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Just got the dog show forms and they are scanned and attached to this post. Here are the details of the event again.

Event: First Dog Show in Kuwait
Date and Time: Friday April 7th, 2-6PM
Location: British Embassy Gardens
“Join us for a great day out with bric-a-brac stalls, face-painting, fun competitions & great raffle prizes!”

Admission Form Front
Admission Form Back

Note: You don’t need a dog to join in the fun!

We will be entering Geo in the “Most Adorable Dog” and “Best Puppy” categories.

Album cover spoofs, goofs, tributes, send ups, near misses and coincedences. This is the all-new Knockoff*Project. There are over 100 new knockoffs… stashed all over the place. [Link]

Below are a list of TV shows I am currently watching, what I think of them and what episodes I just finished watching.

Grey’s Anatomy (Pictured above)
Season 2, Episode 18
Really entertaining and addictive, I am watching 2 a day.

X-Files
Season 1, Episode 12
Used to be my favorite show, I missed out on a lot of episodes when I was in university so I just started watching them all over again. I got 9 seasons which means I should be done by Christmas!

Prison Break
Season 1, Episode 13
I hated the show when I first started watching it because I didn’t like the main guy. Now though I still hate him but I really like all the supporting actors who are pretty fucked up but in a cool way.

24
Season 5, Episode 12
The best show ever, I have said it a million times already and will say it a million more times, Jack Bauer is just the coolest character ever. I was watching the movie Stand By Me the other day and it turns out Jack played the role of this delinquent teenager. It was an old movie and he was really young in it but he still looked a lot like Jack does now which made things weird.

Family Guy
Season 1, Episode 8
I watched the movie first, then I watched season 4 and now I am watching season 1. Doesn’t make sense I know but better then nothing.

Arrested Development
Season 3, Episode 10
I only have 3 more episodes left and I am scared to watch them. Arrested Development got canceled last year and the show ends at episode 13 of season 3 so once I am done, I am done forever. I never want the Arrested Development experience to end so I am watching only 1 episode a week but I know in three weeks time it will be all over, one of the funniest shows ever made will be over. Its sad.

The IT Crowd
Season 1, Episode 4
“Yeah, you do know how a button works, don’t you? No, not on clothes. No, there you go, I just heard it come on. No, that’s the music you hear when it comes on. No, that’s the music you hear when… I’m sorry, are you from the past? ”

Reno 911
Season 1, Episode 3
This show is like a spoof of the TV show COPS. Sometimes I find it really corny but other times I can’t stop laughing.

Knight Rider
Season 2, Episode 3
KITT was really pimped out. He had a built in video game system, GPS navigation, video conferencing, Nitros, night vision, voice activation… some really high tech stuff..

Desperate Housewives
Season 2, Episode 15
Its not as fun as season 2 but doing a hell of a lot better then Lost (read below)

Lost
Season 2, Episode 15
I have no clue why I am still watching this crap. Season 2 has been a disaster, the show has become extremely lame, boring, uneventful and repetetive. What started off as one of the most exciting shows ever has taken a 180 degree turn for the worst. Total crap.

Curb Your Enthusiam
Season 1, Episode 8
Larry Davids charactar is a mixture of Jerry Seinfeld and George Costanza. He’s a bit weird at first but you get used to him.

Weeds
Season 1, Episode 10
This show started off boring but it started getting really good around episode 3. Its about a school mum who starts dealing weed to make some money. First season is only 10 episodes and now I have to wait till July for season 2, I can’t wait.

Update: I added Weeds, don’t know how I forgot about it.

Many of you might not know this but the Commercial Bank of Kuwait logo was designed by one of the best design agencies in the world, Pentagram back in 1979. Not only that but the designer who worked on the Commercial Bank identity, Alan Fletcher, is also among the most influential figures in British graphic design history. I decided to share with you what Alan Fletcher said about the Commerical Bank project back in the 1980’s and also the idea behind the logo itself.

The text below was written by Alan Fletcher

Designing in the Middle East requires certain cultural adjustments to one’s normal working pattern and lifestyle. The Gulf States are seven hours’ flying time from London with a time difference of three hours. Travel by Arabic airlines is like arriving in the Gulf before you’ve left. It’s a dry journey – no alcohol. At midday, Muslim passengers are likely to say prayers prostrated in the aisle; one wonders about the flight deck! Normal working hours are 8.00 am to 1.00 pm, and even then a government survey indicated that the oil-rich Kuwaiti only works an average of ten minutes each day. Friday is a holiday but they work Saturday instead. Appointments, are not necessarily appointments, and frequently involve hours (if not days) of waiting.

