2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003

Whats up with this new law in Kuwait where you need to have a fire extinguisher in your car? Are burning cars that big a problem in Kuwait that we all need to carry around fire extinguishers? I remember there was a similar law in Lebanon, one of the politicians had purchased a large quantity of extinguishers and then created the law so he could make profit by selling them.

Private bars in hotel rooms are amazing. They are filled with the coolest munchies and for some reason a Pepsi can always looks a lot cooler in these hotel room fridges then in yours back home. The items are also extremely overpriced and thats why its usually a good rule never to get stoned in a hotel room. A coke can costs KD1 ($3) while a tiny bottle of Black Label costs KD5 (I could still buy it and bring it to Kuwait and sell it for profit). The most expensive thing in my fridge at the moment is the 1/4 bottle of champagne costing a nice KD20. The cheapest thing is Kit Kat which costs 800fils.

Click here to view a picture of my rooms mini fridge.

Took a cab ride today in one of those old beat up Mercedes cars. In Lebanon these cabs are called “service” (pronounced serveece) and they ride up and down the streets picking up people. They pickup more then one person and you usually get off on the main road near your destination. They charge LL1000 which is like 200fils (I think like 50cents). The driver I took a ride with today turned out to speak fluent Arabic, French, English and Indian. Turned out he used to work in construction back in Saudi and moved back to Lebanon in 1993. He ran out of money and couldnt find another job so he ended up becoming a cab driver. These kind of stories are pretty comon here sadly.

If you have done a lot of shopping on Amazon.com you might have noticed that the prices of products on Amazon go up and down like the stock market. You might find and buy something today for $100 but check again the next day and the same product might be $90 or $110.

It really isn’t fair if you buy something today for a price and find it cheaper the next day and thats why Amazon has a policy where if you buy something for lets say $100 and within 30 days of your purchase the price goes down to say $90, Amazon would credit you back the difference of $10.

Keeping track of the products you buy and their prices can be a pain and this is why the site RefundPlease.com is very handy. This website keeps track of your purchases and the price you paid and within 30 days if the price of the product goes down they will email you with the correct url which you could use to request credit from Amazon. I have already added some stuff I purchased this christmas and hopefully I might get some cash back. [Link]

For Lebanese in Kuwait I have some good news, Malek al Taouk is opening a branch in Kuwait. For those of you who don’t know Malek al Taouk, they make the best taouk sandwich in the world which is also the largest sandwich in the world. I will try to take pictures of the sandwich today.

Just found a bug in the Internet connection here, kinda like the one Zajil had in Kuwait. Basically I log in using my internet card, I sign onto MSN and then logout from the internet. The MSN connection stays open. Pretty cool.

I just arrived to the hotel like an hour ago. The room is pretty cool, I got showtime and internet access so its just like home except for the fact I have to pay $10 for 5 hours worth of internet and I have to use up the 5 hours within 24 hours. I will try to find free wifi in the area and try to hop on from there.

The Kuwait Airways flight sucked. The plane left on time and arrived on time but the experience wasn’t that great. Firstly I arrived to the airport early and I asked the guy to give me window seat as front as possible. He told me the best he can give me was row 16. After travelling on like row 4 and 5 with Jazeera going back to 16 is like fucked up. Secondly when I got on the plane I just felt sick. The inside was dark and gloomy and the seats are too small and there is like zero leg room. I could also smell plane exhaust which made me even sicker.

On the bright side, the food was pretty good, I had hamour fish with rice. They also had an old episode of Xfiles playing which I watched.

The weather here is as hot as Kuwait which sucks. It looks like Lebanon will be missing its winter also, fucking ozone layer.

Note: It currently costs KD42 (approx $120) for a two way ticket with Jazeera Airways to Lebanon but costs KD147 (approx $450) for a two way ticket with Kuwait Airways. What a fucking ripoff.

