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I forgot to mention this last week but I now have two day weekends! Fridays and Saturdays are now officially off for me. Everyone still stuck working 6 days a week, tough luck!

Ummm sorry but Super Metroid should have been first, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night should have at least been in the top 10 and so should have Shenmue. Still an interesting list to go through if you are a videogame fan. [Link]

Today was the famous International Hot Dog Eating Competition in the US. Me and some friends have been talking about this competition for a few days now and I had a feeling Kobayashi was going to lose because he had an injury (jaw problem). I turned out to be right because he lost to Joey Chestnut who is now the world champion. Kobayashi who was the champion for the past 6 years straight managed to eat 63 hot dogs in 12 minutes compared to Joey who ate 66. [Link]

Kobayashi is still the hamburger eating champion (97 hamburgers in 8 minutes). [Link]

The Ministry of Information Interior has a competition to find the best driver in Kuwait. You can apply online and the grand prize is I think KD250.
To qualify you need to:

1) Own either a car or motorbike
2) Not have gotten any traffic violations between 07/31/2006 and 01/07/2007
3) Not have had any car accident between 07/31/2006 and 01/07/2007

To enter the competition visit the MOI website. [Link]

I am Am I the only one who finds this competition funny? Funny or not I am still going to sign up.

update: Imagine if the cops start recruiting drivers…

“Hi, sorry to pull you over but we’ve been tailing you for the past 30 minutes and we’ve noticed your driving skills are unparalleled. We would like you to consider signing up to the “Role Model Driver of the Year” competition because we think you have a strong chance of winning. What do you say?”

I downloaded season 1 of the 80’s cartoon, Danger Mouse a few days ago and yesterday I watched a few episodes and it rocks! I used to love it when I was a kid (I think on Saudi channel 2) but even watching it now the show is still really good. His sidekick Penfold is probably the dorkiest of all sidekicks ever but he’s also the funniest. The James Bond franchise should seriously take a look at Danger Mouse and learn a thing or two. You can watch the intro to the cartoon on youtube by clicking [Here]

Tonight I passed by the recently opened Burger Bar in Kuwait City. I got there and found the two parking spots in front of the place empty so I parked my car and got down when the Holiday Inn security guard came up to me and told me I couldn’t park there. Since Burger Bar is located adjacent to Holiday Inn downtown, the security guard told me I wasn’t allowed to park in the two empty spots outside the restaurant. He told me I had to park across the street. I thought that was strange but wasn’t in the mood to argue and just went back into my car and parked on the other side.

The place from the outside looked like a Japanese restaurant and when I looked through the windows I saw what looked like Japanese waiters. I thought to myself this must be the wrong place, even Nataly was like “Mark this looks like a Japanese restaurant”. Once we walked around to the main entrance we saw the Burger Bar logo and realized we were at the right place. We walked through some dimly lit candles outside (very Japanese-ish) into the restaurant where we were greeted by waiters dressed in red silk clothing and black bandannas which again was very Japanese-ish. The place was empty except for one table with two men so we sat down wherever we wanted. We had two choices for seating, what looked like long benches or one of the booths, we chose the booth since it looked more comfortable. Our table was the smallest in the restaurant and I think it could easily fit 8 people. I don’t know if they were made for extremely overweight people or they believe that people eat in packs like hyenas but whatever their reason, it felt really awkward having the whole table for just me and Nat. The music that was playing was loud and guess what genre… it was country music. So, so far the place looked Japanese, had Japanese looking waitresses dressed in Japanese like clothing, playing country music and serving burgers. Pretty strange combination but I was like whatever, its “different”.

We got the menu and I decided to order the mozzarella fries for starters, the mushroom burger for my main course and a junior cheese burger for Nat (junior = slider). The waitress asked me what I wanted to drink and I told her Pepsi. She then replied saying they didn’t have Pepsi. I looked at her surprised thinking to myself what the hell, no soft drinks?? So I asked her what do you mean you don’t have Pepsi? She was like we don’t have Pepsi only Coca Cola. I was like god damn woman I thought you meant you didn’t have any soft drinks! Pepsi, Coke whatever its all the same.

The food arrived a while later and was fairly disappointing. The fries firstly weren’t that great, there was only a small portion of mozzarella over them and they weren’t even melted right. The burger had a strange flavor to it. The actual hamburger bun was great but the meat tasted like “kafta”? I am not sure what but it wasn’t very burgery.

Overall I wasn’t impressed. The mushroom burger was for KD2.500 and that was one of the cheapest burgers on the menu, the majority were around KD4 and KD5. The fries I believe were super expensive costing KD2.700 and they were sooo not worth it. Nats slider cost 750fils which is slightly more expensive then Burger Boutique which brings us to the question, is Burger Bar in the same league as Johnny Rockets and Burger Boutique? Hell no. Final score 2.5 out of 5. Although the Japanese Cowboy look is strange, the design of the place is still pretty cool. Other positives are lots of parking spaces across the street and the fact that you don’t have to call 4 years in advance to book a table is a plus. Food is lousy though but might be worth a visit just to check it out.

I wasn’t planning on posting about the iPhone but I found this video funny.

