Search: “mis”

Yesterday I posted about the Missing Speed Camera on the Gulf Road. Well Ratlab have a picture of the camera on its death bed, turned out it was killed by a black Trail Blazer. Check it out. [Link]

Here are the statistics for 2006 but I am telling you from now, 2007 is going to be a lot more fun thats for sure. I already have a couple of cool things lined up including new sponsors and new stuff for the blog, one which I am hoping works out soon because it will involve me and a couple of super cars. Thank you everyone for being part of this blog either by contributing with the comments or even just by visiting. Thank you!

Total amount of unique visitors for 2006: 901,989
Total amount of page impressions for 2006: 7,863,277
Highest amount of unique visitors per month: December – 117,943
Highest amount of page impressions per month: November – 1,224,453

If you haven’t checked the Forum yet then you are missing out on a lot. With over 21,000 articles and 635 users its really an informative place. There is even a section for buying and selling stuff where people have sold things ranging from mobile phones and Nintendo Wii’s to laptops and cars. So pass by and check it out. [Forum]

I am sitting at Dunkin Donuts surfing the web trying to kill time while Nat finishes her shopping spree. Its raining outside which means its snowing in the mountains. We still don’t have plans for tonight, we have a couple of options ranging from clubs to gatherings but for some reason we still haven’t decided what to do.

We come back to Kuwait tomorrow afternoon. I miss Geo.

I spent all day today getting some paperwork done. First I went in the morning to get my motorbike driving license. I passed the test like 2 weeks ago but I never got around to exchanging my learners permit for the actual license. When I got to the place in Jabriya it turned out I had a lot of papers missing, so I had to go back home, get the papers and drive back to Jabriya. The whole process took over 2 hours but I now have my motorbike license.

One thing I found strange is I now have to separate driving licenses, one for riding and one for driving. The new redesigned license has icons in the back for riding, truck driving, car driving etc.. and they mark under each what you are qualified to operate. I figured they would print me out a new card stating I can drive a car and ride a motorbike but instead they printed me a card that says that I can ride a motorbike. Now I have two licenses which are exactly the same except for the little marking in the back. It would have been more practical to just combine the two in one card.. weird why they don’t do that.

Later in the afternoon I had to go to this other place in Shuwaikh to transfer my car into my name. I just finished paying the installments for it and I had to meet a mandoob (the person who does the paperwork) there to transfer the car in my name. That operation also took 2 hours. It would have finished a lot sooner if the employees actually came to work on time. My mandoob had to wait 45 minutes in line waiting for the employee to come in. When the employee finally arrived the line was super long but he didn’t seem to care, he sat down, ordered his tea, spoke to his friend on the phone and THEN started signing the papers. Mandoobs have a lot of patience.

So now I am home, my flight to Lebanon leaves early tomorrow morning so I am packing my bag. We are going for 6 days but Nat is taking practically all her winter and summer clothes. Whenever I say anything about it she yells at me telling me girls are not like guys and she can’t just take just 2 t-shirts and a jeans. “She has to be prepared for any scenario”.

Anyway, I am checking the site statistics and I might hit 100,000 unique users for this month by tonight. Thats 5 days ahead of schedule, pretty cool.

note: thats not my real date of birth in the picture, its their own creation.

Saw a picture of poster on Hanan’s blog taken in Kaifan today. Basically the poster tells Muslims not to wish Christians a Merry Christmas. Now while checking Digg I also found an article by the Herald Tribune on this issue, about how some Muslim extremist are telling people not to wish Christians a Merry Christmas. I found this all very depressing. If Muslims are being advised not to wish us a Merry Christmas then I doubt they will be legalizing alcohol anytime soon…

Here is a link to Hana’s blog with the poster
Here is a link to the Herald Tribune’s article

(IMAGE REMOVED AT THE REQUEST OF AFL)

Today morning Rayboy posted in the forum on how while walking his dog in a public park he found a dalmatian dog that was locked up in a small cage all alone and freezing to death. Once he got home he called both PAWs and the Animal Friends League of Kuwait (AFL) to get some help.

