Category: Kuwait

Just took my car to the mechanique because it was making some sounds and vibrations. I don’t like mechanics, they are like doctors. You go to a doctor for a checkup, he tells you that X and Y are wrong with you and that you need to take this and that medicine. You say ok and you leave the office and go get the medicine. You have no clue if the doctor is right or what the hell he was talking about. Same with mechanics. You go there, he tells you that X and Y are fucked up and it will cost you need this and that to fix it. You nod your head pretending you understood what the hell he just spoke about and you agree he fixes them for you.

Membership for the months of July and August special prices.

Couple KD140
Single Woman KD80
Single Man KD5000 for sex change operation + KD80

Membership price is for 2 months, July and August only.

Update: This is for the Pool, gym, sauna, squash courts, beach.. full membership.. but hurry up, guy told me they will stop it in the next 2 days.

Today at 6PM, Fadibou and me played Halo 2 against Ripping Fabric and Ozy in the first game of this summers Halo 2 Frag Fest. We got our asses kicked, here are the results:

Blue Team (eXtinct: Fadibou and Mark

Red Team (Da Hui): Ozy and Ripping Fabric

Game 1 Results [Area: Lockout]
Red Team: 50 Kills
Blue Team: 6 Kills

Game 2 Results [Area: Headlong]
Red Team: 50 Kills
Blue Team: 17 Kills

Overall Winners: Red Team

I just received an email from someone at RKFM which I thought I would share with you and let you readers reply. Here is the email:

Dear Mark

hope to hear from you soon

So thats the email, leave your feedback in the comments. Thank you.

I don’t eat homemade food, not because I don’t like it but because I think if it takes you more time to cook it then it takes to eat it, then its not worth it. Recently I started getting microwavable food and its been a good experience. I used to think microwavable food cost KD1.5 and upwards which to me wasn’t a good deal since I could get a McDonalds combo for KD1.2, but I checked the freezers recently and you can now find meals for 500 fils and upwards. So I decided I will start buying the meals and reviewing them starting with Banquet’s “Chicken Fried Chicken Meal”.

The picture on the package looks very appetizing. What you get is fried chicken, mashed potatoes and corn. The only issue I have with the package is that on the back where the directions on how to microwave the meal is located, a large sticker with the ingredients and stuff written in Arabic is stuck on it. Very practical, how am I supposed to know how long to microwave it for if the instructions are covered!?

When it came time to cook the meal I had to remove the white sticker on the back to reveal the instructions. The instructions are easy, take out the tray, remove the transparent film cover, cook on high for 3 minutes, open microwave, stir mashed potatoes, shove back into microwave and cook for another 3 minutes. The final result? Doesn’t look very close to the picture on the package. In fact, it didn’t look appetizing at all, I even considered tossing the whole thing out because it looked as if I had cooked it wrong.

So how was it? Surprisingly good! Very strange, it looks like crap but tastes pretty good. The mashed potato was great, the corn tasted very similar to the corn at Chili’s and the chicken, although soft, tasted very cool. I was eating it and Nat was looking at me in disgust, I told her it tasted a lot better then it looked but she refused to try it.

How much did it cost me? Only 750fils! This is an incredible deal really, the taste was pretty good and although the meal wasn’t very filling, its perfect for dinner. I would definitely buy it again. Final score is 3.5 out of 5. It lost big points on the presentation.

If you are a runner/biker/etc.. and want to know the distance you ran/biked/etc.. you can now use this handy tool called Gmaps Pedometer. You zoom in to the area where you ran/bikes/etc.. and then you can mark you route and it will tell you the ditance you rant. Here is the link [Link]

Note: when you click on the link and go to the page, once you get there press satellite on the top right. When you find the location you ran/biked/etc.. click on Start Recording then double click your starting point on the map and then just keep double clicking on the route you took, it will draw lines for you and measure your distance.

I was meeting with this guy last week and we got into talking about the MSX computers (Sakhr). He asked me if I knew Microsoft was involved in the project. I told him no I didn’t know, I still have my MSX2 but I never knew that Microsoft had any involvement. He then told me if I knew how they came up with the name Sakhr. I told him no, he was like you would think it was an Arab but in fact it was the Japanese. He told me the Japanese had created a software that puts letters together and you can control how many letters you want and stuff and the software would combine letters that would be easy to pronounce. The software came up with 3 options, one of them was Sakhr.. although I have no clue how Sakhr is easy to pronounce.. So what does MSX stand for? Well there are many beliefs, some people believe it stands for Microsoft Extended, referring to the built-in MSX-BASIC programming language, specifically written by Microsoft for the MSX system. Other people say it stands for Machines with Software eXchangeability’. No matter what MSX actually means it played an important role in many peoples lives back in the 80’s here in Kuwait. Everyone I knew had one, either the white colored MSX1 (AX170) or the black colored MSX2 (AX370).

