Category: Personal

I started a diet early last month, a no junk food diet. By junk food I meant I would no longer eat at the following place: Hardees, McDonalds, Burger King, KFC, Texas Chicken and any other similar place. Since I started that diet I gained 2KG because I ended up replacing burgers and fries with chicken and rice, a lot of rice.

So, I decided to try the no carb diet because it sounded easy. I am now on the second day of the diet and its killing me. I am like fantasizing about eating bread, thats how lame I am at the moment. I really feel like having a huge ass burger right now…

update: I learned today the following items have carbs:
– Chocolate Milk
– Hardees Apple Pie
– Baskin Robbins ice cream
– Chocolate Cheese Cake
– Nuts
and that sugar = carbs

update2: I have a MAJOR headache!

The other day one of Marzouqs posts reminded me of an amazing pair of sneakers I owned ages ago, the Air Jordan VII. They were released in early 1992 and I believe were the coolest Air Jordans ever. I think Kriss Kross had the same pair. [Link]

A friend of mine yesterday told me that a Kuwait Airways plane “crashed” in the UAE and they were trying to cover up the incident. I didn’t believe him because you can’t cover up an aircraft crash. Anyway today it turns out there wasn’t a crash but a Kuwait Airways plane had to do an emergency landing because the landing gear failed to open. I will definitely never be flying with Kuwait Airways again.

Now two things grabbed my attention in the article. First, UAE offered Kuwait a replacement plane. I found that really strange because its not like Kuwait is broke and can’t afford a new plane. They must have looked at all the aging Kuwait Airways aircraft and gotten the idea Kuwait can’t afford to get a replacement and decided to donate one to us…

Then near the end of the article I also read about how Kuwait Airways later dropped the passengers off in Dubai with no hotel reservations or anything. I mean come on. When a plane crash lands and passengers get hurt and are forced to evacuate the plane, its a very traumatizing experience. At least, at the very least other then the million apologies to the passengers and the extra free air miles and cash for all the trauma they endured, at the very least put them up in a hotel. According to the article, Kuwait Airways just dropped off the passengers on the side of the road without offering to put them up in a hotel. The passengers are now planning to sue Kuwait Airways and I hope they end up winning.

Morale of the story, never fly with Kuwait Airways.

[Link to article]

Just got back from the Kuwait Advertising Arab Awards, it was better then last years event but it was still extremely poor. The way the categories were divided and the way the ads were nominated didn’t make any sense. Our agency submitted work to some categories for example but during tonights event those categories didn’t exist. I heard the same feedback from other agencies who participated, everyone was just confused to what the hell was going on. The actual presentation of the awards was also a mess, they couldn’t get the TV commercials playing right (how hard is it to press play and pause) and the woman announcer had the most cheesiest one liners. The event was also supposed to start at 7PM according to our tickets (which had a major mistake btw), but according to their website the event was supposed to start at 7:30PM but in reality the event actually started at 8. There were also less agencies participating this year probably because after last years fiasco no one wanted to be involved with the KAAA.

On a positive note the stage looked good, BUT it was a near copy of the KREA awards. Compare the picture above to the picture [Here]. Notice the starry backdrop?

Anyway my agency ended up collecting the most awards (I think), with a total of 12 bronze, silver and gold trophy’s but it really doesn’t mean much since the KAAA doesn’t have any credibility internationally. One of my favorite TV commercials ever which was created by our Beirut office won a Gold in the food category. The version of the ad they played wasn’t the one I liked though, it has a different soundtrack and editing so I figured I would share with everyone the version I like which I uploaded to YouTube a while back. The commercial was for the product Zwan, if you haven’t checked it out you can by clicking [Here]. And thats it basically, I got to see a lot of old friends and I got to wear a suit so everything else didn’t matter much. Hopefully next year I won’t go.

update: here is another review of the event [Link]

update2: Just found out that they canceled one of our categories because we were the only ones who entered it. So according to the KAAA logic if you are successful and have no competition you can’t win. Now lets play along with that for a moment, how about you call us and tell us that you canceled that category, at least then we could have told the client not to come to the event. No professionalism whatsoever.

The interior of the M45 is really spacious specially for the rear passengers. There is a lot of legroom in the back plus the passengers have their own control station where they can control a few options including their seat position, the radio, the rear curtain and more.

The interior is also really cozy, the seats are big and comfy and its all very quiet inside the car once you roll up all the windows. Many times I would be cruising on the road only to look down at the speedometer and notice that I am way above the legal speed limit.

Other then the exterior styling though my only other issue with the car is the rear windows, they don’t roll down all the way which might be annoying for some people. The sound system could probably use a sub in the trunk but then again it could be just me.

The M45 is a nice car but its not a G35. The car isn’t as fun or as cool, its a family car. Its got a powerful V8 engine and all, but unlike the Infiniti G35 which they lent me last week, I don’t want to speed in this car. The G35 actually made me want to trade in my car for it but so far I haven’t clicked with the M45 like that. Maybe if I was older and had kids I would prefer the M45 over the G35 but at the moment I am not swinging that way. Its pretty comfortable though and I love how smooth and quiet it is on the highway.

