Category: Information

Having trouble knowing which Danish brands to boycott? I don’t know why I didn’t realize this earlier but Bang & Olufsen is Danish.. I wonder if their store in Fanar is still open? Anyway I did a bit of research to see if there were other brands I liked that were Danish and I found out that my favorite brand of gum, Stimoral is Danish. I need to check and see if Sultan Center still carry them but I am guessing they aren’t. Here is a nice list of Danish products I found, I don’t know if all of these are available in Kuwait:

Food & Beverages
* Arla Foods – milk and dairy products
* Danish meat
* Carlsberg – beer and softdrinks
* Tuborg – beer and softdrinks
* Suntop – orange drink
* Puck – cheese spread
* 3 Cows – #1 feta cheese in Kuwait
* Dano – powdered milk

Danish design
* Lego – Toys
* Bang & Olufsen – Music systems and televisions
* K.I.S.S. – DVD Recorders
* Stelton – Danish design
* Jacob Jensen – Danish design
* Alfi – Danish design
* Rosendahl – Danish design
* Louis Poulsen – Lightning
* Skagen Watches – Danish watches
* Danish Furniture Online
* Piet Hein – Fritz Hansen furniture
* Arne Jacobsen – Fritz Hansen furniture

Candy
* Toms
* Galle & Jessen
* Stimorol Chewing Gum

Cigarettes
* Prince

Healthcare
* Novo Nordisk – Healthcare

Clothes, textile & Shoes
* H2O
* Jysk – Quilts, pillows, mattresses
* Hummel
* Ecco
* Jaco
* Inwear
* Matinique

Other
* Maersk Sealand – one of the largest shipping companies
* Aqua – pop group (Barbie Girl)

I met Sheikh Nasser Al-Sabah the new PM a couple of times a few years back. He is a really nice guy with a huge passion for cars. He is one of the largest Aston Martin collectors in the world and has a garage with some of the coolest cars ever made. He also enjoys collecting vintage cars and I believe he has the largest collection of those in Kuwait. I always thought it would be cool if Jay Leno met up with Sheikh Nasser to talk about cars on the Tonight Show since Jay Leno also loves cars. I guess that will never happen now that he is PM.

Geo arrived yesterday night at 12:05AM via KLM. When I had spoken to a KLM representative earlier in the day he told me I needed only 30 minutes to clear Geo once he arrives.. what bullshit. After 2 hours of running around to 6 different locations at the airport cargo terminal and after going and coming between these 6 offices a total of 11 times, I was finally able to clear Geo and take him home. Mind you I was the only one there clearing anything and it took me over 2 hours so you could imagine how painfully long the process would be during the day when every trader in Kuwait is at the cargo terminal clearing their products. All the employees were very nice and tried their best to get all our papers completed asap but its just a lot of stuff that needed to be signed and at full speed it just wasn’t possible to take less then 2 hours. Oh a strange thing, we were sitting at the vets office at the terminal and one guy there was like did you check on your dog, is he alive? I was like no I hadn’t seen my dog yet but what the fuck, do dogs arrive here dead? The guy was like yeah, many times the dog arrives to Kuwait and its dead. I am guessing this happens often during the summer when they keep the dogs locked up in their tiny travel cages for over 2 hours in the hot summer heat waiting for their owners to get all their paperwork done.

