Search: “mis”

Who would have thought having a cast would be a complicated thing when traveling. I’ve been in Beirut for a couple of days now and I am getting back today but for some reason security at the Lebanese airport is being very anal about my cast. Kuwait airport didn’t even bring it up as a problem but here I’m being treated like I am trying to smuggle a machete or surface to air missiles in my cast.

I get to the airport at 6:30am still sleepy and hungover when the first security screening stop me from going through. They’re like wheres your paper? I was like what paper? They’re like for your hand. I was like wtf? They then spent 15 minutes fondling my arm and passing it in and out of the metal detector before letting me through. Then I found out my flight got rescheduled till the afternoon so I left.

Fast forward to around 3:30pm and I get back to the airport and pass through the same security checkpoint and they stopped me again. This time I got bounced from one person to another each asking me if I have a paper for my cast. I was like what paper where do I get it from? He’s like from where you got the cast. I was like I got my cast done in Kuwait you want me to go get a paper and come back?? I don’t think they liked my sarcasm because they then wanted me to remove the cast so they could check if I had hidden anything. I told them I couldn’t remove it and wouldn’t remove it and in the end had to get my arm fondled for 15 minutes again and waved through the metal detector a few times. What a mess, glad I just had my hand in a cast and not my ass or something.

I woke up this morning to a phone call from a friend in charge at 360 Mall asking me if I wanted to try out the roller coaster at Infunity. Infunity hasn’t opened yet and won’t be open for a few more months but today they were testing out the roller coaster and if I accepted the mission we would be the first passengers on it. I though it was a fun idea since I never beta tested a roller coaster before and agreed to meet him there before lunch.

Last time I passed by Infunity was in October and since then the place has changed a lot. As I mentioned back in October, Infunity will have a bunch of cool things going for it including a very large climbing wall, Go-Kart Drifting (very cool), an indoor roller coaster designed and built by the same people who create ones for Six Flags, and also a ton of other stuff I’m not sure if I am allowed to share.

When we first got there it turned out the German engineers were still working on the roller coaster so I walked around and checked out the place and took some pictures to kill a bit of time. Nat hadn’t been to the place before and I wanted her to see everything anyway. Once they were ready we went up the stairs to the boarding area. They had just finished testing the ride with sacks full of sand and now we would be the first people to ride it. We got into the seats, fastened the safety harness and took off. First of all the whole place was very dimly lit by a few portable projectors here and there. There was no one in the whole place except for three German engineers and the five of us so it was very empty. We were also the first people to try out the ride so there was that slight fear in the back of our minds that something could go wrong which added to the excitement. The ride although short turned out to be incredibly fun. The roller-coaster although on a fixed line actually rotates so one point you could be facing forward, the next backwards or sideways. The ride also takes you through one wall and then spits you out from another side and once the ride is completed the area behind the wall will actually have fake snow that comes down while you pass through. It was really a lot of fun and the whole time I felt like I was either going to get thrown from the track or hit my head on some pole, I loved it. We rode it a couple of times before we headed to lunch.

Now hopefully I am going to go back again once they start trying out the wall climb or drifting. I shot a video of the ride in the coaster which I might put up later but for now you can check out the pictures below.

I just realized that just over a year ago I posted about the McGangBang and how great it was but now I haven’t had a McDonalds burger (or BK, KFC, Hardees etc..) for nearly a year. I’m eating a lot healthier, having a ton of salad and not really missing any of the fast food. I went from eating at those fast food joints practically daily to never. I think it’s like quitting smoking (I don’t smoke but I’m guessing). It’s difficult at first but then once you’re off you’re off.

This is the second app that I’m releasing for the iPhone and one that should be very useful to many, its the Kuwait Blogs app. I’ve taken all of my favorite blogs and placed them in one app which is very convenient and practical. I will still be adding more blogs in the next update but for now these are the blogs that are included in the app:

2:48AM
360 Dewan
4th Ring Road
Ansam
Blushberry
Buzberry
Confashions
Frankom
iLSul6ana
P0ach
Some Contrast
Tidbit du Jour
zDistrict

I would have added more blogs but it was very time consuming trying to create an icon, header, footer and color scheme for every blog so that it matches their actual blog theme. So if you’re not in this first release I’m sorry but you might be in the next update.

