Category: Information

Today in Al-Qabas newspaper they had an article on the Al-Rifai car crash which I posted about yesterday. The difference is Al-Qabas is stating that the woman of the car was driving on the road normally when her brakes failed and she veered out of control into the Al-Rifai store. I find that hard to believe for a couple of reasons, first she was driving a new Toyota Prado, not a 10 year old Hyundai. When was the last time you heard the brakes on a new car failing? I doubt it ever happens anymore. Secondly the street is tiny, she would have had to make a 90 degree turn to be able to drive into the store. If she had lost control like the newspaper is stating then she would have veered off the road diagonally, not at a right-angle. This looks like a cover up!

Yesterday while walking around Muthana Complex I found this really cool Golf store called Golf Me. I hadn’t seen it before and I later found out that it had only been open for 2 weeks now. I went inside and spoke to the owner who was a very nice guy. The first thing I asked him was if there was a Golf course in Kuwait. He told me there was one in Ahmadi thats a sand course, I told him I knew about that but if there was a grass one. Surprisingly he told me there was, a place called the Sahara Golf & Country Club. I then started to get some details about the store and how much it would cost to golf in Kuwait and this is what I found out. Firstly they have this cool setup in the store where you can try golf clubs out and watch your swing replayed digitally on a TV screen. I also found out that they teach golf. For KD70 you get 10 courses and this includes the use of their golf clubs and time on the golf course. If later on you want to buy your own golf club set you can get one for as low as KD150. I forgot to ask how much it would cost to play golf in the Ahmadi course but I did ask about the Sahara Golf & Country club. The owner told me you need to be a member at the country club and its not cheap. Originally when they first opened membership was KD1300 a year, the price then went up to KD1500 and now the price is KD2000, KD500 of which is a one time setup fee. The course is managed by PGA and is 18 holes and 6,700 yards so its not your run of a mill golf course.

Anyway here are some links and pictures related to the above.
Sahara Golf & Country Club Website
Details on the country club
The Golf Me website
Golf Me from the outside
Golf Me from the inside
Golf Me from the inside 2

The Golf Me store is located on the Mezzanine floor of the Muthana Complex in Kuwait City. Their phone number is 2634660.

I was sitting having my salad at Pizza Hut in Muthana Complex (Kuwait City) with Nat when I look to my left and see a huge fucking cockroach on the table! I quickly got up surprising Nat who hadn’t yet noticed the intruder yet. I was like look there is a fucking cockroach on the table which quickly made her get up in disgust and shock. So I call the head waitress over and I told her there was a huge cockroach on the table. She calmly asks us if we would like to change to another table. I asked her if there were gonna be any cockroaches there and she laughed and said no. I didn’t find any of this funny. We sat down at the new table but neither Nat nor I felt like finishing our salads so I got up to the counter to pay the bill.

While I was standing there waiting for the cashier to hand me back my change I hear Nat calling a waiter and then telling him that the cockroach is back on our old table, he quickly goes and kills it. I tell the cashier I want to talk to the manger and he tells me OK but then starts tidying up around the register and putting away menus and stuff. So I tell the cashier I wanted to see the manager NOW, he was like why is there a problem? I was like fuck yes now get me the manager. The manager comes out of the kitchen and asks me what the problem was. I told him the problem was there was a huge fucking cockroach on the table while we were eating. I told him I found that disgusting and I would never come back to the place again. The manager who looked like he was confused and didn’t know what to do told me the reason for the cockroach was that they had sprayed the night before. I told him I didn’t fucking care and thats not an excuse since there was a fucking cockroach on my table! Seeing as I wasn’t even going to be able to convince the manager that the cockroach on the table was a problem I picked up my stuff and left.

I am never going back to another Pizza Hut again. Other then the cockroach on the table I found the staff very unprofessional and I found the manager to be incompetent and an idiot. He barely even apologize about the cockroach nor did he offer any kind of compensation! I am now going to make sure the owners, Al Homaizi Food Group know about this incident and I will also send an email to Pizza Hut international so they know what kind of managers work for them. This was really fucking disgusting.

Just a little something to help some readers out.

2) Pornography sexualizes the viewer’s mindset. It warps and perverts their perspective such that sex is unnaturally elevated in their thoughts. Porn’s images are stamped into viewer’s brain with the aid of hormones released during sexual arousal. Even if a person decides to stop looking at porn, the past images can remain for years or even a lifetime.

Reasons Why Porn is Bad
Stories on How Porn Destroys
Lies of porn
Porn Statistics
Mass Murder and Porn

Wow, all the movies on this list are over 5 hours with the longest one being 27 hours long! To think I was complaining about how King Kong was too long.. [Link]

Susan, a regular reader of the site recently went on a sky tour of Kuwait and this is what she had to say about it:

A recent start-up called Kuwait Sky Tours is now operating in Kuwait and taking passengers on 15-minute helicopter rides at a cost of KD25 each. The 15-minute flight takes off from the helipad behind the Sultan Centre restaurant on the Gulf Road, travels up to Green Island and then back down to the Amir’s Palace in Salwa, before returning to land. It is a great way too see Kuwait from a different perspective. The helicopter is a MD 500-E and seats 3 adults. There is space for a child or a very skinny person between the pilot and front passenger. If you want to go, give Steve a call on 705 6666. They also fly from Khiran and Failaka on occasion. Cameras are allowed.

