Category: Personal

I always wanted to be a photojournalist, specifically one that covers wars.

From a Lebanese to the world: Hezbollah are terrorists financed by Syria and Iran and the Lebanese government is to pussy to do anything about them. They were warned a million times to take care of the Hezbollah issue but no one in the government had the balls to call them out. Well now the Lebanese people are going to pay for the mistakes of the government. Its summer, its tourist season and because of Hezbollah, Israel has practically declared war on Lebanon. Today morning at 6AM Israel blew up two runways at the Beirut International Airport. This is not going to effect the Lebanese politicians sitting in their million dollar mansions, its going to effect the poor Lebanese people who make up the majority of Lebanon.

With these current attacks you would think the government would wake up and realize that its time to distance themselves from Hezbollah and let the whole world know that the Lebanese people are against Hezbollah and against their actions. But, of course that didn’t happen, the Lebanese government is calling all parties to be united against Israel. What a load of political crap, they are going to make things a lot worst for everyone. Fucking idiots.

Just got the iPod nano I won from toot delivered to my office. No matter how many times I have seen the nano it never ceases to amaze me how tiny it is. Since Nat is in Lebanon I am going to enjoy it till she gets back. Thank you toot!

Its 10:15AM, I just got in to work. I overslept.

Nats MacBook arrived today and sadly for her she isn’t here to enjoy it!

Its been a while since I last posted a review of a microwave meal and since Nats in Lebanon I figured this would be a good time to start again. Tonight for dinner I had the Chicken Fingers meal by Banquet and I really liked it.

I was at Sultan Center checking out the frozen foods section when I spotted this meal. What grabbed my attention was the fact it came with a fudge brownie! I thought that was fucking cool since I never tried a microwave meal that came with cake before. I grabbed two packs plus two packs of the Fried Chicken Meal and headed towards the cashier.

Cooking the Chicken Fingers was very easy, pop it into the microwave for two and a half minutes and its done. While cooking my kitchen started smelling of brownies.. which is a good thing of course since I love the smell of freshly baked brownies. When it was done cooking I took it out of the microwave and grabbed a coke and headed to the living room.

It fucking rocked. Keep in mind I am comparing it to other microwave meals and not some fancy gourmet dinner. The chicken fingers tasted pretty good and the fries wasn’t bad either but the biggest surprise was the brownie, it was eatable! I was having doubts about trying it once I was done cooking it because it just looked.. weird. But, I took the first bite and then had another after another. Its not the best brownie in the world but it tasted pretty good for something that came with a microwave meal.

Now the biggest problem I have with this meal is the portion, its tiny. Three chicken fingers and a spoonful of fries isn’t very filling. But I guess thats why its cheap, the meal costs only 850 fils which is a bargain compared to some other microwave meals. So, for the final score I will have to give it a 3.5 out of 5. If the portion was just a bit bigger it could have easily gotten four stars. Be sure to check out my other reviews in the review section.

The iPod that I won from itoot just arrived to my US mailbox. Because it took them a while to send it they also sent a sleeve with it to make up for the delay.

Just got my MacBook RAM today from Transintl. I now have a total of 2GB which is a huge leap over the 512MB that came with it. Everything is running way smoother and I can finally multitask!

For those of you who are still stuck with the 512MB stock RAM and are having issues with Photoshop may I suggest ChocoFlop. Its what I was using and it gets the job done when it comes to basic image related stuff. Plus it launches in like 2 seconds. [Link]

So am I like the only one not watching any of the games?

I’ve been searching for new sneakers recently but was disappointed with my usual brand’s new collection. So, I decided to give Nike iD a shot. For those of you who don’t know what Nike iD is, its basically a website for Nike that allows you to choose from a collection of sneakers and then you could customize the colors anyway you want. I managed to create 2 sneakers (pictured above) which I liked but I couldn’t buy because it turns out they require a US visa card for payment. Hopefully once U Shop We Ship launch their virtual Visa card I will order them. The prices are very decent also, a pair of the sneakers above which are customized by me cost only $60. Try it out. [Link]

Its so easy to order from Hardees on the phone.

