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We usually hear a lot of fire engine sirens outside my office since there is a fire-station 3 buildings away. Today though the sirens sounded really close so I looked outside the window and there were 3 fire trucks outside our office building and a little white smoke coming out of the building across the street. Everyone in my office gathered around the windows excited that they were going to watch the firemen put out the fire live in front of us. 15 minutes later (no bullshit) the firefighters were still downstairs not doing anything. Actually thats not true, there were 2 guys putting on their firemen overalls and boots.. shouldn’t they do that before they get to the fire?

Finally a larger ladder truck arrives and parks in front of the building. 10 minutes later the firemen are still running hoses and setting things up, the little white smoke coming out of the window by now had turned into thick black smoke coming out of many windows and the roof. Many of the employees who had gathered around the windows hoping to see some firefighting action had left out of boredom, it had been 25 minutes since the firemen arrived and not one drop of water had been sprayed onto the fire. 30 minutes after they arrived two firefighters got on the ladder and started spraying through the window. 10 minutes later the fire was put out and they left.

I don’t know if this is normal or what they did was right or wrong but I just find the fact that it took them 30 minutes to start spraying water on a fire that is 2 buildings away from their fire-station a bit too long. Yeah the fire was put out very quickly but after how much damage was done?

Thanks to Arabesque for pointing it out in the Forum, Marina FM have just relaunched their online website and you can now listen to them online and also check out whats going on in their studio using their live webcam. There is also a section on the site called “Blog” which should turn out to be interesting once they start posting. [Link]

[original source of info grafika]

A couple of days ago I was contacted by Bazaar magazine and was offered a chance to have my own “B-Sides” page in the magazine every month where I could post mini reviews on anything related to Kuwait. At first the idea sounded really interesting, combining blog with print sounded like an excellent opportunity. But the more I thought about it the more I realized.. excellent opportunity for what? What could I gain with this?

Increased Readership
Bazaar prints around 25,000 copies a month while 248AM gets more then 3 times that amount of visitors every month and we are still growing. Bazaar readers would only read around 4 mini reviews by me every month while my blog readers would read at least 4 mini posts by me a day. My sites url would be advertised in that Bazaar page but from those 25,000 readers how many would actually think about checking out my site? When was the last time anyone saw a url in a magazine and then checked it out online.. it happens but just not that often.

Digital to Print
At first this sounded interesting, but then I realized isn’t that a step backward? Isn’t print trying to get online? Shouldn’t Bazaar start thinking about getting online instead? WIRED magazine have a small 2 page section where they print interesting posts from the web but I never liked that section but thats besides the point, WIRED can do whatever they want since their whole Magazine is published for free online anyway.

The Money
The first offer I got was KD20 (yes two and one zero) a month. I calculated the amount of time and effort I would have to put extra every month to have at least 4 mini reviews of something interesting to do with Kuwait and I realized KD20 wouldn’t be worth my trouble at all. Bazaar were nice to say they would consider another amount I had in mind but if they had KD20 in their mind to begin with I doubt they would go that much higher.

The Magazine
Do I even like Bazaar? Not really. I do think its the best locally published magazine but thats because their competition is really crap. I pick up Bazaar once a month so I can skim through it quickly and see if there is anything interesting. I mostly don’t find anything worth reading and the magazine ends up in the trash or left on a food court table. I enjoy reading local blogs a lot more then I enjoy reading Bazaar thats for sure.

Who’s the boss?
When someone suggested to Zaydoun that he should hook up with one of the newspapers as a syndicated writer, Zaydoun replied saying “I am my own editor… I can’t imagine being subjected to deadlines and editorial controls!”.

So taking everything above into consideration, I sent an email back to Bazaar today morning thanking them for their kind offer but that I wasn’t interested. I think I made the right decision.