You can also go on a larger helicopter, for an hour-long flight for the princely sum of USD1,500. Or, try the executive jet, which is ready to fly you and 13 of your friends to any destination in the world! Don’t know that price; I was too afraid to ask!

P.S. Don’t talk into the headset during the flight. The pilot told me off!

Here are Susan’s pictures from her trip:
The Helicopter
Looking North West
Marina Mall and Marina Hotel
The Scientific Center
View of Salmiya
The Gulf Road and Kuwait Towers
House in Salwa
Radisson SAS

These lists represent the top camera makes and models used to create photos uploaded to Flickr, the best online photo sharing application in the world. The lists are generated automatically by periodically sampling the EXIF data from the stream of recent uploads. [Link]

(yay my camera is #1)

Did anyone hear the large explosion bang today just before 9AM?

My mum was a flight attendant on Kuwait Airways during the 70’s and she always talks about how great the experience was and how she got to travel to so many places and meet a lot of new people. Two months ago while I was in Lebanon I found a stash of old photos she had taken during that time and I found the pictures really interesting since I love photos from the 70’s and 80’s that deal with Kuwait.

[Click here to view the pictures]

Note: The last two pictures were taken on board the Amir’s plane (Amir Sabah al-Salim Al Sabah) which she served on the last period of her career.

Note 2: If anyone has a bunch of “colored” photos dealing with Kuwait which were taken during the 70’s and 80’s send me them and I will post them online.

Note 3: The uniforms were designed by Dior.

I am not good at this but maybe some of you readers could help out. I want to make put together a (funny) list of tips for people who will be spending their first Kuwait National Day and Liberation Day in Kuwait. Something like David Letterman’s Top 10 list. Here are some bad examples I just thought of:

– Do not leave your house.
– Don’t make eye contact with someone with a foam can.
– If you are driving on the Gulf road, keep your windows closed and your doors locked.

blah blah etc.. Can anyone with a better sense of humor help out? Leave a comment and if its good will add it to the list.

If you have any tips for people who will be spending their first Kuwait National Day and Liberation Day in Kuwait, post it in the comments below.

Top 3 things our pet dog Geo fears the most:
1) Little girls on rollerblades
2) My Hoberman
3) The Roomba

Top 3 things our per dog Geo loves the most:
1) Little boys high on sugar
2) The Egyptian gang under our house
3) Ethernet cable

There is a brand of earphones called Shure, they became really popular in the US because people who owned iPods and were looking for much better quality earphones would purchase the Shure’s. I own a pair of the Shure E2’s and they are really amazing. Anyway the Shure dealer in Kuwait refuses to stock them. I past by the Shure dealer over a year ago when I wanted to by the E2’s, I figured I would check and see how much they were in Kuwait before I decided to purchase them from Amazon. I passed by the dealer and he told me they only bring them by order and it would take 2 to 4 weeks. I was like fuck it and got them from Amazon for a cheaper price and they arrived a week later.

Two weeks ago Shure opened a store near my office in Muthana Complex. I just past by them today because a friend of mine wanted to by some Shure earphones and once again the dealer told me they don’t carry them but they can order it for me. What the fuck?

If I owned the Shure brand in Kuwait I would get a large quantity of the affordable E2 earphones, a good amount of the more expensive E3’s and a handful of the much more expensive E5’s. I would then target the iPod crowd by maybe placing a stand at Virgin and selling them there or maybe by placing an ad in Bazar magazine. Why would the dealer in Kuwait not stock the best selling Shure products especially if everyone owns an iPod?

Click here for pictures of my Shure E2’s with foam tips

Thanks to Rami I currently use Tivo to record all my favorite shows on Showtime. But tonight I past by the Showtime stand at Marina Mall and noticed they now have something similar called Showbox. I tried to find out how close Showbox is to Tivo in features but the salesperson there didn’t know anything. The way she explained it to me was that with Showbox I can watch any show I want any time, meaning if I feel like watching King of Queens now I can just click on King of Queens and watch it live. I think thats bullshit and she really doesn’t know what she is talking about. I got the leaflet on the Showbox from her and I was able to understand a bit more. Basically what I understood is you can pause live TV which is something the Tivo can do of course. With Showbox you could also schedule what you want it to record for you 7 days in advance but say Seinfeld is playing everyday, you have to manually tell it to record each and every episode one by one. Now this is where Tivo kicks Showbox’s ass. With Tivo I can just say record every episode of Seinfeld with one command and it will record every episode of Seinfeld from now until I tell it not to which can be a month from now, a year from now.. whenever I want. I don’t have to manually set it to record each and every episode over and over. Anyway she also said Showbox would cost me KD135 and has an 80GB hard drive inside. Tivo cost me $70 and I have a 120GB drive inside. So far Showbox doesn’t interest me but it might for those of you who don’t have a Tivo. I scanned the leaflet and you can check it out below.

Leaflet
Front Page
Second & Third Page
Fourth Page

I think you can also find more information on showbox.showtimearabia.com but I wasn’t able to connect to it because I am on my slow GPRS connection now.

Have you gotten your loved one a Shani today?

Special greetings to:
K the Kuwaiti
Savior Machine

Did you know that the breakfast at Fuddruckers airport branch is nearly half the price compared to their seaside branch? That means you can have scrambled eggs with pancakes and sausages for only KD1 instead of the usual price of KD1.750. Everything on their breakfast menu is priced at KD1 at the airport, its a really good deal. Only downside ofcourse is that you have to drive all the way to the airport, but you could turn it into a road trip of a sort…

Note: You also get free internet access at the airport.