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Couple (Husband and Wife)
Annual: KD990
6 Months: KD590

Single Female
Annual: KD650
6 Months: KD390

Single Male
Annual: KD790
6 Months: KD550

Children (2-11 years old)
Annual: KD150
6 Months: KD100

Children (12-17 years old)
Annual: KD350
6 Months: KD225

The membership includes the following benefits and facilities:
– Outside lap swimming pool
– Outside kids and family pool
– Marina’s exclusive beach area
– Beach volleyball court
– Fully equipped gym with the latest equipment
– 1 squash court
– Steam bath, sauna and jacuzzi
– Female and male massage available (extra charge)
– Fitness instructor available for personal training (extra charge)

Massage Treatments

Facial Therapy
A deep cleansing, moisturizing skin care treatment with a facial pressure point massage.
45 minutes KD25

Swedish Therapy
A gentle massage encompassing the entire body using a variety of techniques specifically designed o relax muscles.
45 minutes for women KD20
60 minutes for men KD25

Sports Therapy
A classic massage focusing on every muscle group.
45 minutes for women KD20
60 minutes for men KD25

Relaxation Treatment
A gentle massage from head to toe that melts away tension.
45 minutes KD22

Aromatherapy Massage
A full body massage using exotic essential oils to improve circulation and relieve tired muscles.
60 minutes KD25

Relaxing Head Massage
This massage helps relieve headache and stress, stimulates healing and is done without using oil.
20 minutes KD15

Triple Treatment
The head, neck and shoulder massage is a decadent treatment that promotes the relief of day to day stress.
45 minutes KD25

Head and Foot Reflexology
A traditional massage using the reflexology technique focusing on pressure points that exist in the hands and the feet.
45 minutes KD 22

For more information call 2244970 ext 8510 or 8515

Here is a list of the top 25 games of 2005 according to Joystiq.
Hmmmm no DS games?

* 96: Resident Evil 4 (GC)
* 95: God of War (PS2)
* 94: Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Chaos Theory (XBX)
* 92: Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Chaos Theory (PC)
* 91: World Soccer Winning Eleven 8 International (PS2)
* 91: Psychonauts (PC)
* 91: Jade Empire (XBX)
* 90: World Soccer Winning Eleven 8 International (XBX)
* 90: Silent Hunter III (PC)
* 89: Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap (GameBoy Advance)
* 89: World Soccer Winning Eleven 8 International (PC)
* 89: NBA Street V3 (PS2)
* 89: Tekken 5 (PS2)
* 89: Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 (XBX)
* 89: Gran Turismo 4 (PS2)
* 89: Doom 3 (XBX)
* 89: NBA Street V3 (XBX)
* 89: WipEout Pure (PSP)

Yesterday I installed Tiger on my PowerMac G4. It wasn’t very easy. The problem I have is that my PowerMac can’t read DVD’s and Tiger came on a DVD. To solve the problem I figure I could put the DVD in Nat’s PowerBook, then connect her mac to mine by booting hers up in target disk mode. When I did that though I only was able to see her hard drive and not her DVD drive. Then I decided to try something else. I opened up Disk Utility on Nats PowerBook and in the options chose to create an image of the DVD and saved it on her Hard Drive. A few minutes later I had a 2.3GB image file of the DVD. I then connected a mini ipod to the powerbook, and in disk utilities chose to format the ipod. I then told it to restore an image onto the ipod and chose the Tiger image which I had just made a few minutes earlier. This move basically turned the ipod into a Tiger boot disk. I then plugged the ipod into my Powermac and a finder window opened with the Tiger setup file. I double clicked on it and it told me I needed to reboot my mac. Once it restarted it loaded up the Tiger installation and i proceeded to install tiger on my mac.

The Problem
After finishing installing Tiger I booted up and everything was working fine. When I tried to connect to the internet though it gave me a modem error, something about it not being turned on. I look at the modem and it was blinking red instead of the usual green. Turns out the DSL modem drivers are not compatible with Tiger. To solve this issue I went to Hawalli and purchased a DSL Modem with a built in wireless router for KD30. I then came home and set it up to connect to the internet and share it across the network. It worked. Now since the new DSL modem does not require a computer to be connected to the internet, I can now reboot my mac and shut it down whenever I want without it effecting anyone on my network. Previously I had my powermac connect to the internet and share the connection over the network. That wasn’t practical because if I rebooted or shutdown my mac for some reason, the internet would disconnect.