The AFL ended up organizing a “Seek and Rescue” party later in the day. Their mission was to see the state of the dog and if possible contact the owners. If the owners were not found and the dog was in bad shape, they would then break the lock and take the dog.

The AFL arrived at the location and found that the dog was in really bad condition. After desperately trying to find the owners they took the decision to break the lock and free the dog. They then took the dalmatian to their animal shelter in Wafra where the dog is now being taken care of.

I think thats just an amazing story. To have a group like the AFL here in Kuwait who actually take action when an animal is being abused is really amazing. I really hate people who get pets but then end up treating them like shit. Locking up a beautiful dog like the dalmatian in a public garden in this weather in a small cage is just horrible. I imagine the dog would have remained in the cage even during the summer. Thank you AFL for freeing the dalmatian.

If anyone would like to find out more about the AFL, donate to the AFL or even adopt one of their pets then you can visit their website animalfriendskuwait.org

There is a link on Digg to an eBay auction where an unopened SNES got sold for $265 on eBay. I got my unopened SNES from a store in the old souk in Kuwait City for $50. The guy also had unopened original first generation Gameboys for $25. Some times you can find some really good deals here in Kuwait.

When paying with a credit card or Knet card at Sultan Center you might have noticed that once the transaction goes through the employee swipes your card into their computer and your credit card number and other information gets dumped into their system. Cajie a reader of the blog sent them an email complaining about this, here is what he sent them:

I have been a frequent shopper of Sultan Center for quiet some time. However, I have become increasingly concerned about your procedure of scanning and storing customer’s credit card numbers in your sales system. This is a highly risky and unacceptable IT process, especially for such a leading retailer such as Sultan Center. Other leading merchants store only the last 4 digits of the credit card for verification purpose, which is just fine. It is my strong recommendation that your systems be reconfigured not to store sensitive customer data – especially in these days of increase rise in electronic fraud.

To his surprise the MIS manager at Sultan Center called him on the phone and assured him they made changes in their system to protect the customers financial data. After the phone call they sent him the following email with more details:

It was a pleasure talking to you over the phone, and we are really glad to have your comments and suggestions which will help us service our customers better. I would like to assure you that our Point of Sales system doesn’t hold or store the Full Credit card details, in fact this was rectified longtime back based on our Internal Audit department report. Now the transactions which are stored in our systems will only carry the last four digits of the credit card number XXXX XXXX XXXX 9021.

I hope that you are satisfied with this and Please don’t hesitate to contact us or me directly for any further queries. Wish you a very pleasant time in our stores and everywhere else.

It still doesn’t make me comfortable having them scan my card but at least now I know the information they do keep from the scan is very minimal.

My favorites are Little Miss Sunshine and Brick.. which is a good movie by the way. [Link]

Was talking to some friends today and I remembered the Bony sign at the zoo so I figured I would reshare it with everyone. Here are more pictures taken at the zoo in case anyone is interested. [Pictures]

Kuwait’s first short film festival at Shaab park.
Date: Wednesday, December 13th and Thursday, December 14th
Price: Tickets are for free.

Below is the running order of the movies from the festival. Book your tickets at [email protected]

I love Montreal. Its my favorite place on the planet. Since Christmas is nonexistent in Kuwait and since Nat has never been anywhere other then Lebanon and Kuwait I figured we would spend Christmas and New Years in Montreal. I was looking forward to binging on Labatt Blue while stuffing myself with poutine. Nat on the other hand was looking forward to the Tiesto concert on New Years night. We had everything planned and ready, only thing missing was Nats visa to Canada. I don’t need a visa because I have the Canadian citizenship.

Around a week ago we sent Nats passport and all the forms and papers needed to the Canadian Embassy in Abu Dhabi (local embassy don’t do visas). Visa costs like KD18 while DHL with a return airway bill costs KD55. So thats KD73 for a one time entry visa.

Today Nat got her passport back and guess what? They refused to give her a visa! Their reason was the following:

You have not satisfied me that you meet the requirements of Regulation 179; that you would leave Canada at the end of the temporary period if you were authorized to enter. In reaching this decision I considered your ties to your country of residence/citzenship balanced against factors which might motivate you to stay in Canada.

