The Fox Blog

This game has created a controversy in Lebanon ever since it was released a couple of months ago. You play the role of American Soldiers deployed in Beirut and combating enemy troops’ (Terrorists, Syrian Army…) occupation of the city during the Lebanese Civil War.

There’s nothing new about the gameplay which already exists on previous Close Combat releases and other several FPS games. The theme however is new: Beirut has been almost modeled exactly as a lot like and the game required the expertise of military personnel. Site’s description:

First to Fight is a tactical first-person shooter in which you lead a four-man fire team in close-quarters urban combat in the streets and buildings of Beirut. It was created with the help of more than 40 active-duty U.S. Marines fresh from firefights in the Middle East and will be used by the United States Marine Corps for training.

Nice screenshots and trailers, as a well as a very-complete fan kit are available to download on the Official First Fight Web Site. Too bad there’s no free demo to have a preview of the game, the only way to test it is to buy it.

Arabic Title: حياة المرأة السرية

Dealing with a women’s sexuality, this play in Arabic is some piece of work. Extraordinary by both its uniqueness and its full exposure of a subject for a long time considered taboo in Lebanon. Produced and directed by local theater figure and A.U.B. academic scholar Sherif Abdennour, the play features as actors and production none but high school and university students.

Five actresses actually, all women, who discuss 75 min long the secret sexual life they lead, with a humoristic tone, assessing a society governed by myths and religious prohibitions; where a woman’s decency is measured by silicon, botox and XXL bras and man’s virility by Armani clothing. Men, classified by stereotype models, have a big part of humiliation in the piece.

According to some information circulating around the theatre, the producer had to cancel a major part of the script, which included a scene featuring a woman masturbating – a word that turns out not to have an equivalent in the Arabic language - on stage, following censorship by the ministry of information. Still, women who started well dressed at first end up half naked just a moment later.

Against any predictions, the piece was very well welcomed by the public, the theatre showed full three successive nights. An issue that caused the production to add two additional representations in order to satisfy the people demand. The play obviously seems to be inspired by well-know French play “Les Monologues du Vagin” which faced a tremendous success in France and Europe in the past years.

A Women’s Secret Life marks the rise of Lebanese acting to a new level, a level where limits are pushed an inch forward in the face of censorship and taboo subjects, and a level where small productions with bright ideas can prove successful…

Lebanon is commemorating today the 1st anniversary of P.M. Rafic Hariri, targeted and killed with 22 others in a massive explosion in Beirut on Valentine’s Day of 2005. Lebanon’s political situation has lived several changes ever since.

One year later, half a million people – according to security forces – commemorate the assassination of the Lebanese self-made billionaire. Crowds from all over the country gathered on the Freedom Square in downtown Beirut, near the mosque where he was buried. Several political groups took part in the manifestation, what is known as the coalition of March 14th, an alliance regrouping the Future Movement (headed by Hariri’s son, Saad Hariri), the Social Party (headed by Walid Jumblat), the Lebanese Forces (headed by Samir Geagea)…

A major political faction missing was the Free Patriotic Movement (headed by Michel Aoun), who refused to participate, describing the commemoration as being “politicized”. Note that the FPM had participated in the March 14th 2005 Cedar Revolution.

Protesters demanded the demission of Lebanese President, Emile Lahoud, whose public appearances has particularly decreased in the last year. One of the posters stated in reference to President Lahoud and the four former Lebanese officials, accused to be involved in the assassination and currently imprisoned: “Four Down, One to Go”.

U.S. secretary general, Condoleezza Rice, stated earlier today that the United States stands united with the Lebanese people in finding the responsible of Hariri’s murder and bringing them to justice.

Photos (by AFP):

I haven’t really been wasting my time lately. As part of my animation course, I was required to create this short 3D animation which I called “The Silly Bee Story”. It’s my first 3D animation ever; I don’t intend it to be my last, this field of Computer Science is really amazing.
Software used in order to achieve it:
- Modeling and animating (the main thing): LightWave by NewTek, an excellent animation application suitable for beginners as well as professionals.
- Textures and image editing: Adobe PhotoShop; I don’t feel like I have to introduce that one.
- Video editing: Ulead Video Studio, a simple application, better than Windows Movie Maker by Microsoft.
Discovering how to manipulate the 3D application wasn’t a walk in the park. I first tried some tutorials offered on LightWave’s web site. But they didn’t really come in handy, so I had to make things work using the good old trial and error method. And here I am, a couple of days later, creating my first animation which I am very proud of. I might end up at Pixar someday, you never now!
The hardest - I should probably say the longest and tidiest - part was rendering, that is converting the content of the LightWave application to a movie in AVI/MPG/MOV format. It can take up to 10 hours for you to render a scene. Above it all, you sometimes find crucial flaws in your animation when rendering in complete, and there we go for another 10 hours!

The Silly Bee Story is a “silly” story as the title mentions it about a character who kills a bee and finds himself tracked down by the giant Honey Inc. Zeppelin balloon… There’s no deep point in this story, it’s just a funny animation.