The Commercial Bank of Kuwait had catered only for institutions and businesses within the Gulf States until it decided to expand into international markets and enter retail banking. The new policy created the need for an appropriate visual identity. Since the bank had neither the experience nor resources, it appointed Tony Vines, via Ogilvy and Mather, New York, to set up a marketing department and create a new identity within eighteen months. Vines flew to London in 1979, interviewed various advertising agencies and designers, and on reaching a rapport with Pentagram commissioned us to work on the program. His fast response to locating a design resource set the pace for the hectic schedule that followed.

In architecture the term ‘fast tracking’ describes the method of designing whereby the architect keeps one jump ahead of the builder. In this case the severe deadlines and cultural differences made it more of a jump in the dark. The brief stipulated that the corporate identity and design style should be Arabic in flavor, but be understood internationally. The symbol, in particular, was required to mean something to both an Arab and a Westerner. Designing within these constraints reduced the normal available options. The two different scripts precluded using the alphabet to form a logotype such as Unisys, or initials such as IBM. An abstract mark would take too long to establish. A pictorial device might have encouraged the client to insist on a heraldic solution such as a scimitar crossed with palms. However the design of the symbol proved to be the least of the problems. Designing from right to left, in a script and language one didn’t understand, and within an unfamiliar culture, required keeping one’s head fast on its feet.

The new Commercial Bank symbol is an amalgamation of calligraphy and image. the words commercial and bank are rendered in kufic, a geometric script, to make a decorative star, recognizable by anyone as a distinctive pattern and, additionally, readable to an Arab. The dual language identity has English type in Paul Renner’s Futura with a compatible Arabic script especially drawn by Ahmed Mustafa.

Back in September I posted on Miskan my weight which was 90.6KG. As some of you who know me since “Moblogging from Kuwait“, I used to be a fast food junkie. I used to have McDonalds nearly daily and if I wasn’t having McDonalds I was having Burger King, Hardees or some other burger place. Anyway back in September I decided to cut back on the junk and start eating better. Well I got on the scale yesterday and I am now 84KG. Since September I have had McDonalds only a handful of times, Hardees only twice and Burger King also twice. I still eat food from the food court but I don’t have any burgers and I rarely have french fries or anything fried. My diet has been a success!

Today I decided I will discontinue posting porn on this blog. There are a couple of reasons for my decision but I think the main one is that porn is attracting a “different” kind of crowd to this blog. My Haifa and Nancy Ajram videos I posted awhile back were recently linked to by an Arab porn forum and I didn’t like that neither did I like some of the comments that were left, so I decided to delete those two posts. Then I realized, hey, why not just remove the rest of the porn, I don’t have that many porn posts anyway so very little will be missed. So starting Sunday the porn will be deleted. So make sure you help yourself to whatever is there now before its all gone. [Sex]

I am really busy at work today trying to finish up some jobs before our long weekend. Hopefully during this vacation I will find time to post some cool stuff. For example I have these cool vintage pictures of Kuwait Airways which I need to get scanned, once I do I will post them here. I will be carrying my camera around also during the vacation taking pictures, I haven’t done that since I finished with Miskan. Once I get some cool pictures I will also post them online here. Its going to be a fun weekend.

During my lunch break I went to the ice skating ring. It was my first time there since I went back in June and I had posted about it on Miskan.com. In June though the weather was really hot and Ice Skating helped cool us down. Today though I froze my ass off ice skating, my fingers actually turned blue from the cold. The cool thing though was that it was empty except for me and my friend, there was absolutely no one else which was really cool. Entrance cost us KD1.5 and we took the free skates this time around which were actually easier to skate with compared to the ice hockey ones we took last time. I am a really terrible ice skater and I find ice skating a very dangerous sport, don’t know why it freaks me out so much. Even though, I like going there during my lunch break because I find it very refreshing.

Top 3 things our pet dog Geo fears the most:
1) Little girls on rollerblades
2) My Hoberman
3) The Roomba

Top 3 things our per dog Geo loves the most:
1) Little boys high on sugar
2) The Egyptian gang under our house
3) Ethernet cable

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.