In summary, they think Nat will basically go to Canada, tear up her passport and request asylum. How did they come up with this conclusion? Its because she is Lebanese. How much more discriminating can they be? No one called her to talk to her, no one called her in for an interview, they didn’t even care that her husband is a Canadian.

I am extremely pissed off now because it basically means I can no longer go to Canada unless I am alone, which isn’t going to happen as long as I am married. Tomorrow I will be calling up the embassy and giving someone there a piece of my mind. No way am I gonna accept the fact that some stranger all the way in the UAE is going to ruin my Christmas!

After going to sleep early last night I woke up around 9AM today and decided I would go out for a ride. By 9:30 I was downstairs in full gear warming up my bike. Today I even put on my Alpinestars Knee Guard which I should have worn the day I had my crash because it would have saved my knee from getting road rash. Its kind of bulky but its not about the looks, its about the protection. One thing I forgot to do with all my excitement was brush my teeth which was a big mistake because I ended up spending the whole ride smelling my Friday morning breath inside the helmet.

I had 3 rules for my ride today:
(1) Keep off the Gulf Road
(2) On traffic lights, go straight or right but not left (since I had my accident while going left)
(3) Stay clear of roundabouts

Well I broke one of the rules. I ended up going out onto the Gulf Road but just for a tiny bit. My bikes gas light came on and I figured I might as well fill it up with gas, something I hadn’t done before. But before I got onto the Gulf Road I rode into the AUK parking lot and decided to do some riding exercises which involved lots of driving around in circles and braking and accelerating. Once I felt comfortable with the bike I rode out of the parking lot and headed towards the Gulf Road. I ended up going to the gas station opposite Pizza Hut. I was hoping I would find some of that ultra super high octane gas (the green one) but turned out they only had the regular and super versions. It was my first time filling up gas in my bike and I felt awkward. First I didn’t know how to open the gas gasket, the key wasn’t turning in the gasket lock so I called up Marzouq who told me I needed to push the key in and turn which worked. Second I didn’t know how much gas the bike would take but I kept filling it slowly until I could see the gas line in the tank. I filled up 550fils worth of super gas and rode back out onto the Gulf Road and then back into Salmiya.

In total today I rode for around an hour and a half. I would have stayed out longer but my wrist started hurting so I had to come back home. The weather was amazing and I spent most of my ride riding with the helmet visor open so that the wind blew in onto my face . I really had a lot of fun, can’t wait for my next ride.

Finally got my iPod Shuffle from Amazon. Its really tiny, a lot smaller then it looks. You need to hold it in your hand to really understand how small the thing is. The package should really contain a spare shuffle since it would be so easy to misplace one.

I found out last minute I had to go down to Dubai for work and since Gitex had just started, finding a room was practically impossible. Finally though the travel agent came through and found me an empty room and booked it. I have to say it was the crappiest hotel I had ever been to. The whole place looked like a bathroom and smelled like one that had just been cleaned. They had these air fresheners that spray perfume automatically located all over the hotel but they just reminded me too much of bathrooms.

If the look of the hotel wasn’t enough to put me off, before we got the room key they made us sign a paper which said if any of our stuff goes missing in the rooms that they wouldn’t be responsible for it. Not only that but inside the room there was a framed photocopy of a similar paper stating the same thing and another A4 sheet located on the table also saying the same thing. As you can imagine I didn’t want to leave anything in the room and I didn’t, I kept my backpack with me the whole time.

Traffic in Dubai because of Gitex was just a disaster. It was always at a complete standstill, a real mess. One cab driver told me things get even worse in February during the shopping festival.

The weather in Dubai was also a lot hotter then Kuwait. Its currently freezing here. Froze my ass off tonight while leaving Maki at Marina, even had a jacket on and it wasn’t enough!

I wanted to visit Gitex but I finished my work around 8PM and Gitex closes at 7. Why can’t they stay open till like 10 or something like exhibitions that are held in Kuwait? Its like people need to take a day off work to pass by them.

I went to Ibn Battuta mall. Its not as big as Mall of the Emirates but its still a lot bigger then Marina Mall and the whole thing felt very Las Vegasishy.

I still can’t believe I was in Dubai and didn’t get to pass by Gitex!