Category: Social

  • Making-of Meedan video

    meedan video storyboard

    I was approached by Meedan to design/animate a short video explaining the concept behind the website “in plain English” and “in plain Arabic”. A BIG thank you goes to the lovely Mohammad Kayali (from Hyperlink Podcast) who recorded the sound & translated the text to Arabic on a very short notice, and to SMEX Beirut for providing me with the flip cam to do the video recording. Here’s the outcome in English!

    Meedan in Plain English from Meedan on Vimeo.

    Go toΒ Meedan News & scroll downΒ for the 2 versions!

    And on another note, what’s a Monday morning without some music! Here’s the Beatles’ Here Comes the Sun.

    In other news, this blog was happily selected to be Blog of the Week on Lebanon Aggregator because next week we’re turning 1 year old! So happy about it! Thank you so much! πŸ™‚

    Have a great week πŸ™‚

  • iPhone Apps for Lebanese needs

    Post featured on itoot.net

    I was very excited to collaborate again with the amazing Qifa Nabki on designing icons for iPhone Apps tailored to fit the Lebanese lifestyle needs!

    To know the story behind every app, click on the image below!

  • Curiosity killed the cat

    Finding some old video tapes

    I can’t believe the DVD guy WATCHED the videos I sent him. Not only did he watch them, but he also had the guts to comment about the fashion & lifestyle of the 80’s and how we spent our time back then. Wlak at least don’t SAY that you watched them! Apparently he didn’t have much to do during the day. Lebanese & their curiosity.

    Anyway, I just felt like holding a pencil and scribbling & here’s what came out πŸ™‚ Couldn’t possibly let you go to your weekends without a quick post!

    Have a lovely weekend my darlings! And here’s Chick Corea’s “Love Castle” from his album “My Spanish Heart”.

    01 Love Castle

  • The return of the kamikaze

    Remember when I told you about the kamikaze phenomenon about a year ago?

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    Well, I witnessed a highly enhanced version of it. On Dora highway. Which proves that our population is getting more and more enlightened.

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    Presenting.. the kamikaze family! "Yalla mama, when I say go, we run!"

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    Mother and children crossing highway

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    .Mother pauses in middle of highway, wondering whether she should grab the papers dropped by her son. Cars around start panicking.

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    .They eventually crossed the road. And the boy cried for his papers.

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    .When will people wake up and smell the hazard of walking through a highway?

    I was horrified to see a whole family crossing the highway (autostrade) by foot!! What was the mother thinking? Has common sense disappeared from humanity? She even had a “thinking break” right in the middle of the highway to contemplate whether she should take the papers dropped by her little kid! Suicidal! This is just beyond my understanding, and the scene has been replaying in my head for the last two days. It was that disturbing and does not make sense to me. Thought I’d start the week with some road awareness, we can never get enough of that! Road idiocy is born with humans apparently.

    Here’s a song to brighten up your day by my very adored Nick Drake. “Time has told me”. And check the lyrics for extra beauty.

    Have a lovely week! πŸ™‚

  • Hospit(i)lity

    Visit to my granma

    Granma: "Let me get you something to snack on"

    Granma: "here you go.

    Thus, the altercation begins

    Last time I put it in my bag, it was a disaster

    Give up

    Candy placed in bag.

    Have another one

    Why me? Why?

    Forced eating

    I’m sure most of you have been through the complicated process of “diafeh” (=offering a snack for your guests). Especially with older people. They assume you’re too shy to accept or that you would think they aren’t generous/hospitable enough if they accept your refusal from the first (or tenth) time. But what if yes meant yes and no meant no? Wouldn’t that be easier?

    So, now that I have this out of my system, here’s a song for you my darlings! Enjoy, and have a great weekend! πŸ™‚ [Madonna’s True Blue! 1986, from the year I was born]

    [Sorry the player doesn’t show in RSS feeds πŸ™ I can’t upload music in here as my connection is TERRIBLE – yes, I knew today that Lebanon has the 5th worst connection in the whole wide world! Isn’t that amazing?]

