Search: “ace”

I had to take Geo to the vet again today. Since he has been using his injured hand as a weapon, hitting everything in his way with it, the plastic stick inside (the spoon) shifted positions and I got worried this would disturb the healing process. So, I went to the vet, I took the BMW this time since driving all the way there in the Wrangler is a very slow process and takes around 25 minutes. In the BMW, I was driving an average speed of around 140-160 and even managed to hit 190km/h in one place so I got to the vet in 15 minutes from Salmiya. It doesn’t feel like a long trip anymore. The vet fixed his leg again and now I have to keep an eye on him to make sure he stops hitting stuff with it.

Yesterday while walking around Muthana Complex I found this really cool Golf store called Golf Me. I hadn’t seen it before and I later found out that it had only been open for 2 weeks now. I went inside and spoke to the owner who was a very nice guy. The first thing I asked him was if there was a Golf course in Kuwait. He told me there was one in Ahmadi thats a sand course, I told him I knew about that but if there was a grass one. Surprisingly he told me there was, a place called the Sahara Golf & Country Club. I then started to get some details about the store and how much it would cost to golf in Kuwait and this is what I found out. Firstly they have this cool setup in the store where you can try golf clubs out and watch your swing replayed digitally on a TV screen. I also found out that they teach golf. For KD70 you get 10 courses and this includes the use of their golf clubs and time on the golf course. If later on you want to buy your own golf club set you can get one for as low as KD150. I forgot to ask how much it would cost to play golf in the Ahmadi course but I did ask about the Sahara Golf & Country club. The owner told me you need to be a member at the country club and its not cheap. Originally when they first opened membership was KD1300 a year, the price then went up to KD1500 and now the price is KD2000, KD500 of which is a one time setup fee. The course is managed by PGA and is 18 holes and 6,700 yards so its not your run of a mill golf course.

Anyway here are some links and pictures related to the above.
Sahara Golf & Country Club Website
Details on the country club
The Golf Me website
Golf Me from the outside
Golf Me from the inside
Golf Me from the inside 2

The Golf Me store is located on the Mezzanine floor of the Muthana Complex in Kuwait City. Their phone number is 2634660.

After stepping on Geo last night I was hoping by today morning he would be ok, well, he wasn’t. He was still limping in the morning so me and Nat decided to take him to the International Veterinary Hospital. We arrived there at 8:30AM to a beautiful sight of around a dozen dogs with a dozen handlers all lined up outside the place doing some training. We later found out these dogs were mostly used for narcotic and bomb detection, really cool. We continued going in and asked to see the Vet, after waiting for a while outside on the green grass we were called in. Our usual vet only comes in during the afternoon so today we had another Italian vet except this time it was a woman. She did some physical tests on Geo and recommended we take some Xrays just to be safe. Good thing we did because it turned out he fractured bones. Now geo has something like a cast around his leg and he is going to have to be in it for up to 3 weeks depending on how fast he will get healed. The vet was very nice and although Geo looks like a dork now with his one green leg I am really glad he is going to be ok. I am going to hopefully get 10 days off work so I could be with him at home. I feel really guilty for what I did and even though he loves to runaround and play its not going to be possible until his leg heals. The vet told us he is lucky he is still a puppy because they heal a lot quicker. She gave us some calcium pills and told us to give him a lot of cheese to help speed up the healing process. The whole thing cost us only KD34 which is pretty decent and now Geo is sleeping in the living room while I am watching the Discovery Channel. I am sorry Geo!!

I was sitting having my salad at Pizza Hut in Muthana Complex (Kuwait City) with Nat when I look to my left and see a huge fucking cockroach on the table! I quickly got up surprising Nat who hadn’t yet noticed the intruder yet. I was like look there is a fucking cockroach on the table which quickly made her get up in disgust and shock. So I call the head waitress over and I told her there was a huge cockroach on the table. She calmly asks us if we would like to change to another table. I asked her if there were gonna be any cockroaches there and she laughed and said no. I didn’t find any of this funny. We sat down at the new table but neither Nat nor I felt like finishing our salads so I got up to the counter to pay the bill.

While I was standing there waiting for the cashier to hand me back my change I hear Nat calling a waiter and then telling him that the cockroach is back on our old table, he quickly goes and kills it. I tell the cashier I want to talk to the manger and he tells me OK but then starts tidying up around the register and putting away menus and stuff. So I tell the cashier I wanted to see the manager NOW, he was like why is there a problem? I was like fuck yes now get me the manager. The manager comes out of the kitchen and asks me what the problem was. I told him the problem was there was a huge fucking cockroach on the table while we were eating. I told him I found that disgusting and I would never come back to the place again. The manager who looked like he was confused and didn’t know what to do told me the reason for the cockroach was that they had sprayed the night before. I told him I didn’t fucking care and thats not an excuse since there was a fucking cockroach on my table! Seeing as I wasn’t even going to be able to convince the manager that the cockroach on the table was a problem I picked up my stuff and left.