Tiger Experience
I have been using it for a short while now and things seem a tiny bit faster. When I first booted up Tiger it was a bit slow doing stuff because Spotlight was trying to index my whole drive. Once it was done indexing things came back to normal. The new mail program looks a lot more cleaner and cooler. Dashboard is interesting, my favorite widget is the flight tracker. It actually shows me the departure and arrival time of any flight plus where the plane currently is on the map. I might post a more fuller review later on but so far I like Tiger.

My Mac Specs
Graphite PowerMac G4 733MHz
1MB L3 Cache
896 MB SDRAM

Update: someone made it aware to me that I could have booted the powerbook using the Tiger CD and put my powermac in Target Disk mode. Then on the powerbook when it asked me where I wanted to install it I could have chosen the drive from my mac. Might have worked and been quicker.

Ok, I had a $127 gift voucher to spend on Amazon yesterday and its all gone now except for $15. Anyone got anything interesting I could buy for $15?

I was placing some orders on Amazon today when I decided to get an Amazon Prime account. What is that? Basically for $79 a year I get unlimited 2 day shipping on anything I purchase on their site. I calculated how much I spent on shipping last year and it was in the hundreds so $79 is a good deal. Now whats cooler is that Amazon Prime allows you to invite 4 other household members to use this account. Doesn’t sound interesting.. until you realize ALL of us Aramex users are counted as living in the same household since we all have the same address. So I sent an invite out to Tivo Guy and Nibaq since they’re my best friends. If this works then we are going to have so much fun buying stuff of Amazon. Also if you need anything delivered overnight, as an Amazon Prime member you only have to pay $3.99 to have any of your items shipped overnight. Amazon just keeps getting better.

I feel like getting a 35mm camera. Yeah, people are moving away from film to digital but film does have one major advantage, it allows me to think 10 times before I take the shot, and when I do I would make sure its perfectly framed. Unlike digital cameras, each shot you take costs you money with film so, this will help me make sure the shot I take is the shot I want. With my previous digital camera I would go for a shoot and come back home with 200 pictures with maybe only 10 good ones. When I got my Nikon I told myself that from now on I would think about each shot before I take it and only take it if I know I would want it. In general this new way of shooting has worked, and I have changed my ways, but, I still am careless when it comes to framing. Hopefully getting a 35mm camera will help me get back down to the basics.

I have a few camera’s I am currently looking at:
Leica CM – fixed 40mm lens compact 35mm camera with titanium body and fully manual controls. Price is around $850
Leica Minilux – fixed 40mm lens compact 35mm camera with titanium body but it can’t go manual. Price is around $700
Nikon FM3A – A mechanical SLR (meaning it can work without batteries) with metal body, fully manual controls. Price is around $550 without lens.
Nikon FE2 – A mechanical SLR with metal body, fully manual controls but they stopped making it in the late 80s. Price is around $150 to $200 with lens on ebay.

I am currently leaning towards the FE2 since my parents had the older FE model. Its a very nice compact SLR and its very affordable. The Leica’s though are very tempting but just so damn expensive..

This weekend passed by so fucking quickly! I hate sundays also. I am at work now and I am still half asleep although I went to be at 11PM last night. Sucks.

I didn’t know if this review should focus on their Shawerma or everything as a whole. So after a lot of consideration I decided I would focus more on the shawerma and just mention the other items. Sajj House has been around for a couple of years now. I first found out about it when I was in highschool I think, or first year of university. I started eating there though 3 years ago. In this time I was able to try many of their items, their shawerma, their Taouk sandwich, kofta, and a variety of sajj sandwiches. Everything I have ever had at Sajj House tasted incredibly good. Everything, from their Taouk to their Chocolate with Banana Sajj sandwich. Their prices are extremely reasonable and their service is very friendly.

