Search: “sti”

Kevin Richardson says he relies on instinct and patience to win the animals’ trust.

I think he gets the animals stoned first and then posses for pictures. Check out the link, tons of pictures of him playing with hyenas, lions and even a panther. [Link]

Something weird happened to me today. I arrived to the office thinking it was 10AM and I was late but it turned out it was only 9 and that my phone, watch and car clock all were one hour ahead. It didn’t make any sense, how could three of my watches all be an hour ahead??? This is how it happened:

Phone Clock
I was in Fujaihrah last week and I moved my phone’s clock an hour ahead to match Fujaihrah time. When I got back I forgot to put the clock an hour back.

My Watch
I took off my watch Friday and left it on my dresser. My watch is an automatic meaning it works with hand movement and when you leave it still for 48 hours it stops. The clock must have stopped yesterday at 9PM because today morning when I put my watch on at around 8AM it was an hour ahead.

Car Clock
Yesterday morning I was working on my car stereo and disconnected it resetting the clock. When I plugged it back in at around 11AM the radio clock started at 12:00, an hour ahead.

Thats why my morning today got really confusing. When I thought my watch was wrong, both my car stereo and phone confirmed to me it was right. Everywhere I looked it was an hour ahead. What are the chances of something like this happening!

I am at the Dubai Airport waiting for my Emirates flight back to Kuwait. The drive from Fujaihrah was exhausting even though it was only an hour and a half drive. There is free WiFI at the Dubai Airport so I am just killing time now surfing the web although the Internet Connection is kinda slow.

Having breakfast at the hotel. The drive here wasn’t too bad, took us an hour and a half and there was no traffic. (Posted from my Nokia E61i)

According to one blog reader, it seems Alshaya are not the ones who will be relaunching Arby’s and Wendy’s but they are planning on launching Red Lobster in the phase 2 of Avenues. Not as cool as Arby’s or Wendy’s but still cool.

I’ve always wanted a Dremel rotary tool but I never had a reason to get one until last night. Awhile back one of my external hard drives died so yesterday I decided instead of getting another external drive I would just swap the damaged drive from inside the case with a new one. I passed by Hawalli, picked up a 500GB SATA drive for KD34 and when I came back and tried installing it into the case I realized I had a problem. The hard drive I got used a different power adapter than the hard drive I was replacing which I was able to solve by using an adapter, problem is the adapter was too big to fit into the case. I needed to cut away some of the plastic to be able to fit the drive so I saw this as an opportunity to finally get a Dremel tool.

I passed by the Dremel dealer today and got myself a Dremel 300 Series Multi Tool and Flexshaft. It came with 55 accessories which will allow me to use the Dremel to engrave, carve, sharpen, grind, clean, polish, cut and sand. I paid KD22 after discount for this set, there was a cheaper set without the Flexshaft and only 25 accessories for KD16 but I figured I might as well get the better one while I am at it.

Once I got back home I used the Dremel tool on the plastic hard drive case and it worked like a charm. I was able to cut through the thick plastic with very very little trouble. Now my drive is working perfectly although I have a hole in the side. If you are interested in a Dremel tool they sell them at Ace Hardware but the prices at the dealer are cheaper. The dealer is located in Shuwaikh and their phone number is 4810844.

I got some pictures of the hard drive case mod which you can check by clicking on continue.

Mishary from SOMEcontrast took pictures of new petrol machines now installed at the Oula gas stations. They look pretty cool but not to sure if the petrol machine actually accepts cards like in the US or we still need to drive up to the window and pay. Now where are the gas station mini markets I heard we would get after the privatization? [Link]

This is the last time I am going to spend National Day in Kuwait. Its absolutely the worst time of the year to be in Kuwait. Three years ago when little kids were foaming cars it was cute but last year older teenagers and adults started doing it and this year it was even worse.

I stayed indoors most of the vacation but tonight I had to go into Kuwait City to meet up with a friend and it was disgusting. You can’t drive with the windows open cuz you never know which idiot is going to spray you and you can’t get on the Gulf Road because the cops block everything. Its just messed up.

By the way at one traffic light I was stuck in the cop made us all run a red light to clear up the traffic. Problem is the camera at the intersection took pictures of all the cars and buses that ran the red light, what happens in a situation like this? I am hoping the cop telling us to cross the red light shows up in the picture or else I am pretty fucked.

Last night I was thinking that the biggest hurdle with my Wrangler lift will be getting the right tires at the right price. When I posted about my plan to lift the Wrangler last week I also posted the prices of the tires and the availability, simply put I had only 3 options with one of the options costing just too much. I had to choose between either Maxxis or Hankook tires so after doing some research I decided to go with the Hankook Dynapro MT RT03. They are no where near as popular at the BF Goodrich tires in the Jeep Forums but the few people who do own the tires have said they were really great. Two users actually who owned BFG MT tires posted that the Hankooks were nearly as good as the BFG’s offroad but were a lot quieter on the road and cost a lot less too. The thing is there is not BFG dealer in Kuwait, the closest one is in Bahrain and although its tempting to drive all the way there to pick up the tires and come back, thats not really practical.

Anyway I passed by the Hankook dealer (Tel: 884737) today and its a good thing I did. They only had 5 tires left in all of Kuwait and I needed 5 tires so I bought them all on the spot. Even though I haven’t ordered my lift yet and even though I don’t even have rims to mount the tires on it didn’t matter, I needed the tires sooner or later and with only 5 tires in stock I had to get them now. They cost me KD37.500 per tire which isn’t bad at all, cheap even when compared to my BMW tires. Now I need to pass by on Wednesday with a pickup truck and pick up the tires since they didn’t fit inside my Wrangler, the tires are huge!