I am never going back to another Pizza Hut again. Other then the cockroach on the table I found the staff very unprofessional and I found the manager to be incompetent and an idiot. He barely even apologize about the cockroach nor did he offer any kind of compensation! I am now going to make sure the owners, Al Homaizi Food Group know about this incident and I will also send an email to Pizza Hut international so they know what kind of managers work for them. This was really fucking disgusting.

I just found this website called Q8 Beasts and according to the description on the website its “The Only Free Home Delivery Online Dog Store In Kuwait”. I checked their products list and they don’t have a lot of items plus the fact that they are calling dogs “beasts” kinda puts me off. The background music is also pretty out of place considering this is an online dog store and not a music shop. Anyway here is the link to see what I am talking about. [Link]

Japanoid. definition: Extremely compact cars from Japan.

I had never seen 80% of these Japanoid cars before and some like the Nissan Figaro pictured above look really cool and funky. [Link]

Update: seems the official name for these kind of cars is “Keicar”. Keicar is a Japanese category of small automobiles, including passenger cars and also vans and pick-up trucks for commercial use. They are mainly designed for sale in Japan, because there are some tax and insurance relaxations and an exemption from the usual requirement of certification of park space that one has adequate parking space at his or her home or has contract for a parking spot.

These relatively relaxed standards came from the post-World War II days when most Japanese were too poor to buy a full sized car, yet had more than enough money to buy a motorcycle. To promote the growth of car industry as well as to offer an alternative delivery method to small business and shop owners, Keicar standards were created.

More information here. [Link]

Susan, a regular reader of the site recently went on a sky tour of Kuwait and this is what she had to say about it:

A recent start-up called Kuwait Sky Tours is now operating in Kuwait and taking passengers on 15-minute helicopter rides at a cost of KD25 each. The 15-minute flight takes off from the helipad behind the Sultan Centre restaurant on the Gulf Road, travels up to Green Island and then back down to the Amir’s Palace in Salwa, before returning to land. It is a great way too see Kuwait from a different perspective. The helicopter is a MD 500-E and seats 3 adults. There is space for a child or a very skinny person between the pilot and front passenger. If you want to go, give Steve a call on 705 6666. They also fly from Khiran and Failaka on occasion. Cameras are allowed.

You can also go on a larger helicopter, for an hour-long flight for the princely sum of USD1,500. Or, try the executive jet, which is ready to fly you and 13 of your friends to any destination in the world! Don’t know that price; I was too afraid to ask!

P.S. Don’t talk into the headset during the flight. The pilot told me off!

Here are Susan’s pictures from her trip:
The Helicopter
Looking North West
Marina Mall and Marina Hotel
The Scientific Center
View of Salmiya
The Gulf Road and Kuwait Towers
House in Salwa
Radisson SAS

My mum was a flight attendant on Kuwait Airways during the 70’s and she always talks about how great the experience was and how she got to travel to so many places and meet a lot of new people. Two months ago while I was in Lebanon I found a stash of old photos she had taken during that time and I found the pictures really interesting since I love photos from the 70’s and 80’s that deal with Kuwait.

[Click here to view the pictures]

Note: The last two pictures were taken on board the Amir’s plane (Amir Sabah al-Salim Al Sabah) which she served on the last period of her career.

Note 2: If anyone has a bunch of “colored” photos dealing with Kuwait which were taken during the 70’s and 80’s send me them and I will post them online.

Note 3: The uniforms were designed by Dior.

My mums car REALLY stinks and its stinking up the whole underground parking. We seem to think a cat must have died in the engine since we couldn’t find a dead body in her trunk. I would open the hood to see if the theory is true but I figured the sight of a chopped up kitten splattered all over the engine bay would be something that I wouldn’t ever want to see.

Update: We took the car to get washed today, turned out it was a large dead cat. First place refused to wash the car because of the small, second place charged double the price. It felt like a Seinfeld episode..

Thursday afternoon I drove all the way to Ahmadi so that I could take Geo our pet dog to the International Veterinary Hospital. I read from peoples comments on my site that IVH was the best veterinary hospital in Kuwait and I now believe that to be true.

I used to take our previous family dog to the vet in Shuwaikh near the Friday Market. That place was really dirty and I never felt comfortable there neither did my dog. But then again my dog never felt comfortable leaving the house and he “hated” strangers. Still, when my dog got sick that hospital really didn’t do anything and we finally had to put our dog to sleep. Since I didn’t want the same thing to happen to Geo I decided to take him to the best vet in Kuwait and all signs pointed to IVH.

