Search: “sti”

I posted about the “My Puppy” store back in November and I talked about how the store was animal cruel locking the dogs and cats up in tiny stinky cages with very little room to move. Well TwaiF a regular reader of the blog had an experience with the place he she would like to share with everyone:

Last week I got a cute white kitten for my freinds birthday from the “My Puppy” shop. The shop smells like shit and there was no electricity or air conditioning. I saw this little cute kitten in a dirty cage and I couldn’t leave her there in that stinky shop so I took her with me for KD70. Guess what? Today she passed away!! She hadn’t been eating and when we took her to the vet the Dr said that she was too small to be taken away from her mother. She was 2 months old according to the My Puppy shop keeper although we now think she was a lot smaller. I called the guy who owns “My Puppy” and told him what had happened and he replied telling me that it was my fault becouse of the weather she passed away! I hope Mark you write about this stupid shop and how dirty it is and how cruel the owner is to the animals. -TwaiF

I think local organizations like PAWS or local vets should do something about this place. Its sickening.

Update: extinct.dodo another reader had a similar experience which makes you wonder how many people have purchased puppies and kittens from that store only to have them die on them??

I bought a puppy from that place last year for KD250, and it died less than 2 weeks later..

What I did was that I took my pup to the vet, got papers to prove that the dog was terminally ill (distemper) and went back to the shop. Although they wouldn’t give me my money back, they did however get me another dog, although by that time I was emotionally devastated over my sweet baby pup that I’d gotten so attached to in the days that it had been with me.

Update 2: I emailed PAWS today morning about the above and this is what they just replied:

Hi Mark, I don’t know if you’ve seen today’s press coverage (Arab Times and Daily Star) on WSPA’s visit to Kuwait. Coincidentally the reps from World Society for the Protection of Animals visited My Puppy just yesterday with officials from PAAF and our PAWS Chairperson. Though meeting no international humane pet shop regulations whatsoever, they did not actually witness the worst of what WE (PAWS and you) know goes on at this place.

Please be assured that WSPA and PAWS are working with the ministry of animal health to enforce current legislation and bring in new laws regarding pet shop regulations and standards. Sadly, these won’t happen overnight. We will report your findings to both WSPA and PAAF and ask them to send regular inspection teams.

Please keep the reports coming in….they are very useful and will be acted upon in due course if not immediately.

We also took the WSPA officials to Little Jungle…..words fail me, but please, please use the power of your blog to report on the horrendous conditions which exist at this so called ‘fun family’ spot…..It’s off the 207 from the Fahaheel Express way and if you haven’t visited….do so, at least once…it might make My Puppy look like an ok sort of place,

Best regards, and use that Blog to keep animal welfare issues front and centre, PLEASE!

Barbara
for PAWS

Seems like I need to pass by Little Jungle and check out how bad it is. If its worse then My Puppy then thats some scary stuff…

Pictures of Paris Hilton looking really cool next to her SLR. [Link]

Maps.Google.com recently got updated with new high resolution images and Kuwait gained from it. For example Salmiya no longer is a blur on the map, the images are pretty good quality. Also I found a military base which was previously also blurred out. Check it out.

Marina Mall
Fanar Complex
American University of Kuwait (still being built in this picture)
Shaab Park
American International School
American School of Kuwait
Military base with planes

The other day I posted about bluetooth advertising and how if you are shopping in Sultan Center you can now receive ads on your phone. I like many of you had some concerns regarding this service and how easily it can turn into spam. Well someone from the company responsible for this bluetooth advertising commented the following:

Hi, I’ve been following your conversations regarding bluetooth. My company is actually implementing these bluetooth services in Kuwait and I’m always interested to hear what people have to say about it. I agree with everyone that spam is a major problem which is why when we put our network together we were sure to set non-spam parameters. If you reject the message once, you shouldn’t receive another request for at least a week. Also, no matter which location you go into, you shouldn’t receive more than 3 messages in a week. If this is not the case in any particular location it’s probably because we are doing testing and optimization. Within the next few months we hope to bring a number of services that you would actually find useful, so bear with us. I think you’ll be impressed.

I think the fact that its limited to 3 messages a week per person is a good thing. But the big problem is that I don’t think its possible for us to opt out of this service. This means anyone with a bluetooth phone is forced to receive 3 adverts a week. Sucks.

Update: Nibaq pointed out something very important regarding this bluetooth service. Read below:

Very interesting. So it registers your MAC address of your phone. Even though you aren’t accepting messages when the machine does a search it will regonize your phone and store it.

Spread these machines around town not sending anything but just registering phones and what do you have? A wonder tracking device.

Sultan can see how many times you visit the store in a month, and which stores. You can even track how long a customer is at the store.

Just another reason to have my bluetooh on Non Discoverable mode or simply off.

2.16 Intel Core Duo Processor
667 MHz front-side bus
Up to 2GB of RAM (667 MHz DDR@ SDRAM)
iSight Camera
MagSafe Power Adapter
ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 PCI Express graphics 256MB
Firewire 800, Firewire 400
Bluetooth, Airport Extreme
$2799

Apple.com/macbookpro

Still waiting for the new ibooks..

Earlier in the month I posted about the interesting Universal Store I found in Muthana Complex and yesterday night the owner of the store commented on the post clearing up some details. Here is his comment:

Hi everyone

Firstly, thanks for all comments that I have seen here from you guys, I was really shocked when I found out that someone posted the store on their website, I got the site address from a note which I found in the store when I was there to check up on some work.