Now that I have done introducing the place we can finally focus on their shawerma. I am not very picky with shawermas. I would and do eat shawermas from any place. It could be a small shawerma place in a backstreet of Hawalli, or it could be a shawerma place in Salmiya high street, if I feel like having shawerma I will head to the closest source. I have only had 2 bad experiences with shawermas through out my life, so in general I find most shawermas satisfying. But, I have never ever given a shawerma place a score of 5. So this brings us to a very important question. What shawerma would deserve a 5? Its very difficult since a 5 would mean this is the ultimate souper douper shawerma. You might have figured out where I am going with this review, if not I will tell you. On my way to Sajj House yesterday I was thinking about how I rate their shawerma. Is it a 4.5? or is it a 5? Could there ever be a place that would score a 5? Does a 5 mean a perfect shawerma? Then I realized something, Nataly had never had a shawerma at Sajj House, plus she is very picky when it comes to garlic. So I decided at the moment, if Nataly liked the shawerma that would mean it gets a 5. If she didn’t it would get a 4.5.

We went to Sajj house, we both ordered shawermas and then we drove off to our secluded spot (dead end next to the french school). We sat down, opened up the windows and started eating. She loved it. She didn’t mind the strong garlic which tastes really good, she loved the sajj bread they use to wrap the shawerma in and she loved the fact that the chicken wasn’t greasy at all. Thats when I knew, we hit the jackpot with Sajj House. They truly have the ultimate shawerma and its only for 350fils. What gives their shawerma a 5? Well as I mentioned above, they wrap the shawerma in sajj bread, which makes it very light, the garlic they use is perfectly blended and the chicken is not greasy at all. The chicken is actually grilled on coal flame not gas. To add to all this, Sajj House provides other items you can take with the shawerma. Say you want to have 1 shawerma and 1 zaatar sajj, when you order you know both of your items will taste incredible. This strong support from the other items on the menu helps push the score up. Their service is also very nice. Everyone from the Lebanese cashier to the Lebanese shawerma guy, they are very nice and clean. You also have 3 options of getting your shawerma, you can order delivery by phone, you can park your car outside and they will come to you, or you can go down and order it yourself. Their location also helps, they are located in Salmiya adjacent to the Restaurant Street but away from all the traffic (if you are heading towards platinum gym and restaurant street, if the cinema is to your right then you will come up to a small roundabout, if you go straight its platinum gym, if you take a left and continue going straight past the stadium on your left, you will find sajj house on your right). In conclusion, if I gave their shawerma a 5 you should know its really has to be something out of this world to get a 5, and the fact that Nat, an amateur picky shawerma eater loved it, then it just adds more credibility to my score.

update: Since I posted this review over a year ago I have to say the shawermas at Sajj House have become terrible. They have changed the recipe or something but I have now stopped eating there and my new favorite place is Badar Al Badoor. If I was to review Sajj House today I would give them a 2.5 or 3.

I have had atleast 3 people ask me today who is Jason Kottke and what is being Kottked. Firstly Kottked is just a word I made up to imply that my site was linked by Kottke. Who is Jason Kottke? This is what was on Wikipedia (yeah he is listed on Wikipedia!):

Jason Kottke (born September 27, 1973) is a well known blogger and former web designer currently living in New York City. He designed the popular Silkscreen font which has become widely used in web design and has won a Lifetime Achievement Award as a blogger.

Kottke was a pioneering blogger who began his blog in March 1998. As of 2005, his blog is one of the highest-ranked personal sites on the Blogging Ecosystem.

In 2000, Jason Kottke and then-girlfriend Meg Hourihan were profiled in a New Yorker article, You’ve Got Blog, which introduced blogging to a wider audience. The minimalist web design of kottke.org is considered influential, and Kottke was one of the first bloggers to create a sideblog called “Remaindered Links”, which are interesting web links with no commentary. His contributions to blogging were acknowledged when he won a Bloggie Lifetime Achievement Award in 2002.

His blogging also got him in trouble with Sony when he broke the news of Ken Jennings’ loss on Jeopardy!.

