Who-sane's

A UAE daily newspaper recently ran the below image of an artwork.

The artwork is part of a collection by artist Atelier Van Lieshout that Tim Van Laere Gallery recently exhibited in Spain. A quick look at the the artist’s works can show that the he has some sort of an obsession for, ummm, symbolism.

Of course the reporter did not realize that the artwork is in fact a phallic symbol, and that’s why it was published, but a friend told me the reporter is now in deep kaka.

I’m not sure if he’s being punished for running the image in the first place, or for not knowing that it resembles a massive male member, or maybe for the fact that it’s pointing directly at an article on celebrations of Al Mawlid Al Nabawi (Prophet Mohammad’s birthday) around the world!

Why do we blog? What do we blog about? Who do we blog for? Where do we blog? When do we blog? What blogging platform do we choose? Is it worth it? How do we do it? How did it change our lives? What are we looking to achieve? Did it effect us or those around us? Positively? negatively? …? ….? ….?

Lots and LOTS of questions relating to blogs and blogging me and a bunch of awesome bloggers from the region will be trying to answer on Dubai Eye‘s Techno Tuesdays! Yes, that’s tomorrow morning, from 10 am to 12 pm Dubai time (+4 GMT).

Ubiquitous social media celebrity, blogger, tweep, GeekFest Dubai “unorganizer” and Dubai Eye’s Tech Tuesdays’ co-host, Alexander McNabb, thankfully, invited me to take part in the conversation and give my two cents worth.

So if you’re in Dubai, tune in to 103.8 FM, and if you’re not, listen to Dubai Eye’s radio stream on http://dubaieye1038.com and you can be part of the conversation by calling in or tweeting the #DubaiEye hashtag. Alternatively, you can listen live from your iPhone by downloading Dubai Eye’s app.

In the studio will be Alexander, yours truly, Seabee, HellwaFashion and Sarah Walton. Joining us on the phone will be Sara Refai (Ussa Nabulsiyeh), Mich Café and Roba (and far away).

The show will be podcasted, so I’ll link to it along with my observations and learnings.

So stay tuned! (A word I’ve always wanted to use!)

‘Obama Does Not Mind Announcing His Islam if That Pleases Republicans‘, was one of Al Hayat’s very interesting headlines today.

Image courtesy: Kabobfest

WHAT?! Obama is a Muslim AND he wouldn’t mind announcing it either?

The article quotes a recent article that appeared on The Huffington Post.

What Al Hayat’s reporter and editor did not know is that the article was written by a satirical comedian! A very funny one too.

What amazes me is that even if the editor did not get it, since the article did somewhat appear as a serious one, which is the whole point of satire, but couldn’t the genius figure it out by the last bit of the article:

Elsewhere, moments after his capture in London, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said, “I knew I shouldn’t have signed up for Foursquare.”

And now to some expected and well-deserved mockery:

- “The Borowitz Report is proud to be the official news source of the government of Saudi Arabia. Better us than Fox News.”

- Saudi Media Fall for Muslim Obama Joke

Al Hayat should really just stick to gathering their news from main stream media. Let’s just hope they won’t take Andy’s latest post seriously!

Verdict: #FAIL

P.S: At the time of this post, the article is still on Al Hayat’s website. Wonderful.

I’ve always associated Old Spice with, well, old people. I remember when I was a kid I used to love the smell of Old Spice, whenever my dad used it.

The brand still existed as I grew up, and I always saw its famous logo and unmistakable bottle at stores, but I would never use it. Why would I want to associate myself with a old man’s cologne? I wanted something a “new” spice. Continue reading