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Only video game fans will get this comic strip. I love Killer Instinct by the way.. even though I was never able to perform the 80+ combo moves. My dream would be to buy a Killer Instinc arcade machine and shove it in my living room. Only place in Kuwait I know of that still has the Killer Instinct arcade is Showbiz on the seaside. [Link]

Christmas is coming up and I have decided to put together a gift guide. I chose items that were good deals, my taste and affordable. If you want to buy something for a friend and not pay too much you have that option, while if you want to buy something for a family member and pay more you also have that option.

All items below are linked to Amazon.com

Books
Dear Valued Customer: You Are A Loser ($10)
Sas Survival Guide ($9)
Sneakers: The Complete Collectors’ Guide ($19)
DPM Disruptive Pattern Material ($126)

Digital Camera
Canon Powershot A520 ($174)

MP3 Player
Apple 2GB iPod Nano ($194)

Laptop
Apple 12″ iBook ($999)

Music
Nirvana – With the Lights Out ($41)
Alice in Chains – Music Bank ($45)

Video Games
Sony PSP ($250)
Gameboy Micro ($90)

DVD
Season 1 & Season 2 of Arrested Development ($42)
Star Wars Trilogy ($45)
Sex and the City – The Complete Series ($194)

Home
iRobot Roomba ($149)

Fun & Cheap
Holga Medium Format Camera with flash ($29)
20Q Challenge ($35)
Tamagotchi Connection ($15)
Real Lights Sound Arena ($40)
Rubik’s Cube ($7)
Magic 8 Ball ($8)

Other
Sennheiser PX 100 Headphones ($45)
Moleskine Small Plain Notebook ($15)
Harman Kardon Soundsticks 2 ($109)

More items might be added later…

Heathrow Injection n. Term given to the phenomenon of sudden and very rapid horizontal expansion, particularly experienced by non-British persons, upon settling in London.

Heathrow Injection is an interesting term I just learned the definition to awhile ago and I am thinking it can easily be modified to fit Kuwait since we have the same problem here.

Just got back from Marina Crescent. I went to have lunch there and check out the Ramp Rebel Tour which was being held there this weekend. I have to say I have seen both Ozzy and my brother skateboard with more passion and skill while playing around at home then the two skateboarders I saw lazily play the half pipe. Maybe they were tired or bored but they were definitely not interesting to watch. I stayed there for like 20 minutes watching them just go up and down the half pipe dully and then falling half the time without doing anything. The only reason I stayed that long was because I was trying to find some shots to take with my Holga camera. I think I got some cool shots and once I develop the pictures I will post them here. I used colored film this time around.

Yesterday night I was invited to the soon to open Tai Chi restaurant located near the Sheikh Resort before Palms Club on the Gulf Road. At the moment you can only be invited to the restaurant because the place isn’t yet 100% complete and the staff is still in training, but from what I experienced the place is going to turn out great.

Tai Chi is a Tai and Chinese food restaurant. The interior of the place is very minimalistic with just enough design elements hinting out the cuisines place of origin. The restaurant is two floors but I only managed to see the first since thats where we were seated.

The food was definitely the highlight of the evening. They had a large variety of appetizers and I ended up going for something I can’t pronounce but was basically prawns on toast with some kind of sweet cucumber dip while Nat went for the saute chicken. Both dishes were delicious. The prawns on toast was very light and sweet unlike the Peacock restaurant version which feels heavier and more filling. The saute chicken was also very tasty and it came with this slightly spicy sauce which gave the dish its edge. For the main course I was planning on having my usual sweet & sour prawns but decided to try something new and went with the corn prawns with a side dish of steamed rice. The corn prawns is a combination of prawns, curry leaves and corn flakes! I was really looking forward to the meal because I never had a main dish which involved corn flakes before. As I was hoping, the corn prawns turned out to be very good. Nat also enjoyed her main course which was some kind of weird looking noodles. For desert they only had two options and we decided to go with the fried bananas with ice cream which turned out to be good but nothing special.

Overall it was a very good experience, the service was very friendly, the food was really good and the setting with their stylish plates and chilled out interior was very cool. I didn’t mention anything about the prices because there were none on the menu, the restaurant is still not finished and they only had a Microsoft Word typed menu. I don’t think they have the prices set but I believe they should be cheaper then Peacock. The place is definitely worth checking out once it opens.

Well me and Nat finally decided on the Belgian Shepherd. I am in contact with an amazing breeder in Belgium and he agreed (after asking me like a zillion questions) on selling me a puppy. One of his dogs just had a new litter and he sent me this picture of the puppies with the mother. They were 1 day old in this picture and they all look like little rats.. cute rats. He will send me the puppy after January 14th since they need to be with the mother for the first 8 weeks. Until then I will hopefully be getting more pictures of the dogs and when I do I will post them here.