Geo arrived yesterday night at 12:05AM via KLM. When I had spoken to a KLM representative earlier in the day he told me I needed only 30 minutes to clear Geo once he arrives.. what bullshit. After 2 hours of running around to 6 different locations at the airport cargo terminal and after going and coming between these 6 offices a total of 11 times, I was finally able to clear Geo and take him home. Mind you I was the only one there clearing anything and it took me over 2 hours so you could imagine how painfully long the process would be during the day when every trader in Kuwait is at the cargo terminal clearing their products. All the employees were very nice and tried their best to get all our papers completed asap but its just a lot of stuff that needed to be signed and at full speed it just wasn’t possible to take less then 2 hours. Oh a strange thing, we were sitting at the vets office at the terminal and one guy there was like did you check on your dog, is he alive? I was like no I hadn’t seen my dog yet but what the fuck, do dogs arrive here dead? The guy was like yeah, many times the dog arrives to Kuwait and its dead. I am guessing this happens often during the summer when they keep the dogs locked up in their tiny travel cages for over 2 hours in the hot summer heat waiting for their owners to get all their paperwork done.

Anyway we get home and Geo is all active and shit and wants to play. So we play. We figured he probably just was so bored trapped in his cage and he just wants to let off some steam. So we played with him until 4AM and Geo was still jumping around all excited. We decide to lock him up in his area downstairs and go up and sleep. His area consists of half the bottom floor of our apartment separated by a 1 meter high fence. His area is around 4×6 meters and the floor is covered in vinyl in case he goes to the bathroom indoors the mess would be easier to clean up. So we lock him up and go upstairs and Geo starts to whine which we were expecting. Suddenly he stops and I was thinking wow that was easier then I expected and so I decided to sneak downstairs quietly to watch Geo sleep. So I am standing in the stairway trying to sneak a peak at Geo sleeping but I couldn’t find him in his area. Suddenly I see Geo walking out of the first floor bathroom casually.. he had escaped from his area! So I realized there was a weakness in my fence design and Geo was able to squeeze out from the far side of the fence. I solve that issue by blocking his escape route with his travel cage. I go back upstairs and I am about to go to sleep when suddenly Nat is like “Mark, Geo is here”. He had escaped again! So I went back down and realized he had climbed over his travel cage and then over the fence. So I solved that problem also and on my way up the stairs I look back and I see Geo squeezing out from between two fences. Fucking A thats like 3 prison breaks in 15 minutes. Good thing I don’t design prisons for a living. We decided to solve the fence issue the next day and for the night he could sleep with us in our bedroom. That didn’t work out the way we planned it either. Geo spent the whole night whining wanting to play with us. At around 7AM we all fell asleep. 9AM I wake up to realize Nat and Geo were missing, seemed they both had woken up at 8AM and Nat made him breakfast and took him down for a walk. It was a totally sleepless night.

We spent most of today fixing his fence issue and taking naps whenever we could. I wasn’t able to post more details earlier because I was dead tired but I just woke up from a 30 minute nap and I feel a bit more energized. I spoke to Fadibou on the phone and we will be meeting up with him and his dog Mikki at Marina Crescent later tonight.

Overall I am really glad we got Geo. He turned out to be much more cuter then his pictures had shown him to be and he is also a lot bigger then I expected. He is silly and dumb at times (like yesterday he got introduced to the concept of a glass door after ramming into it 2 times) and loves playing with Amazon boxes. He doesn’t bark and he’s extremely playful. I will record a video of him soon and upload it once I get my DSL connection back at home. For now I just have the picture I posted earlier today.

I past by Fantasy World at Souk Sharq today to see if they were still selling LEGO and it turned out they were. So I told them if they refused to sell me the LEGO Guy which I have been after for months I would tell everyone they were still selling Danish products. They ignored my threat and still refused to sell me LEGO Guy, so I decided I would tell on them. FANTASY WORLD STILL SELL LEGO!!

We had no clue where the hamster was so to find him we decided to put 3 nuts bunched up together in every room and close all the doors. If we went into a room and found the nuts missing it would mean our hamster would be in that room. We did our rounds every 1 hour going room to room checking to see if any of the nuts were missing to no avail. Finally at around 12AM I decided to do my final round check before I went to sleep. While looking around downstairs for our hamster Nat yells that she found the hamster upstairs. Turns out she went into the bedroom to get ready to sleep and the hamster was just sitting there in the corner. When he saw her he got up as if he was glad he was found. We put him back in his cage and he spent like 5 minutes drinking water. I have no clue how he got up to the bedroom from downstairs where his cage was. Also the bedroom is the coldest room in the house since we have two windows open there and its windy and raining outside so I think he was glad to be back in his warm cage. Tomorrow I am going to get some steel wires and use those to tie his door closed although I doubt after this he would ever want to leave his cage again. I am so glad we found him.

