Search: “kuwait”

Yesterday I had dinner at Fuddruckers with Nataly. I usually order the burger but yesterday I realized they had a Chilidog sandwich, so I went ahead and ordered that. I am not a super freak chili dog fan or anything, but I do occasionally enjoy having one whenever I need to divert off my burger diet. My favorite chili dog place used to be A&W where I experienced my first chili dog with them as a kid and continued to have and enjoy even after I grew up. My second favorite place is Hardees which at the moment is actually my favorite since A&W closed down in Kuwait.

So how did the Fudds chili dog turn out? Well the first thing you will notice is thats its mother fucking huge! In the picture you might think the hotdog bun is actually small and the hotdog big but in reality the hotdog bun is big and the hotdog is huge! I didn’t know you could get hotdogs that big. The chilidog was a bit awkward to eat but not as awkward as I was expecting and in the end didn’t really get that much chili all over my hands. The hotdog bun was soft and delicious, definitely my favorite part of the meal. The hotdog meat itself tasted good and wasn’t very soft like the Hardees hotdog, which is a good thing. The chili on the other hand was the disappointing part. It was just very so so. Firstly the chili sauce had beans in it which I wasn’t expecting. Secondly the chili flavor was very bland. I really wasn’t tasting that much chili when I was eating the hotdog. The dish came with the Fudds traditional fries and a terrible cup of coleslaw. The cost of the dish was KD2.500 which is pretty decent but doesn’t really compete to the 400fils chilidog at Hardees.. not that I am comparing the two. Hardees is a fast food joint while Fudds is more of a restaurant. But personally I prefer the Hardees chilidog over the Fudds and thats why this gets a score of 3.5 out of 5.

update: Since I wrote this review a year ago I have had this chilidog a lot. If was to review it again I would have to give it a 4 out of 5. I finally figured out how to eat it for one thing.. I now use a fork and knife, its the easiest and least messiest way. Also I think I now prefer it over Hardees, although Hardees still has the prive advantage in its favor.

No celebrity blogger attended the monthly blogger meetup. The idea of a celebrity blogger was made up to create hype and attract people to the meeting. There is no celebrity blogger and thats why no one is saying who it was. The hype worked though, 4 people attended the meeting this time!

Interesting quotes from the bloggers who attended the meeting:

Forzaq8: “and the mystery blogger , who is way too scared about privicy , i have no idea how he agreed to come”

Purgatory72: “Now, the mystery blogger showed up somewhere around 6.45 pm. I was surprised to see him, I thought it was a hoax, but turned out to be true. The guy was very nice and articulate and was also famous. Now because of private matters related to the person himself, I cannot say anything more on how he looks like, which blog is his blog”

Here is a conversation between me and Nibaq:
Me: So who was the celebrity blogger?
Nibaq: Can’t tell you
Me: Ok, I figured it out, will post about it
Nibaq: what you going to post? a CSI type thing?

Update: More proof it was a fake. On forza’s blog he posts two pictures from the meetup, one of someone shaking hands with the mystery blogger and the other of the mystery blogger signing a book. He then says that after the handshake the mystery blogger signed the book. BUT, according to the pictures exif information, the first picture of the handshake was taken at 8.21pm while the second of the signing was taken at 8.18pm. Interesting..

Update 2: This is an enhanced crop taken from one of Forzaq8’s pictures. It supposingly the signature of the mystery blogger. Looks like gibrish to me.

Update 3: Further investigation has revealed the both of Forza’s pictures were taken with the exact same settings:

Yet one turned out ot be extremely blurry while the other was fine, as if when shooting the signature picture the camera was deliberately shaken. Also according to the pictures and my personal experience of the Second Cup branch in Kuwait City, the place inside isnt very dark and according to the shadows on the open book, there was a light source right above they area they were seated. So I believe if the Apreture was set to 2.8 instead of 5.2 (which the Sony P8 cam can handle) and the shutter speed increased then there would have been no chance of the picture coming out blurry, specially since the camera iso was set at 320. By default the camera would have changed the apreture to 2.8 when the shutter speed became very slow but they wanted the picture to come out blurry so they manually changed the settings.

Nibaq posted today that he believes that people who turn on their hazard lights in poor visibility are idiots. I have to disagree with him regarding this comment because I believe hazard lights have numerous uses. Nibaq believes hazard lights should be used incase of emergency only but I believe it can be used in other non-emergency situations, for example:

During heavy rain
The blinking orange light adds more to your cars visibility during heavy rain which in return is safer for you.

During low visibility
During heavy fog or a heavy dust storm, the orange flasher allows your car to be more visable. When we used to go up the mountain in heavy fog in Lebanon, we used to turn off our cars high beams and turn on the flasher because the white light bounced back off the fog while the orange flasher cut through it. During the dust storm today I had my rear fog lights on while other people had their flashers on. Having your flasher on during low visibility does no mean you are an idiot, it means you are worried some idiot might not see your car and ram into it.