For the Kuwait Blogs icon and launch screen I wanted to use a picture that represented Kuwait but didn’t want anything cliche like the Kuwait Towers or flag so I ended up going with an abstract shot of the Ice Skating Rink which I had taken a few years ago for Miskan. I love the design of the Ice Skating Rink and thought it would represent Kuwait very nicely.

To install the app search for Kuwait Blogs in the App Store on your iPhone or install it into iTunes by click this [Link]

Once upon a time there were two cool photography stores in Kuwait City. One day the building that hosted the two shops got demolished and the stores disappeared…

After a bit of looking around I then noticed one of the shops ended up moving to Muthana Complex but since I didn’t know what happened to the other store I assumed it just closed down. Then out of the blue, a friend of mine tells me he found the place in Shuwaikh. It seems when they demolished the building they decided to move out of Kuwait City and into the industrial area of Shuwaikh for some reason. I passed by and noticed they still had all the used film cameras and lenses on display for sale. They also still have Cokin filters and various tripods, camera bags and studio lights for sale. I was checking out the Nikons, they had the F3, F4 and F5 for sale but none of them were really in great condition. They had two medium format cameras (a Kiev and Mamiya) and also a bunch of compact cameras.

If you’re interested in passing by they’re easy to find. Go to Canada Dry street and if McDonalds is on your right keep going straight past the traffic light and straight under the bridge. Keep going straight you will see a huge place on your left called Ramez. You need to keep driving until you hit the round about and then do a u-turn and head towards the direction you came from. Before the Ramez building you take a right and then you turn left behind the building and drive straight. You should see World Photo in front of you.

Local blogger and teacher Miss Farah posted something which I wanted to share with my readers. One of her kids in class had brought only chips and chocolate for lunch (pic above), so Miss Farah sent a letter to the parents explaining to them how unhealthy that was for their daughter. Next day she checked the kids lunchbox and this time the little girl had cucumbers, carrots, croissant, corn and juice (pic below).

I thought it was great of Miss Farah for caring enough to contact the parents and I thought it was also great from the parents to actually listen to her. Hopefully the lunchbox continues to stay healthy and other parents reading this can do the same with their kids. You can check Miss Farah’s blog [Here]

It took a lot of my time but I finally finished my very own iPhone app. I actually launched it last week on my twitter page but I didn’t officially announce it since I wanted to get some feedback and fix any bugs that I might have missed first. Good thing I did since I spotted a silly bug the first day it got released and quickly released a version 1.1 update a couple of days later. Now the version has gone up to 1.2 and I’ve been able to introduce a few nifty features which I felt helped round off the app and make it launch worthy.

Originally when I went about creating the app I didn’t know what the use would be. Already the blog was very viewable on the iPhone because of a plug-in I had installed that formatted the site to work perfectly on the iPhone so if my app did the same thing it would be useless. I kept thinking about what else I could do and bit by bit I started adding stuff to it that made it more useful. Here are the things you can currently do with my iPhone app:

– Check my latest posts
– Check the latest comments on my blog
– Check the latest posts in the forum
– Check my twitter
– Check my YouTube channel
– Check latest posts on Safat
– Check latest Kuwait news from Arab Times
– Check the weather via the Kuwait Meteorological Center (contains more details than the default iPhone weather app)
and my favorite…
– Get the latest traffic updates via #q8traffic on Twitter

These are just the features I have currently but hopefully will be adding more stuff down the line. If you want to download the iPhone app search for 248AM in the app store or click the following [Link]

In the post below I was just testing to see if I could broadcast live footage and it worked! For the people who were able to catch my live act I was just broadcasting video of my dog sleeping on the floor so you didn’t miss out on much. I got this idea for live broadcasting from P0ach and wanted to see if there was an easy way to do it and it turned out there was. I signed up for a free account on ustream.tv and downloaded the iPhone app for Ustream called Ustream Live Broadcaster and thats it. All you need is your iPhone’s 3G connection or WiFi and you can broadcast live video from anywhere to the blog. So next time I witness a fire or fight I can just broadcast the video live for everyone to watch. Pretty cool!