On February 22, 2005, Kottke announced he had left his web design job in order to work on kottke.org full-time. He pledged that all content on the site would still be free while encouraging readers to become “micropatrons” by making an optional contribution of any amount. This made him the first person to “professionally” pursue his weblog without sponsorship. By close of business on the day of the announcement, there were over 200 people listed as micropatrons on his website. As of April 15th, 2005, the total number of micropatrons stands at 696.

[Wikipedia]

Like Nibaq just posted, Adobe just acquired Macromedia. What does this mean to us? Well first lets see what major software both companies have.

Adobe
Acrobat, Photoshop, Elements, Illustrator, InDesign, GoLive, Premier, After Effects

Macromedia
Flash, Dreamweaver, FreeHand, Director, Fireworks

The biggest and most controversial problem is Illustrator and Freehand. Both softwares are currently being used although in the past few years FreeHand has lost a considerable share of the market, they still have a cult following. But, between Illustrator and Freehand, there is no question, Freehand will die. Its been dying slowly anyway but I am sure the fans will cry murder. Fireworks which conflicts with Photoshop and Elements will also die out, Photoshop has a much larger market share and a much stronger brand. GoLive and Dreamweaver, GoLive is out for sure. Adobe has been trying to play catchup with Dreamweaver for a very long time and this way they can just trash GoLive and pickup the much more popular Dreamweaver. Director will be a very nice addition to the Adobe Suite and I hope they manage to integrate it nicely with the other Adobe software, which I am sure they will. Finally owning both Flash and Acrobat I think is a very strong package, PDF is used a lot in the print world while Flash is used alot in the digital one. Owning both means that they will have a very strong position in both medias. All they need now is to buyout Quark and we will have another Microsoft-like company to deal with.

I just found the coolest website, something I didn’t know existed in Kuwait. The site is actually a car talk forum but based in Kuwait. The members there discuss their latest car upgrades, or a recent car they spotted or which car they raced on what street. Its amazing stuff. Here are some examples of the topics they are discussing:

A8 Quattro Killed moi….. was worth it..
DB9 spotted (with pics)
Driftmaster accident (wallah maa testahel)
HaSsOnY Car Accident!! Gulf Road
SLR in Q8 (with pics)

There are tons more interesting topics and sections for all street racers or car modifiers in Kuwait. Very very interesting stuff and all this is in Kuwait! The website is Q8speed.com. The picture above of the Lamborgini’s is from a Q8 Speed gathering at AUK.

Its been a week now since I got my Sony PSP so, here is a review of my impressions.

The Screen
When we first got the PSP, both me and nat were completely surprised at how cool the screen was. It was stunning, nothing like anything we had seen before. Now, a week later, the screen still does look as good but of-course the shock and awe period is over. The colors and the contrast are really perfect. When one of us is playing the other one can still see the screen. The viewing angle didn’t seem to matter much, wherever the other person sits next to you, they will be able to see the screen. The 2 dead pixels are totally invisible. They are still there but they are so small you can’t see them, only when the screen is completely black you might be able to spot them, depending on how good your eyesight is. The screen is huge, and I am sure some people will manage to break it, and that makes me wonder, how much will a replacement screen cost and can it be replaced?

The Controls
The buttons are all laid out like the PS2 controller. The analog controller isn’t what I thought it would be. I was expecting it to be larger and more like the analog controllers on the ps2 and xbox joy-pads, but the one on the psp is smaller and slides in different directions and doesn’t tilt. Its awkward to use but maybe I could get used to it. Until I do though I am have been using the regular directional pad for 95% of the time. One major problem I have is the Power/Sleep button. Its located to the right of the device and sometimes when I get excited and press the R button on top hard, the whole device moves in my hand and that results in me accidently activating the power switch and putting my PSP to sleep. It hasn’t happened a lot but enough for me to mention it as a problem. Luckily they must have thought about this and there is a HOLD button which stops the PSP from accidently getting turned on or off. The start and select buttons are located under the screen next to the mute and brightness buttons. When the room is dark its hard to find the start button and you cant really feel your way to it since it isn’t extruding from the PSP that much. It would have been a lot cooler if the buttons under the screen had backlighting but then I guess it would be annoying when playing games.

