Category: Information

First interesting trivia:
Francis Ford Coppola made a commercial for Suntory whiskey with legendary Japanese director Akira Kurosawa in the 1970s. This event later influenced a salient plot point in his daughter Sofia’s movie, Lost in Translation.

Second interesting trivia:
In the movie Lost in Translation while shooting the whiskey ad in the movie, the director kept telling Bill Murray to make expressions more like Sean Connery. Turns out Sean Connery actually did do whiskey commercials and you can watch them by clicking here.

From the makers of Rampurple – Days Go By, Rampurple – The Evolution Continues is about the latest phase in my life. Part 2 in this series of blogging. Enjoy! [Link]

The Princess of Brunei just contacted me asking me for help. She basically has money stashed in various parts of the world and needs my help in retrieving them. In return I will get rewarded financially. I love these spam mails. Click on more to read her email.

Someone from Aramex left the following comment in one of my posts:

Dear valued customers, we thank you for your valued feedback and comments on our very special and unique ShopN’Ship service. Rest assured that all your comments and complaints are being taken into considerations; We are taking things up to top management to plan for necessary corrective and preventive actions to make sure all these problems would never recur again and our customers are happy at the end and satisfied. We are taking some newly measures and changes which we are sure it will improve our service level drastically and provide you with utmost satisfaction. All your comments and feedback are highly appreciated and welcome to our mail address [email protected] where they will all be recorded and logged into our system for review and investigation. Always at your service. Rabih Jabboury.

Hopefully what he said is true and things are going to get better. What new service I would like to see is maybe a mail back to sender option where we could ship products back to the States incase of damages or returns.

Update: Turns out the service IS available!

Fuck my luck, I have been waiting all day for a decent shot of something and finally when it happens turns out my camera was set on manual focus! Me and Nat where standing at the traffic light which had 3 lanes. We were parked the third row middle. Suddenly a car pulls up beside us with two people in it. The passenger wearing local clothing gets out and goes to the car infront of him and starts punching the passenger there. The driver then follows him and starts kicking in the side windows of the car infront of him and smashing them. By then I had my camera out (it was on my side since I was shooting earlier) and I started taking pictures. Then I realized my camera was out of focus and wasnt focusing because it was set on manual. Suddenly the car that was getting attacked climbs the sidewalk, nearly runs over the guy in local clothing who was trying to hang on to the car, and then crosses the red light nearly hitting an oncoming car. The two attackers get back into their car and rush off in a high speed chase through traffic. Our light turned green so I tried to follow them but it was impossible since they were weaving in through heavy traffic dangerously and then they ran another red light. It was such a rush watching all this happen and it all happened so fast. Damn my luck for having my camera in manual focus. I am sure they would have been interesting pictures. The picture above was the only picture I was able to take after quickly putting my camera on autofocus again. You can see the local guy on the floor and the car jumping off the curb through traffic. You can also see where that car was parked.

10. Think Different (Apple)
9. We bring good things to life (General Electric)
8. We try harder (Avis)
7. Breakfast of champions (Wheaties)
6. Where’s the beef? (Wendy’s)
5. Diamonds are forever (DeBeers)
4. Melt in your mouth, not in your hand (M&M candies)
3. Always Coca-Cola (Coca-Cola)
2. Tastes great, less filling (Miller Lite)
1. Just do it (Nike)

[Link]

This is a good post by a student on how to wake up feeling fresh and energetic instead of grumpy and sleepy. The student suggests a very simple method of setting up 2 alarms, the first one would play music at a very low volume while the second alarm will ring at your normal volume. The thinking behind this is you set your first music alarm at very low volume to play at a time you want to wake up. If you wake up to the music you would probably be in light sleep and you will wake up feeling good. You set the second alarm to the latest time you would want to wake up, as a backup in case the first alarm didn’t wake you up. If you wake up to the second alarm you would wake up the normal way you wake up every day.

