Category: Kuwait

This is what 5 dozen Choowy Goowy cookies look like 🙂

Seems everyone has phone problems. I passed by Ceasers Restaurant yesterday and they were having phone problems so I couldn’t pay with Knet. Later I past by International Veterinary Hospital all the way in Ahmadi and they also had phone problems and so I couldn’t pay with Knet. I hate paying with cash.

Today I past by Applebee’s, my first time in like 5 years and probably my last time for another 5 years. First of all they must have the smallest and worst NON-smoking section in the world. I mean usually restaurants reserve the best seats for non-smokers and shove the smokers in a small room in the back. Applebee’s on the other hand has 90% of the restaurant dedicated to smokers and then has a handful of tables hidden in the back for non-smokers. What the fuck is up with that? Secondly I never remembered their prices being this high. I seriously think they have a pricing issue, I mean neither the food nor the location nor the atmosphere is better then Chili’s and Nino’s for example, yet Applebee’s prices are more expensive? Really fucked up, I guess thats why they still had empty seats during peak hour for lunch today.

Tomorrow I will be posting about the International Veterinary Hospital and how much it rocks. I will also post about the movie Munich which I really loved.

Nearly every time I take Geo for a walk, someone asks me if Geo is for sale. Yesterday night we went to Marina Crescent (it was packed like Venice Beach btw) and their were tons of people who asked me if he was for sale. Not only that one guy asked me if Geo could mate with his female German Shepherd! I was like dude, Geo is just 10 weeks old, he is a puppy, he doesn’t have balls even. Do a lot of people sell their dogs here? I mean its such a weird question to ask a dog owner, why would I sell a member of my family? I doubt other dog owners would sell their dog either, unless their dog just got puppies and they are selling the puppies. Its really strange.

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

I always wanted to be a policeman and it pisses me off that I am not allowed to become one here in Kuwait? I can’t even become a reserve cop! I have lived here all my life and I want to give back to the community by becoming a cop, shouldn’t I be allowed to? If I want to give back to my community what else can I do? What options do I have as an expat?

I just read that Memoirs of a Geisha got banned in Kuwait. I wasn’t interested in watching it, but I am curious to why it got the ban. I am also curious to why it was playing in the movies here for a week now, why didn’t they ban it from the beginning? [Link]

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.

Last week I received five jars of Choowy Goowy cookies each a different flavor. The flavors are Chocolate Chip, Peanut Butter, Cinnamon, Macadamia and Double Chocolate. After sharing the cookies with family and friends, I realized I wasn’t going to be able to review each flavor separately and the reason being no one had anything negative to say about the cookies! Everyone who tried the cookies automatically fell in love with a flavor and started ordering jars for themselves. They are really all delicious and its become a common sight in my office for example to find cookie jars on some peoples desks. Everyone who finds out about the service is amazed such a thing exists in Kuwait.

So basically its not about which cookie flavor is the best. They are all the best, its about which flavor is your favorite. I know mine and its the double chocolate.

Want to order cookies? Call them up at 2626559.

Read my Choowy Goowy Review

Have you gotten your loved one a Shani today?

Special greetings to:
K the Kuwaiti
Savior Machine

Two nights ago when Egypt won the African Cup in soccer, large convoys were driving around celebrating by honking and cheering. They were really annoying and kept going at it for 30 minutes around my area before they left somewhere else. If this happened at say 6PM I wouldn’t have had a problem (maybe) but they were honking like crazy at 11PM! So awhile ago I found out that the cops arrested a lot of Egyptians on the Gulf Road that night because while the whole country was mourning the passing of the late Amir they were driving around celebrating a soccer game. I am glad the cops arrested them, I was tempted to call the cops on them myself because they were causing such a disturbance but I didn’t know what number to call (777?) and I didn’t know what to say (people are honking please help me). Anyone else hear them?