I wanted to clear up a fact, we are not connected to Universal Studio which is located in the states (The famous movie maker), our name is diffrent but the logo is similar with some changes, so we are far away from the courts 🙂 we chose this name and logo because our work and products are related to the movies and everyone knows UNIVERSAL STUDIO = movies so we wanted to have an emotional link with the customers first, and maybe you will not believe me if I tell you that even with this emotional link we chose there are still some people which don’t know if these products or figures are for movies characters!

Besides that we have a direct connection and we are an authorized distributor for Sideshow Collectibles & Sideshow Weta, the company which made all Lord Of The Ring movies items and costumes (we still not fake! 🙂 ) www.sideshowtoy.com

About the prices, we dont find ourselves expensive when it comes to most of our items. Our prices are somewhat similar to the main company prices, add on that they are COLLECTIBLES! which means they have limited quantity worldwide and whenever they are out of stock you will find the items triple the price on eBay!

The store is small I agree because we found that we cannot go for a bigger one because this kind of store are only for movies fans and thats means a small market. We also cant import all items which we decided to import before at this time because we are waiting for our one year work result and the right time to improve all our products lines, and soon we will offer a free catalog on DVD disk which is made by the original company SIDESHOW TOYS.

Finally, sorry for my long post, its only to give some information about the original post and to correct some ideas, and thanks for you all guys again.

Best Regards
Universal Store Company

This is just a reminder for the H3 Ride & Drive contest. Majority of people are still sending pictures taken from the Internet, those pictures don’t count. You need to take a picture of an H3 yourself here in Kuwait using your cameraphone or regular camera to win the tickets. Anyway for more details on the event and contest you can check my old post [Here]

Last year I posted about a pimped out Mercedes SLK in Dubai that had an SLR engine installed. Well today someone passed me a video of the same SLK racing against an Enzo and kicking the Enzo’s ass big time. You need to watch it to believe it. [Link]

This is a video of a Christian televangelist but what sets him apart from the rest is his.. how can I put this.. its his out of the hood right to your TV personality. You have to watch it to see what I mean. [Link]

Sultan Center just started a new form of advertising using bluetooth. If your phone’s bluetooth is on while you are shopping in Sultan Center you might get a animated ad sent to you by them. Its an interesting concept but I think its annoying more then its a good thing. The only way not to receive these ads is to turn your bluetooth off which is a hassel if you are gonna do this everytime you go shopping there. If you want to check out an example of an ad they sent my phone click [here]

I always thought cutting open a heart would be a cool experience.. well I tried it awhile ago and it isn’t. I just got Geo a lamb heart from Sultan Center to have with his dinner and its hard to explain how cutting open a heart feels. Its not smooth and silky like regular meat, its more plasticky and squijee (if there is such a word). When you slice up a heart it makes this squish sound, its really not a pleasent experience. Anyway Geo loved it and I think its his new favorite thing.

This is a video of some teens playing Europe’s “The Final Countdown” except this must be the most awful cover of the song! Sadly the guy still sounds better then me when I do Karaoke .. [Link]

The other morning I was looking for my PSP which was on the charger and I couldn’t find it so I figured Nataly might have taken it to work or something. Then while I was about to leave for work I found my PSP with Geo my dog! It seems he found my PSP tucked into its soft cushion case on the table and mistook it for one of his toys and took it down to his play area where he was busy chewing the case. Luckily the PSP was fine and after wiping Geo’s drool from the case it was also unharmed.

Today morning I had my ipod sitting on my foof pod on my Mac which sits on the floor and I was busy copying songs onto it when all of a sudden I hear a bang and Geo running off. Turns out he was playing with my iPod and it fell onto the floor. No harm done and I continue to copy songs. Finally I was about leave and I took my ipod and I was looking for my foof case and I couldn’t find it. At first I again figured Nat took it because she sometimes uses it for her digital camera but I noticed her camera was still on the table. Then it hit me, it was with Geo, thats why he ran away! So I went downstairs and I was right, Geo was sitting there chewing my foof pod.

Its hard to get angry at Geo because he can be really cute. In the mornings for example he usually wakes me up before my alarm by climbing onto my bed and licking my face so that I could take him down for his morning walk. Its cute but if the last time I took him down at night was 10PM that means he comes and wakes me up at 6:30AM which isn’t cute anymore. It seems he can only hold his bladder for around 8 hours so if I am too lazy to take him down right before I sleep at 12 I usually pay for it by having him wake me up super early in the morning.

Yesterday night I finally realized how much he had grown. When you live with the dog 24 hours a day its hard to notice how much he has developed but yesterday I finally noticed. I was playing with him in his play area when I noticed this small hole in one of the large boxes he has. I had cut out that hole back when I first got Geo so he could pass through it while playing but looking at the hole now I can’t imagine how he fit in it. He can barely fit his head in it now and that made me realize that Geo really has grown since we got him back in February and I can’t wait till he grows even more..

I can’t wait for the K800i to get released, it has 3G, a 3.2MP camera and a web browser for viewing regular HTML websites. Its also has a second camera for video calls although I doubt I would ever use that. I am currently using the K700i which is really sluggish and buggy but when I got it, it was half the price of the K750i which I figured was a good deal. But ever since I bought the phone I have been regretting it. At least now I learned not to go stingy when it comes to buying a phone. [Link]

I just took an AQ test to measure my extent of autistic traits. The test is not a means for making a diagnosis but eighty percent of those diagnosed with autism or a related disorder scored 32 or higher. I scored a 26. [Link]