During my lunch break I headed over to Infiniti to pick up the M45. Its going to be with me until Wednesday evening. I wasn’t really looking forward to it that much because I was expecting it to be slow and heavy but luckily they gave me the V8 362HP version which so far seems to be as fast as the G35 I drove last week. Styling wise the G35 wins hands down. The G35 looks sportier and sleeker but thats probably because the M45 is targeting a different more mature group. The M45 is a bigger car and its noticeable from the larger interior but they still try to make it look sporty by giving it 18inch 19inch wheels and 4 exhaust tips at the back. I didn’t have time to take a picture yet, just took this one from their website.

Happy Birthday Nat

This is my current ringtone, don’t laugh. [Link]

Just got home awhile ago. I was over at Marzouqs place, we first watched the latest episode of 24 and then we ended up watching Snakes on a Plane. Their were also some guys there who were at The Gulf Run last weekend and they were sharing with us stories and stuff. It was a pretty chilled out evening. The past few days I was extremely busy at work so it was cool to just relax.

I usually go out to lunch but on some occasions I stay and eat in at the office. One place I enjoy ordering from is a small restaurant near my office called Tourist Restaurant Co. It has a dumb name, it has an ugly menu and they even stole their logo from BigBoy but, the food is really good and cheap. I mostly order Butter Chicken or Chicken Curry with a side order of basmati rice and I haven’t been disappointed yet. The service is also extremely friendly and their serving portion is very filling. If you work in the city and are looking for some good Indian food (they have Chinese also but I haven’t tried it yet) then I would recommend Tourist Restaurant Co.

Here is their menu:
Side 1
Side 2

Their delivery numbers are:
2439574
2411702
7435485

So I have had the 2007 Infiniti G35 for three days now and its really grown on me. There are a couple of things I like about it and a couple of things I dislike about it, here is my list so far:

– Key-less entry. I have a small key chain I keep in my pocket, once I touch the door handle the car gets unlocked. Whats cool is when I had the key chain in my jacket pocket and I kept my jacket in the car and I tried to lock the doors it wouldn’t lock, the car knew the key was inside the car not outside it. What I dislike is when I touch the door handle only the driver side door unlocks, I need to unlock the other doors using the door unlock button located inside the car.

– Reverse camera. I first saw this on the Infiniti Q45 two or three years ago and now its becoming standard on more and more cars. If only there was a way to activate it without going into reverse, it would be a cool way to spy on the people in the car behind during traffic.

– Sound system. Its Bose which I dislike but surprisingly its pretty beefy. Loads of speakers scattered all over the car and the bass isn’t lacking. Car also has video and audio RCA inputs so you can hook up your iPod Video and just watch videos or listen to music on the screen.

– Steering wheel. Its covered in thick hand stitched leather and it gives the car a very lush feel.

– Center console. Its a love hate relationship. It feels very Japanese which I dislike. I prefer the design of the Europeans. The interior of the Infiniti reminds me a lot of the Lexus which makes sense since its also a Japanese car.

– BLS or G35? Easily by far the G35. I think I will post a more detailed comparison later.

– Acceleration. 0 to 100km in just 5.3 seconds, do I need to say more?

I can’t believe I have to give this car back in a few days.

update: found a bunch of settings I can change using the settings button on the console. I figured out how to turn on the option that allows all the doors to open when I touch the door handle, I also found other nifty options like how dark should it be before the car lights automatically comes on and other little things like that.

I haven’t written any movie reviews lately because the majority of the stuff I watched have been crap like Pirates of the Caribbean 2, Jackass 2, Danika and The Illusionist or they have been really good, just difficult to write about like Brick and Idiocracy. Today though I watched a movie that exceeded my expectations, Running Scared.

While watching the movie I tried to figure out where I had seen the main actor before and I couldn’t put my finger on it until just 5 minutes ago while checking out IMDB. The main star of the movie is Paul Walker, the blond guy from The Fast and The Furious movies. I thought he was pretty lame back then but in Running Scared he was like a different person.

The movie is about Paul Walker trying to get back a gun he had in his possession that was used to kill a cop. The gun keeps changing hands “in an underworld of freaks, pimps, hookers and pedophiles” and Paul spends the whole movie trying to find it while avoiding his gang and the cops.

I liked the way the movie was shot and edited especially the colors and the locations, it was all very dark and urban. There is also a cool signature move where the main character (Paul) visualizes how an incident took place while standing still and looking around, kinda like how they do it in the TV show CSI. The only thing I disliked about the movie was one of the other stars, the kid Cameron Bright. I didn’t like him in The Butterfly Effect and I didn’t like him in Running Scared. The kid just looks really weird.

The movie was really fun to watch and it never felt boring, I actually only checked my email once throughout the whole movie which rarely happens, thats how fast paced it was. Final score though it gets a 4 out of 5. The reason is there were a lot of people I wanted to see more of, mostly his gang and the Russians. But the movie flowed through so many characters and so quickly that it never stopped or slowed down enough to really enjoy them all. In general though this is definitely a movie I would recommend.

A few days ago I got an email from Infiniti saying they wanted to lend me a brand new Infiniti G35 for a week so I could try it out. They just launched the new model recently and wanted to know what I thought of it. I just got back from the dealer awhile ago and I now have in my possession a dark blueish grey top of the line G35… and its fast. The car has a 3.5liter engine which pumps out 327HP with the help of dual air intakes. The thing has amazing acceleration.

I am going to take the car out again later tonight, at the moment I am really hungry and need to have lunch. For a larger picture of the car [Click Here]

www.infiniti-me.com/gsedan/