Emergency Braking
When you are driving on the highway you are used to people ahead of you braking every so often. But, when you have to brake suddenly, for example when traffic completely stops in front of you, the hazard light with your braking helps differentiate a normal brake from a very hard one.

I also believe Daylight savers should be standard here in Kuwait. Having a car light on during the day can help in preventing accidents.

I sent the following email to Fasttelco in regards to yesterdays post on Fasttelco blocking flickr.

———————–

To: [email protected]
Cc: [email protected]
Date: May 1, 2005 8:39 AM
Subject: Is Flickr Blocked?

Hi, when I try to access www.flickr.com i get the following message:

Forbidden
You were denied access because:
Access denied by access control list.

But when I access flickr.com it works. Many of my friends have also
been facing the same issue. Is Fasttelco trying to block flickr?

Thanks

mark

I was chatting with Nibaq today and he mentioned that he might have read somewhere that Flickr was either banned in UAE or the ISP there is doing something to slow down the uploading of photos. So I decided to ask some UAE people on Flickr and this is what they had to say:

manaal says:
no idea….working fine with me.

w6an 3mry says:
it’s not banned but i think they are doing something to block some of the bad photos

Avish says:
:s inshAllah they don’t ban it totally coz i don’t know what i’ll do 🙁

7abo0ob el Emarat says:
la hopefully they wont cuz we all cant live without it 🙂

ZexySamurai says:
I can live without it! ‘_’ Hehehe, but I love it loads so I hope that’s not true…
P.S. the uploading speed is fine with me..

Eneas says:
what’s UAE?

Green Peace says:
it is working fine with me

Yesterday I got a phone call from Qualitynet. They wanted to make sure if everything is ok and if I had any problems at all. I told them no nothing, everything is running fine, the guy once again told me that if I ever had any problem I could contact support on 804444. I thanked him and hung up. This is the second follow up call I have received, the first was last month right after I got the connection. Very nice people.

I was placing some orders on Amazon today when I decided to get an Amazon Prime account. What is that? Basically for $79 a year I get unlimited 2 day shipping on anything I purchase on their site. I calculated how much I spent on shipping last year and it was in the hundreds so $79 is a good deal. Now whats cooler is that Amazon Prime allows you to invite 4 other household members to use this account. Doesn’t sound interesting.. until you realize ALL of us Aramex users are counted as living in the same household since we all have the same address. So I sent an invite out to Tivo Guy and Nibaq since they’re my best friends. If this works then we are going to have so much fun buying stuff of Amazon. Also if you need anything delivered overnight, as an Amazon Prime member you only have to pay $3.99 to have any of your items shipped overnight. Amazon just keeps getting better.

I was having a discusion with K about the stuff we carry around with us all the time. He was telling me how if the PSP came with a 60GB drive we could drop the iPod. I went ahead and mentioned if the PSP also had PDA abilities I could drop my PDA. Basically it turns out we both carry a lot of gadgets with us. He carries the following with him: laptop / pda / phone / psp / ipod.

I carry the following with me always: camera / phone / psp / ipod / moleskine / 3 types of pens / swissarmy knife / keys / wallet / hand sanitizer / fresh mouth spray

What do you carry with you?

In reply to the previous post titled “Crackdown in Wonderland“, a regular reader Fadibou commented saying the following:

Hi Mark and all of you. I work in a software company here in Kuwait and its frustrating to see people supporting Piracy. Piracy is a nice word for stealing. Copying software and selling it without permission and without giving money back to its creator is pure theft. As for the crack down, it will increase and hopefully soon there will be no place to buy pirated(stolen) games and software. As for your remarks that a lot of games are not worth buying, well try getting evaluation copies or demos. They should cover your investment before you buy. As for Rihab, Can you please tell me which shop did help you get Doom 3?

Doom 3? I don’t know what you are talking about.. (starts whistling casually)..

I just got an email today from File Magazine telling me another picture of mine was accepted to be part of their collection. The picture this time is one of my favorites and I called it “Mad Robot”. The building in the picture is of the Kuwait Stock Exchange and it was shot while sitting outside at Second Cup. Here is the picture on file magazine [Link]

Like Nibaq just posted, Adobe just acquired Macromedia. What does this mean to us? Well first lets see what major software both companies have.

Adobe
Acrobat, Photoshop, Elements, Illustrator, InDesign, GoLive, Premier, After Effects

Macromedia
Flash, Dreamweaver, FreeHand, Director, Fireworks

The biggest and most controversial problem is Illustrator and Freehand. Both softwares are currently being used although in the past few years FreeHand has lost a considerable share of the market, they still have a cult following. But, between Illustrator and Freehand, there is no question, Freehand will die. Its been dying slowly anyway but I am sure the fans will cry murder. Fireworks which conflicts with Photoshop and Elements will also die out, Photoshop has a much larger market share and a much stronger brand. GoLive and Dreamweaver, GoLive is out for sure. Adobe has been trying to play catchup with Dreamweaver for a very long time and this way they can just trash GoLive and pickup the much more popular Dreamweaver. Director will be a very nice addition to the Adobe Suite and I hope they manage to integrate it nicely with the other Adobe software, which I am sure they will. Finally owning both Flash and Acrobat I think is a very strong package, PDF is used a lot in the print world while Flash is used alot in the digital one. Owning both means that they will have a very strong position in both medias. All they need now is to buyout Quark and we will have another Microsoft-like company to deal with.