Anyway we get home and Geo is all active and shit and wants to play. So we play. We figured he probably just was so bored trapped in his cage and he just wants to let off some steam. So we played with him until 4AM and Geo was still jumping around all excited. We decide to lock him up in his area downstairs and go up and sleep. His area consists of half the bottom floor of our apartment separated by a 1 meter high fence. His area is around 4×6 meters and the floor is covered in vinyl in case he goes to the bathroom indoors the mess would be easier to clean up. So we lock him up and go upstairs and Geo starts to whine which we were expecting. Suddenly he stops and I was thinking wow that was easier then I expected and so I decided to sneak downstairs quietly to watch Geo sleep. So I am standing in the stairway trying to sneak a peak at Geo sleeping but I couldn’t find him in his area. Suddenly I see Geo walking out of the first floor bathroom casually.. he had escaped from his area! So I realized there was a weakness in my fence design and Geo was able to squeeze out from the far side of the fence. I solve that issue by blocking his escape route with his travel cage. I go back upstairs and I am about to go to sleep when suddenly Nat is like “Mark, Geo is here”. He had escaped again! So I went back down and realized he had climbed over his travel cage and then over the fence. So I solved that problem also and on my way up the stairs I look back and I see Geo squeezing out from between two fences. Fucking A thats like 3 prison breaks in 15 minutes. Good thing I don’t design prisons for a living. We decided to solve the fence issue the next day and for the night he could sleep with us in our bedroom. That didn’t work out the way we planned it either. Geo spent the whole night whining wanting to play with us. At around 7AM we all fell asleep. 9AM I wake up to realize Nat and Geo were missing, seemed they both had woken up at 8AM and Nat made him breakfast and took him down for a walk. It was a totally sleepless night.

We spent most of today fixing his fence issue and taking naps whenever we could. I wasn’t able to post more details earlier because I was dead tired but I just woke up from a 30 minute nap and I feel a bit more energized. I spoke to Fadibou on the phone and we will be meeting up with him and his dog Mikki at Marina Crescent later tonight.

Overall I am really glad we got Geo. He turned out to be much more cuter then his pictures had shown him to be and he is also a lot bigger then I expected. He is silly and dumb at times (like yesterday he got introduced to the concept of a glass door after ramming into it 2 times) and loves playing with Amazon boxes. He doesn’t bark and he’s extremely playful. I will record a video of him soon and upload it once I get my DSL connection back at home. For now I just have the picture I posted earlier today.

Remember how last week I was hoping they weren’t going to ban LEGO from the market because its a Danish product? Well yesterday I past by Sultan Center and went upstairs to the LEGO section and guess what? All the shelves where the LEGO used to be are empty now! They banned LEGO!! The dairy section downstairs also had no more Danish products that includes Lurpak, Puck and Three Cows. Whats next? Will they start banning products from countries who supported the Danish like the French and Germans? Would that mean no more BMWs and Mercedes? That would be really silly.

Yesterday me and Nat went to the supermarket and got the following: A box of Kellogg’s Cornflakes, a box of carrots, cucumbers, tomatoes, fresh meat, chicken breast, Basmeti rice, eggs and KDD Yogurt. You would think this stuff was ours to eat but its actually for our dog who arrives tonight from Belgium. Its official, my dog will be eating healthier food then me! Geo will be on a raw meat diet which means no crappy canned dog food. Do you know what they make dog food out of? Stuff thats not fit for humans, meaning you know how hot dogs are made up of all the left over meat? Well dog food is stuff you can’t even make hot dogs out of! Its like junk food for dogs, they are convenient for dog owners because all you need to do to feed your dog is open up a can and dump it in his bowl. On the other hand raw meat is the best thing you can feed your dog, its what their bodies were meant to eat and digest. Before dogs started living with humans they used to live in the wild and hunt their food and eat it raw and its what any good breeder feeds his dogs.

When I first asked my breeder what he fed his dogs he told me raw meat I was shocked and disgusted. I was always told raw meat was bad for the dog and this guy was telling me thats all he fed the dogs. So I did some online research and it turns out feeding dogs raw meat is very common amongst breeders and has recently started to gain popularity in the US with pet owners. I read an article on Salon.com that talked about the raw food diet and how new places have popped up all over the US where they deliver you raw meat daily for your dog. It turns out vets don’t recommend raw meat because it keeps the dog healthier meaning less vet visits. From what I read raw food also makes your dogs breath smell better and his poop smaller and more solid. And if every now and then you give your dog meat on a bone his teeth will also be better.