Ok I was just are two flights to Lebanon today, one at 12PM and the other at 3. I decided to go with the 3PM one since its 9AM now and I haven’t packed or anything yet. The problem is the 3PM flight is with Kuwait Airways. I used to prefer Kuwait Airways over Middle East Airlines but recently everyone has been complaining about the terrible Kuwait Airways delays and service and now I am just worried I am going to have the crappiest flying experience ever.. and I hate flying! Hopefully things won’t be as bad as I am guessing it will be. I will post a Kuwait Airways review when I come back or something.

I hate paying money and buying an original DVD and then being forced to sit through half a dozen movie trailers which I can’t skip before I can watch the movie I purchased. Just gives me more reason to download movies instead of buying them.

This is a picture sent to us by the Belgian Shepherd breeder we are getting our puppy Geo from. Its a picture of Geo’s family enjoying some time out in the snow. Don’t they look fucking amazing??

Tonight I am gonna sit at home on my comfortable couch with Nataly and finally watch City of God followed by 2046. Happy New Years.

I flew to Lebanon and back with Jazeera Airways last week and I decided to share my experience with the site’s readers. I had purchased two tickets online around 2 months earlier and all I needed to do was print out the confirmation email they sent and present it at the Jazeera Airways counter at the airport.

I arrived 2 hours before the flight and checked in my bags. Jazeera Airways allows you to check in only 20KG for free, anything above that you have to pay around KD1.250 per extra kilo. Unlike other airlines Jazeera can’t be flexible with the weight. On Kuwait Airways for example they allow you 30KG of weight and anything extra they can sometimes let you through without paying anything. Since Jazeera Airways profit margins are so slim they can’t be as flexible and I personally don’t have a problem with that. I paid my weight difference and got on the plane.

When I first entered the door of the Jazeera Airways aircraft I was kind of shocked. The plane is tiny with a seat formation of 3 – 3, meaning you have 3 seats on the left hand side of the plane and 3 seats on the right hand side with the aisle in between. I sat down in my seat which was in Row 10. When I was booking online the website didn’t allow me to book a seat closer to the front, the first 4 rows were first class on the website map while the seats from row 5 to 9 were not selectable and so I wasn’t able to book those. I later found out that the rows 5 to 9 are sometimes kept aside in case they needed to expand the first class to more seats. This brings me to another subject, the first class. The first class on Jazeera Airways doesn’t differ at all from the economy area. They have the same seats as us and the only difference is the middle seat on each side is temporarily converted into a table so it basically becomes a 2 – 2 formation. The leg room is also exactly the same although this is usually the biggest difference on other airlines between the first class and economy. Once the plane took off we were allowed to change seats, since the first class was only the first 4 rows I was able to go and sit in row 5. The plane had max 40 people on board and so everyone was allowed to change their seats as they pleased.

I have to say the flight was extremely comfortable. The leg room was just amazing, me being 6’1 I usually end up getting cramped on planes but Jazeera has the largest economy class leg room I have seen. The seats are all leather, very comfortable and if you lift the hand rest up you could comfortably take up the empty seat next to you. There is no free food on board only free bottled water. Sandwiches cost KD1, muffins cost 500fils, chocolate costs 300fils, softdrinks 400fils and Sunkist 250fils. Jazeera have Sunkist on board so you know they are cool and very local. The chief crewman walked around and mingled with the passengers asking their opinion on Jazeera airways and if there was anything they could do to improve the experience. I managed to speak to him and get some information off him. He explained to me why sometimes I couldn’t book the seats from row 5 to 9 online and how easy it is for them to expand or decrease the size of the first class section. He also told me Jazeera currently operate only 2 planes and the airlines is rated Class A. He explained to me how 1 plane flies from Kuwait to Beirut and Kuwait to Syria daily while the other plane flies from Kuwait to Bahrain and Kuwait to Dubai daily while also flying to Jordan three times a week. Once we were done chatting he offered me complimentary food and when I told him I didn’t need anything he still went and got me a bag of nuts to enjoy.