I passed by the Ministry of Communications branch in Salmiya today morning to solve my phone problem. When I got there I spotted 3 MOC vans which I guessed were the technician vans, so I waited in my car hoping to catch one leaving so I could bribe him to fix my phone line. Around 10 minutes passed when I saw another MOC van arriving and about to park. I got out of my car and ran towards the technician who was coming out of the van. I call out and he stops and asks me what I wanted, I asked him if he was a technician and replied telling me he was in charge of installation. Now the problem is while running towards the guy I thought he was Egyptian but after I started talking to him I realized he was a local. At first I wasn’t sure if I should offer him a bribe or not but he seemed annoyed by me and so I decided not to even try. He told me if I needed a technician to go inside the building. So I went in looking for the technicians walking around not know where to go when the guy I had spoken to outside came up to me and pointed me to a building outside, he told me to go in it, take a left and then take the last door on the right. So I do that except the door on the far right had an employees only sticker on it. I figured whatever and just walked in.

I walked in a huge ass room with a really high ceiling and a couple of rows of racks with tons of cables running around them. I figured this was the main switchboard room but it looked like technology from the 70’s and 80’s. I found a woman sitting at an old wooden desk and told her I was looking for a technician. She asked me why and I explained to her my problem. She brought over a small basket full of what I realized were complaint cards and started flipping through them looking for mine. Suddenly an old Indian guy walked in and asked the woman for the complaint basket and she told him to wait a bit because she was looking for something. So I turn around and asked the guy if he was a technician, he told me yes. I told him my line had a problem, he asked me which area and I told him. He told me the whole block there has a major problem and that over 1400 lines were not working. He told me they are trying to work as fast as possible but it was a fault in the major cable and they still need around 4 days to fix it. I told him if it was only 4 days I don’t have a problem with its just that I know people who’s phone lines haven’t been working for over 2 months. He told me not to worry and they are trying their best to fix the problem. So I thanked him and the woman and left.

Now I will wait and see what happens. I believe they are working to fix the problem so I guess its just a matter of time and I get my phone line and Internet back.

The Kuwait Airport is currently shutdown because a military plane crashed there. I don’t have any more details for now.

Update: Kuwait airport reopened to air traffic [Link]

I called 5710000 today (the phone line urgent repairs number), I spoke in English and as soon as someone answered the phone I asked for the manager. The woman (who I was surprised spoke English) asked me why? what was the problem? I told her my phone line has not been working for 2 weeks and you told me it only needed 2 days to fix. She asked for my number and I gave it to her. She then told me that my number has already been tagged to get fixed but the technician hasn’t taken the job. I asked her what can I do then? She told me I could tag your number again or you could wait till it gets fixed. I told her I know of some people who have been waiting for 2 months, she told me this was a different problem. I told her to tag my number again and I would wait and see what happens.

Anyway I spoke to someone who had a phone issue before and he also waited 2 weeks without getting his line fixed. So, what he did was pass by the post office at 7:30AM when all the technicians were standing outside, he pulled one aside and told him if he fixes the phone line for him he would pay him KD5. His phone line got fixed the same day. Tomorrow morning I am going to pass by and try the same thing and hopefully my line will get fixed the same day also.

We took Geo to the Marina Crescent beach tonight. The weather was pretty cold but it didn’t seem to bother him at all. I came to two conclusions today, the first is something I have known for a while now, I am unfit, the second thing is that when Geo grows up he is gonna kick my ass. Geo is a really fast runner, although he is still a puppy he could keep up with me when I was running. If he can keep up with me now I can only imagine how fast he will be once he grows up. Whenever I watch a movie and there is a criminal escaping police dogs I always imagined myself doing better if I was in his spot. Well thats bullshit because I could barely run for 30 seconds before collapsing from exhaustion tonigh. Damn I need to exercise. On our way back to the car Geo saw his friend Bozo, a white Labrador puppy he met on his first beach visit. They played a bit before we had to tell them goodbye and go home.The picture on top is of Geo chasing Nat on the beach.

As I have mentioned before I have a telephone line problem at home. There is no dial tone and its not just me, its nearly everyone in my block. We already called the post office to complain and they told us that a note was written to the technician but he hasn’t picked it up yet. If by Saturday the phone lines aren’t working we should send an official complaint. My parents who live next door have asked around in the area and it seems some people have had the same phone issue for over 2 months now and no technician is coming to fix it. Their complaints are going unheard of and now I am worried my phone line won’t be working for another 2 months also.

What can I do to have my problems solved quickly? Who can I call to complain about this? Is this a helpless cause where I just have to sit and wait for things to get solved by themselves?