Category: Personal

There are a bunch of new shows starting this season and so far from the ones I’ve watched I found Pan Am to be the most interesting. The show is about the airline Pan Am during it’s prime back in the 60’s and it’s starring Christina Ricci as one of the airlines glamorous flight attendants.

To me the show is very similar to Mad Men but instead of it dealing with advertising its about the airline industry and like Mad Men, watching it makes me want to go back in time and live in the 60s.

The other new shows I’ve watched so far and haven’t liked are Person of Interest and Up All Night. If you want to watch Pan Am you can do so directly on the ABC website and for free. Just make sure you’re using a VPN so it thinks you’re living in the US. [Link]

I got the following email from one of my readers:

I just witnessed the most stupid and careless accident I have seen in ages. It happened on the Gulf Road maybe 2-3 km before Kuwaiti towers going towards Kuwait city around 10.30 am today.

I was driving on the slow line ..maybe 70 – 80km/h. The road was not very busy.

There was a car coming on the fast line with a speed of maybe 85- 90km/h …it was rather slowly passing me, so could not speed much for local standards. Out of this car on a passenger seat there was a guy hanging out through the open door having a great fun!!! I swear, I was about to reach my phone to take a picture when he fell out !!! He rolled good couple of times on the road and was laying there. His head was pouring blood and I am pretty sure he must have broken few bones. He was conscious though, but must be in shock. Luckily the car driving behind managed to stop just before him, otherwise he would drive over him.

I’m not sure what to say or who to put the blame on. It’s obviously the fault of the guy hanging outside a fast moving car but I’ve seen so much crap on the Gulf Road I wonder sometimes why there isn’t more law enforcement monitoring it. But then there is the problem that law enforcement a lot of times don’t enforce the law either. On a number of occasions I’ve seen people run a red light right in front of a cop without fear of being stopped. If people are running red lights in front of cops then that’s a sign there is a major issue here. Hopefully the person didn’t suffer a serious an injury.

Pet Zone in Al-Rai recently got a dog tag machine. Actually it’s a pet tag machine but I got a tag for my dog. You get to choose a tag from a variety of shapes and colors and then you tell them what you want to print on the front and back. You also get to choose the font you want and then you get to watch your tag being made. It takes around 5 minutes and costs just KD2.

I ended up going with a pink tag for my male dog because they didn’t have this shape in any other color. Once they get a blue or black I’m going to go back and get another one made. If you don’t know where Pet Zone is click [Here]

If gas in Kuwait was the same price as Venezuela would you drive more? I personally don’t think it would make a difference…

1 Venezuela: Caracas — $0.047 per litre
2 Saudi Arabia: Riyadh — $0.127 per litre
3 Libya: Tripoli — $0.142 per litre
4 Turkmenistan: Ashgabat — $0.19 per litre
5 Bahrain: Manama — $0.206 per litre
6 Kuwait: Kuwait City — $0.222 per litre
7 Qatar: Doha — $0.238 per litre
8 Egypt: Cairo — $0.30 per litre
9 Oman: Muscat — $0.317 per litre
10 Algeria: Algiers — $0.317 per litre

[source]

There’s a building being constructed right behind mine in Salmiya and recently trucks have been coming, parking in the middle of the road and literally closing a busy main road way causing a lot of traffic in the area. I’m sure this can’t be legal (I think) so I was wondering, in a situation like this who would I have to call to report this closure? The only number I know is the 112 emergency number but I don’t think that’s appropriate.

Last week just before Eid I was able to get a hold of the new Audi A1 from the dealership to test drive over the holiday. I had been nagging them for a test drive since June but since I wanted the car for more than a day I wasn’t able to get my hands on it until now. I’ve always had a thing for hatchbacks but I also got interested in Audi’s recently and even more so after watching Truth in 24 which is a need to watch movie if you love cars.

The car a fuel efficient 2.0l engine pumping out 122hp which doesn’t sound like much on paper but in reality I found the car pretty zippy. That probably has a lot to do with the 7-speed automatic gearbox that comes standard with the car. The first day I drove the A1 I was actually pretty annoyed with the gearbox since whenever I stepped on the gas pedal for just a bit more power the car would dramatically drop down 3 or 4 gears which I thought was overkill. But, by the second day I had gotten used to it and started appreciating the gearbox a lot more. It’s very smooth and really does make the engine power more readily available which is why the car felt zippy. Still 8 gears is a lot of gears and if you use the paddle shift then you’ll be doing quite a lot of clicking.

I’m around 6 feet tall and found the car cozy with a very adjustable seat and steering column. It was actually pretty comfortable… that is as long as you’re sitting in the front. The car is a 2-door and I tried sitting in the backseat and found it too claustrophobic for my size. I wouldn’t mind sitting in the back for a 5 or 10 minute ride but I definitely wouldn’t want to sit there for a trip down to Bnaider. The trunk is also pretty small, you could fit one large travel bag but barely. But since it’s a hatchback the back seats fold down and you end up with a much larger carrying capacity.