The plane left Kuwait on time and arrived in Beirut ahead of schedule, it was a very nice flight and I was able to watch 2 episodes of Arrested Development and 1 episode of Lost before we had to land. The flight back to Kuwait was as comfortable and although I had already booked the seats on row 10 online I was able to change it at check in to seats in row 4 since on the way back they only had 3 rows of first class.

I am extremely satisfied with Jazeera Airways, their prices are great, the planes are brand new and the service is very friendly. They seem to just want you to have a great experience. Even once we landed in Kuwait and we were on the way out of the airport a Jazeera Airways representative caught up with us to ask us if we had any feedback and if we enjoyed the experience. This is what I call good service and I would definitely recommend Jazeera to everyone.

I recorded a small crappy video showing the inside of the airplane. I didn’t know if they would allow me to shoot so its kinda shaky and short. [Video 932KB]

For more information and pricing for Jazeera Airways visit their website. [Link]

I went to Alghanim Electronics tonight to pay for an installment. There was a queue of around 10 people and I came and stood with them in line. Two minutes pass by when suddenly an Egyptian guy in his 30’s comes and stands in front of me. At first I thought he was with the guy in front of me but then I realized he didn’t stand next to the guy, he stood behind him. So I tapped the guy on the shoulder and asked him what he was doing. He told me he had forgotten something in the car and that he just went down to get it and came back up. I told him well when I came he wasn’t there and that he should just stand behind me in line. He refused, so we started arguing over it. I mean it wasn’t anything major, it was just over a place in line and we were both standing at the end of it. We started lightly shoving each other and yelling out insults when a guy a few places in front of us in line told me I could stand in front of him. I told him thanks but its not about the position in line anymore. This fuckhead came in out of nowhere and cut in line in front of me. If he had explained to me nicely before coming into line that he was there before me I would have let him cut in in front of me since its only 1 space but instead the guy decided to arrogantly come in as if I was invisible.

Alghanim employees although abundant didn’t seem to care about this little scuffle going on in the line, its as if they were bored and this was their entertainment. I couldn’t for one back out of this fight since I had been placed in a corner. If I stopped scuffling with the guy what would I do next? Just quietly get in line behind this fuckhead as if nothing happened? That wasn’t gonna happen.

Suddenly the Egyptian guy gave me a semi strong shove with one hand, I took that as a sign of aggression and decided to go ahead and let him have it. By then my leg had already started shaking from all the adrenalin rush and I was just waiting for him to get just a bit more aggressive so I could make my move. I grabbed the guy with my two hands on his shirt and I forcefully shoved him 2 meters back onto a fridge. I then picked him up again while he was stumbling and pushed him back hard onto the fridge again. I then grabbed him and started punching his face. Suddenly I felt someone pull me back and the other guys in the queue started to break up the fight. One guy from the queue yelled at an Alghanim employee for not stopping the fight from the beginning, the Alghanim employee told him its not part of his job.

Anyway Nat was with me and she told me we should get out of the place and that the guy wasn’t worth it and so we left. I spent the rest of the walk back home wishing I had punched the fucker in the nose to make him bleed.

Me and Nat got back today from Lebanon. I will post more about it all tomorrow. I also found out earlier that I have to go back to Lebanon on the 2nd of January for a photography shoot. I should be there for 6 days. I am really not in the mood to go back.. I mean I just got back!!

I just came back from dinner. It was great, I went to a place called Roadster with 6 hot chicks (including Nat) and I was the only guy. Really cool.

Tomorrow we are coming back to Kuwait. I can’t wait since Kuwait is more my home then Lebanon is. At the moment I feel like a tourist here living out of my suitcase… which is actually true so I can’t wait to get back to my own home and my own car.

I didn’t take as many pictures as I was hoping to. Nat bought 6 DV tapes before we left and we managed to use only 10 minutes from the first tape. I took only a handful of pictures with my digital camera while I managed to finished 2 rolls of medium format film using my Holga. For some reason taking pictures and video wasn’t on our to do list.

This I believe is my last post from Lebanon, hopefully the next one will be from Kuwait.