Funny Ramadan Commercial Number 1: and more about Vimto

This commercial for Vimto is about having a girl's wedding maher be Vimto. It's kinda old. But I cracked open the Vimto last night after praying. For me, it is something I love about the season. Back in my country, I only bought it for Ramadan.

OPNO loves OmanTV (no, I AM being serious) and PHET coverage

Am I the ONLY person in Oman that LIKES OmanTV???? LOL:XD

In the height of being stressed about one of my closest friends risking his life in a wadi during hurricane PHET the news on OmanTV broke up the usual footage of danger and destruction with a segment on how to cook Omani Halwa (traditional desert). Sitting in a sheesha cafe with floating plastic chairs (I wasn't smoking sheesha Umm Qahtan, no worries!) while people outside floundered in their non-four wheel drives as a floodgate was opened due to its limited capacity, watching pictures of sunnny arial veiws of Omani forts and a montage of the Sultan smiling, I felt reassured that everything would be ok if the woman's batch of halwa turned out.

I am serious. I DID find it reasuring. I am one of those 'think-too much people'. Mundane and ridiculous ironies are my mental crux.

All in all, I think they did a decent job of reporting the coverage on the Arabic segments (they brought in English, Indian, Philipino, and other language presenters to warn of the danger and storm direction). BUT LONG AGO learnt not to DEPEND on one form of media, newspapers, TV, blogs, internet, youtube, facebook, gossip, ect. But if you didn't know about this, you were probably only seeing Arabic, switched the chanel before the English and other-language blurps every so often, and saw only forts and halwa and Arabic reporting. Facebook group PHET seemed easier for English audiences to access and use. While one had electricity of course. I was alarmed when one english blogger informed me they had only heard of the hurricane through my blog. I wondered if they knew how to use Oman's media sources and news/radio stations.

I like OmanTV. I may be the only one, but I found the halwa cooking session to be very soothing while the indian staff at the sheesha cafe ran out to the coffee shop dressed in black plastic garbage bag rain gear to get my dinner for me and friends lost their belongings in Qurayat. It took my mind off what we'd have to deal with in the morning, and the Omani mindset it gave to me was pretty much like the British during the blitz, get on with it. "So this is how you grow your cabbages, while the Nazis zap you" par example.

I phone Omani friend A and asked, how are you out in Qurayat?

A: oh, alhamdulilah good, salaamz to you and thanks for asking.

M later tells me A's villa was submerged and she lost everything. But "all praise be to Allah" she got on with it as if nothing had happened, and we were sending our regular friday "juma mubarak" texts.

If anyone wants to donate "decent" furniture and appliances or a TV you don't need to A, let me know via this blog.

I love you OmanTV. I wish you were better organized for other people out there who haven't figured you out yet.

***I don't depend on OmanTV for accurate news. Or on any one person or media for that matter. That is always a mistake, even in so-called free media countries. All media is owned by some commercial or political interest, or it is biased (like my blog:D).***

A Post about Non-TV tv in Oman pt. 1

Has anyone noticed how there are four whole channels on Nilesat TV dedicated to showing pictures of camels? My roomie complains of how there are ten channels spouting men in thobes dancing with sticks and/or camel pics with some dude screaming Arabic poetry. But I like men in thobes dancing with sticks, LOL.
But I do not think this is so different than bad TV in my homeland. Back in my country we have a channel dedicated to a fire. 24 hour log burning on the fire. Every now and then you'd see an arm put a new log on the fire. And during Easter they had 24 hr bunny rabbits jumping on the grass, hopping about. Camels are more interesting than rabbits, in my humble, and wholly unpatriotic opinion.

There is also this Egyptian channels that plays music, but no music videos (no shame, Oman has a SOOOOOOOO many Arabic music video channels), just this spinning logo.

I watch OmanTV. Sometimes they play handball matches. Sometimes they talk about selling coal to Japan (or something like that---it waaaaas pretty boring). At four in the morning they have shots of Nizwa on repeat. I may BE THE ONLY PERSON of my aquaintance that does, and my aquaintances are of a large majority Omani. Omanis complain about OmanTV being boring.

I also watch random Kuwaiti soap operas and make up a story for what I THINK is happening. This isn't really non TV because I know a lot of Emerati and Saudi ladies who watched these shows back in my country off the net, but I do have a serious question to pose---- why do Arabic music videos have better production values than TV dramas??????

I also (I am a prude, so I am not being sarcastic) love how kisses are edited out of every show BUT those on Fox, but I am miffed how they can leave someone blatantly discussing sex (something far worse than a cartoon kiss) but then cut the scene from Shrek where the Princess kisses the Ogre. Which is sort of an integral plot point. Alluhuallim, LOL.

I also find the voice of the man that tells you what shows are about to be on in Arabic on Fox to extremely creepy. That is just me.