Search: “sti”

Someone sent me this video today morning. It seems there is a street in Dubai where cars were always speeding so one day they decided to add a speed bump to slow traffic down. Problem is people were still speeding not knowing their was a speed bump waiting for them. The video shows how some cars were flying over the speed bumps which is cool but you have to wait till the end of the video to see the Lamborghini nearly flip over which is hillarious. [589KB 3GP]

Note: You probably need Quicktime to view the file, you might also need to right click and save as.

Two years ago I was looking for interesting stuff to read for my long plane trip to New York when I ended up finding a website which had tons of articles and stories on terrorists and killers. I started printing some stuff including information on Black September, Munich, Carlos the Jackal and tons of articles on all the terrorist attacks that occurred in the 70s and 80s. Some I had heard of before some were completely new to me. In any case I got the printouts binded them into a book form and took them with me to read during my trip. They stories and articles proved to be very interesting to read and I found the Munich event very disturbing yet very exciting.. it felt like driving by a big car accident. What I found really interesting in the story is how Israel and the Mossad spent years after the event slowly and carefully tracking down every high ranking official that was responsible for the Munich event and assassinating them. When I heard Steven Spielberg was going to release a movie about Munich I couldn’t wait to watch it and two nights ago I finally did.

During the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, eleven Israeli athletes are taken hostage and murdered by a Palestinian terrorist group known as Black September. In retaliation, the Israeli government recruits a group of Mossad agents to track down and execute those responsible for the attack.

Munich was really fun to watch. You always hear about Mossad all the time in the news and stuff but you never really see them in films. You always see the CIA, KGB and MI6 portrayed in movies but never Mossad and so to finally see them was a really nice change from the usual intelligence agencies. The movie takes place after the Munich event and it follows Eric Bana who plays a Mossad agent leading a 4 man team in an attempt to assassinate the masterminds behind the Munich event. The movie started off REALLY good, like I was enjoying it as much I would enjoy an episode of my favorite tv show, 24. The movie has a lot of buildups and they are all to the assassination scenes. Each assassination needs research, a new safe house, planning, a new method of killing etc.. and as a viewer you are taken along to witness these steps up to the “grand” assassination moment. Once one of the targets is killed the process is repeated over again. The problem with the movie is that its nearly 3 hours long. Once again I would like to point out that I don’t have a problem with long movies! I refused to watch any of the Lord of the Rings movies until the extended versions came out which were around 40 minutes longer then the already long regular version. I like long movies.. when there is a reason for them to be long. Munich however didn’t have a reason to be this long. I think 30 minutes could easily have been chopped off at the end when the assassinations were over and things were just dragging. Still though the movie was really great and subject extremely interesting. This is why I am giving it a 4 out of 5.

Visit the official movie website

Seems everyone has phone problems. I passed by Ceasers Restaurant yesterday and they were having phone problems so I couldn’t pay with Knet. Later I past by International Veterinary Hospital all the way in Ahmadi and they also had phone problems and so I couldn’t pay with Knet. I hate paying with cash.

Today I past by Applebee’s, my first time in like 5 years and probably my last time for another 5 years. First of all they must have the smallest and worst NON-smoking section in the world. I mean usually restaurants reserve the best seats for non-smokers and shove the smokers in a small room in the back. Applebee’s on the other hand has 90% of the restaurant dedicated to smokers and then has a handful of tables hidden in the back for non-smokers. What the fuck is up with that? Secondly I never remembered their prices being this high. I seriously think they have a pricing issue, I mean neither the food nor the location nor the atmosphere is better then Chili’s and Nino’s for example, yet Applebee’s prices are more expensive? Really fucked up, I guess thats why they still had empty seats during peak hour for lunch today.

Tomorrow I will be posting about the International Veterinary Hospital and how much it rocks. I will also post about the movie Munich which I really loved.

Nearly every time I take Geo for a walk, someone asks me if Geo is for sale. Yesterday night we went to Marina Crescent (it was packed like Venice Beach btw) and their were tons of people who asked me if he was for sale. Not only that one guy asked me if Geo could mate with his female German Shepherd! I was like dude, Geo is just 10 weeks old, he is a puppy, he doesn’t have balls even. Do a lot of people sell their dogs here? I mean its such a weird question to ask a dog owner, why would I sell a member of my family? I doubt other dog owners would sell their dog either, unless their dog just got puppies and they are selling the puppies. Its really strange.