Download The Silly Bee Story (also available in Files Dump):
Hi Version – 640 x 480 / WMV Format / 5.25 Mb
Lo Version – 320 x 240 / WMV Format / 2.42 Mb

You can also find some screenshots below

Sunday 5th of February, thousands of angry Muslims launch a violent attack against the Danish Consulate in Beirut armed with wielding sticks and stones. What originally started as a “protest” – according to the organizers - rapidly “got out of hands”: the building holding the consulate was completely burnt down.

Object of the protest: the recent publication by a Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten of ironical cartoons illustrating Mohammed - a matter forbidden the religion of Islam. Earlier this week, the Danish government resolved not to prosecute the publishers of the newspaper invoking the freedom of the press.

Back to Beirut: the location of the consulate in Achrafieh, an almost exclusive Christian suburb of the Lebanese capital, seems to be at the origin of even more trouble: civilian property measured in Millions of dollars was destroyed. Cars including ambulances and police vehicles, shops, administration building and even a church were hit. Most importantly, the inhabitants remembered the days of the Lebanese civil war which opposed Muslim and Christian militias for nearly 20 years.

The security forces didn’t seem to be in control of the situation at first. However, after the deployment of hundred of Army personnel, the situation progressively got back in order. Several Lebanese politicians condemned the act – as they usually do – and appealed to a return of order. Others mentioned that this act was “dangerous” and that the responsible should be prosecuted. Prime Minister Fouad Siniora stated that “We do not accept any act that affects the security of others”.

Danish citizens residing in Lebanon were advised to leave the country as soon as possible since the situation got out of control. This was not the first time the Danish Foreign Ministry issues such a decision. Ever since the publication of the cartoons, numerous violent attacks were launched on Danish consulates and embassies worldwide: Damascus, Islamabad, Baghdad, Khartoum, Jakarta…

Photos (by AP)

Update 06/02/2006
- Interior Minister resigned.
- More than 200 suspects were arrested. More than 2/3 are not Lebanese nationals; foreign nationalities include Syrians, Palestinians and Bedouins.

You may have noticed that the look of the page changed recently, this was part of a series of modifications and upgrades:
- Changed the blog’s name from The Fox Hole to The Fox Blog
- Got www.thefoxblog.com domain
- Upgraded to Wordpress 2.0.1, which seems pretty cool after you try a trick or two on it.
- Changed the theme. I got the original version from a site called SubNixus.

Anyway, let me get to the point of the Vegas issue.
The owner of SubNixus, Eric Reynolds, is holding a Vegas Giveaway, a competition for marketing his blog, as he mentions it. The winner will receive the following prize package (quoted):

1- A four-day, three-night trip for two to Las Vegas. Leaving on 3/30/06 and returning 4/2/06. The trip will include round trip airfare for two and a stay at the Aladdin Hotel and Casino […]
2- [..] Control of Subnixus.com for a full 24 hour period (starting 4/5/06 at midnight CST) [..]

There are two ways to participate in the competition, which are fully detailed on the web site. Neither involves signing up to some free or paid offer, or referring people or anything related to MLM (Multi Level Marketing)!
First, I though this giveaway was just another message like those you get by thousands in your Junk Mail folder. But after checking up the web site – which doesn’t seem at all to be some kind of dump site – I changed my mind and decided to give it a shot in the Vegas Giveaway…
After all, I did get a quality Wordpress theme from there!

Check the SubNixus web site for more information

Photos of the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas (from MorgueFile.com), I couldn’t resist posting:

I was playing some online Blackjack the other day, just for geeks. Blackjack can be a very nice game when you know how to play it; you can also win if luck is on your side. During that particular hand, I was playing on two places, both flopped a Blackjack. As for the dealer, he had a Queen. I was sure I would win this hand with two blackjacks. Well not quite! The dealer flops an Ace, and there we are: Three Blackjacks on the table result = push.

A news that’s being heard everywhere in the country these days is the successful operation Abass underwent. Abou Riyad, his friend, contributed in propagating the news (ask anyone today and he’ll know about it, even kids!).

If you’re still wondering what the hell I’m talking about, here’s the story: a popular comedy show, called ‘La Youmal’, the Arabic equivalent of ‘Doesn’t Get You Bored’, broadcasted on Future TV, is featuring lately a character called Abou Riyad. He is supposed to be the incarnation of the crabby Lebanese old men next door. In one of the sketches, Abou Riyad is telling everyone in the neighborhood about the successful medical operation his friend Abass (or 3ebess) underwent. Now that they know that he was suffering of this ‘physical condition’, they can go and tell everyone about it… On top of it all, Abou Riyad creates a song saying: Mabrouk ya 3ebess, w ya 3ebess Mabrouk.
Mabrouk (in Arabic) = Congratulations

I searched for the MP3 of the Lebanese sketch, couldn’t find it on the net. So I got it from someone and decided to post it for download.

Download Mabrouk Abass (Format: MP3, Size: 383 Kbs, in Arabic obviously)

مبروك عباس من برنامج لا يمل، ابو رياض