2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003

“In Nuremberg, organisers revealed 70,000 England fans who flooded the city drank 1.2MILLION pints of beer – an average of 17 pints each…” [Link]

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..

Todays newspapers are hillarious, you barely have any articles in them they are just packed with election ads. Check out this video I shot. [Video]

My MacBooks temperature usually hovers around 53 degrees to 67 degrees Celsius which really isn’t that bad. Nats PowerBook used to get way hotter. I don’t know what all the fuss is about…

I don’t usually have postive things to say about Mac & More but today I passed by them and turned out they had 2 Black MacBooks. They were already sold to clients and they were busy installing software on them but atleast Nat was able to see in person how the black MacBook looked like. She told her PowerBook and was considering either the 2ghz white MacBook, the 2ghz black Macbook or the 1.8ghz MacBook Pro. The prices between the three were very close, $1300, $1500 and $1800.

Well the blackbook turned out to be pretty boring. It just looks like an ordinary computer which wasn’t very exciting. This instantly took the black book out of the picture and Nats options were either the 2ghz $1300 white MacBook or the $1800 1.8ghz MacBook Pro. $500 difference for a larger screen… not worth it. So I just placed an order for the white book.

Something funny happened while at the Mac store. One employee saw me taking a picture of the black book and he asked me if I had a problem. I thought that was weird cuz the correct question would have been why are you taking a picture? Anyway I replied back asking him if he had a problem. He was like no he was wondering if I had a problem because I was taking pictures. I asked him why is that a problem? He was like no. I was like o..k.. weird.

This TV commercial is currently one of my favorites. I love the music, the colors, the mood, the story.. I think its just fucking amazing. ZWAN is a food brand if you didn’t know that already. This commercial was created by JWT in Beirut and produced by City Films also in Lebanon. [Video]

Someone just emailed me this link to a picture of Bumblebee from the upcoming Transformers movie. He is looking really cool and now I can’t wait to see the movie. [https://www.aintitcool.com/images2006/bumble.jpg“>Picture]

update: link fixed, thanks Blue Tulip

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.

Jabriya Canidate (District 10) Jamal Al-Omar is caught buying votes on video.

Link to Sa7at Al-Safat
Link to YouTube
Download WMV Video

[source K.theKuwaiti]

Go Nuts Donuts just sent me 2 dozen donuts to my office to try out. I am now waiting for the rest of the team to come in so we can dig into them. So far I have my eye on the chocolate donut with marshmallows.

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

A friend of mine emailed me this video. Its of 2 Saab guys performing incredible stunts and drifts with their cars. Some really crazy shit.. [Video]

I have had the MacBook for around a week now and I have decided to write about my experience so far. This isn’t a review because it wouldn’t be fair. I have always had a thing for ibooks and I had already given the MacBook a 5 star even before I got it. So this isn’t a review, its just what I experienced.

When I first got the Mac it had around 30GB of empty space from a total of 60GB. Thats because the MacBook came installed with everything including trial runs of Microsoft Office, Pages, Keynote and a couple of other softwares plus the whole iLife package was installed. I ofcourse didn’t need most of these so first thing I did was format the Mac and reinstall it with the softwares I needed… iMovie, iTunes and iPhoto. This resulted in over 46GB of space being free which is a big difference. The MacBook came with a small remote control and its still in the plastic wrapping in the box. I don’t like FrontRow (XBMC spoiled me) so no need for the remote. Another thing that I will probably never use is the built in iSight. I tried it a bit and I can imagine it being very handy but its not for me.

Anyway, the MacBook is incredible. Its super fast and I just have 512MB of RAM installed. FireFox launches in 1 second, System Preferences in less then a second and iPhoto in 2. The wifi reception is also unbelievable. Suddenly all these wifi hotspots started appearing while sitting on my living room couch, hotspots I hadn’t seen before. Its like where did all these come from??

So far in the week I have been using the Mac it only gotten REALLY hot once when I was busy installing Adobe CS, browsing the web and downloading software updates all at the same time. The MacBook just got really hot, but it didn’t crash or anything. Currently I have been surfing the web for over 3 hours and the MacBook feels warm but not hot at all. The battery life is really good, it easily lasts me 4 hours and even more if I lower the screens brightness. Speaking of the screen, its really really bright, like blinding bright. I have to decrease the brightness most of the time since I would be watching TV and the MacBook’s screen would be brighter which is distracting. Its even brighter then my Lacie CRT at work!

I also installed Windows XP on my MacBook using Apple’s Bootcamp. I don’t have a major need for it but its only occupying 5GB of space and I am going to install Red Alert 95 on it plus the Dos version of DopeWars. Its cool to have since when I play around with the sites template for example I always want to see how it would look like on a PC. Plus it has a “wow effect” when I show my PC friends that my Mac can now run Windows.

Other then that I don’t know what else I can talk about. If anyone has any questions I could answer them in the comments below. I am very pleased with my MacBook and I am very happy I got it over the MacBook Pro. Nat on the other hand doesn’t like the plasticness of the MacBook and so is going to get the Pro version. This I realized might be true for other people also. The plastic feel could put off people who are looking for a serious looking laptop. The MacBook is more funky and trendy then serious. It will grab a lot of attention if you are surrounded by ordinary looking Dell and Toshiba laptops, attention you might not want. But, I still believe this is a better built laptop then the Pro version and I believe this one can take a beating while the Pro version can’t. Everyone to his own though..

With the new Intel Macs you can run Windows XP. To do so you have two options, the first is using Apple’s free beta software called Bootcamp or you can pay $49 and use Parallels. Which should you choose and which is faster? Cnet took both softwares and ran a bunch of tests and it turns out Bootcamp is the way to go. [Link]