani army aid distribution site hoping in vain for a tent or a blanket in Balakot, Pakistan on October 15, 2005.


UGANDA'S CHILDREN IN CRISIS — A child cries while having his temperature taken as he is examined at the Paediatric Infectious Diseases Clinic (PIDC) of Mulago Hospital in Kampala, Uganda May 13, 2005. Triage is the entry point for medical visits and this is where growth and develop monitor and vital signs are taken and documented at each monthly medical visit. Temperature is an important vital sign at the PIDC in Uganda as high temperature can be a sign of an HIV-related infection or of malaria. EDS NOTE: Names withheld for reasons of confidentiality.


DEATH OF POPE JOHN PAUL II — Nuns form a line to take communion during funeral services for Pope John Paul II in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, Friday April 8, 2005.


"Mozambique: a decade of peace between poverty and dream" July 2005

Maputo. Matola district. Lidia is 18 years old. She is Hiv positive, receiving treatment thanks to the DREAM program. She has a 11 months daughter and is again pregnant. Her dream is to find a job for her husband and have enough money to support her children. Actually in Mozambique on a population of about twenty millions people, there are one and a half million people infected with AIDS with a contagious rate that in some areas hovers around 30 per cent, 600,000 orphans, and only 12,000 patients receiving antiretroviral treatment; of those about 5000 are being treated thanks to the DREAM project of the Sant'Egidio Community.


1st David Guttenfelder, Associated Press
2nd Smiley Pool, The Dallas Morning News
3rd Massimo Mastrorillo, freelance

Tsunami Remembered

Sculptures are displayed on Patong beach during a ceremony to mark the one year anniversary of the tsunami in Phuket southern of Thailand. I had reserved to go to Phuket from 17-29 Dec 2004, this would have been my 5th consecutive visit I cancelled my reservation on the 12th of December. My hotel room was ground floor 40 meters from the sea! At 8 AM I would have been probably asleep :) Was that my fate?

(AFP/Pornchai Kittiwongsakul)

Gods of Hypocrisy (2)

God has offered Egypt 3 things: The Nile, The Pyramids, and Mubarak