Search: “kuwait”

I just got a phonecall from a creative director I used to work with. He is opening his own advertising agency here in Kuwait and he wants me to join him and help him build a team. In return I would get the same salary I am currently making and he will also make me a partner and give me 10% of the company and its earnings. He already has a major client waiting for us plus he has a deal with an international agecy. If that wasn’t enough, he wants nat and rampurple to join us.

All this and I think I will have to reject the offer. I am a very safe person. By that I mean I don’t take risks. I like routine and I like job security. I am also currently very happy with what I am doing. Ofcourse not everyday is a good day, there are ups and downs, but in general I am having fun where I am now. I am gonna meet with the guy tonight and get more details, I am wondering though if for once in my life I should just take the plunge and go for it..

I was talking to a friend of a friend now who is a doctor at Johnson & Johnson here in Kuwait. He was telling us that one of their top selling products in Kuwait is a cream which you rub onto your ass to make it bigger. This cream is supposed to be used for people with back problems because it helps to increase the size of the ass. But, here in Kuwait the woman use it in general to help increase the size of their ass for aesthetic reasons.

I was just catching up on some news on the Arab Times website when I came upon this article about a Jordanian man who had sex with a Kuwaiti girl. The guy was given 15 years in jail followed by deportation. The thing is though from what I read in the article is that she consented to the sex. She just didn’t want him to lose her virginity (ie. she wanted it from the back) but when he did lose her virginity she went and reported him to the police. According to her he sweet talked her into having sex with him although she didn’t want to. Come on, thats total bullshit.

He then asked her to close her eyes saying he has a surprise for her. He then talked to her in a soothing way which made her unable to resist him. He asked her to have sex and the woman is said to have requested him not to ‘damage’ her hymen. However, the man failed to keep his word as she found herself bleeding.

[article]

Someone in the office just told me that they recently have been busting in on pirates in Hawalli and they are broadcasting the busts live on TV. COPS style. Anyone know anything about this or seen it?

I just found out Ruby Tuesday has an eat all you can eat open breakfast buffet for KD2.950. Anyone tried it? What other breakfast open buffets are there in 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]