Search: “sti”

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

Anyone noticed Marina Mall still has the Ramadan decorations up where the water fountain is? I asked a friend why they hadn’t removed it yet and he told me he heard that Marina Mall hadn’t paid the suppliers yet for the decorations and so the supplier decided he wouldn’t remove the decorations until he had gotten paid. Whatever the case, I found this years decorations not very tasteful anyway and its a shame they have the fountain covered up at the moment.

I was parking my car outside Sultan Center in Salmiya when I first spotted this place. Its located in the backside area near the clinic and because of the name I felt I had to try their shawermas.

After I was done shopping I put the bags in the trunk of my car and walked over to Shoo? Shawerma to order some food. I ordered two chicken shawermas with no pickles and a coke. Total price? 800fils. I was like “fuckin A” this must be some seriously good shawerma if they are charging 350 a piece for it. So, I picked up my two shawermas and headed to the car where I started eating them.

After my first bite I turned around and told Nat this was a 2.5, but the more I ate it the more I hated it. The shawerma was really bad, like really bad. It tasted really greasy and the garlic flavor was no where to be found so there was nothing to cover up the god awful taste of the chicken. It was so bad that once I was done with my first shawerma I threw the second one away. I had NEVER done that before!

Now if this was any ordinary crappy place selling shawermas for 200fils then I might expect something this bad, but 350fils for a shawerma, thats the big league, fuck that, thats the super league. Most top scoring shawerma places charge 300 fils for a shawerma and this joint was charging 350 for the worst shawermas I have ever had. Even the Pepsi can was the small 250ml one, who still sells these, even Bader Al Badoor sells the 330ml Coke cans!

So super high price, small Pepsi can, and most importantly the worst shawerma I have ever experienced in my life earned this place half a star out of a possible five. It only got that half star because if I was stuck in the desert with no food except for their shawerma then I would consider eating it.

Yesterday I got an Ericsson 388 and today I started using it as my primary phone. I have been getting a lot of ooooooohs and ahhhhhhhs everytime someone sees the phone. Everyone owned one and everyone seemed to have positive things to say about the phone and good memories to go along with it. The phone simply rocks.

Now the bad thing. The battery isn’t as good as I thought it was. On standbye the phone lasts long but after 4 or 5 phone calls the phone beeps with a “Low Battery” warning and the happy green blinking LED on the top of the phone turns red. To solve it I just remove the battery, shake it and then place it back again. Suddenly my battery is full again until the next phone call.

Other then that though the phone is just fantastic. I have an extra battery with me which I think I will charge now. This way when one dies I just swap in the other.

Here is a pdf file listing the amount of calories in various Krispy Kreme donuts. In short.. its a lot. [PDF]

I posted before that my favorite phone I ever owned was an Ericsson 337 and 388. They both looked the same except the biggest difference was that the 337 had a metal front cover while the 388 had a plastic one. Also the 388 allowed me to send SMS while with the 337 I could only accept.

Anyway thanks to Jens a blog reader I now have in my possession an excellent condition Ericsson 388 with a perfectly working battery and home charger. Its gorgeous. Back when I had it the phone looked really tiny since its main competitor back then was the bulky Nokia 2110. Now the phone looks big compared to current phones. I still love the way the phone looks like and I love the green back light and the blinking green light on top of the phone telling me I have signal. Its all very retro.

The phone does lack some things. It doesn’t have a camera, no bluetooth, no infrared, no mp3 ringtones, no colored screen and no 3G. But I can make and receive phone calls and I can also send and receive SMS.

The Ericsson 388 is replacing my Motorola V3x which I have been hating more and more every day. Now I need to go and enter all my phone numbers manually into my phone. Its going to be a long night.

Note: To access the 388 service menu press right then * then left left * and left * one more time.

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.

I want this!! [Link]

Its Friday morning and I just got to work. Its been one hectic week. Actually its only 11AM and its already been a busy day. Nat went off in the morning riding with some Harley bikers. She will be posting about it later today plus she has some really cool pictures.

I also took Geo to the Marina Crescent beach. He spent the whole time jumping into the sea and me yelling at him to get out. Now I am at work, I rode in on my bike which was fun.

Its going to be a busy busy day.

Sweden is famous for their meatballs so when IKEA started making and selling shawermas I was eager to try it.

First time I had the shawerma in the new IKEA branch at The Avenues mall I didn’t like it. They mixed vegetables with my shawerma and I hate places that do that. The vegetables which is usually made up of onions and some green stuff (I don’t know what its called) over powers the chicken flavor. So next time I passed by IKEA I ordered the shawerma plain with just garlic.

How was it? Its edible.

The biggest problem I had with their shawerma is the bread. I think there is too much bread for the shawerma. The solution I would recommend is to either increase the quantity of chicken in the bread or decrease the size of the bread itself. The chicken tasted good and the garlics presence was felt but not over done. If only they weren’t so stingy.

Final score I settled for was 3 out of 5. The shawerma costs 250fils which is great specially since the place is extremely clean. They also have an offer combo, coke plus shawerma for 350fils. The location is crap, no one is going to drive up to IKEA just for their shawerma of course. Overall its not bad for their first try. I just hope they start filling up the bread with more chicken.

I had my riding test today and I passed! Like last time my test was easy. The cop just told me to do a large circle and when I came back he told me I had passed. The whole process took like 10 minutes.

Nat on the other hand like last time ended up having problems. She went in and they made her wait behind cars for like 30 minutes. Then when it was her turn the cop told her to make a couple of 8’s with the bike. Once she was done the cop told her she had passed and she drove out.

We then left the testing area and went inside to the offices to pick up our papers. After waiting for another 30 minutes we got them. I had passed, Nat had failed. She was completely shocked, she went back into the room to talk to one of the cops and she told him the guy had told her she had passed. He just took her learners permit and gave her another date for the test.

I am happy, she is really pissed as you can imagine.

The picture above is of Nat on the Bajaj training bike while leaving the testing area.

Yes a strange top 10 list but nevertheless an interesting one. [Link]

I got a bunch of old Kuwaiti National Songs from Delicately Realistic. I still need Beladona Il Kuwait. If anyone has it please pass it to me.

Shadi Al Khaleej – Kaseeroh Dalah
Sana Al Kharaz – I7na IlKha6awi AlAkeeda
Sana Al Kharaz – 6ig Ya Mu6ar 6ig
Sana Al Kharaz – Al Azrag
Sana Al Kharaz – Salam Ya Wa6ani
7naina Il Ayadi
Il Wa7id Allah (Om A7med – Wainich Yal Ibra)
Imbarak 3alaik il3id
Abdul Kareem Abdul Qader – Wa6an Al Nahar
Abdullah Al-Ruwaishid – 3ashat Lina Il Kuwait (Original)
Hussien Al Jasmi – La Telomoni (Hala February)
Nabeel Sh3ail – Ya Dar (Hala February)
Rashid Al-Majid – 6ayir Men El Far7a
BBS Kids – Wa6ani 7abeebi
Kuwaiti TV Band – Ya Wardity Ya Nidiya
Kuwaiti TV Band – Al Ziman Dawar
Haydoo

Update: Here is Beladona Il Kuwait

So I am coming back home after work on the Gulf Road and I notice there was a huge fire behind Texas Chicken. So made a detour, passed Texas Chicken and parked my car just as the fire truck was arriving. I take my camera, locked the car and walked towards the fire. The fire looked huge and still fresh so I turn on my camera to shoot and turns out I had no battery! This was the first time I ever ran out of battery when I needed to shoot something. I felt naked.