I found this radio station this morning by mistake. How long has this been around? It’s a US military station and unlike 96.9 it doesn’t have the annoying English 101 courses.

Oula just sent us this email in response to the previous post:

Dear All;
This incident was just brought to our attention by this blog. We are very grateful for this effort from your side to point out any deficiency on our side as we always aim to be the best employer we could be. we are currently investigating the issue and whoever denied him treatment in the first place will not be ignored and will be accountable for this violation. We at Oula Fuel are very clear with our contractors that we require the most fair treatment for the employees and that is why we pay even more than the market price to the contractor just to make sure that these employees are treated as best as possible. As long as we require the employees to be on their best while serving our customers, then it’s only fair to treat them well in the first place.

We here at Oula Fuel extend our best regards and wishes to everyone who provided us with a chance to correct a violation and whoever would point out misunderstandings that might go un-noticed without the collective effort from all concerned citizens who aim to make Kuwait the best country ever.

Please don’t hesitate to contact us on 1800111 or [email protected].

Regards,

Mohammad Al-Khareji
Sales Supervisor
Marketing & Sales & PR Dept.
Oula Fuel

Tel: (965) 2 2321 709
Fax: (965) 2 2321 333
Hotline: 1 800 111
m.alkhareji @oula1.com
www.oula1.com

I think it currently only applies to Kuwaitis since you would need one of the new SMART Civil ID cards. The way it works is you add funds to your Civil ID card using Knet and every time you pay with your Civil ID you get the amount deducted from your balance.

I can’t see how this could be useful for anyone with a Knet card. You can’t use this for your drivers because they need to be a Kuwaiti to get the new Civil ID’s and your children don’t have Knet cards but they shouldn’t be driving and filling up gas anyways. Am I missing something here?

You can get more information by visiting the ALFA website [Here]

Thanks Kuwait!

I’ve been visiting Bayan Dental for over 5 years now. I first found out about them from Zaydoun and ever since me and Nat have been getting all our dental work done there at their Salmiya branch. They were actually featured in my Miskan project back in 2005 as Day 303 which is where the picture above is from. Once every few months I pass by my dentist (Dr Samer Khaddour) for scaling because I know that the longer the gap between my visits the more I am going to suffer during my session so I try to keep the gaps small. My dentist and Nat always seem to team up on me since they find my fear amusing but I’m slowly slowly getting over it.

Anyway I recently got approached by Bayan Dental and got offered veneers for free if in return I could post and explain what veneers were on my blog and also about my experience getting them installed. I didn’t have a clue what veneers were but after a quick google followed by a detailed explanation from Bayan I found these two words the best way to explain them… Hollywood smile. Veneers give you the perfect smile and you get them installed in one hour without any pain or anesthesia and they last forever.

I asked them if my dentist could install them for me and since he specializes in restorative and aesthetic dentistry they told me it shouldn’t be a problem. Since then I’ve already had a couple of visits with my dentist getting a mould of my teeth done so I could see how my teeth currently look and how they will look once I am done. They will be sending me a bunch of pictures of difference cases before and after veneers so I could share them here with some proper information about veneers and how they work. For now I thought I would post this to keep everyone in the loop on whats going on. If you have any questions about veneers (and I guess anything dental related) you can post them below since someone from Bayan will be reading the comments and answering any questions you might have.

Since we’re on the subject of dentistry for those of you who have a fear from dentists you could post what concerns you have below and I could try to answer them from my experience like for example how much pain or discomfort a procedure might have or how long certain things take etc.. I haven’t done all the procedures but I think I’ve done most of the general ones. One thing I’ve learned from my experience is that if you have a dental issue now and you don’t take care of it, it will only get worse tomorrow and the fix becomes more complicated.

Update: If you’ve never been to Bayan Dental before, just mention my blog when you go in and you will get a 17% discount on non cosmetic procedures.

The Alpine iXA-W407 which I posted about a few days ago is supposed to sell for around $750 but for some reason it’s being sold for just $379 on Amazon right now. I’m sure its a mistake so I quickly placed an order for one. If you’re interested in it here is the [Link]

Update: I purchased the unit twice and both times the seller canceled my order. Did this happen to anyone else?

