Carrie Underwood Reveals 4th Album Title & Cover Art: Blown Away

After releasing her first single off the album, Good Girl (lyrics & review), to deafening success, Carrie Underwood has released the cover and title of her 4th album to fans.

On her official website, she had a succession of reveals which will ultimately gave away the title and cover of the album. The cover, has a darker theme than her previous album covers going on for it – as well as full display of Carrie’s legs. I think she knows we love them.

The cover has a yellow brick road, conveying a Wizard of Oz theme. With Carrie standing on the side, with a very fierce look on her face. I’m not the biggest fan of the look, to be honest. But the whole cover, with its artistic leanings and ferocity, is bold. And it works. It also contrasts greatly with the cover of Carrie’s first album, Some Hearts, in which she was standing in a field of flowers, the sun shining and her smiling. Well, it looks like Carrie Underwood is no longer in Kansas, ladies and gentlemen, or Oklahoma for that matter. And she knows it. She’s also flaunting it.

As for the title, after hinting it’s a two word title and giving her fans a chance at guessing it, most of the guesses being shot down almost immediately,one guess, however, turned out to be correct – and consistent with the Wizard of Oz theme: Blown Away.

Blown Away is the title of a song registered at ASCAP. It’s written by Josh Kear and Chris Tompkins, the writers who brought the world Before He Cheats.

What do you think of the album title and cover?

I’d give them an 8/10 

NY Times Fail: Mistake Hillary Clinton’s Name – Call Her Hillary Putin Instead

As I was reading an article in the NY Times about the Russian elections, I was confused for a moment when I saw them mention someone by the name of Hillary Rodham Putin and referring to her as Secretary of State.

Clinton, Putin, same thing for the NY Times apparently….

Lebanese Memes: Fadel Shaker The Salafist

For those who were shocked by him joining the salafist protest….

No idea how he’ll inspire “romance” in the masses now. Yup, he simply won’t.

Beiruting.com Fail – And Pictures of “Lebanon” Snow That Are NOT Lebanese

I woke up today to find two pictures circulating across my friends of the recent snowstorm in Lebanon. The first one is the following, “originally” shared by Beiruting.com, complete with a watermark for copyright:

The second one is the following, presumably of the Cedars:

Beiruting.com did not share the second one. I have no idea where it originated from.

Now the original version of the first picture, without the watermark, is the following:

How come there’s a non-watermark version of it?  Simply because this picture was not taken by Beiruting.com. This picture was taken by someone not in Lebanon but in Oswego, New York. That’s about 9000 kilometers away from where this picture was supposedly taken.

The second picture is actually in Japan and dates back from 2010, a relatively dry year in Lebanon. You may have not noticed the cars driving on the “wrong” side of the road. But I hardly believe we have the snow removal trucks in Lebanon that can do such a precise job. And suppose this is in the Cedars, would our beloved trees that are outside the main forest peak above the snow cover? I hardly think so. In fact, the second picture is part of a wider batch of pictures of Japan’s Snow Roadway. Check out this link for more images and this YouTube video as well:

It’s lovely to think highly of our country but I expect from renowned websites such as Beiruting.com to at least go through some fact checking before going after those coveted Facebook likes and shares (for the record, the picture has about 300 shares and 600 likes). As for the rest of the Lebanese, not everything landscape-wise that you find impressive is actually Lebanese.

If you want a sequence of real pictures of the recent blizzard, check out this link. These are pictures taken by Lebanese in their hometowns through their phones, cameras, DSLRs, not taken from Google images and stamped with a Lebanese stamp of approval.

Winter in Lebanon: Real Pictures from the March 2012 Blizzard

The recent storm to hit Lebanon has been said to be the strongest in over a decade. And according to satellite images of the country, I think it shows.

The picture is from the previous blizzard. A newer one from the most recent snowstorm has yet to arise. But it should be even more impressive.

Pictures from the other snowstorm can be seen here.

And with this turning into more or less a series of posts where I expose a side of Lebanon that many do not get to see, I figured I’d continue with it and collect pictures from friends of their hometowns during the storm. The pictures range from towns in the North such as my own, Ebrine, to my grandma’s hometown, Dar B3eshtar, to Baskinta, Achkout, Aley and even Sidon.

I tried to encompass scenes from all over the country and with the recent Wall Street Journal article about Lebanon’s Mountain Trail, I figured it’d be appropriate to post this today. Some of the pictures going around are FAKE. These are totally real. So without further ado, we begin.

My hometown:

The picture was taken at the beginning of the storm. We were not lucky enough to have snow accumulations. No idea why.

Douk, a village in the Batroun Caza. These pictures were taken by my friend Agnès. You can follow her on Twitter here:

This picture was taken by a friend of Bazbina, her village in Akkar:

And these are pictures taken by my friend Hanna in my grandmother’s hometown in Koura, Dar Baachtar:

The statue of Ishtar, at the entrance of the village.

This is a picture of Kobayat, taken by Rita Zreiby:

Beit Chlela, in the Batroun Caza:

The Cedars:

The Cedars – as photographed by the Daily Star

Moving on from the North, we reach Mount Lebanon. And these are pictures of Achkout, taken by my friend Roland of his hometown:

These are pictures of Aley, taken by my friend Howaida:

Hammana:

Baysour:

The village of Jeij in the Jbeil Caza:

The village of Baskinta had its pictures taken by Marie Karam, a frequent reader of my blog who decided to share the pictures with me for inclusion in this post:

The village of Bater, in the Chouf caza. They haven’t had snow since January 2008. Pictures provided by my friend Maggie:

And last but not least, to conclude Mount Lebanon, a picture from Bekfaya via BlogBaladi for the statue of Pierre Gemayel:

Moving on to the Bekaa, I figured it would best to have that are represented by Zahle via two pictures taken by professional photographer Clement Tannouri. Both are absolutely breathtaking if you ask me.

Other pictures of Zahle, taken after permission from the Lebanon Weather Facebook page:

And the most impressive picture from the South was the one taken by The Daily Star for snow at the beach in Sidon:

Spring is coming up in just 17 days. Get ready for a new series of Spring in Lebanon – that is unless I come up with material for one last Winter in Lebanon post to wrap up 2012’s winter with. This winter has been quite awesome, hasn’t it?