I just found the blog of Faisal Al-Dhalmawi at 1up.com. He has a very interesting write up on Video Gaming in Kuwait. He was even able to take pictures of some of the stores from the outside AND inside! Pretty cool stuff. [Link]

I was checking out Uncrate and i found a bunch of interesting things, here they are:

Monty Python Killer Rabbit Plush
Cow Baby Bottle
EarBuddy
Moleskine Pocket Reporter Notebook
Vintage Graffiti Ties by Tymbal

After driving around Jabriya yesterday street by street trying to find a pet shop and after driving all the way to Fintas even trying to find a place that sells dog, thanks to BusyNow it turns out there was a pet shop just 2 minutes from my house! I past passed by it tonight, its called My Puppy. Its located near Al-Shaab Amusement park behind Texas Chicken. The place had 6 puppies on display which were placed in tiny little cages. One dog, a 6 month old Dogo Argentina was in a cage so tiny he couldn’t stand up or move around. While I was there he didn’t move or bark, he was just lying there depressed. There was a very active 2 month old Cocker Spaniel (not in the picture) who was very playful when we took him out of the cage but was all dirty and stinky. They were all dirty and stinky, the whole place stunk. The pet shop also had a large Iguana in a cage and some mice and crickets for sale. The place was depressing and watching the puppies scream for help from their tiny cages begging take them with us was sad. This place should be shut down, its animal cruelty. Oh and the guy who works there I don’t know where he is from but he neither spoke English nor Arabic.

TivoGuy was telling me that Aramex was closing down their Kuwait City branch and moving everything to Ardiyah. I quickly sent an email to Rabih who is always kind enough to answer my questions. Turns out its true, Aramex is shutting down the Kuwait City office, this is the email I received from him:

Dear valued customer,

Yes it is true we are moving our operations to Aardiyah since our main location is there and all our operations start from there. An email was sent to all our customers today morning. Another email in Arabic will also be sent by tomorrow.

Trust us that the move is for the best of all our customers: Delivery will be much faster and security and control on non-delivered packages will be much better. Most of all, Management will have more direct control on service level provided to our customers.

We will also open a new location for customer service and opening new accounts in Al-Bustan Mall in Salmiyah before year end inshallah.

Always at your service.

Personally I am going to find it a hassel to drive to Ardiyah everytime a package arrives but I guess I don’t have any other option.

Yesterday I mentioned I saw a kid with a puppy and when I asked him where he got it from he said Amazon.com. He told me it cost KD50 for the dog and KD100 shipping.

I tried to find dogs on Amazon and wasn’t able to find any. I guess the kid found an external link (like an advert) on Amazon but actually purchased the dog from another US based website. I also emailed Aramex to see if they shipped animals and I got the following reply:

Dear Mark,

Thank you for contacting us via email regarding your below request.

Kindly note that pets can not be shipped via express. Live Animals shipping is complicated and requires special documents and laboratories tests at both origin and destinations before being shipped.

Please accept our apology for not being able to help you much with your request.

Kindest Regards

So I guess the kid had the dog shipped directly to Kuwait. I should have gotten more information from him…

The owner of Larry emailed me his pictures of when he was still in Germany. So everyone, meet Larry Von Billberg (thats his full name).

Starting early next year AOL is going to start offering old TV shows to watch online for free. They will start with the following TV shows:

Adventures of Brisco County Jr., Alice, Babylon 5, Beetlejuice, Bret, Maverick, Cheyenne, Chico and the Man, Dark Justice, Eight is Enough, FBI, The Falcon Crest, Freakzoid, Freddy’s Nightmares, Fugitive, Growing Pains, Guns of Paradise, Hangin’ with Mr. Cooper, Head of the Class, Histeria, Hunter, Kung Fu, La Femme Nikita, Lois & Clark: The Adventures of Superman, New Adventures of Batman, Perfect Strangers, Pinky and the Brain, Sisters, Spenser: For Hire, Welcome Back Kotter and Wonder Woman.

From all the shows listed the ones I am looking forward to watching again are Spenser: For Hire, Hunter, Kung Fu, Growing Pains, Dark Justice, Perfect Strangers and The Falcon Crest.

[Link]

The Kuwait Advertising Awards it currently taking place at the Salwa Events Hall near Marina Crescent. I just got a message from my sister who is at the awards ceremony. The event started 1 hour late at 7 and they started of with speeches, according to her its very boring. I received another message from another art director from my agency who is there and according to him the event actually turned out to be very formal, so Nataly was right when she said it was a formal event.

Update: My sis called me after the event finished. Basically out of 22 awards my agency (JWT) took half of them while Nats agency (Saatchi&Saatchi) took the other half. Just to make it clear out of all the awards Saatchi took none were for Kuwait work, and out of all the awards my agency took only 1 was for Kuwait. The event supposingly was very unorganized and chaotic, my sister should be posting about it tonight on her blog.

I was researching on food when I came across this text which I really liked and would like to share:

Eating is a biological necessity, but answers about what is eatable and not only edible, the way we prepare food, the way we serve and consume meals in social settings are to be searched for in cultural and religious contexts.

We are born into a culture with its set of social relations, traditions and developments, values, food standards etc. During adolescence we get taste memories, which have an influence on our food choices, but we are challenged by different kinds of food, different kinds of lifestyles and culturally different ways of eating. We meet the unfamiliar and strange when we travel, through ethnic food restaurants and when we go shopping. The world is not static; changes seem to happen faster in relation to what we eat today, when, where and with whom we dine daily and on festive occasions. Industrial food production and the global market exist alongside the regional and national kitchens. Urban meal traditions, art of cooking, advertising, technology and taste affects us.

Taken from here.