I got a phone call yesterday from the owner of Choowy Goowy cookies, he wanted to reply to my post titled “Choowy Goowy Waiting List“. Basically it turns out the reason why I was told it would need two days for the cookies to get delivered was because the Choowy Goowy bakery was being renovated and they had stopped all orders for 1 week. The day I called asking for cookies they had just started delivery again and they had a long list of backorders they needed to complete. Part of the reason for the renovation is so they could accept customers who want to pick up the cookies themselves.

I then asked him about the fact that the person who I spoke to on the phone told me that I couldn’t order just 1 jar. He replied telling me that VIP customers could order 1 jar if they wanted to but new customers would have to order more. He told me they currently have only 1 delivery car and its difficult and time consuming to go deliver 1 jar in Fahaheel for example and another 1 jar in Kuwait City. He told me they are still a small bakery and they are growing slowly but steadily and they would get another car in the near future but for now they only have just one.

On another note I will soon be trying their Sorbet icecream, the owners of Choowy Goowy also have Boozah Boozah and they are working on some new receipes at the moment but once they are done they will send me a batch of their icecream to try out. Cookies in the winter, Icecream in the summer.. I can’t wait.

If you would like to place an order for cookies call 2626559

I was trying to find out if carrots were healthy for Geo our dog and I found the following list helpful and interesting.

* Apples (they contain potassium, which stimulates the immune system, and pepsin, which helps the stomach)
* Broccoli (rich in vitamins)
* Carrots (rich in vitamins, great treats to substitute for biscuits)
* Cabbage (rich in vitamins, good for digestive system and skin)
* Cucumber (good for teeth and bones due to potassium content; can combine with carrots to promote a healthy liver and kidneys; in juice form, a good diuretic … peel cucumbers unless organically grown)
* Celery (chopped or juiced; can help with arthritis)
* Garlic (removes waste from blood, can help repel fleas; use fresh garlic finely minced)
* Green beans (lightly steamed; healthy and low-cal treat)
* Parsley (can reduce allergy symptoms and aid kidney function; chop finely or boil parsley and add the juice over food)
* Kale (rich in antioxidants and can help reduce allergy symptoms)
* Spinach (very healthy; serve chopped)
* Bananas (in small quantity; a coveted treat)
* Olive oil (a tablespoon a day is good for skin and fur)

* Preparation suggestions: Many veggies can be served raw, lightly steamed or in juice form. For most vegetables such as broccoli and carrots, it is far better to steam them instead of serving raw for improved digestibility and nutritional value. Also, since dogs have small digestive tracts, you can puree vegetables to enable your pet to digest more. If you use canned vegetables, get the salt-free kinds.

* Organically grown benefits: Due to their smaller size and more compact body systems, pets can be more prone to the toxic effects of pesticide contamination than are people. So it is best to feed them produce that is organically certified, which also has higher nutritional value for everyone.

[source]

I was just reading Zaydoun’s post on how he has been blogging for three years and it really brought back some good memories. You see, before it was just Zaydoun’s “Kuwait Unplugged” blog and qHate which was made up of me, Rampurple and Nibaq. qHate originally was Nibaqs idea and it started off as a blog about life in Kuwait but when the US decided to invade Iraq, qHate quickly turned into a war blog. We were posting on things that were going on in Kuwait like the sirens, the panics and the gas masks we even got the chance to stalk meet Wolf Blitzer and John Vause. It was a lot of interesting little things that showed people how everyone in Kuwait was living during this uncertain time. Checking my first post (2-2-03) now though I realized it was actually related to the war.. so now I am wondering if war blogging was part of the original plan… It was cool how me, Rampurple and Nibaq used to blog together in one blog and now we all have our own separate blogs. I keep telling Nibaq we were like a rock band that split up and all the members went solo.

In the end the site ended after we hit our peak, the war was over, there was barely anything to post about and only Rampurple was left posting and she finally also said goodbye. Maybe one day we will all be back together again, like a reunion..