So if you have a dog or are thinking about getting a dog then think about feeding him healthier food, think about going in the way of raw meat. There are a ton of articles online about this and my favorite would be the Salon one. There is also a book you can get from the Kuwait Bookshop in Muthana Complex (Kuwait City) called “All About Dogs”. It costs only KD1.300 and is written by a breeder who has been raising dogs forever. Inside the book he talks in detail about the raw meat diet and lists you all the advantages and disadvantages of it. The ISBN of the book is 1899606327 and you can find it on Amazon for $3.43 but if you live in Kuwait its just easier to pass by the bookshop. If you want to read the Salon article you can also do that by clicking [here]

The answer.. not easy at all! You basically have to take apart the whole Powerbook just to replace the drive. Check out the step by step guide, it just gets freakier and freakier the nearer you get to the end.

I was thinking of replacing my sisters non-working drive myself, but after seeing this guide, there is no way I am even going to try doing it. [Link]

I am at work and I am online using Qualitynet dialup again. It turns out that although Fasttelco brought back online most of its services yesterday night, their Kuwait City users will remain without Internet for another day or two. All phone numbers starting with 24 still do not have Internet access.

A simple but detailed guide to eating sushi. A lot of interesting stuff including information on Fugu, the fish Homer once had in an episode of The Simpsons where he got poisoned at the sushi place. I wonder if any place in Kuwait serves Fugu? Tons of information and all very interesting and informative. [Link]

I just found this link which busts the biggest technology related myths. Here are some of the questions that are answered for example:

– Is using your cellphone on the plane dangerous?
– If you pull out your USB memory stick without ejecting do you mess it up?
– If you turn off your PC without shutting down Windows do you cause damage?
– Does turning off your PC daily to save power shorten its life?
– Can hackers destroy data on your computer’s hard drive?
Find out the answers to these questions and more. [Link]

[source Digg]

I just got back to the office after doing the import papers for my puppy Geo who is coming next month. I got to the ministry at 8:15AM and I was done with all my papers by 9, and this includes getting lost for 20 minutes trying to find the second place I had to go to. I have to say this was the quickest paperwork I have ever done.

Thanks to Nibaqs help, I was able to find the Public Authority for Agriculture and Fisheries Resources in Rabya on google maps. Once I got inside though it was super confusing. Too many signs and all in Arabic and all pointing to places I have no clue what they are about. I drove in a bit and then decided to stop at one of the dozens of shack like buildings spread out all over the place. I can’t believe how lucky I was because the shack I went into turned out to be the right one! There was a guy sitting at the reception desk, I went up to him and showed him my dogs health certificate and told him I wanted to import my dog. He went into his boss and came back out telling me I needed to go to the “seegil”. I had no clue what it was so the guy offered to come with me. We drove in my car a few buildings away and went into another shack, we told the guy at the desk there I wanted to import a dog, he took out a paper, filled it in and gave it to us. I then drove back to the first shack I went into, the boss signed the paper and told me I had to go to Rai behind Landmark and get the final import paper from there. And that was it!

I drove to Rai and got lost finding the place, finally I spoke to Nibaq on the phone and he told me where the place was but told me I would have problem finding parking. I got to the place and guess what, the parking was empty, I parked right in front of the main gate and went in. It took 10 minutes worth of paper work at this second place, some kind of government animal health center and I was done. The whole thing also cost me just one stamp worth KD2!

Such a weird experience, it felt tooo easy…

Dunkin Donuts is opening a branch in Souk Salmiya near City Center. This the second branch I know of thats opening. The first is the main Salmiya branch. Any others?

The shining history of leaders, particularly those who had a great impact on the destiny of their peoples and whose achievements stand as objects of praise for successive generations, is very difficult to be summarized in a few pages. History cannot but proudly record their leadership in achieving the development, welfare and prosperity of their nations.

His Highness Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, AMIR of Kuwait, is one of those leaders who did their best to serve both their people and nation.

Hence, he is beloved and greatly appreciated by everyone as the leader of the state and the shepherd of the community at critical times in the modern history of Kuwait.