  • Insurance comic

    Commercial Insurance decided to spice up their car accidents booklet. They approached me to illustrate the opening page: explain the post-car accident steps through comics. Very cool to see comics being implemented for such serious booklets! The text was needed in French & Arabic, but I translated it to English myself just for you guys πŸ˜‰

    Arabic:

    Commercial Insurance Lebanon Illustration

    French:

    Commercial Insurance Lebanon Illustration

    & home-translated English:

    And before I leave you, here’s another Andy McKee (Drifting) since I got lots of positive feedback about his music πŸ˜‰ Enjoy!

    03 Drifting 1

  • Passport photo

    I need to take a passport photo - studio ludovic entrance

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    I thought it would be 3 easy steps: shooting the picture, taking it, and everyone is happy.

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    My turn. Photographer shouts in my face: " no no no too pale"

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    Blush fixation

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    Photographer asks me to act in a coy way, to which I answer that I would rather just take the picture

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    Photographer asks me for all the coyness of the world

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    Imagination break... I imagine myself forcing him to act coy

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    Photographer forcing me to sit in a twisted way for the photo

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    The outcome: very fake photos

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    All I wanted was a passport photo! i cry

    Yes my darlings. I kid you not. The photographer consciously asked me to “act coy” or “etdalla3 – Ψ§ΨͺΨ―Ω„Ω‘ΨΉ” in order for the image to turn out ‘beautiful’. When he saw I was reluctant, he asked for “all the dala3 of the world!”. Do I look like someone who would act all cute and coquette for a formal passport photo? HE’S WRONG! I should have known anyway from the photo samples he proudly displayed at the entrance of the studio…

    Anyway, what better to start your week with than Brad Mehldau’s genius?

    Here’s his piano interpretation of The Beatles’ Blackbird.


    Have a lovely day πŸ™‚


  • Traveling back in time

    Checking Twitter at work.. Sad expression

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    Sunshine appears above my head

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    More transformation. Avatars of old cartoon characters pop up over my head.

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    Transformation begins. Maya's metamorphosis to younger days.

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    Young Maya watching TV."Go Captain Majed!"

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    Suddenly I left the office and went back to the carefree days of watching Cartoons all day...

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    Thus, the Zankoulizer was born!


    Here’s the story: it all started when @arzleb changed his avatar to Grandizer. It looked odd but beautiful on its own in the middle of real-faces avatars. Then the trend started spreading, and each started replacing their photo with that of their favourite cartoon! Until @SamerKaram named it to: #ThemeThursday or #Thth. I must say my Twitter feed turned to a colorful page reminiscent of the old days when I would finish studying and watch Captain Majed or a Disney movie… It was a beautiful time travel day! πŸ˜‰

    I’ll now let you enjoy ‘A whole new world’ from the soundtrack of Aladdin. Good old days πŸ˜€

    Cheers!

  • Freestyle slalom

    It's the season for... Freestyle Slalom!

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    Maya appears in full ski outfit and holding ski sticks

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    Let's do this thing! Maya puts on ski glasses

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    Our challenge today is to cross the 2 km from home to highway WITHOUT hitting the obstacles

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    The obstacles: 1- potholes (or "joora" for the experts)

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    Obstacle 2: fixed potholes! (or "mtabb" for the pros)

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    .Car shown from top view crossing road full of pothole. Depending on combination of pothole in an area, it is tagged "difficulty level 1 or 2" or even "oops... trap!"

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    .Success! (car crosses ribbon)

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    .What can I say? Living a video-game-life is such fun!

    And here’s how the daily pothole-crossing phenomenon is turned into fun! Any volunteers to turn this into a video or flash game? πŸ˜› Oh and by the way, I’ve never skied in my life and don’t intend to learn πŸ˜€ Hope you all have a beauuuutiful Monday, and here’s another jazzy song by Lisa Ekdahl whose music has been making my days sweeter. “My Heart Belongs to Daddeh!” Enjoy πŸ™‚

  • iPass

    Newspaper that reads: "Expect most innovative innovation of innovations"

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    Newspaper that reads: "The Chosen product to be announced today by Steve Jobs"

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    Maya eating pop corn in front of her laptop, saying "hush, it started!" (about Apple's Keynote)

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    Steve Jobs says: "I was out of ideas, so I thought, let's mix what we already have. We have a laptop, and we have an iphone. Let's make something in between".