Driving out to Ahmadi from my home in Salmiya took 30 minutes. The map on their website was very easy to follow and we never got lost. When we arrived to the hospital it was like arriving to a ranch in Arizona or somewhere in the Australian outback, it didn’t look anything like your usual Kuwait. To get to the hospital you have to drive off the main road down a paved path surrounded by desert bushes on the side and very little if any buildings around. You then come in through a large gate where you find two signs, one pointing to the emergency entrance and the other towards the visitors parking. We parked in the very clean and very spaced out parking lot and walked towards the main hospital building. I couldn’t believe how gorgeous the place was, there was green grass everywhere, large palm trees, no trash and everything looked really good, better then our hospitals!

We walked into the hospital and told the employees that we had an appointment and then we took a seat while we waited for our turn. The waiting room was very cozy, the benches had cushions on them and their were tons of magazines to read. Their were 4 other dogs in the waiting room with us, 3 labrador puppies and one Japanese breed. Geo spent most of his time playing with the Japanese dog which was very cute. When Geo finally got bored we took him back outside to play on the grass where he met another dog and started to play with him. Finally around 15 minutes later it was our turn to go in.

The vet was a very nice friendly guy and Geo ended up liking him a lot. When the vet asked us what we were feeding the dog, we told him raw meat… to our surprise the vet didn’t try to convince us it was not good for him like most vets would do. Instead, he turned out to know about the raw meat diet and how its the best diet for Geo. He started asking us if Geo was getting all his vitamins and proteins and what else we were feeding him. We told him we were also giving Geo raw eggs twice a week, One large yogurt spoon twice a week and brown toast with honey once a week. We also told him Geo wasn’t getting any Vitamin A or B since he wasn’t eating any of his vegetables, so he gave us some vitamins to give to Geo once a day until he started eating his vegetables. The vet then started asking us questions about how we were treating him and how the toilet training was going and he started giving us advice and tips which we already new about. And thats what I liked about the vet, he was telling me stuff I already knew, but the thing is I had to research my ass off to find out and learn all this stuff from various websites, breeders and people with different opinions. Its not stuff you learn at vet school but stuff you learn with experience after years of raising dogs yourself and this vet knew all the best methods and techniques and that gave me a lot of confidence in him. My previous dogs vet never asked me any thing and never gave me any kind of tips. This vet on the other hand was giving me a lot of tips and telling me all the right stuff. He’s amazing, he knows what he is talking about and I could have a decent conversation with him about my dog. We told the vet we wanted to start Geo on worming and he agreed and gave him the medicine. Finally we were done and we walked out thanking the vet. Our bill? KD12.500 and that included KD7 for the visit, KD1 for the worming medicine and KD4.5 for the vitamins. Not bad at all. I scanned the full price list and I have it linked at the end of this post for those of you that are interested.

Once we left the vets office we decided to walk around outside and discover the hospital more. We past by their pet shop which was pretty cool and had a ton of stuff. We also past by the agility course which looked like something Geo would really enjoy once he grows up. Finally we let Geo run around a bit on the grass before we decided to head back home.

I was really impressed with the hospital and I feel a lot more better knowing something like that exists in Kuwait. The only downside to the place is the location but I couldn’t find anything else and thats why I am going to give this hospital a 4.5 out of 5.

Click here to view pictures of the hospital
Click here to view the prices at the hospital
Click here for the IVH website

Two years ago I was looking for interesting stuff to read for my long plane trip to New York when I ended up finding a website which had tons of articles and stories on terrorists and killers. I started printing some stuff including information on Black September, Munich, Carlos the Jackal and tons of articles on all the terrorist attacks that occurred in the 70s and 80s. Some I had heard of before some were completely new to me. In any case I got the printouts binded them into a book form and took them with me to read during my trip. They stories and articles proved to be very interesting to read and I found the Munich event very disturbing yet very exciting.. it felt like driving by a big car accident. What I found really interesting in the story is how Israel and the Mossad spent years after the event slowly and carefully tracking down every high ranking official that was responsible for the Munich event and assassinating them. When I heard Steven Spielberg was going to release a movie about Munich I couldn’t wait to watch it and two nights ago I finally did.

During the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, eleven Israeli athletes are taken hostage and murdered by a Palestinian terrorist group known as Black September. In retaliation, the Israeli government recruits a group of Mossad agents to track down and execute those responsible for the attack.

