Author: Mark

My favorite thing about Ramadan is that I get off work at 3PM. This allows me to have a ton of free time to do stuff I wouldn’t usually do like riding my bicycle.

Yesterday I went riding with Nat and the weather was surprisingly great. We rode from Marina Mall to Scientific Center, a short route since we didn’t want to take a longer one in case our bikes had developed problems after a year of storage. Imagine riding all the way to the Kuwait Towers and then finding out the bike has a problem and you have to walk back all the way to Salmiya. It would suck…

Riding the bicycle is really different from the motorbike. For one thing falling off a bicycle is no longer a big thing. Nat crashed yesterday when her bicycle slid on a curve and she just got up and continued riding. When the same thing happened to me with my motorbike I ended up with road rash, a fractured wrist and a large repair bill.

There are two brands of bikes I would recommend people getting, Trek and Cannondale. I personally prefer and ride Cannondale. When it comes to road bikes I would go with Trek but for mountain bikes Cannondale all the way. The Cannondale dealer is located in Shuwaikh, you take the first right after McDonalds on Canada Dry street and once you reach the small round-a-bout the dealer would be on your right hand corner. Trek on the other hand is available at GoSport in The Avenues and eXtreme Sports at Marina Waves.

If you are looking for a place to ride, the Gulf Road is a good place to start. For a short trail you can start off at Marina Crescent and ride all the way to Scientific Center and back. For a longer trail you can go from McDonalds on the Gulf Road and head all the way to Souk Sharq and back. Both routes use a sea side trail away from dangerous car traffic.

Cannondale have soooo many hot bikes to choose from, my favorite being the Gemini but the prices can get ridiculous with models costing KD1000 and up. You can spend a lot less of course, a member in the forum recently purchase a Trek for only KD148 and you can even get bikes for under KD50 even although I wouldn’t recommend them at all. The difference between the cheap and expensive bikes is usually weight, quality of parts, the frame and the finishing. Cheap bikes are usually heavy, equipped with the crappiest brands and handle like crap.

There used to be a riding club that met up every Friday at like 7AM to go riding but I don’t think they do that anymore. If anyone knows of another riding club please leave it in the comments below.

I just found these four commercials on YouTube. They started airing on TV at the beginning of Ramadan and they were done by Caviar.

NBK 2007 TV commercial (WaterSki)
NBK 2007 TV commercial (Space)
NBK 2007 TV commercial (Race)
NBK 2007 TV commercial (Dama)

For the past two days I’ve been working on a redesigned template for this blog. I really don’t have any major problem with the current design but I do think there are a couple of areas that does need addressing. I was planning on working on the redesign in secret and then overnight just surprise everyone with the makeover but I decided going the other route. If large companies like CNN and Amazon are allowing their users to see and give feedback of their redesign while still in progress why can’t I?

Now I still have a lot more work to do on the redesign but you can take a peak at it by going to unex-t.com/blog. This is more or less how the new redesigned site will look like, most of the changes I am currently working on are the smaller details. I probably will replace the header with a newer one, I might not, I am still not sure about that. At one point I was actually thinking of rebranding from 248AM.com to markandnat.com but decided against it the last minute.

Anyway your feedback is welcomed, I still have a lot of work to do and might take your ideas into consideration. Keep in mind there are a lot of things that aren’t working yet or looking strange on the test site. [Link]

Update: Here is a screenshot of how the new design might look with a black background. I am finding it a bit claustrophobic compared to the white background version. [Picture]

Update 2: Here is another option with a black background which I think works better than the version in the first update but I think I still prefer the full white background. [Picture]

This is really sad. [Link]

I was checking out an old commercial for Red Rock Cider that starred Leslie Nielsen and it reminded me a lot of the Naked Gun series. I actually thought that the commercial was based on the movie but it turned out it was based on a TV show called Police Squad! Naked Gun was based on that show and for some reason I just found out about it now. I am a huge fan of Naked Gun so these episodes of Police Squad! are like a godsend. I downloaded all the episodes, 6 in total which means I am going to go through them really fast. They’re great though and full of non stop humor.

Just a heads up to everyone who is thinking of purchasing an iPhone to use in Kuwait. Although you can unlock the iPhone now for free, it’s currently not working properly with the Zain network. You can send make but you can’t receive calls on your iPhone. K.theKuwaiti is currently trying to find a solution for this and once he does he will publish it online. Everything else works including sending and receiving SMS’s and GPRS.

Update: According to a reader the iPhone will work with the Zain network if you have a new 128K sized sim card. Does anyone know how one goes around to getting a 128K sim card from Zain?

For people who aren’t going to fast during Ramadan, a great solution for lunch is microwavable meals. I have a decent collection of reviews of some meals available at local supermarkets and I will be adding more during the month of Ramadan. For now here are the ones I have available:

Microwave Meal: Chicken Masala
Microwave Meal: Beef with Classic BBQ Sauce
Microwave Meal: Beef Patty Sandwich Builder
Microwave Meal: Manicotti
Microwave Meal: El Charrito Grande
Microwave Meal: Fried Chicken Meal
Microwave Meal: Chicken Fingers

According to this random old guy who was watching over the bakala I frequent while the regular bakala guy was out praying, KDD has increased the price of the Silver ice cream by 50 fils and so is now being sold for 200 fils. I don’t know if other KDD products increased in price but if this very reliable source is right, I am guessing they did.

Looks funky.. [Link]

https://view.break.com/362761 – Watch more free videos

I was hoping for Rambo 4 the action would take place back in the city like the first Rambo but it looks like its going to take place in a Vietnam like location which is similar to Rambo 2. They should have at least made him fight the Al-Qaeda or the North Koreans. [Link]

It seems some people are having trouble purchasing stuff from the Apple Store online with a local credit card. So far I know for a fact it works with NBK and Gulf Bank credit cards. I also know for a fact that if you put your shipping and billing address as U Shop We Ship it works BUT I can’t confirm that it works if you use your Aramex Shop & Ship address. It seems people who use the Aramex address are getting their orders canceled.

Can anyone here confirm if they were able to purchase items from the Apple Store using a local credit card and a Aramex Shop & Ship account?

Apple released the new iPod nano, iPod Touch and iPod Classic while Sony released the Rolly!

It’s a dancing MP3 player that costs $350. [YouTube]

Just wanted to boast to other video gamers that I am currently downloading the Call of Duty 4 Multiplayer Beta for the Xbox 360. Since I am a gamespot.com member I was given an activation key for the download. Gamespot rules! [Link]

Marzouq was supposed to get me an iPhone with him from the States but he couldn’t buy one from the store without signing up for an AT&T contract. So I decided to order one online from the Apple Store.

Thing is because of all my traveling and shopping these past 3 weeks my credit card is completely maxed out, like KD80 over the limit. I figured let me place an order on the store and see if it works, if it didn’t then it didn’t and if it did great. Surprisingly, it went through. MTC Zain couldn’t charge my last months phone bill to my card cuz it was maxed out yet Apple somehow managed to charge an iPhone!

Anyway for those of you who want to buy an iPhone, Amazon.com don’t sell it but you can purchase the phone directly from the US Apple Store online. For your shipping and billing address fill in your USWS or Aramex address. For your credit card you can use a local card. I personally used my NBK Visa card and it worked. I don’t know if it works with cards from other banks like Gulf Bank, Burgan etc.. but I am guessing they should. Enjoy!

Amazon supposedly redesigned but I have been refreshing my browser for a while now and I still can’t see it. I did manage to find a screenshot of the new design on the page where they talk about their makeover. [Link]