Mind Soup

Who's gonna get me a cupcake? This week, Mind Soup turns three, though it seems that I have been blogging for a much longer time. It has been a great year for the blog; featured several times in print and on Al Jazeera as well as cited in several studies and MBA thesis projects so I'm proud :') I'd love to thank all my readers especially my friends who have always shown great support in my blog and kept it going even when I had absolutely no time to update it. At the beginning of this year, I was thinking that this would be the last year for the blog but with all this encouragement and exposure, I just couldn't retire it. Yesterday, Mind Soup's facebook page  received its 1000th like, and that is possibly the best birthday present :) So here's to many years to come and may you always come back and find fresh posts!

source I was in TSC Signature (Beirut Souks) this week. If you don't know already, I'm a tea addict and I like to go to that branch because they have different types of tea not available anywhere else. In the tea section, there was a whole column for premium Lipton tea (not the regular yellow box ones). All of the Lipton premium teas were at priced 6490LL so I decided to buy the Vanilla Caramel Truffle one (among other things). I made sure that the price is correct and that the shelf label is correct and that it matched the item that I bought. I paid at the cashier and just before leaving I checked the receipt and saw that I was charged more for that item (7990LL to be exact, that's $1.00 more). I went back to check with the manager and told him that the pricing is not right. He went to the stand to check the label. After acting puzzled and confused, he tells me that this label is for a different product. Does he really think I'm that stupid? I gave him a mea...

AUB Carpooling is a very impressive campaign by the Greenpeace club at AUB . ( Facebook event ) The AUB Carpooling activity allows students, faculty and staff the ability to conserve energy while making new friends. Stuck in traffic jams and not finding a parking space? Paying a lot for fuel and parking? Bored of driving alone to and from AUB? Tired of coming and leaving by taxi? Carpooling is what you need! Not only is this a good idea and helps reduce pollution, it also reduces traffic, saves money and possibly creates friendships. I really hope that AUB helps in investing and promoting this project (but they probably won't until media start talking about it as usual.) You can read more details about this in The Daily Star , excerpt below: Erik Zakhia, a third year mechanical engineering student and president of the Greenpeace AUB Club, which is independent from the national branch of the global environmental NGO, came up with the idea when he saw that the faculty o...

Whitney Houston, one of the best female vocalists and great artists of modern music, passed away last night  (February 11, 2012) at the age of 48. Cause of death is still unknown. The world has lost a legend and indeed it was too early for this loss. We will always love you Whitney. May your soul rest in peace :'(

The “Coalition for the Protection of Women,” is a group of Lebanese citizens who refuse the perpetuation of the violence against women under the protection of existing antiquated laws. They stand by the women of their country, who have been raped, beaten and those who have decided that oppression and discrimination under the guise of law is no longer acceptable. As such, they are calling on the parliamentary subcommittee chaired by MP Samir El-Gisr to halt its subversive activity related to amending a draft law to protect women from conjugal violence originally proposed by the Kafa Association in 2007. The committee has come under significant political pressure from special interest groups who seek to amend the law to ensure that it is ineffective and inapplicable. These amendments have rid the original text of its specificity by expanding it to the rights of children, elderly, men thus maintaining the imbalance of the Lebanese legal code vis-à-vis women. In light of this grave ...

Below is an excerpt from a post entitled “We came, We saw, We destroyed, We forgot”  by William Blum.  An updated summary of the charming record of US foreign policy. Since the end of the Second World War, the United States of America has … Attempted to overthrow more than 50 governments, most of which were democratically-elected. Attempted to suppress a populist or nationalist movement in 20 countries. Grossly interfered in democratic elections in at least 30 countries. Dropped bombs on the people of more than 30 countries. Attempted to assassinate more than 50 foreign leaders. In total: Since 1945, the United States has carried out one or more of the above actions, on one or more occasions, in 69 countries (more than one-third of the countries of the world! If you’re American and wonder why the rest of the world hates your guts, why Jihadists are out there after you, or why your government is despised, you better read more about this issue.

Since Gino  is looking for Beirut's Favorite Burger , I thought I would share with you three burgers that I believe are the best I've had in Beirut (aside from my mom's homemade burger of course!). Let me know what you think and do suggest some good burgers for me to try! Roadster Diner's Cheese-at-Heart burger Roadster Diner have recently launched their new menu (read more about it by Pearl's Powder ). A new addition is the "Rd Cheese-at-Heart" burger which is made of a special patty stuffed with Swiss and Cheddar cheese (yes! the meat patty is stuffed with cheese!). It also contains lettuce, crispy chips sprinkles (which gives the burger and absolutely lovely crunchy flavor) and the amazing Rd classic sauce (which is the reason why I used to order the Classic Burger before). It's definitely recommended that you try this burger in-store so that you can indulge in the melted cheese and crispy chips. The price is not expensive as well! (I've h...

ArabNet Digital Summit 2012, the biggest event for web and mobile in the region, is less than 2 months away. Last year’s summit brought over 1000 attendees, 100 speakers, featured 18 panels and 17 talks, in addition to 20 entrepreneurs pitching their ideas and startups. This year’s event is even bigger! Cutting-edge panel discussions, specialized workshops, exciting competitions, focused networking sessions, social activities and more, spread over 5 action packed days including: Two Developer Days with technical discussions and workshops for programmers An Industry Day about how web and mobile are transforming traditional industries like healthcare, travel, education and banking Two Forum Days , the largest gathering of digital business leaders in the region featuring over 100 globally renowned speakers covering the latest trends and technologies in web and mobile A Community Day raising public awareness about the the power of digital The Digital Summit will also include ...

A while back, the generous people from Impact BBDO and Nokia sent me a Nokia N9 phone. It was exciting because it was my first non-Symbian phone and I was looking forward to trying something new. It is perhaps one of the most beautifully designed phones that I've ever seen. Nokia have outdone themselves with product development this time. The finishing is perfect, especially the way the screen is embedded as part of the device making it unified and beautiful. The curving on the edges also make it sleek and stylish. In addition to that, the minimalistic design adds to its beauty and makes it very simple to use. The device has only three buttons (two for volume control and a lock-screen button). It fits very comfortably in a person's palm and doesn't feel as big as it is mainly due to the curves on the sides. I will not be covering the all the phone specifications in detail, but if you are interested in the full specifications, check out this link. Below, I w...