Well since the launch of the forum yesterday 28 users have registered and started posting. Thats more then I was expecting for the first day and I am hoping that number will grow a lot bigger once more topics get posted there. If you haven’t registered or checked out the forum already please do, I think it will turn into a great place where readers of this site can communicate with each other. [Link]

I just setup a forum for this site. I figured readers can hang out there, chat and discuss stuff. People new to Kuwait can also go in and ask questions if they have any and other users can answer them back. The forum is easy to use and I don’t think anyone should have any trouble using it. I placed a link in the top menu for easy access. Check it out. [Link]

Cheney must renew his “life force” periodically by eating the still beating heart of a virgin, or when a virgin heart is unavailable, a lawyer. [Link]

I passed by the Ministry of Communications branch in Salmiya today morning to solve my phone problem. When I got there I spotted 3 MOC vans which I guessed were the technician vans, so I waited in my car hoping to catch one leaving so I could bribe him to fix my phone line. Around 10 minutes passed when I saw another MOC van arriving and about to park. I got out of my car and ran towards the technician who was coming out of the van. I call out and he stops and asks me what I wanted, I asked him if he was a technician and replied telling me he was in charge of installation. Now the problem is while running towards the guy I thought he was Egyptian but after I started talking to him I realized he was a local. At first I wasn’t sure if I should offer him a bribe or not but he seemed annoyed by me and so I decided not to even try. He told me if I needed a technician to go inside the building. So I went in looking for the technicians walking around not know where to go when the guy I had spoken to outside came up to me and pointed me to a building outside, he told me to go in it, take a left and then take the last door on the right. So I do that except the door on the far right had an employees only sticker on it. I figured whatever and just walked in.

I walked in a huge ass room with a really high ceiling and a couple of rows of racks with tons of cables running around them. I figured this was the main switchboard room but it looked like technology from the 70’s and 80’s. I found a woman sitting at an old wooden desk and told her I was looking for a technician. She asked me why and I explained to her my problem. She brought over a small basket full of what I realized were complaint cards and started flipping through them looking for mine. Suddenly an old Indian guy walked in and asked the woman for the complaint basket and she told him to wait a bit because she was looking for something. So I turn around and asked the guy if he was a technician, he told me yes. I told him my line had a problem, he asked me which area and I told him. He told me the whole block there has a major problem and that over 1400 lines were not working. He told me they are trying to work as fast as possible but it was a fault in the major cable and they still need around 4 days to fix it. I told him if it was only 4 days I don’t have a problem with its just that I know people who’s phone lines haven’t been working for over 2 months. He told me not to worry and they are trying their best to fix the problem. So I thanked him and the woman and left.

Now I will wait and see what happens. I believe they are working to fix the problem so I guess its just a matter of time and I get my phone line and Internet back.

There is a site I use every now and then to buy CDs from. I usually use it when I want to buy every CD of a certain band for example I got all the Alice in Chains CDs plus all Rage Against the Machine CDs from this site. The site I am talking about is BMGmusic.com. I use them because the CDs are really cheap, you buy 12 CDs for the price of 1. Thats it, no small print filled with traps and no forcing you to buy 6 more CDs in the next 2 years like Columbia House.

I have used them maybe 6 times so far and I usually buy classics like Pearl Jam and Nirvana. Its a practical way of expanding your CD collection… that is if you still collect CDs. 12 CDs for the price of 1, its hard to beat. [Link]

Note: You need an Aramex Shop & Ship mailbox if you are living in Kuwait.

We took Geo to the Marina Crescent beach tonight. The weather was pretty cold but it didn’t seem to bother him at all. I came to two conclusions today, the first is something I have known for a while now, I am unfit, the second thing is that when Geo grows up he is gonna kick my ass. Geo is a really fast runner, although he is still a puppy he could keep up with me when I was running. If he can keep up with me now I can only imagine how fast he will be once he grows up. Whenever I watch a movie and there is a criminal escaping police dogs I always imagined myself doing better if I was in his spot. Well thats bullshit because I could barely run for 30 seconds before collapsing from exhaustion tonigh. Damn I need to exercise. On our way back to the car Geo saw his friend Bozo, a white Labrador puppy he met on his first beach visit. They played a bit before we had to tell them goodbye and go home.The picture on top is of Geo chasing Nat on the beach.

I mentioned the other day that Geo my dog will be on a raw meat diet. This means I have to buy him fresh meat every other day and luckily there are 3 butchers near my apartment. The problem I figured I would face buying 1KG of the same meat every other day is the curiosity of the butcher. If I start passing by the butcher every other day, over time I will become a good customer and I am sure he will also want to start a conversation with me and maybe even ask me what I am doing with the meat. I don’t want to tell him the meat is for my dog because I don’t want him to give me the crappiest meat he has. I want the best for Geo and thats why the butcher must never find out the meat will be going to my dog. So I had to create a story in case he does ask me what I will be doing with the meat and its a good thing I did because yesterday he asked.