You can read the full details when you click the link, I am gonna try this myself tomorrow morning. [Link]

Update: Dogbert gave me a link to an alarm clock that runs away and hides after it rings so you wouldn’t be able to snooze it off, thats fucking crazy! [Link]

zMacShop finally got their batch of iPod Nanos. They are selling them for only KD88 with a free sleeve. Thats over KD40 cheaper then the other Mac stores in Kuwait. So if you are interested here is their contact info.

zMacShop
116 Walla’a Complex – Basement
Hawalli, Ibn Khaldun Street
Kuwait City – Kuwait
Tel: +965-261-7575
Email: [email protected]

Update: I received a phone call earlier tonight from zMacShop telling me about the following offer. For the first 6 people who buy an iPod Nano and mention my site (2:48AM) they will get a FREE rubber unpowered boom box for the iPod in addition to the free sleeve. Everyone else will get a free pair of Apple Logo stickers in addition to the sleeves. So if you want an iPod Nano hurry up to get the extra gift, they only have 6 to give away.

Since Google VPN is kinda flaky at the moment, you could try anonymous browsing (for Free) using Hide My Ass. [Link]

Note: Keep in mind, Hide my Ass is NOT secure. Meaning if your connection at the office is monitored, they will know where you have been going. For a secure connection use Proxify.

Ummm is there a Hash Bar in Kuwait that I don’t know about? BusyNow was researching for his upcoming trip when he discovered this under a review of accommodations in Kuwait:

SAS Radisson, Salwa, Tel. 575 6000, Fax 575 0155, E-mail: Again we have some good eating, a reasonable gym, and hosts of many Quiz Nights. Chalets are available for long term guests and this is the nearest hotel to the (un)official Hash Bar.

WHAT HASH BAR?? Can someone post a map or something??

Here is the link to the page he found it at, do a search for the word “hash” and you will find it. [Link]

I can’t find it now but I remember reading in a local blog a complaint about Kuwait Cinema closing for Ramadan. Well I think I now know why, it seems they are rebranding. KNCC will become the mother company while CinemaScape (if i remember correctly) will be the new name. You might have noticed the outdoor ads recently (the do not cross yellow police line), I think they will launch the new brand once they open up the cinemas again during eid.

update: seems KNCC closed today till eid and has been open throughout ramadan.

Apple turns 30 on April 1st. When Apple turned 20 they released the Twentieth Anniversary Mac. It cost $10,000 and was delivered to your home in a limo. The system looked like nothing else at that time. It had a very small foot print kinda like the current iMacs and the sound system was designed by Bose. The Mac came with a remote control so you could turn it on and off plus control the volume. You could even watch TV on the Mac and change channels using the remote. Due to the price though they only sold 12,000 world wide. I was able to purchase a brand new TAM three years ago from a local dealer for KD150. I gave it as a gift to my parents who proudly display it and use it today. Even though the TAM was released in 1997, it still grabs the attention and curiosity of visiting guests.

If Apple would release a Thirtieth Anniversary Macintosh this time around, it has to follow the footsteps of the previous one. It has to look like nothing else available which shouldn’t be too hard for Apple to accomplish. It should cost $10,000 and this time they probably would team up with Bang & Olufsen. Finally every hardcore Mac user would want one but none of us would be able to afford it. [Link]

1- walk really fast when you are going anywhere as to appear something important is going to happen

2- carry a notebook with you at all times. seems like you are suppose to be somewhere taking notes. if at your desk keep it open with a pen on it

3- keep your headset on if you are in your cubicle

4- actually do work but that defeats the purpose. okay more later. any suggestions?

5- shuffle papers

6- look pissed off

7- put up a do not disturb sign when you are browsing the web

8- continually click on a pen

9- walk around with your laptop open, side note: take your laptop home and say you are WFH (working from home)

10- open up Microsoft Word and write blog entries to post later

[Link]

Here is the Top Ten Worst Shows for family viewing according to The Parents Television Council.

1. The War at Home
2. The Family Guy
3. American Dad
4. The O.C
5. C.S.I.
6. Desperate Housewives
7. Two and a Half Men
8. That ‘70s Show
9. Arrested Development
10. Cold Case

[Link]

Someone shared this with me in the morning. Did you know the nails on your fingers grow four times faster then on your toes? Also another fact I learned, international banks that are opening up in Kuwait like HSBC and CitiBank are only allowed to open only one local branch according to Kuwait law.