Me: Hello
Hardees: Hi
Me: I would like to place an order
Hardees: Is this Mark?
Me: Yes, I want the same order like last time
Hardees: Roast beef N Chedder combo with crispy fries, Chili hot dog sandwich and a cookie?
Me: Yes
Hardees: Total is KD2.350 and he will be there in 35 minutes
Me: Thanks bye

I was flipping through some blogs when I landed on Flippa X’s post on Burger Boutique. The post opened up my appetite and 30 minutes later I was at Burger Boutique having dinner. I thought that was pretty interesting because I don’t do that with magazines. I never read a food article in a magazine and then acted upon it. With blogs I have done it a bunch of times already. Although this might sound strange but I think the reason is I find blogs more credible then magazines, or should I say more real..

It’s hard to write this review because whatever positive thing I will say people will assume its because I got it for free or I am just kissing ass to get more free stuff. This is not true and I will tell you why…

Usually someone emails me or calls me asking for my office address so they can send me stuff. It could be anything from Donuts like today or vouchers for dinner like last week. The first thing I tell these people is that if I end up not liking your product then I won’t post about it. If your product turns out crap I will just not mention it at all on the site. On the other hand if its good I will post about it and try to encourage people to try it. The reason I don’t post negative reviews of items I get for free is simply to keep getting more stuff for free. I wouldn’t want to scare away people and I want to continue trying new stuff so that I could share it with my readers.

Now the reason I said all the above is to prepare you for what I am about to say now. I am a big fan of Dunkin Donuts and my favorite two donuts there are the glazed and the cholcolate. Today I had the “Choco Mallow Frost” from Go Nuts Donuts which is pictured above and its basically a chocolate donut with marshmallow and nuts on top. I have to say this donut was better then the chocolate donut at Dunkin. Its that fucking good. I never tried Krispy Kreme so I can’t compare to that but I have tried Planet Donuts, Donut King and La Baguette’s donuts and I can easily say they suck compared to Go Nuts.

Usually I have one donut and feel like I overdosed on sugar but today I had two of those Choco Mallow Frost and I didn’t feel sick at all. At first I thought maybe its me, maybe I have a bizzaro donut taste issue, but every time someone took a bite out of their donuts in the office all you would hear is hmmmm. So its not just me, the donuts are actually really good.

I was really not expecting these donuts to be good or for me to even end up posting about them. But, the donuts are good and the only thing lacking I think is a location in Salmiya near Starbucks and Johnny Rockets. The thing is people don’t just go to Dunkin Donuts for the food, they go there to chill out and waste time. Currently Go Nuts is located in Hawalli in the new Al-Bahr Center that just opened. Take it I haven’t been to that mall yet but I have been to Hawalli and I don’t want to go there unless its an emergency. Now the good thing is they deliver.. wherever you are. If you want to have a dozen donuts for breakfast and you work in Kuwait City, just call them up and they will deliver it to you. As a final score I am going to give them a 4 out of 5. Give them a call and try them out. Their telephone number is 2670671 or 72.

I first got into Alternative music in the summer of 92. I was visiting my cousin in LA and he made me watch a music video of a band called Blind Melon. The song was No Rain and it involved a girl dressed up in a bee costume, I am sure everyone has seen it.

Anyway in 1995 the lead singer died from a drug overdose. The band split up and Blind Melon fell apart. I was still a fan though and in 1999 I designed my own website as a tribute to them. It was located at https://unex-t.com/nico and it was the most popular fan site back then.

One day I was checking BlindMelon.com which wasn’t active and decided to email the owner asking him if he could forward the domain to my site. He replied telling me not only would he forward the domain to my site but that I could have the domain since he didn’t have a need for it. That was in 2000 and ever since then I had been running the site.

Everyone was happy, I had a very active community with a active message board with over 20,000 messages, I was providing free blindmelon.com subdomains with hosting to other Blind Melon sites and mostly I was keeping the band alive.

To make a bit of cash I had links on my site advertising the bands various CDs on Amazon and for every CD I ended up selling I got like 50 cents or something. I was making anywhere from $100 to $200 a quarter selling these CDs, its not a lot of money, it didn’t cover the hosting bill (back when I had I was hosted on fasthosts.co.uk) but it was nice cash that I injected back into Amazon by buying tshirts and sneakers.