Around 4 days ago I past by one of the butchers which was recommended to me. It was my first time visiting a butcher but I had spoken to my mum earlier and she told me what to tell him. So I go in and I tell the butcher and I need 1KG of cow meat. I want sirloin, without fat and diced up and split into two packages each containing half a kilo. Five minutes later I walked out with the meat, it cost me KD2.

Yesterday I was planning on going to another butcher so that I could spread out my meat purchases so that I don’t arouse suspicion but my mum recommended I stick to the same butcher all the time that way I can get the best meat. I guess it works like sushi places, the more you visit the better the quality of fish you get. So I went back to the guy and I repeated the same thing I told him last time, except this time he started asking me questions. He was like you want it steak? I was like I want the same thing you gave me last time. He is like but you want it steak? I was like umm, you know chopped up into pieces.. like 2 days ago. He was like what will you use it for? I told him I just started a low carb diet and I am grilling the meat. He was like in that case take the fillet, its a lot better. I was like how much does a kilo cost? He was like KD2.5. I was like no its ok, just give me what I took last time, I don’t want to spend this much money for dinner. He was like listen I will give it to you for KD2, and I am telling you once you have this meat you can’t go back to the other one, you will love it. So he gave me the meat and it looked really good, so red and soft and no fat at all. I paid him KD2 and left.

Geo is really getting the star treatment from Nat. yesterday for breakfast he had 2 boiled eggs and 3 brown toast. For lunch he had chicken with basmati rice and for dinner he had leftovers from lunch followed by honey on toast. Now if she will only start cooking food for me!

Update: I just realized something, the older Geo gets the more food he will eat. What am I gonna tell the butcher when suddenly I am buying 5KG of meat every other day?

Update 2: Fuck I just realized, 5KG of meat every other day means I will be spending KD150 on raw meat a month. Fuck! I miscalulated. Its KD150 if I am feeding him 3 times a day but once he becomes an adult its only once a day meaning KD50 a month which is pretty decent.

Having trouble knowing which Danish brands to boycott? I don’t know why I didn’t realize this earlier but Bang & Olufsen is Danish.. I wonder if their store in Fanar is still open? Anyway I did a bit of research to see if there were other brands I liked that were Danish and I found out that my favorite brand of gum, Stimoral is Danish. I need to check and see if Sultan Center still carry them but I am guessing they aren’t. Here is a nice list of Danish products I found, I don’t know if all of these are available in Kuwait:

Food & Beverages
* Arla Foods – milk and dairy products
* Danish meat
* Carlsberg – beer and softdrinks
* Tuborg – beer and softdrinks
* Suntop – orange drink
* Puck – cheese spread
* 3 Cows – #1 feta cheese in Kuwait
* Dano – powdered milk

Danish design
* Lego – Toys
* Bang & Olufsen – Music systems and televisions
* K.I.S.S. – DVD Recorders
* Stelton – Danish design
* Jacob Jensen – Danish design
* Alfi – Danish design
* Rosendahl – Danish design
* Louis Poulsen – Lightning
* Skagen Watches – Danish watches
* Danish Furniture Online
* Piet Hein – Fritz Hansen furniture
* Arne Jacobsen – Fritz Hansen furniture

Candy
* Toms
* Galle & Jessen
* Stimorol Chewing Gum

Cigarettes
* Prince

Healthcare
* Novo Nordisk – Healthcare

Clothes, textile & Shoes
* H2O
* Jysk – Quilts, pillows, mattresses
* Hummel
* Ecco
* Jaco
* Inwear
* Matinique

Other
* Maersk Sealand – one of the largest shipping companies
* Aqua – pop group (Barbie Girl)

