AT&T To Start Unlocking iPhones Today, April 8th

Good news for American iPhone owners. AT&T will start offering unlocks to your devices starting today, if you’re a customer in good standing.

According to MacRumors, they received the following statement:

Beginning Sunday, April 8, we will offer qualifying customers the ability to unlock their AT&T iPhones. The only requirements are that a customer’s account must be in good standing, their device cannot be associated with a current and active term commitment on an AT&T customer account, and they need to have fulfilled their contract term, upgraded under one of our upgrade policies or paid an early termination fee.

This is probably 5 years late on AT&T’s part – iPhones should have been unlocked the moment their contract was up. But for many American customers, this is great news.

I hope they won’t be very strict with the whole “good standing,” “fulfilled term” stuff. My brother will attempt to get his iPhone 4 unlocked soon and I’ll let you know how it goes with him.

For many Lebanese users, this might mean you’ll be able to finally get your AT&T phones unlocked – I’m sure you’re smart enough to find a loophole somewhere you can use.

 

The Case for Christian Easter Unity

What I'm celebrating

As I’m celebrating Easter Sunday today, Orthodox Christians are celebrating the day I had last week: Palm Sunday.

Following Palm Sunday, they’re going to have their own Holy Week, in which Jesus will go through what He went through this past week with Catholics, leading up to Him dying on the Cross yet again, before resurrecting.

That’s too much work for a deity in a couple of weeks, don’t you think? And quite redundant as well.

So I ask this. The fact that there are two Easters means that one may be right, the other may be wrong – or both may be wrong at that and Easter should be set at a totally different date altogether.

What Orthodox Christians are celebrating

I don’t want to go into who’s right and who’s wrong. That is besides the point. I don’t want Orthodox fanatics going all “Orthodox, Orthodox” on me, trying to prove they’ve got the correct Easter. And I don’t want Catholics to go all “holy Pope” in trying to prove theirs as well.

I also don’t want to hear about the various weather theories: it rained on our Good Friday, God must be on our side. It’s 2012 people.

There needs to be a credible approach towards setting a date for Easter that works for both sects, every year. I wouldn’t mind a twelve day vacation every time, as well.

If anything, being Christian is going beyond your pride, which I think is the only hurdle facing unifying Easter, and working towards the unity of the Church – at least when it comes to the crucification of Jesus.

Until then, Happy Easter to Catholics and have a great Palm Sunday, Orthodox people. Hopefully there will come a day where I can say Happy Easter to both every year, not on sporadic years where both Easters happen to be simultaneous.

He is risen.

 

American Reunion – Movie Review

Almost 10 years after the last American Pie movie, the original cast is back for their high school reunion, 13 years after graduating – and all the characters have grown up.

Jim Levenstein (Jason Biggs) & Michelle (Alyson Hannigan) are still married and are now parents to a two year old boy. Their sex life, however, is in a rut and they’re trying to rekindle their romance.

Oz (Chris Klein) is now a hotshot famous sports anchor, dating a model who’s too out there for his taste. And he hasn’t gotten over his first love Heather (Mena Suvari).

Kevin Myers (Thomas Ian Nicholas) is now a work-from-home architect, married to a woman named Ellie. At the reunion, he’ll be tormented by feelings for his first love Vicky (Tara Reid).

Finch (Eddie Kay Thomas) is supposedly a man going on worldwide adventures – from Europe to South America, via Dubai and China.

On the other hand, Steven Stiffler (Seann William Scott) hasn’t done much growing up in the past 13 years. Stifmeister is still as is.

As the original characters go back to East Great Falls, they’re struck by how things have changed, and somehow how so much is still the same. The kid Jim used to babysit is now a young flirtatious woman trying to find the right man to lose her virginity to. The jocks are still jerks. In a way things are very similar to how they were – there’s one catch: they have grown up.

The opening scene sets the tone. American Reunion is hilarious. Yes, it’s cheap comedy. Yes, it uses sex to make you laugh. Yes, it’s inappropriate at times. But you just can’t stop laughing during that movie. Call it lame, call it useless, call it a silly relaunching of a franchise, it still does what American Pie does best: deliver a raunchy comedy.

The best thing about American Reunion is that it doesn’t straddle the lines of sentimentality as some franchises tend to do after a long absence. Instead, it keeps going at you with the same formula that made the first three movies successful: sex jokes, raunchy attitudes, lude behavior, nudity, awkward parent-son conversations. It is formulaic in a way, but no one expected it to be otherwise. Some of the jokes may have been done before, such as Jim’s masturbating scenes and talks with his father that divulge way too much information – you know such scenes are coming but you can’t help but laughing when they do.