Update2: Price is back up now to $550. I placed an order for the fourth time and it seems to have worked now. $550 is still a good deal. I ordered the following items so far for my Toyota FJ install:

Alpine iXA-W407 Digital Media Station
Alpine HCE-C107D Rear View Camera
Peripheral PTR7 Multi control interface bypass module
Scosche TA2076B 2007 Toyota FJ ISO/Double DIN With Pocket Kit
Stereo Wire Harness Toyota FJ Cruiser 07 2007

The PTR7 will allow me to change the system settings and watch movies while the car is in motion and not just parked.

Update: I originally purchased the Scosche adapter for the Toyota FJ Cruiser but it turned out to be really crap and wouldn’t fit the stereo right. I ended up installing the Alpine using the Metra adapter which worked out a lot better. Here is a link to it on Amazon. [Link]

Posted by Fahad AlYehya | Core Fitness – Kuwait

It takes me 8 hours to write an article, 8 more hours to review it and 60 minutes to press publish; and I still make spelling and grammar mistakes. I shower 3-4 times a day, wash my face with the most expensive fascial cleansers out there and I still get mild acne. I see people train hard, diet hard and recover, but they still lack that muscular maturity. Females go through episodes of anorexia to look like that Cosmo model, yet they lose a lot of hair, the sparkle in their eyes diminish, their nails start to break off, their skin barely shines and their bones are as fragile as a piece of tissue.

The above are all side effects of a lifestyle low in fat. Has anyone seen those Lebanese, Jordanian, Syrian and Palestinian documentaries about how their senior citizens live above the age of 90? How do they do it? They have more energy and vigor than Kuwait’s older generation; but how do they do it?

“Ebnakul zaitoon,” or “bin7ib zait el zaytoon kteer.” (English Translation: we eat olives or we love olive oil a lot). Those are literally the two answers available to explain how they managed to live that long.

Or approach a Japanese dude and ask him how they live so long and why heart disease isn’t such an epidemic: “We uuuh, rive very hearthy rong rife because uuuh we eat sushi and aaah hearthy fatty fish high in omega sree! And when Godzirra come again, uuuh we can fight!” (English Translation: I’m not really sure what he said, but it had something to do with karate and sushi).

Fat is a lot more important than any other macronutrient. I’m not saying that fat should be consumed alone; in conjunction with other macronutrients, fat can do wonders. Unfortunately, I learned it the hard way.

When I started weight-lifting, I did what the pros did: ate a diet high in carbs and proteins and low in fat. I wanted to be as big and as ripped as they were. And come on, it’s common sense! Why would I listen to some nerd who majored in medicine and not a freak with veiny arms? Long story short, I paid the price and should’ve listened to the pencil neck. I had terrible acne, my short-term memory was a joke, my hair barely grew to considerable volume, my immune system was a disaster, every joint in my body hurt like hell, I was tired all the time, my muscles looked like soft ballons that only looked decent when training and I suffered constantly from overtraining. Why? Because I went low-fat, thinking that low-fat would get me big and ripped.

LoYAC is having its Annual Music Night on Tuesday, February 23rd 2010 at 6:00pm. The Music Night will be held in the AbdulAziz Hussein Theatre in Mishref and all the proceeds will be going to the victims of the earthquake in Haiti. This is considered to be the first step that the Help Haiti Committee in LoYAC (headed by Al Zain Al Humaidhi) will be taking in terms of awareness and collecting donations for the victims of the Haiti earthquake.

Many musicians from LoYAC will be performing, our main area of focus would have to traditional Arabic music and folklore. We are anticipating having people sing songs for Fairuz, Rashed Il Majed, Shereen, Abdel Halim and many more. We will also have instrumental pieces that will be played. Our pianist Faisal will be performing as well. Faisal has been sent on several scholarships through LoYAC internationally.

The tickets cost 5 KD, and 20 KD for corporate donations, the tickets are available at LoYAC in Bayt Lothan.

For more information visit the LoYAC website [Link]