Two days ago I tasted the best cookies I had ever had. A friend at work had received these cookies in a glass jar as a gift and I asked if I could taste them. The jar looked interesting and the cookies inside looked tasty so I took a cookie and tried it. It was soft, fresh, inviting and just fucking heavenly. I asked my friend where I could find these cookies since I never noticed them at Sultan Center or any other supermarket and she replied telling me she would ask her friend who sent them to her. A few minutes later I found out that Choowy Goowy is a place in Kuwait that makes and delivers cookies to your home or office. She showed me the glass jar the cookies came in and pointed towards a tiny message on the label which said “For a refill call 2626559”. I quickly picked up the phone and dialed the number to find out all I could about this interesting service.

This is basically what I found out. Choowy Goowy is a local creation, 100% made in Kuwait. I spoke to the owner who’s recipes the cookies are made from and he was very nice and polite. He spoke good English and explained to me how they originally started off in 2002 with Arabic icecream. They created a service called Booza Booza which delivered iceream to your home but since icecream is a summer product they needed a winter one also and this why in September of last year they started Choowy Goowy. Choowy Goowy makes 5 kinds of cookies, the regular Chocolate Chip, Peanut Butter Cookies, Cinnamon Cookies, Cookies with Macadamia and finally double chocolate cookies. A jar with a dozen cookies inside costs KD2.5 except for the double chocolate which costs KD3.5. If you have a jar and want a refill its 500fils cheaper so KD2 or KD3 depending on which cookies you order. They deliver two times a day, before lunch and in the afternoon, that way you get a fresh batch of cookies whenever you order them.

I placed my order yesterday night and told them I wanted my cookies the next day at 7PM since I would have come home from work by then. You don’t have to call a day ahead though, a fellow employee called them up in the morning and asked to have the cookies by noon and they were delivered to her without a problem. I ordered the regular chocolate chip for KD2.5 since I think the double chocolate at KD3.5 is over my cookie budget. The driver had some problems finding my building (I actually had to run down the street after his van when he missed my house) but since it was his first time I didn’t mind. I told him to remember my place the next time because I would definitely be ordering again.

We were in the middle of episode 13 of Prison Break when the cookies arrived so the timing was perfect. I quickly snapped a few pictures of the jar and then proceeded to quickly open it and let Nat have a taste of these cookies since she had only heard about them from me but never tasted them yet. Within 10 minutes I had eaten 6 cookies while Nat had eaten 2, I would have eaten more but there were only 4 left and I wanted to save some for later. The cookies were amazing. They taste similar to the Fuddruckers cookies except without the nutty flavor which I really dislike. The Choowy Goowy cookies are the best cookies I have ever tasted and the fact that this is a local creation makes me appreciate it a lot more.

Even though these cookies are the best in Kuwait I would have to give them a 4 out of 5 because of the price. Without the jar a dozen cookies cost KD2, thats double the price of the Fuddruckers cookies. On the other hand you are having the cookies delivered right to you which is a big plus and I would have to say these cookies taste atleast twice as good as the Fuddruckers ones. I would really really recommend everyone to try these cookies, they are seriously amazing. Choowy Goowy have the best cookies in Kuwait, give them a call on 2626559.

Update: The owner sent me a message saying that the reason the cookies cost more then your average cookies is because they are made with the best quality ingredients. He also stated that in Fifth Avenue New York there are some places that sell a dozen cookies for $50 and they are always sold out. Finally the cookies are also trans fats free.

Recommended

Burger Challenge
Applebee’s
Bredz
Burger Boutique
Eighty 6 Bistro
Fauchon
Fuddruckers
Hashi
Gaucho Gril
Gourmet Burger Kitchen
Johnny Rockets
Munch
Napket
Nino
Papa John’s Burgers
Prime & Toast
Ruby Tuesday
Slider Station
Sheraton Hotel
Smoke House
The Burger Hub
The Butcher Shop
The Little Oven
The Meat Co.
Wimpy