How I Met Your Mother fans will be happy with a cameo appearance by Neil Patrick Harris. Fans of the “Stiffler’s mom” storyline won’t be disappointed as well, as Jennifer Coolidge makes an appearance. Many secondary characters are also given their own moments to keep you entertained.

People change, priorities get reshuffled, relationships get rearranged – but American Reunion sets to show that true friendship stays. And for one weekend, those friends will say “the hell with growing up” and have the time of their life, one last time. If you’re a fan of the first three movies, then American Reunion is definitely for you. Even if you haven’t watched any of the first American Pie movies, you won’t go into this not getting what it’s about. The characters that were desperately trying to lose their virginity 13 years ago have come a long way, and yet in a way have gone nowhere at all. This is one reunion worth attending.

7/10

Tayyar.org: Not Sure If Tabloid or News Site

Tayyar.org is nowhere near my go-to site when it comes to Lebanese news (nor is Lebanese-forces.com for that matter). But you’d expect a self-proclaimed reputable website to at least be respectable enough not to post a picture like this on their Facebook wall:

To make things even more “appealing,” they had this news shared next to the picture calling the whole affair a “masra7iye” – Lebanese for play.

And then I remembered something: their timeline cover picture. So for reference, here it is:

Underneath their title, the words: Precision, Speed & Credibility are typed out. I really have no idea how a mocking picture of the head of one of Lebanon’s main parties can be considered as precise, speedy or credible.

I guess the admins who run that page and those who run the corresponding won’t stray much from the morals set by the leader they follow, nor are the people that follow said leader.

So for all matters and purposes, Tayyar.org is not a news website. It might as well call itself TayyarJaras.org – but wait, that would be degrading to Nidale el Ahmadieh’s tabloid. So let us tweak that a little bit and make it: TayyarJorsa.org – for yes, jorsa is what they are.

Some Lebanese Reactions to the Samir Geagea Assassination Attempt

Some people appall me.

I never for a moment thought people could make fun of a person narrowly escaping death. That is until Samir Geagea escaped an assassination attempt.

You’d think people would be more considerate. After all, I’m pretty sure if any one of those ridiculing the whole thing were in Geagea’s shoes, they probably wouldn’t have died because of the shots they would have dodged, they would have died because of the panic they’d be going through afterwards.

Instead, they’re busy manufacturing their own version of the story to conform with their sick, twisted, demented, useless, silly fantasy.

For some, Samir and Sethrida Geagea are just bored people in their fortress who decided to come up with a scenario to keep themselves entertained. Yes because entertainment can only come in 10 inch bullets and advanced sniper riffles.

For others, Samir Geagea is the new Neo from The Matrix, working his way around bullets as if they were nothing. They even created a meme for it. Some people just have way too much free time. And way too little courtesy.

Simply disrespectful and not even funny

For others, Geagea came up with his own assassination attempt because he’s politically bankrupt, whose followers are “idiots” (I’m quoting) without high-school diplomas. Yes because the argument is so flawless that I can’t fathom addressing the impeccable structure of it, you BS-holder you!

Others are seeing this as a pattern of Geagea’s lies, which started in 1990, wishing the bullet had hit its target. They would know about lies, I’m sure.

I’d like to see what those same people would have done if their leader was subject to Geagea’s assassination attempt. Odds are they wouldn’t be this humorous. But no, their leader would never be subject to an assassination attempt because he knows with whom to strike “protective” alliances.

So seriously, spare us your useless humor, your ridiculous attitude and your flawless logic. At the end of the day, what can you expect from people whose political reference is the Socrates of modern day logic?

And in case they still think it was a play, perhaps their very own minister Marwan Charbel describing the whole thing as a serious affair would be enough. Who am I kidding? It will never be enough.

Ridiculous people will forever be ridiculous. Glad to know the only way an assassination attempt could be considered as such by some people is for an explosion to happen and for the victim to lose a few limbs. But hold on, their leader doesn’t even consider those who went through such an ordeal as worthy of any recognition. And some of them were relieved Geagea hadn’t went down that road – not for humanitarian purposes, but because it would be a nuisance to have to deal with.

There’s a line between being critical and being downright retarded. You are strutting the retarded side magnificently… and to conclude it Lebanese-ly: TFEH!