Category: Personal

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/

So I came in to work today on my motorbike and I was planning on parking my bike in the underground parking lot where I usually park my car but I was stopped at the entrance. The parking people told me I couldn’t park my bike inside. I was like why? I am still going to pay you. They were like they aren’t allowed to let bikers in because bikes are “light” and “small” and “anyone can come and carry them out”. They don’t want the responsibility for having my bike get stolen. I was like huh???

So now my bike is parked outside the entrance in front of the parking peoples office. I told them to keep an eye on my bike and they were like fine… which contradicts their earlier argument. Weird people.

Sold my crappy Motorola V3x and picked up a Sony Ericsson K800i, James Bond edition. So far? Its really cool but just having trouble setting up internet access. One thing is for sure though, I am never going back to Motorola. The phone cost me KD120.

I have been using XBMC for over a year now and I have yet to find a better alternative.

Here are some screenshots
https://jonsthoughtsoneverything.com/xbmc/

What I like about it:

1) easy to use, very practical
2) plays any video format you throw at it
3) for movie covers and info it connects to IMDB and downloads them. You get the movie dvd cover, cast info, movie plot, running time, IMDB rating and more.
4) connects to my macs itunes and photos
5) connects to internet radio stations, very nice interface
6) you can install scripts that allow it to do a multitude of things from connecting you to youtube to watching movie trailers on Apple. For examples go to https://www.xbmcscripts.com/
7) very useful weather section
8) allows you to connect to your xbox from any room using your computer..
9) you don’t need to install any software on your computer
10) when playing movies you have a ton of options including the very important audio syncing. say you download a movie with a messed up audio sync, you can slow down the audio or speed it up using xbmc
11) you can create bookmarks in movies. say you are half way through a movie and you need to leave, create a bookmark so you can come back to it later
12) you can customize or download different skins for xbmc although i like the default one
13) its very impressive when you show people over 300 album covers and you tell them you see all these movies? well you can watch any of them right now with a click of a button. it looks like the future basically.
14) very cheap to setup, all you need is an old xbox and the xbox remote

www.xboxmediacenter.com

Just finished watching Rocky 6. Its definitely not my favorite Rocky, that honor falls on Rocky 4. I think my biggest issue with Rocky 6 is the fight scene, they tried to make it look and feel like a real boxing match on Pay TV which I didn’t like. Anyway it was still a good movie to watch.

While watching the movie though I wondered why Sylvester Stallone would bother doing it. He doesn’t need the money and he definitely wasn’t looking his best because as you can guess he is a pretty old guy. I think he did this movie for all us Rocky fans, thats the only explanation I can think of and for that I have to thank him. It was a nice farewell to one of the greatest movie franchises ever. Now I can’t wait for Rambo 4 and if he has the time I hope he also does a sequel to Cobra, but I doubt that will ever happen.

I was supposed to ride to work today on my bike but I woke up and the sky was cloudy so I was like its going to rain. I checked three weather websites and they all said it would be cloudy but no rain. I looked outside again and I was like no its going to rain, so I came to work in my car. Now its nearly 12 and it still hasn’t rained. Where is the rain?

Today before I left the office I swapped my Lacie 19inch CRT monitor with a brand new Apple 20inch display. It was supposed to be for another employee but he didn’t want it so I took it. Its nothing compared to Nats 30inch display but its still cool and sexy.

I have 4 episodes of 24 season 6 to watch plus Desperate Housewives, Saw III, Apocalypto and Rome episode 1 of season 2. So much stuff so little time. Oh and MacWorld is in 1 hour.

Just got back from the bloggers meetup at Dunkin Donuts. It was pretty cool and lots of fun. Saw a lot of bloggers there including Nibaq, K.thekuwaiti, Forzaq8, Maze, Toxy, Deera guy, Blue Booze BloBoz, Stallion, iDip, Exzombie and more. All very cool people.

The weather in Kuwait actually feels colder then Lebanon although the temperature there is lower. I went to the beach yesterday with Geo and although I had a sweater and jacket on I still froze my ass off. Geo didn’t seem to care though, he was actually playing in the water most of the time.

Nat quit her job before we left on vacation, she starts her new job today. I think she will be posting about it in a bit or something. I start work again on Saturday so I need to take advantage of today and tomorrow. Maybe I will pass by the Zoo…

I’m back in Kuwait. Happy new years everyone.