Food
Cafe: Poshcafe
Chilidog: Nathans Vs Hardees
Chilidog: Johnny Rockets
Chilidog: Fuddruckers
Chinese: Caesars
Chinese: Wildfire
Chinese: Wok Master
Fast Food: Burger King Hammour Royale
Fast Food: Burger King Spicy Chicken Royal w/ Cheese
Fast Food: Hardees Chili Lava
Fast Food: Hardees Turkey & Swiss Sandwich
Fast Food: KFC Fish Zinger
Fast Food: LoFat
Fast Food: Malak Sajj
Fast Food: Marrybrown
Fast Food: McDonalds Best Breakfast in Town
Fast Food: McDonalds Italiano Burger
Fast Food: McDonalds Spring Rolls
Fast Food: Naif’s Puri Fillet
Fast Food: The Pizza Company
Fast Food: Sbarro Sausage & Pepperoni Stromboli
Microwave Meal: Chicken Masala
Microwave Meal: Beef with Classic BBQ Sauce
Microwave Meal: Beef Patty Sandwich Builder
Microwave Meal: Manicotti
Microwave Meal: El Charrito Grande
Microwave Meal: Fried Chicken Meal
Microwave Meal: Chicken Fingers
Other: Baskin Robbins Crunchy Shake
Other: Blenz Coffee
Other: Choowy Goowy Cookies
Other: D*lush
Other: Go Nuts Donuts
Other: Kobe Burger by Auskobe
Other: Lorenzos Chocolate Cheese Cake
Other: Orange Drinks
Restaurant: Al Mayass
Restaurant: Al-Muhallab Seafood
Restaurant: Baba Taher
Restaurant: Burger Bar
Restaurant: Cheeburger Cheeburger
Restaurant: Fauchon Café
Restaurant: IKEA’s Chicken Masala
Restaurant: Le Relais de l’Entrecote
Restaurant: Ricardo – Sheraton
Restaurant: Shatea Al Watyia (Oum Habib)
Restaurant: Slider Station
Shawerma: Al-Ghader
Shawerma: Badar Al Badoor
Shawerma: Burgan
Shawerma: Dodo
Shawerma: Happy Duck
Shawerma: IKEA
Shawerma: Kabab Al Hajat
Shawerma: Mishref Coop Restaurant
Shawerma: Mr Subs
Shawerma: Ranoush Juice – London
Shawerma: Salmiya’s Jewels
Shawerma: Sajj House
Shawerma: Shawermer
Shawerma: Shoo? Shawerma
Shawerma: Villa Fayrouz Express
Shawerma: Weekend
Sushi: Kei, Maki & Kamikaze
Sushi: Maki Restaurant

Movies
Dragon Wars D-War
I Am Legend
I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry
Transformers
Die Hard 4.0
Smokin’ Aces
Big Nothing
The Prestige
Dirty Sanchez – The Movie
Feast
Long Way Round (mini series)
The Sentinel
Hard Candy
American Gun
Stay
Waiting…
Walk the Line
Munich
The Island
Band of Brothers (mini series)
Serenity
Broken Flowers
Lord of War
Saw II
Oliver Twist
The Brothers Grimm
City of God
Jarhead
The Matador
Fucking Åmål
Ichi the Killer
Shutter
Revolver
Straight into Darkness
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Wedding Crashers
Me and You and Everyone We Know
Simple Lies
Dark Water
Constantine
Elf
Creep
Heights
Kill Bill 2
Mysterious Skin
Hot Shots
Hostage
Ocean’s Twelve
Hellboy
Kingdom of Heaven
The Big White
Ôdishon
Inside Deep Throat
The Skeleton Key
The Business
Waterworld
A History of Violence
Born Into Brothels: Calcutta’s Red Light Kids
Happy Endings
The Bourne Supremacy
The Village
Kicking & Screaming
Unleashed (Danny the Dog)
Be Cool
Ladder 49
Green Street Hooligans
Swordfish
Oldboy
The Devil’s Rejects
Team America
Soul Plane

Automotive
Mercedes E200 [Day 1] [Day 2]
Toyota Corolla
Mercedes SLK [Day 1] [Day 2]
Infiniti M45 [Day 1] [Day 2]
Infiniti G35 [Day 1] [Day 3]
Cadillac BLS
Cadillac CTS
Cadillac Escalade

Other
The Ultimate Water Review Part 2
The Ultimate Water Review Part 1
Zegna iJacket
Canon G11
Archos 7
Apple iPhone
A-Z Maps
N-Bar
AKG K81 DJ
Crest White Strips
Motorola V3x
WD Passport Drive
Philips BodyGroom
Mac & More (Marina Mall)
IPEVO free.1 Skype Phone
Denon AVR-2106
International Veterinary Hospital
Harmony 880 Remote
Jazeera Airways – My Experience
Logitech X-230 Speakers
Sennheiser PX100 Headphones
Kensington Orbit Optical Trackball
The PSP Review
The Sultan Center Website
iPod shuffle