Search: “mis”

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

Dunkin Donuts is opening a branch in Souk Salmiya near City Center. This the second branch I know of thats opening. The first is the main Salmiya branch. Any others?

Faisal sent me a link to this video showing a young child getting beaten and abused by his maid here in Kuwait. According to the person who originally posted the video this is the story:

“Recently a family in Abbasiya employed a female servant at their house to look after their kid. After a couple of days the kid turned gloomy and was always tired. With some doubts, the family put a hidden cam in their sitting room when they left to work. When they returned, they saw the video and they were shocked to see how the servant mistreating the kid.”

To view the video [click here]

Here are a few tips by Knick on how to prevent incidents like this:

1. Get a telephone recorder which is avaliable in Hawally for KD 8-12 which records all incoming and outgoing conversations. A normal cassette is used to record.
2. Keep rooms that are not required by the maid locked.
3. Almost every houshold has a PC attach a webcam and place it in such a place that it monitors the entire room.
4. Dowload windows media encoder and install it to start monitering your house daily. (8 Hrs movie approx is 300 mb)
5. Spend quality time with your children, buy them small gifts every day in return for a report on what happenned during the day at home.
6. Love your kids, show them that you do and let them understand that you are always there to love and protect them.
7. In most of these cases the children are silenced by the maids who threaten them to tell the parents that he/she did this or that and they will be punished. Parents tend to go with the maids who are a different personality in their presence and punish the children. Children loose faith and confidence in the parents. Do not let this happen.
8. Children who undergo such traumatic experiences in their childhood tent to grow up with more complicated personalities, lack confidence and are effected mentally.

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.

I went to the supermarket today and stepped into the alcohol isle. Its fucking amazing! I really miss it. I got 2 bottles of red wine (Chateu Kefraya), 1 bottle of white wine (ksara blanche de blanche), 2 bottles of Ballentines Whisky (my favorite) and 1 bottle of vodka (stoyshka or something, the cheapest and the best). I also got munchies and a whole bunch of other crap. Final price like KD20. Thats like half the price of one bottle of alcohol in Kuwait.

Today is my last day at work before I go on my ten day vacation. Its tradition for me that on the last day at work I start locking up my stuff on the computer. I spend a lot of time on my mac at work and so accumulate a lot of items like bookmarks, files, typefaces etc.. that I don’t want to share with people at the office. The way I lock up my stuff is I create a new account which the computer will log into automatically on boot and then I set the permissions on the folders I don’t want anyone else viewing to “No Access” except for myself. Its not a full proof plan since its easy to reset the password on the Mac but its good enough for my needs. To be safe I also delete all my key chains and clear everything in Firefox.

Today there was an article in Arab Times related to what I posted the other day on the fact that I heard expats will be limited to staying in Kuwait for only 6 years. I am glad the majority of people think this is a stupid idea. Here is the link to the Arab Times article or click on more to read it here.