Categories
Information Kuwait Travel

Nat and Jazeera Airways

In regards to the post below, Nat was able to get a ticket to Kuwait because she used her Beirut to Kuwait ticket. Her original Jazeera Airways flight which was supposed to take off from Beirut on Sunday took off from Damascus instead. I was worried Jazeera would cancel her ticket “by mistake” but they didn’t and honored her ticket and even her seat number.

I have already mentioned a whole bunch of times on this blog how great Jazeera Airways is and their recent actions in regard to the war in Lebanon has been extraordinary.




Categories
Information Kuwait Personal Travel

Kuwaitis stuck in Damascus

So yesterday was my day off. I didn’t go in to work or do any posting, instead I decided to stay home with Nat who was still exhausted from her evacuation. Thanks to everyone who left comments welcoming her, she will most probably post about her experience today. One thing I realized is that leaving Lebanon isn’t a problem, its the Syrian airport that is.

According to a Kuwaiti lady Nat spoke to at the Damascus airport, it seems some Kuwaitis are really pissed off at the Kuwait embassy. According to that lady, the Kuwaiti embassy dropped them off at the airport with the promise they would be able to find a plane back to Kuwait but she had been in the airport for 2 day and she still is on the waiting list. There are also no representatives from the Kuwaiti embassy at the airport either, they were just dropped off and left alone. Hopefully the lady is back in Kuwait now and that there are no more people stuck like that at the airport.

update: just spoke to a friend who arrived yesterday from Damascus. She told me that she was able to get on an earlier Jazeera flight because they has 16 seats free so I guess there shouldn’t be any more Kuwaitis stuck waiting for a vacant seat.




Categories
News Politics

Lebanese News Updates

For updates on whats going on in Lebanon check Naharnet.com

Current news flash:

Israel imposed Thursday a general air, sea and land blockade on Lebanon as part of its large-scale offensive to retrieve 2 soldiers snatched by Hizbullah.

The Jewish state widened its assault beyond Beirut and the South by targeting Hizbullah strongholds in the Bekaa where it launched air raids against a Shiite prayer house and a Manar TV transmission station.

Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz vows that Hizbullah will not be allowed to return to its positions on the border and demands that the Lebanese army deploy along the frontier.




Categories
Personal Politics

Hezbollah the root of all evil

From a Lebanese to the world: Hezbollah are terrorists financed by Syria and Iran and the Lebanese government is to pussy to do anything about them. They were warned a million times to take care of the Hezbollah issue but no one in the government had the balls to call them out. Well now the Lebanese people are going to pay for the mistakes of the government. Its summer, its tourist season and because of Hezbollah, Israel has practically declared war on Lebanon. Today morning at 6AM Israel blew up two runways at the Beirut International Airport. This is not going to effect the Lebanese politicians sitting in their million dollar mansions, its going to effect the poor Lebanese people who make up the majority of Lebanon.

With these current attacks you would think the government would wake up and realize that its time to distance themselves from Hezbollah and let the whole world know that the Lebanese people are against Hezbollah and against their actions. But, of course that didn’t happen, the Lebanese government is calling all parties to be united against Israel. What a load of political crap, they are going to make things a lot worst for everyone. Fucking idiots.




Categories
Kuwait

SIRENS

This brings back some memories. I was walking back from Baskin Robbins when the sirens started blasting. They must have installed a new system because it was fucking loud. Like so loud it sounds like its coming from everywhere, I felt like I was in a movie. I recorded a short clip with my phone you can watch it by clicking the link. [Video]

update: its 5:09pm and the sirens just came back on again..
update 2: turns out it was turned on by misake [Link]




Categories
Fun Geek

See how fast you can type

Words Per Minute

Back in university I took a typing class (I needed the 1 credit) and I ended up breaking the university record with 77 word per minute (deducting the mistakes). The teacher used to hate me but she couldn’t do much since I just kept typing faster then any of her other students.

Anyway found this cool site that tests how fast you type. I just got such a rush from this since and I am currently pumped full of adrenaline.. I love trying to type as fast as possible I don’t know why. The stupid thing with this test though is that if you make a mistake you HAVE to fix it or else you won’t be able to finish the test. Its really annoying but adds to the challenge. The highest score I got was 84.51 words per minute. Sounds fast until you realize that the worlds fastest typist was an old woman who hit 212 words per minute.. [Link]




Categories
Food & Drinks Interesting Kuwait Personal

Blogger Influence

Burger Boutique

I was flipping through some blogs when I landed on Flippa X’s post on Burger Boutique. The post opened up my appetite and 30 minutes later I was at Burger Boutique having dinner. I thought that was pretty interesting because I don’t do that with magazines. I never read a food article in a magazine and then acted upon it. With blogs I have done it a bunch of times already. Although this might sound strange but I think the reason is I find blogs more credible then magazines, or should I say more real..




Categories
Interesting Internet Personal

The BlindMelon.com Story
(I am not Cybersquatting)

Blind Melon

I first got into Alternative music in the summer of 92. I was visiting my cousin in LA and he made me watch a music video of a band called Blind Melon. The song was No Rain and it involved a girl dressed up in a bee costume, I am sure everyone has seen it.

Anyway in 1995 the lead singer died from a drug overdose. The band split up and Blind Melon fell apart. I was still a fan though and in 1999 I designed my own website as a tribute to them. It was located at https://unex-t.com/nico and it was the most popular fan site back then.

One day I was checking BlindMelon.com which wasn’t active and decided to email the owner asking him if he could forward the domain to my site. He replied telling me not only would he forward the domain to my site but that I could have the domain since he didn’t have a need for it. That was in 2000 and ever since then I had been running the site.