Yesterday I went down to Rihab Complex in Hawalli to my favorite videogames store. When I first walked in I noticed something different but I couldn’t figure out what. So I shook hands with the owner, and I told him I wanted Doom 3. He took out a piece of paper, wrote down Doom 3 on it and gave it to an Indian employee at the store. The Indian guy took the paper and left the shop to get me the game. I was like huh!? Usually I ask for a game and he gets it for me from a box behind the counter. Then it hit me, I looked around the shop and noticed there wasn’t a single pirated game anywhere. Thats what looked different, the shop looked emptier. So I asked the guy what happened, turns out the municipality has been giving them a hard time and are cracking down on them every week. So now they are being extra careful and all the games and stuff are hidden in another shop.

I took my game and left to another shop elsewhere in Hawalli where me and Nat wanted to get some DVDs. So we walk into the shop we usually buy DVDs from and there are no catalogues to be found. The only thing you could find in the shop was computer power cords hanging on one wall. At first glance you would think this store only sold power cords, but I asked the guy what no more DVDs? He is like yes sir one minute. He went outside the shop and came back in with a small box full of catalogues. Turns out the municipality has only been giving them a hard time.

I hope piracy doesn’t end in Kuwait. Some games are worth buying original but other games, games you would only play once or twice are not worth KD18.

I got a phone call from Osoul yesterday night. No it wasn’t because I wrote about their logo but it was because of another issue. Last year my best friend purchased some electronics and bought them using Osoul financing. A few months later my best friend leaves to Lebanon and passes away there. So naturally he can’t pay back the installments anymore because he is dead. Osoul don’t get that. I get a phone call from them at-least once a month asking me about my best friend and reminding me that he hasn’t paid the installments. It could be someone from Osoul, a lawyer, a collection office, all different people calling me and telling me the same crap over and over and every-time I have to tell them all that my best friend is dead.

So yesterdays call was the worst. A guy calls me up and asks me if I am mark, I am like yes, he was like your friend owes us some money and he has your name and number down as a reference (note: i wasn’t my friends guarantor). I was like yeah I know, you guys keep calling me and I keep telling you my friend is dead, he past away last August. The guy was like then send me his death certificate. I was like what the fuck?? No fucking way, I don’t have to send you anything, and stop fucking calling my number. He is like well he owes us money so you need to find a way to pay us back. I was like no I don’t, I don’t have to do anything for you, I am not a guarantor or anything. He was like yes but we have your number. I was like listen you fuck, I am not going to send you anything or do anything for you, don’t fucking call me again and I hung up the phone.

Unfucking believable how some people are. Till when will this go on? Will they ever stop calling me?

I just found the coolest website, something I didn’t know existed in Kuwait. The site is actually a car talk forum but based in Kuwait. The members there discuss their latest car upgrades, or a recent car they spotted or which car they raced on what street. Its amazing stuff. Here are some examples of the topics they are discussing:

A8 Quattro Killed moi….. was worth it..
DB9 spotted (with pics)
Driftmaster accident (wallah maa testahel)
HaSsOnY Car Accident!! Gulf Road
SLR in Q8 (with pics)

There are tons more interesting topics and sections for all street racers or car modifiers in Kuwait. Very very interesting stuff and all this is in Kuwait! The website is Q8speed.com. The picture above of the Lamborgini’s is from a Q8 Speed gathering at AUK.

If you remember last month I posted about the new terrible BKME logo. Well since then I heard that the logo was done by an international agency (hard to believe) and I heard another story that it was designed by Horizon here in Kuwait (more believable). Yesterday I also got an email from someone called Jeeb, this is what he had to say about BKME and the logo:

The sphere isn’t only about a pearl, a BKME personnel indicated to me that two pepole reaching each other are actualy represented inside! I said who in the world would know or see that? By the way when copied, the “pearl” or “human reaching each other” logo goes white! Vanishes..

It also took me 2 days to open an account! Still confused, I received 6 e-mails with 6 user numbers bkmeonline/e-trading, which one to use? Why the guy kept telling “use another username this one is giving an error”? Now, ofcourse, i can’t use any of them, each had a password which i don’t remember now!! Bmke didn’t reply, i have to waite till sunday. Talking about making “life simple” for us!!!

I drew with a red line what “might” be 2 guys, one seems very fat. Also I can understand about the terrible service, when I tried calling them to ask about the logo 2 weeks ago it took me all morning to get a hold of someone..