[MSX on Wiki]

Team eXtinct
Fadibou
Mark

Team Da Hui
Ozy
Ripping Fabric

Date: July 7th, 2005
Time: 6:00PM (+3GMT)
Prize: Winners will receive Halo tshirts
Setup: 2 TV’s, 2 Xboxs, 2 player split screen per team
Rules: 50 kills, two rounds, two levels, a third round if necessary, no time limit. Random starting weapons. One level chosen by Team eXtint, one level chosen by Team Da Hui. If there is a third round, Nat will randomly choose it.

I really am not anti RKFM its just that they really suck. Today I was listening to VOA when they went into a commercial break. So, I decided to switch channels and see what else is on, I get to RKFM and they had the new Jessica Simpson song on (i think its jessica simpson) and I like it (don’t ask why) so I kept the station and listened to it. I figured it was like some latest hits hour or something and I figured let me stay tuned in to see whats “cool” and “hip” with the youngies hehe. So anyway, the song ends and what song comes up next? ACE of FUCKING BASE! They have this one song like a decade old and its not the first time I heard it play on RKFM. I mean what the fuck, Ace of base?!? Just when for 1 second you think RKFM is getting decent they put Ace of Base or New Kids on the Block and ruin everything. I think Kuwait is the only country that still put Ace of Base on the radio, seriously.

The first of its kind singles gathering party in Kuwait will take place this Friday the 8th July at Bazerkan restaurant at the Shiik Flamingo resort. For more information & reservation please, call 9389387 or email [email protected]

Last day for reservations is Tuesday (ie TODAY). [Source]

I watched War of the Worlds yesterday at Fanar. I guess I understand now why all the mixed reviews. Overall the movie was pretty cool, not better then Batman but still pretty cool. I guess the problem people have with the movie is the story. Some people say that its non-existent but its more like the story really isn’t explained. I am not gonna go into too much details since I don’t want to spoil it for anyone but I think I personally would have preferred it if the story was explained more but I also don’t mind the fact that everyone left the movie with a different idea of what the story is.

It’s definitely worth watching though so book your tickets online via KNCC.

During the Gulf War I had to leave the majority of my toys behind here in Kuwait because we had to flee the country. That incident scarred me for life I think because I seemed to have developed some kind of psychological issue where I am trying to buy back every toy I had. I spend most of my days flipping through pages of vintages toys and eBay looking for stuff I used to have and then hopefully buying them. So now I have decided to share the toys with you whenever I find any. Today I am gonna start with this “Le Chalet Suisse” toy. It was amazing, its like a classy version of Lego. Its using pieces of real wood and you can build various types of wooden chalets with them. There is no sticking or clicking, the pieces of the wood are shaped in a way that they would fit together and you just stack them up.

I was able to find it online brandnew for only $78. [Link]

Today I was able to check out a TANDBERG video conferencing setup. Its such a cool system, we had 2 huge ass plasmas built into the wall and a videocamera built in between them. The system video conferences at various connection speeds but we were using 384kb/sec. The TANDBERG system is also a very secure system I was told (the US defence department uses it!), so its perfect for talking business no matter how confidential the matter might be. The guy who was showing me the video conferencing system used a Marantz RC9500 remote control (drool!!) to control the whole thing including rotating the camera and zooming in and out. With a click of a button we connected to an office in Oslo which was closed but we were able to pan the camera around over there and check out the office. While checking out the Oslo office he also connected to a roof top cam on their companies head office in Japan and then connected to the conference room located in the same building we were in. So in total we were connected to 3 places on the same screen, very cool. The guy also told me that you could connect a laptop to the system and do a power point presentation or play Quake and they could all watch you. I don’t know how much a system like this costs, I should have asked him but I know I can’t afford the Marantz remote yet alone the two plasma screens and the TANDBERG system.. sucks!!

In 1976 the government established the Reserve Fund for Future Generations, into which it placed an initial US$7 billion. It resolved to invest 10 percent of its revenues annually in the reserve fund. Money from the fund, along with other government revenues, was invested in overseas property and industry. In the 1970s, most of these funds were invested in the United States and in Western Europe: in German firms (such as Hoechst and DaimlerBenz , in each of which Kuwait owned 25 percent), in property, and in most of the United States Fortune Five Hundred firms. In the 1980s, Kuwait began diversifying its overseas investments, placing more investments in Japanese firms. By the late 1980s, Kuwait was earning more from these overseas investments than it was from the direct sale of oil: in 1987 foreign investments generated US$6.3 billion, oil US$5.4 billion. The Financial Times of London estimated Kuwait’s overseas investments in early 1990 at more than US$100 billion, most of it in the Reserve Fund for Future Generations.

The Iraqi invasion proved the importance of these investment revenues. With oil revenues suspended, the government and population in exile relied exclusively on investment revenues, including sales of investments for sustenance, for their share of ongoing coalition expenses and for postwar reconstruction and repair of the vital oil industry. While these funds were depleted to $40-$50 billion after the war, they currently are estimated around $80 billion.

I hate them.