[YouTube]

The best pictures I have seen of the new Land Cruiser so far. Interior looks pretty cool, exterior still looks like crap. They also have pictures of the new LX570. [Link]

If you are going to copy paste articles from blogs and put them on your website at least have the courtesy to link the original blog properly. Gulfnews had no problem copying and pasting my Faloda post onto their website but when it came to copying and pasting my blogs website address they misspelled it and it ended up as 248.am.com!

Its cool they are into blogs and actually publishing them on their website BUT I would do things differently. For one thing I would make the url’s for the blogs at the very least clickable. That way their readers could just click on the links and be taken to our sites helping us get more traffic.

The second thing is I wouldn’t copy and paste blog posts word for word and publish them like that on the site. Instead I would actually get one of the writers to summarize the articles (like we bloggers do) and then provide links to the original posts in case their readers want to read more. That way they would be supporting bloggers again by sending traffic their way.

The way Gulfnews has things set up now they aren’t sending any traffic to the blogs and instead are just using blogs to add more content to their own website. Thats basically stealing since they are taking articles without permission and then not giving anything back in return.

As I said its cool that they are into blogs but I would take things a step further and actually try to support bloggers by sending traffic to them.

Make sure you check their blogs section at gu.lf.news.com

As a Nutella freak I found this recipe on how to make Nutella ice cream interesting. Although I was expecting the process to be easier, like just shoving a Nutella jar into the freezer but it urns out its more complicated then that. Still if someone has the time this might be a worth while project. Step by step instructions plus a full list of items needed are listed. [Link]

The best thing about summer is KDD Silver ice cream.
The second best thing about summer is Faloda sorbet.
The third best thing about summer is Sunkist orange drink.

Faloda, also spelt Faloodeh or Faludeh and is a Persian sorbet made of thin frozen noodles. Its pretty strange but tastes amazing. Really refreshing plus you can add either lemon or rose water to it for extra flavor.

The place I get my Faloda from is located in Kuwait City, opposite Al Rayya mall and under the Baba Taher Iranian restaurant. I think the place that sells it is called Marafie. A small sized portion will set you back 250fils which is the same cost as regular ice cream.

According to Wikipedia, Faloda is one of the earliest forms of frozen desserts, existing as early as 400 BCE.

Here are a couple of cool watches that I like and their prices in Kuwait:

Part of the Bvlgari Ergon line, it comes in two models, with and without the chronograph… but I prefer it with. The case is made of steel, the bracelet is a steel and rubber combo while the dial is made from black carbon fiber. Only the non-chrono version is on display in Kuwait but you can order the chrono version and its priced at around KD1,500.

Bvlgari
Location: Salhiya Complex.
Telephone: 2415360

The Panerai Luminor Chrono Daylight is definitely my favorite Panerai watch ever made. Sadly though its no longer available in Kuwait and according to the dealer you can’t even order it. Its a big watch made from steel and the diameter of the dial is 44mm. The price when available was around KD3,300.

Panerai
Location: Salhiya Complex.
Telephone: 2421907

Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore. The most expensive of the three coming in at KD7,000 for the steel version and KD7,500 for the titanium model. This is the ultimate watch to get. Its both classy and sporty at the same time and its distinctive octagon face makes the watch recognizable from a mile away. The dealer does offer a 25% discount which brings the price down to a mid sized car.

Audemars Piguet
Location: Salhiya Complex.
Telephone: 2441716

Today morning I found out from Confashions that Villa Moda was having a one day 50% sale at their Fanar and Mubarikiya branches. So during lunch I went with some friends to the Mubarikiya branch which is extremely close to my office. It was my first time there and was pretty impressed at the size of the branch but kinda shocked at the location since its in a pretty old and beat up neighborhood.

The choice of clothing in the mens section was pretty poor. The stuff on display I would never wear and I can’t imagine anyone else wearing. Now take what I say with a grain of salt since I wouldn’t call myself stylish being that all I wear throughout the summer are Zoo York and Hurley t-shirts with Hurley jeans on the bottom. I did find a pair of Prada sneakers though that were pretty OK but after discount they were KD60 which I would rather put on a pair of Camper’s.

The womens section had a lot more items but the cool stuff (like Juicy Couture) were not on sale and their collection of accessories was pretty weak. Anyway if you have nothing else better to do it might be worth the trip to check it out. The Mubarikiya branch is larger then the Fanar one plus the interior is a lot more interesting.

update: I caved in and got the shoes after work.

One of my favorite shows has ended and although the last episode wasn’t as dramatic as the Six Feet Under finale, it was still great. The last episode had a lot of memorable songs including the final one at the diner which I can’t seem to get out of my head. For a full list of songs that played during the last episode check out this post on Stereogum. [Link]

note: please don’t leave any spoilers in the comments below.

Today was the second day of the three day shoot. I was on set at 6:30AM and we were done awhile ago around 8PM. It wasn’t as exhausting as the first shoot but since I’ve only had a total of eight hours of sleep in the past two days I was extremely tired. I was still better off then some of the guys in the production team who had slept only two hours in two days.

While in the middle of the shoot we got word that there was an explosion a few kilometers away. We later found out a politician was assassinated. Another explosion, another day. Things are just a total mess over here.

To check out more pictures from todays shoot click on the link below.