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    Hands shown "baking" the iphone "so we took the iphone and we enlarged it like that"

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    Person shown ironing the iphone

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    And voila! The iPad is born! Incredible!

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    Maya, disappointed: "I just wasted this pop corn for nothing!"

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    what we learned today: when something requires THAT MUCH marketing before its announcement, it must mean the product in itself is not enough to convince. Steve Jobs must be mocking us - in my humble opinion. iPass this sophistication tool and stick to my dear macbook.

    As you can see I was disappointed by yesterday’s announcement, let alone how the name was ridiculed on Twitter later on with the #iTampon jokes. Anyway, I was expecting all this because of all the media buzz. Have a great day! πŸ™‚ And here’s a song for you (that I heard on the radio yesterday and reminded me of the old days :D)



  • Discovering Woopra!

    Prologue: To those who don't know, Woopra is a real-time web tracking and analysis application that I installed after I self-hosted the blog, to be able to follow the stats, and see who visits the site, etc.

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    Before Woopra. Man telling me "Hey I saw your post about the plumber... So true!"

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    I reply "oooh! That's so lovely to hear! Thank you!"

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    After woopra. Man telling me "Hey! I saw your post about the plumber. So true!"

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    I reply: " I know. You saw it yesterday at 12:46PM. You spent 2 min 47 sec on the page through safari on a mac with 1440 x 900 screen resolution. Man appears dumbstruck.

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    AND! You live in Beirut, Lebanon. Man, afraid, excuses himself.

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    Woopra also improved geography skills, from the maps of the stats pages.

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    Woopra also allows you to show off your knowledge instead of your clothes. "Did you know that Sweden and Ukraine flags had the same colours?"

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    There's just one small issue: they forgot to mention "use with moderation". Shall I work now or shall I check woopra?

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    Checking woopra: wow! there are 20 visitors on the blog at the same time!

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    Woopra Diagram: Work or Woopra? > Woopra > Food or Woopra? > Woopra! > Sleep or Woopra? > Woopra! > Life or Woopra? .... >

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    Woopra! Maya, still at work, but looking very old. Spider webs are visible on computers with a spider hanging down the desk.

    And here’s my story with Woopra! I’ve become seriously addicted to following you guys go in and out of the blog, checking the pages, knowing all about your home countries and screen resolutions πŸ˜› Sometimes, I even have the option to chat with you – so don’t be surprised if you get a pop out saying “Maya wants to chat with you”. It’ll be me spending my day or night on Woopra πŸ™‚ It’s beautiful & touching knowing that at a given time, simultaneously, someone in Togo, someone in Estonia and someone in Norway is reading one of the comics of this blog. Makes me so happy! πŸ™‚

    I really advise all of you who have websites to install it (but first get a paranoΓ―a personality-type check, just in case). Also about Woopra, it is proudly founded by Lebanese Elie Khoury & partner.

    I’ll now leave you with Natalie Imbruglia’s song ‘One more addiction’ which fits the situation perfectly. From her album “Left of the middle” that I used to Β listen to 24/7 when I was in 6Γ¨me (6th grade) in Jeddah. How time flies…
    See you soon! πŸ˜‰


  • Life goes on…

    Post featured on itoot.net

    I woke up to hideous news this morning

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    Ethiopian plane crash in Beirut, EA409

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    I rush away from bed where I was reading the news

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    Watching business man making statement on TV through press conference, heart broken

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    Discussing with my mom. She asks me how exactly I

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    Mom says "you have to be strong! what about the boat that sank off Tripoli coast last week?" I reply "I

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    Mom says "what about the train that collided in iran yesterday?" I reply "I give up"

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    Life is full of accidents. It

    I”m too moved by this accident, so I”ll just leave music to do the talking Pat Metheny & Brad Mehldau”s Make Peace. Enjoy, and have a safe day.