Tech wise the car I drove came with LED lights which I think helps give the car an eye catching look. The car I drove didn’t have navigation (it’s an extra option) but it did have a popup screen and a pretty good sound system which comes with two SD card slots to use for MP3s. You could also purchase an iPod cable or even stream music from your iPhone to the car using Bluetooth which is what I was doing most of the time.

Overall I had a lot of fun with the car. I drove it all the way to the junkyards at the end of the 6th ring road and even through Bin Khaldoun Street traffic so I managed to experience a wide variety of environments. It’s easy to maneuver as a hatchback should be but the car also feels really well built with a nice thick steering wheel and great feeling buttons and nobs. Most importantly the car looks great which at the end of the days is probably the most important thing. The starting price of the Audi A1 is KD6,995 but the car I drove costs KD8,995. If you’re interested you can call them up for more information on 1811118.

When Mada launched 3 months ago I reviewed it and gave it top marks. It was incredibly fast when compared to my 2MB DSL connection at home since Mada was 10MB while my phone line can’t handle more than just 2MB. Originally I was told that Mada would be unlimited bandwidth for the first 3 months and after that everyone would be capped with a 20GB monthly limit. Turns out that plan has changed since Mada will no longer be applying a download cap and they will continue to be unlimited. That’s why I decided to renew my Mada connection for another 3 months since it’s now become my primary internet connection at home. I love it!

My package finally arrived to the US. They originally told me it would take a week to get there but it took nearly a month. Glad it got there though.

Around 20 days ago I posted about my trip to the post office and how I sent a package to the States using EMS. It was a positive post that encouraged people to use the EMS service since it was easy to use, not expensive and packages would arrive to the States in under a week.

Well it’s been nearly 20 days since I mailed out my package and has yet to arrive to it’s destination. I also can’t track the package for some odd reason and so I have no idea where it currently is. Going to pass by the post office after Eid and see what they have to say about this.

Just an update regarding the annoying SMS’s I was getting from the number 50122, I am no longer getting them and no one else is either. It just stopped overnight, my guess is someone saw my post and investigated the incident and shutdown the service. Pretty cool.

I don’t miss the weather, but I do miss my internet *hugs modem*

Just an update on whats going on with the Benihana lawsuit. Back in late April I posted about how I won the lawsuit against Benihana and how I thought it was a great victory since it reinforced the right for us bloggers in Kuwait to state our personal opinions. Well around a month after the victory Benihana appealed the courts decision which is their right to do and we headed to court once again. Except the second time it didn’t go so well.

Yesterday I found out that the court ruled in favor of Benihana and have ordered me to now pay them the sum of KD1,000. The court still hasn’t released their decision for this ruling and I have to wait around 2 weeks to find that out. I of course will be appealing the decision and be heading back to court to defend our right of freedom of expression. Once I have anymore updates will post them here.

If you have no idea what lawsuit I am talking about click [Here]

I’ve started getting SPAM on my phone and I don’t know how to stop it. Some company is sending me around 4 or 5 SMS’s a day containing sports news from the number 50122 and I don’t know how to stop it. I replied saying REMOVE but I got back an SMS telling me if I send a reply back containing certain letters I can also receive news on celebrities, the world and I don’t know what else. Anyone know how I could unsubscribe? Is there a universal reply back I need to send to get off the list that I’m not aware of?

Update: Below is what I get when I send “stop” “remove” or “unsubscribe”

Update2: I noticed with a number of readers that we started getting SPAM after entering the Alfa gas station draw I posted about last week. If you also started receiving SPAM after participating in the Alfa gas station draw leave a comment below.

I’m going to be posting from here for the next 10 days.

I had to pass by the post office to mail some defected RAM back to the States and I have to say the place was as weird as I was expecting it to be. I went to the Safat post office in Kuwait City and I only managed to find it by asking passers by since there wasn’t any sign outside the place.

Once I walked in I thought I took the wrong door and stepped inside the post office museum since there were cabinets with old stamps lining up the wall on my right and I could see more cabinets ahead in a large hallway.

I saw stamps in the cabinet that dated back to the 60’s and figured I might as well check out this museum first and then head to the post office.

After checking out a couple of cabinets the room opened up and I realized I was actually in the post office and not the museum.

I went up to the counter and asked the employee there about bareed mumtaz which is what they call EMS in Kuwait. He took my items, weighed them and told me it would cost KD6 to mail it to the States and that it would get there in under a week. In comparison, Aramex wanted KD10.5 to mail it in addition to another KD20 as a deposit in case US customs charged a duty.

Although the post office does look very outdated I didn’t mind it since the place was deserted which meant no lines. The employee I also dealt with was friendly and most importantly the EMS service seems pretty reliable and reasonably fast. Not bad.