Everyone was happy, I had a very active community with a active message board with over 20,000 messages, I was providing free blindmelon.com subdomains with hosting to other Blind Melon sites and mostly I was keeping the band alive.

To make a bit of cash I had links on my site advertising the bands various CDs on Amazon and for every CD I ended up selling I got like 50 cents or something. I was making anywhere from $100 to $200 a quarter selling these CDs, its not a lot of money, it didn’t cover the hosting bill (back when I had I was hosted on fasthosts.co.uk) but it was nice cash that I injected back into Amazon by buying tshirts and sneakers.

The problem is suddenly out of the blue the band is interested in the domain. The band members all had different solo projects that all resulted in failure. Unified Theory, The Tender Trio, Extra Virgin and Mercy are some of their failed projects. Now it seems they want to release a new album of unreleased stuff in September and they want the domain.

At first they wanted me to give them the domain for free and when I refused they offered me $500. I tried to explain to them that I had a lot of sentimental attachment to the domain and the fact that I spent a lot of money on it. They disappeared and hooked up with the Law Offices of David Rudich who a few days ago sent me a cease and desist letter accusing me of cybersquatting.

This is not fair and I need help. After taking care of the site for over 6 years and keeping the band alive its not fair that they can come and take it away from me just like that. What are my options? I can’t afford a lawyer. They even HAVE a official website located at BlindMelonMusic.com, what do they want with me?

You can check out the site now by going to BlindMelon.com although I put up a fruity intro page. If you want to see how the site used to look like then you need to go to BlindMelon.com/index2.html

note: Just so there isn’t a misunderstanding, I made money from the domain but it wasn’t profit. Hosting the site cost me a lot more then what I was making from Amazon..

You can read the cease and desist letter after the jump..




Categories
Events Kuwait Movies

Jordanian Short Film Screening

The Kuwait Cinemagic & The Royal Film Commission invite everyone to attend a Jordanian Short Film Screening event which will take place at Al Sha’ab Theatre on the evening of June 22nd, at 7:30 p.m.

They will be screening around 10 short films made by young Jordanian filmmakers, some of whom will be attending the event and discussing their work.

It promises to be a fun evening, and you can bring as many people as you like just as long as you come early, as the seating is free and will be on a first come first served basis. Here is the flyer for the event.




Categories
Automotive Kuwait

For Sale: 1970 Mercury Cougar

1970 Cougar

Fuzz a fellow blogger is selling his car. Its a 1970 Mercury Cougar, here are some details:

Engine- 7.2 Litre V8
Automatic Transmission
Air Conditioning
AM/FM Radio
Cassette
Automatic Convertible Top
Original Hub Caps
Power Brakes
Power Steering
Radial Tires
Seatbelts
Vinyl Interior
Numbers are Matching

The engine and transmission have been rebuilt by Edelbrock himself in Illinois, USA. Very nice original car with lots of options, has front power disc brakes, have copy of bill of sale, new exhaust, power top & headlight covers work properly.

The only 1970 Cougar in Kuwait. Interior needs minor work, some stiching. This sort of interior job is available in Kuwait and the cost is minimal.

Price – KD8,000
A test drive is possible and can be scheduled.
For further inquiries call 9185054 or send an email to
[email protected].

Fore more pictures click [Here]




Categories
Automotive Complaints Kuwait Personal

Nationality?

I was filling out an inquiry form on alsayer.org trying to find out when they will be getting the Toyota FJ and there is a mandatory question asking me which nationality I was. What kind of question is that in this day of age? Why do they want to know where I am from? Will I get better or worse service if I answer I am from Uganda? What would the best answer be, USA or Kuwait? I am betting USA and thats what I put. [Link]

update: Alsayer have replied back:

Dear Mark,

This question is purely for analysis reasons, and we apologise if was misunderstood. Alsayer group is a privately owned business and we have genuine respect for all nationalities. However, ethnic studies in marketing is anywhere in the world including the USA. And we believe this is normal in multi ethnic societies. Asking the question doesn’t mean a racist. It is a pure and simple marketing question taken out of context.

Thank You

Maak




Categories
Information Interesting

German Toilets

Mein Gott, zwei kilogram! [Link]




Categories
Funny Geo Personal

Geo learned a new trick

geo fence

Today Geo learned a new trick.. a trick I would rather he hadn’t learned. Geo today figured out how to open the doors around the house. The whole house is dog safe (ie nothing for Geo to grab a hold of and chew) except for the art room where I have all my magazines and tons of other stuff lying around unprotected on the shelves. Now that he knows how to open the door I need to start locking it from the outside. Hopefully he won’t figure out how to pick locks anytime soon. I think this weekend I am going to shoot a video of Geo doing some tricks, he has gotten really good at them.




Categories
Information Interesting Television

How real is Greys Anatomy?

greys anatomy

It looks like today is going to be about TV shows. When you look for one thing you end up finding other things. This article I am linking to is written by Dr. Marc Siegel who is an internist and an associate professor of medicine at New York University’s School of Medicine. He talks about Greys Anatomy last episodes of season 2 and how accurate the events that occured on the show would be compared to real life. If you haven’t watched the episodes in question don’t follow the link because there are spoilers. [Link]

update: It seems its now requiring users to login to LA Times. So I copied pasted the article and you can read it below.




Categories
Automotive Sports Videos

Schumacher Cheating

If you didn’t watch it on TV here is the clip from the qualifying session. [Video]
Here is the news story in case you missed it. [Link]

update: for the non believers, Schumis previous fuckups [Link]