Yesterday evening we took Geo to the Marina Crescent park to meet up with Fadibou and his puppy Mikki. Turns out Geo and Mikki really liked each other and they spent most of the evening playing together on the grass and sand. Only problem is that Geo is 13KG while Mikki is 1.5KG. So Geo was like hurting Mikki accidentally while playing. Anyway we walked further up the beach and met with 3 other puppies. the oldest being 3 months old. All 5 dogs spent around an hour running around playing with each other in the sand. They were 4 males and 1 female but Mikki was the star, all the dogs seemed to want to play with him. Geo had a lot of fun and I was hoping all this playing would get him tired enough to put him to sleep early and I was right.. for a while. Geo ended up going to sleep at 10PM in his fenced off area and we went to sleep right after since both me and Nat hadn’t gotten any sleep the night before. Everything was fine until around 12:30AM we woke up to Geo’s whining and barking. He must have woken up in the middle of the night and realized he was all alone downstairs and he just went ballistic. The book we read said this would happen and that we should leave him alone but he was just too loud. I called up my brother next door and asked him if he could hear Geo and he told me he could very clearly. So not to get in trouble with the neighbours we solved the problem by Nat sleeping on the couch in the living room with Geo on the floor next to her. The living room has hardwood floors so in case Geo decided to “go” during the night it wouldn’t be that a big a problem while our bedroom is carpeted and would be a lot more difficult to clean. So now hopefully next week we will be replacing the carpet in the bedroom with hardwood, that way Geo can sleep with us in the bedroom, the only way we will ever get some sleep..

Geo arrived yesterday night at 12:05AM via KLM. When I had spoken to a KLM representative earlier in the day he told me I needed only 30 minutes to clear Geo once he arrives.. what bullshit. After 2 hours of running around to 6 different locations at the airport cargo terminal and after going and coming between these 6 offices a total of 11 times, I was finally able to clear Geo and take him home. Mind you I was the only one there clearing anything and it took me over 2 hours so you could imagine how painfully long the process would be during the day when every trader in Kuwait is at the cargo terminal clearing their products. All the employees were very nice and tried their best to get all our papers completed asap but its just a lot of stuff that needed to be signed and at full speed it just wasn’t possible to take less then 2 hours. Oh a strange thing, we were sitting at the vets office at the terminal and one guy there was like did you check on your dog, is he alive? I was like no I hadn’t seen my dog yet but what the fuck, do dogs arrive here dead? The guy was like yeah, many times the dog arrives to Kuwait and its dead. I am guessing this happens often during the summer when they keep the dogs locked up in their tiny travel cages for over 2 hours in the hot summer heat waiting for their owners to get all their paperwork done.

Anyway we get home and Geo is all active and shit and wants to play. So we play. We figured he probably just was so bored trapped in his cage and he just wants to let off some steam. So we played with him until 4AM and Geo was still jumping around all excited. We decide to lock him up in his area downstairs and go up and sleep. His area consists of half the bottom floor of our apartment separated by a 1 meter high fence. His area is around 4×6 meters and the floor is covered in vinyl in case he goes to the bathroom indoors the mess would be easier to clean up. So we lock him up and go upstairs and Geo starts to whine which we were expecting. Suddenly he stops and I was thinking wow that was easier then I expected and so I decided to sneak downstairs quietly to watch Geo sleep. So I am standing in the stairway trying to sneak a peak at Geo sleeping but I couldn’t find him in his area. Suddenly I see Geo walking out of the first floor bathroom casually.. he had escaped from his area! So I realized there was a weakness in my fence design and Geo was able to squeeze out from the far side of the fence. I solve that issue by blocking his escape route with his travel cage. I go back upstairs and I am about to go to sleep when suddenly Nat is like “Mark, Geo is here”. He had escaped again! So I went back down and realized he had climbed over his travel cage and then over the fence. So I solved that problem also and on my way up the stairs I look back and I see Geo squeezing out from between two fences. Fucking A thats like 3 prison breaks in 15 minutes. Good thing I don’t design prisons for a living. We decided to solve the fence issue the next day and for the night he could sleep with us in our bedroom. That didn’t work out the way we planned it either. Geo spent the whole night whining wanting to play with us. At around 7AM we all fell asleep. 9AM I wake up to realize Nat and Geo were missing, seemed they both had woken up at 8AM and Nat made him breakfast and took him down for a walk. It was a totally sleepless night.

We spent most of today fixing his fence issue and taking naps whenever we could. I wasn’t able to post more details earlier because I was dead tired but I just woke up from a 30 minute nap and I feel a bit more energized. I spoke to Fadibou on the phone and we will be meeting up with him and his dog Mikki at Marina Crescent later tonight.

Overall I am really glad we got Geo. He turned out to be much more cuter then his pictures had shown him to be and he is also a lot bigger then I expected. He is silly and dumb at times (like yesterday he got introduced to the concept of a glass door after ramming into it 2 times) and loves playing with Amazon boxes. He doesn’t bark and he’s extremely playful. I will record a video of him soon and upload it once I get my DSL connection back at home. For now I just have the picture I posted earlier today.

I just checked my email today morning and found an interesting offer by Jazeera Airways. Two return flight tickets to Beirut plus a one night stay at a 4 star hotel for only KD129. Not a bad deal and not a bad idea at all. [Link]