This is an interesting surprise. Yesterday I posted my views on the Toot the Arab blog network and what I saw as problems with the way things were laid out. Well I just checked the site now and it looks like most of the problems are getting fixed. The first change you will notice when you check Toot now is that instead of 9 blogs being highlighted on top, you now only get 3. The second change and probably the most important one is the tootstream. No longer is it just a long boring list of blog names and post titles, the list now contains a brief snippet of what the post is about. This makes things a lot more interesting and more usable, even the post titles are now larger and more clearer… check it out. [Link]

The official website of 99.7FM super station is suspended and it looks like its because they didn’t pay their hosting bill… [Link]

Toot is like safat but instead of it focusing only on Kuwait Blogs, Toot focuses on all Arab blogs in the region.

The idea is good but I just haven’t been able to use Toot the way I use Safat. In Safat I scroll down the page reading a “post title” followed by reading a sentence or two from that post. If the post preview sounds interesting I open it in a new tab and continue reading the full post on that bloggers site.

With Toot I can’t do that since the only thing I see is the post title and the blog its from.. no post preview. Sure they have a section on the main page called tootreads but these are a few handpicked posts and they are not updated very often. Even the tootstream where all the latest post titles are displayed isn’t easy to use since the name of the blog is highlighted more then the post title itself. I would think the title of the post would be more important then the title of the blog since you are there to find new posts to read and not to read blog names. Another issue I have is with the voting system. If you like a certain blogger you can vote for them and give them a rating. The problem is its not an easy procedure, to vote you need to give them your email address and they will send you an email with a link to confirm your vote. They are doing this I am guessing to keep away cheaters but this isn’t a full proof plan and it makes voting a pain in the ass.

I do like the general visual theme of Toot and I really think Safat needs to get redesigned into something thats as appealing. Even the “new” Safatoo isn’t any better and if anything its a lot worse then the classic safat. Safat is lacking an identity and thats where Toot is succeeding the most. Anyway if you haven’t checked Toot out yet please do and tell them what you think. [itoot]

This is an interesting Firefox plugin I found..

Oil Standard is a web browser plug-in that converts all prices from U.S. Dollars into the equivalent value in barrels of crude oil.

When you load a web page, the script seamlessly inserts converted prices into the page. As the cost of oil fluctuates on the commodities exchange, prices rise and fall in real-time.

I just tried it with Amazon and its a pretty “fun” script. The price of a PSP is 3.97 barrels of oil while a new Macbook Pro will set you back 39.77 barrels. We should use this standard here in Kuwait, everyone could walk around paying in oil! [Link]

Interesting, it never occurred to me that it stood for something.. [Link]

My Qualitynet DSL account expires next month and so I was just checking their website to see if they have any new offers because last year when I signed up they had a double your bandwidth offer. So I am checking to see how much 512KB will cost me this time around and to my surprise its KD100 cheaper. Last year if you signed up for 1 year of 256KB they would double the bandwidth to 512KB. I paid KD380 then. This time around I don’t see a double your bandwidth offer but a 512KB connection now costs KD280. The sad thing is 1MB is still KD560 a year which is double the price, maybe my sister who lives next door and steals uses my internet will pitch in for a 1MB (hint hint Rampurple). [Link]

I just used Alexaholic to graph and compare traffic with my site and other Kuwait bloggers and I found the results interesting. It seems most of the time our traffic dips and peaks together. The Kuwaiti blogging community in a way is connected together which makes sense if you think about it. We all for example got more traffic when the Amir passed away since everyone abroad wanted to find out what was happening in Kuwait. We probably also got a dip in traffic during the vacation when many Kuwaiti students studying in the US came back to Kuwait and stopped checking the blogs. You can check out the chart and see what I am talking about by clicking the link below. You could also plug in your own blogs and check and compare. [Link]

When I signed up for hosting the other day with Dreamhost they gave me a free domain name and I decided to go with 248pm.com.

So now I have 2:48AM and 2:48PM which is cool but I need to figure out what to do with the PM site. Any ideas?

OMG I think I am going to die. Geo my dog just farted twice in a row in the living room where I am sitting and now it really stinks. I am breathing through my mouth from under the blanket and I can still smell his fart. Its really a killer-fart, I swear I am going to pass out before I can finish this post!