It is, therefore, worthy to record his success as Chief of Public Security in the Oil Regions, Head of the Finance Department, Minister of Finance and Economy, Prime Minister, Crown prince, and finally as AMIR of a country made up of a small area and population, yet great in future aspirations. When describing the period in which Kuwait managed to become a truly civilized and democratic state, this was the true rule of the cherished Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah. We are going to mention His Highness’s way of thinking, education, and diplomacy, in addition to his career, leadership activities and his future aspirations.

Name
Jabir al-Ahmad al-Jabir al-Sabah
Amir Sheikh Jabir al-Ahmad Al Sabah
Amir Jaber al-Ahmad al-Jabir Al Sabah

Personal Information
Born – 1929.
Marital Status – Married, up to four wives, large number of children.
Education – Home taught (Local private schools and palace tutors).

Personal History
Emir of Kuwait, Jabir al-Ahmad succeeded his cousin, Sheikh Sabah al-Salim al-Sabah, as Emir of Kuwait in December 1977, having been prime minister (1965-78) and Heir Apparent from 1966.The rule of Jabir has been full of dramatic events. There have been many internal battles over democratization of the society and freedom of the press. The economy has seen much instability, there have been demonstrations and assassination attempts on Jabir’s life. But most dramatic was the invasion by Iraq in 1990, where Jaber was driven out of the country for a period of 7 months.

Political Activity
Jabir al-Ahmad is the current Emir of Kuwait. He became Chief of Public Security in the al-Ahmadi oilfields in 1949. In the late 1950s he dealt with the oil companies in various capacities, and in 1959 became head of the Department of Finance, which in 1962, after Kuwaiti independence, became the Ministry of Finance. In 1963-65 he also was a Deputy Prime Minister, while remaining Minister of Finance and Industry. In 1977, after the death of his cousin, he became the Emir of Kuwait. In 1979, following the Islamic revolution in Iran, and demonstrations among the Shiias of Kuwait, Jabir put more restrictions on freedom of the press in Kuwait. He has been a decisive leader, having allowed the National Assembly to reform in 1981 and dissolving it in 1986 as disagreements arose over its right to question the ability of ministers. During the invasion by Iraq, he fled to Saudi Arabia, where he established a government in exile, returning home in March 1991 after Iraq’s withdrawal. During his exile he gained the support of Kuwait’s opposition leaders in return for his agreement to restore the National Assembly. He did this in 1992, and in 1999 he gave women the right to vote.

Additional Information
Jabir al-Ahmad has survived an assassination attempt in 1985.

[source]

Wow I wasn’t expecting that much of an interest in Newsvine. I sent out an invite to the first 19 people to comment since Nibaq sent me an SMS at like 6AM asking for one. If I get anymore invites will send them out to the rest.

So I am sitting in my hotel room flipping through the channels on the TV when I fall upon the Lebanese station New TV. There was a game show on where they ask a question and if you call in with the right answer you get a chance to win up to $20,000. So I watched it a bit and it was really funny. No one was calling in and the chick who was hosting the show seemed really bored. I was thinking what a fucking stupid show, how the hell do these guys make money. Anyway someone finally called in after 30 minutes of no phone calls and gets the question right and won like $100.

The next game comes on and its basically a puzzle. There are six letters scrambled that when they put together should form a countries name. The answer was easy, Russia so I decided to call in and answer it. I call and get an automated machine telling me that the phone call was going to cost $1 a minute, no problem. Then I got another voice telling me sorry, I am close to winning but I should call again. So I do, and I get the same two voice messages. Turns out everytime you call in you randomly might get through but every time you call you pay $1. So I kept trying to call since the least I could win was like $100. I kept calling and I kept getting the fucking voice mail and I kept trying again. Now I just realized I must have easily tried over 50 fucky times! I am actually still trying to call in now while I am typing this post. Its like I am addicted and I believe I have a chance to get through. I can’t fucking stop!! I can’t!!

Awhile ago I was making fun out of this stupid fucking game show and now I have spent over $50 trying to fucking participate! Nats going to kill me when I get back to Kuwait.

Update: Some fucking dickhead from Saudi Arabia got through and won $200. I feel like such a fucking loser. I hate gambling.