The problem is suddenly out of the blue the band is interested in the domain. The band members all had different solo projects that all resulted in failure. Unified Theory, The Tender Trio, Extra Virgin and Mercy are some of their failed projects. Now it seems they want to release a new album of unreleased stuff in September and they want the domain.

At first they wanted me to give them the domain for free and when I refused they offered me $500. I tried to explain to them that I had a lot of sentimental attachment to the domain and the fact that I spent a lot of money on it. They disappeared and hooked up with the Law Offices of David Rudich who a few days ago sent me a cease and desist letter accusing me of cybersquatting.

This is not fair and I need help. After taking care of the site for over 6 years and keeping the band alive its not fair that they can come and take it away from me just like that. What are my options? I can’t afford a lawyer. They even HAVE a official website located at BlindMelonMusic.com, what do they want with me?

You can check out the site now by going to BlindMelon.com although I put up a fruity intro page. If you want to see how the site used to look like then you need to go to BlindMelon.com/index2.html

note: Just so there isn’t a misunderstanding, I made money from the domain but it wasn’t profit. Hosting the site cost me a lot more then what I was making from Amazon..

You can read the cease and desist letter after the jump..

After I posted the picture of the new Escalade earlier in the month I got a phone call from Alghanim Automotive marketing people telling me I could take the car out for a ride. So yesterday I took it for a ride and wow what a ride.

The first thing I noticed once I got into the car was how beautiful the interior was. As I mentioned before, unlike the old Escalade who’s interior I found extremely boring and “American”, the new Escalade is much more cleaner and very European. The interior detailing is extraordinary and extremely comforting on the eye. It’s really a huge leap over the old one. The drivers seat was also extremely comfortable and I was quickly able to adjust it and the mirrors before I left the dealership.

I took the car out to the Gulf Road and went cruising. The engine is unbelievable, with over 400HP it just wants to go faster and faster. I had a hard time keeping it at 80KM/h, there is just soo much power in it that a slight tap on the gas and you’re already at the speed limit. Of course speed limits are meant to be broken when no radar cameras are around so as soon as I passed one I slammed on the gas for an earth-shattering kick down. The engine (which comes from the Corvette) just suddenly took on a new life and turned the classy quiet Escalade into a scary loud hotrod.. it was incredible.

After driving for a while I decided to park the car and take some pictures plus explore the various features of the car. The coolest thing I found was the trunk since its fully automated. Basically the old trunk was very heavy to open and close especially for woman so the new trunk is motorized. You press a button on the handle and step back while the door opens up. You press another button and the trunk closes down. I even recorded a video of it, which you can watch [Here]. The car currently doesn’t come with a Navigation system but by the end of the year they will not only be coming with a built in Navigation system but also 3 screens in the back (it currently has 1) and the ability to play a different movie on every screen, plus 3 other people in the car could also listen to 3 different CDs all at the same time using wireless headphones. So in total 6 people could be watching or listening to 6 different things all at the same time.

The exterior of the car has also changed a lot although it still closely resembles the older model. You still have the over sized headlights for example which allows you to spot an Escalade from a mile away. The new Escalades also come with 22inch rims as standard and soon official body kits will be made available by Cadillac so anyone will be able to pimp their ride at the dealer. When driving around on the Gulf Road the car is an eye catcher. It can’t not be since the car is huge and I was driving the Pearl White version so I was sparkling under the sun.

I had a lot of fun driving the car around and when I brought it back to the dealer, the manager gave me a detailed tour of the cars features. If I had the money I would have bought the car right on the spot which brings me to the final point, the price. The new Cadillac Escalade starts from KD20,900 which is cheaper then a Range Rover but more expensive then the Lexus. It’s in a pretty nice position at the moment and I am sure once the car is more widely available the price will come down a bit more. If I had to choose between a Range Rover and the new Escalade it would be a really tough decision, luckily it’s not a decision I am likely to make anytime soon.

Here are some pictures and videos I shot:
Picture of Escalade’s interior
Picture of Escalade’s Exterior
Another picture of the Escalade’s Exterior
Video of trunk opening and closing
Video of a tour around the car