Munich was really fun to watch. You always hear about Mossad all the time in the news and stuff but you never really see them in films. You always see the CIA, KGB and MI6 portrayed in movies but never Mossad and so to finally see them was a really nice change from the usual intelligence agencies. The movie takes place after the Munich event and it follows Eric Bana who plays a Mossad agent leading a 4 man team in an attempt to assassinate the masterminds behind the Munich event. The movie started off REALLY good, like I was enjoying it as much I would enjoy an episode of my favorite tv show, 24. The movie has a lot of buildups and they are all to the assassination scenes. Each assassination needs research, a new safe house, planning, a new method of killing etc.. and as a viewer you are taken along to witness these steps up to the “grand” assassination moment. Once one of the targets is killed the process is repeated over again. The problem with the movie is that its nearly 3 hours long. Once again I would like to point out that I don’t have a problem with long movies! I refused to watch any of the Lord of the Rings movies until the extended versions came out which were around 40 minutes longer then the already long regular version. I like long movies.. when there is a reason for them to be long. Munich however didn’t have a reason to be this long. I think 30 minutes could easily have been chopped off at the end when the assassinations were over and things were just dragging. Still though the movie was really great and subject extremely interesting. This is why I am giving it a 4 out of 5.

Visit the official movie website

Well since the launch of the forum yesterday 28 users have registered and started posting. Thats more then I was expecting for the first day and I am hoping that number will grow a lot bigger once more topics get posted there. If you haven’t registered or checked out the forum already please do, I think it will turn into a great place where readers of this site can communicate with each other. [Link]

I just setup a forum for this site. I figured readers can hang out there, chat and discuss stuff. People new to Kuwait can also go in and ask questions if they have any and other users can answer them back. The forum is easy to use and I don’t think anyone should have any trouble using it. I placed a link in the top menu for easy access. Check it out. [Link]

Supposingly the tape is floating around on the web but I haven’t been able to find it. I haven’t been able to find the name of the players either but I was able to find a few articles online with details on what exactly is going on in the video my favorite being an article by Gambiling911 (sounds like a very reliable source). In the article they talk about some of the sex acts that take place on the video and here is an example of one:

Player A—a household name who has a reputation as a rebel on and off the pitch—shoves his mobile down his boxers.

He performs a sex act with it which is too obscene to be described here. Then Player B calls his number to make the phone vibrate. Player A is also pictured on the bed while Player B—a multi-million pound goal-scoring mid-fielder—kneels to perform oral sex on him.

I am really curious to know who the players are. [Link]

I mentioned the other day that Geo my dog will be on a raw meat diet. This means I have to buy him fresh meat every other day and luckily there are 3 butchers near my apartment. The problem I figured I would face buying 1KG of the same meat every other day is the curiosity of the butcher. If I start passing by the butcher every other day, over time I will become a good customer and I am sure he will also want to start a conversation with me and maybe even ask me what I am doing with the meat. I don’t want to tell him the meat is for my dog because I don’t want him to give me the crappiest meat he has. I want the best for Geo and thats why the butcher must never find out the meat will be going to my dog. So I had to create a story in case he does ask me what I will be doing with the meat and its a good thing I did because yesterday he asked.

Around 4 days ago I past by one of the butchers which was recommended to me. It was my first time visiting a butcher but I had spoken to my mum earlier and she told me what to tell him. So I go in and I tell the butcher and I need 1KG of cow meat. I want sirloin, without fat and diced up and split into two packages each containing half a kilo. Five minutes later I walked out with the meat, it cost me KD2.

Yesterday I was planning on going to another butcher so that I could spread out my meat purchases so that I don’t arouse suspicion but my mum recommended I stick to the same butcher all the time that way I can get the best meat. I guess it works like sushi places, the more you visit the better the quality of fish you get. So I went back to the guy and I repeated the same thing I told him last time, except this time he started asking me questions. He was like you want it steak? I was like I want the same thing you gave me last time. He is like but you want it steak? I was like umm, you know chopped up into pieces.. like 2 days ago. He was like what will you use it for? I told him I just started a low carb diet and I am grilling the meat. He was like in that case take the fillet, its a lot better. I was like how much does a kilo cost? He was like KD2.5. I was like no its ok, just give me what I took last time, I don’t want to spend this much money for dinner. He was like listen I will give it to you for KD2, and I am telling you once you have this meat you can’t go back to the other one, you will love it. So he gave me the meat and it looked really good, so red and soft and no fat at all. I paid him KD2 and left.

Geo is really getting the star treatment from Nat. yesterday for breakfast he had 2 boiled eggs and 3 brown toast. For lunch he had chicken with basmati rice and for dinner he had leftovers from lunch followed by honey on toast. Now if she will only start cooking food for me!

Update: I just realized something, the older Geo gets the more food he will eat. What am I gonna tell the butcher when suddenly I am buying 5KG of meat every other day?

Update 2: Fuck I just realized, 5KG of meat every other day means I will be spending KD150 on raw meat a month. Fuck! I miscalulated. Its KD150 if I am feeding him 3 times a day but once he becomes an adult its only once a day meaning KD50 a month which is pretty decent.