Just found a guy on YouTube called Mubarmeg who’s uploaded around 300 videos of cartoon opening themes, end themes and even some extracts from various episodes. I went through them all and though the list below might be interesting for some of you. The video embedded above is the opening theme to Sport Billy.

Abtal Al Malaeb
Adnan Wa Lena
Al Laith Al Abyad
Al Namer Almoqana
Alameera Yaqoot
Alrojol Alhadidi
Bel Wa Sebstian
Grendizer
Jongar
Khomasy
Mazinger
Mogamarat Nels
Sindbad
Sport Billy
Zeina

There are a ton of more videos, check out his full list [Here]

If you have been having problems commenting the past week I think I fixed the problem. Try posting a comment now it should work. If it still doesn’t work [email me]

Al Mayass is a very popular Lebanese and Armenian restaurant in Lebanon but for some reason I hadn’t heard about it until it opened up here in Kuwait. Since I’ve been hearing only good stuff about the place I decided to try it out and see what it was all about.

Al Mayass is located inside the Shiik Resort which I think is a pretty strange location because I can’t imagine girls in bikinis walking by conservative families on their way into lunch not end up being a problem. Anyway once you walk into the place you will notice it doesn’t look very Lebanese but thats not a big deal since the colors and design of the place is leaning more towards Armenian. What would be a Lebanese look anyway? I don’t think we have one for restaurants.

I only found three problems with the Al Mayass and one popped up right at the beginning. Its not actually a problem more like a nitpick. I found the napkin too small to properly place over the lap. If I am complaining about napkins then you already have an idea on which direction this review is heading. The second problem followed nearly instantly, they don’t have soup on the menu. I was eager to start off with their lentil soup since it was cold outside and wanted something to warm me up. I even asked the waiter about it hoping they had a soup de jour which wasn’t on the menu but he apologized telling me they sadly didn’t have soup on the menu. I think this is a permanent thing and not just temporary which is disappointing.

We then went ahead and ordered a bunch of cold and hot appetizers including hummus, hummus with meat, labne with garlic, tabboule, batata harra (hot potato?), cheese beurek and ras asfoor which translates to bird head although the dish is actually meat chunks. For our main course we ordered chicken taouk and kabab with cherry.

One by one the dishes started to arrive and everything was tasting great. The hummus with meat was probably the best I had ever had and the batata harra was also really great although pretty filling. The cheese beurek is basically a cheese puff and from all the appetizers is the only one I wouldn’t order again. We ordered two cheese beureks at KD1.500 a piece but they were really tiny pieces, each the size of two matchboxes placed side by side. Actually now that I think about it I wouldn’t order the ras asfoor again since that dish cost KD5 and really wasn’t that great.

Once we were done with our appetizers our main courses arrived. The chicken taouk (KD4) was good and very tender but really didn’t grab my attention as much as the cherry kebab (KD4.5). I hadn’t had cherry kebab before but a friend of mine told me I would love it and he was absolutely right. The cherries turned an ordinary dish found everywhere into something much more interesting. The combination of kebab with the sweetness of the cherries resulted in a very flavored kebab which I would definitely want to have again.

By the time we were done with all the food we were pretty full but we still went ahead and ordered the Mayass knefeh which needed 15-20 minutes of preparation time. I guess the waiting period raised my expectations because usually my knefeh gets served instantly but to wait 20 minutes for one meant it had to be really special. It wasn’t, the knefeh tasted like regular knefeh although it did come in a different shape from the usual. My feelings are its just not worth the wait, if you want it make sure you order it while your main course is being served.

Overall I liked Al Mayass even though I am not usually a fan of Lebanese grill. I usually find Lebanese kebab and taouk dishes pretty dry and bland but the cherry kebab has sparked an interest with me. The Lebanese waiters were very friendly without being the talkative type and their service was fast. The lack of soup is a disappointment and the prices of two of the dishes I ordered were expensive. As you can tell though if I am picking on the size of the napkin its because there isn’t much to pick on. The place is great and is probably the only Lebanese restaurant I would want to visit again. The final score is a 4 out of 5.

Cool new Adidas ad on Adi Dassler, the founder of Adidas. [YouTube]

Note: Just an interesting piece of information. PUMA was founded by Adi Dassler’s brother, Rudolf Dassler.

With the writer striker almost over, the big question is “when are shows coming back?”. Luckily TvGuide has a list of what is in store for us.

Some highlights:

24
Season 7 likely postponed until January ’09.

Desperate Housewives
Expected to shoot 4 to 7 new episodes to air in April/May.

Grey’s Anatomy
Expected to shoot 4 to 7 new episodes to air in April/May.

Heroes
No new episodes expected until fall.

Lost
Six pre-strike episodes remain. Six additional episodes could air this season.

Nip/Tuck
Season 5 concludes Feb. 19. Production on the show’s eight-episode sixth season expected to start up this summer. Airdate TBD.

Prison Break
Two pre-strike episodes remain. Future beyond that TBD.

Saturday Night Live
Could be back on the air as early as Feb. 16.

Overall most shows will not be returning till fall or later, others will release their pre-strike shows and begin production soon. [Link]

Posted by Nibaq

This sounds pretty cool, looks like Cartoon Network is opening a theme park in Kuwait.

Cartoon Network Enterprises has entered into an agreement with Future Kid & Real Estate Co. to develop a fully branded Cartoon Network theme park in Kuwait City. The 3,500 square meter venue is scheduled to open at the end of 2008.

“This is a timely and exciting deal which puts Turner at the heart of a thriving entertainment industry in the Middle East,” says Jeff Kupsky, president of Turner Broadcasting System Europe, owner of

Cartoon Network. “The Kuwait City indoor theme park will enable visitors to sample the Cartoon Network experience on a grand scale, and truly interact with our characters and brands.”

[Source]

Thanks MFS!