The Handling
How does it feel holding the PSP? It’s not perfect but definitely feels better then holding the GameBoy SP. The gameboy SP was squarish and tiny, it never felt comfortable in my hands. The PSP on the other hand is much wider and so allows me to stretch my fingers completely underneath it. I would have preferred it if the PSP had more rounded edges but I am sure it would have made it look a lot uglier.

The Battery Life
When I first got the PSP I was expecting that I would face battery problems but I haven’t yet. The PSP is like a PDA or a phone, you use it through out the day at different intervals, then at night before you sleep you put it on charge. You can save battery life by dimming the screen a bit, it has 3 brightness settings, low, med and high. When the room is dark I have it on low since the high brightness is blinding, this also helps extend the battery life. You can actually keep it on the low setting all the time since really its not low at all and is very usable. Anyway basically I did not have any battery problems. Incase you will be traveling on a long flight, my advice is get an extra battery for $40. Its as easy as replacing the battery on your walkman.

Load Times
I was concerned with load time. I thought the load times would be a real pain. Well they are not. Since most of us own PS2s or Xbox’s then we are used to load times. But the PSP has one advantage over the PS2 and Xbox, sleep mode. With sleep mode you never have to load a game from start which is when most of the loading time goes. Instead, when you want to stop playing, you just hit the power switch and it puts the PSP to sleep. When you want to play again you hit the power switch again and it instantly comes on and you are back to where you left off. You can go to sleep at any point in the game, even in a middle of a race if you want. Its very practical. Load times from menu to game takes around 10 seconds, depending on the game but you don’t really notice it since we are already used to it from our xboxs and ps2s.

Connectivity
You can mount the PSP as an external hard-drive on your PSP by connecting it via USB. Thats if you have a memory-stick installed. Once you connect the PSP to your computer you can do many things. Mainly though you can copy movies, pictures and music onto the PSP. I got a software for my mac called iPSP, this software allows me to sync my PSP with iPhoto, iTunes and even converts any movie I have on my Mac so that it becomes viewable on the PSP. The biggest advantage of this USB connectivity is that you are now able to backup your game-saves AND most importantly, download other peoples saves from the web onto your PSP. Say for example you don’t have the time, skill or patience to open up all the cars in Need For Speed (cough cough like me cough cough) you can just download a 100% Complete save from the web and then copy it onto your PSP and just like that you now have all the cars and money you could ever dream of. Its all very easy. If you have wifi at home you can connect your PSP to the web to play multiplayer games or to download updates. It was very easy to connect the PSP to the local network and once I did it I was able to click the Download Content button in the game WipeOut Pure and the PSP opened up a web browser and took me to the WipeOut site. They didn’t have any content for me to download but when they will I would be able to get it. Once you are connected to the web there is a button in the main menu which checks and sees if your PSP has the latest software installed, if not, then it would download it for you and install it. In the near future you will be able to play games online against other people but at the moment no online multiplayer games exist.

The Games
I have WipeOut Fury, Tony Hawk and Need For Speed.

Tony Hawk – With Tony Hawk I was able to map my face onto a skater! I always wanted to do that. Basically what you do is you take your picture (I used my passport photo), and you save it as a 128×128 pixel jpg and you copy it onto your psp. Then in the game there is an option to download face, you click it, find your picture and press ok. Thats it, then you make minor adjustmants like skin tone and stuff and you are done. In the picture above I was trying to get my nose the right proportion. The game in general is basically exactly like the console versions. If you want a full review check out IGN.

WipeOut Pure – Wipeout is a showoff the system graphics game. Everytime I am showing off the PSP to someone I load Wipeout. Its fast, its 3D and its futuristic.

Need For Speed – This is currently the most game I play. Its extremely fast, and the graphics are also cool. Its my pick up and play anywhere game.

Conclusion
The PSP is definitely the coolest portable game system out there. The only competition is the Nintendo DS which pales in comparison. The PSP is not cheap but its not meant for kids either. The PSP is also not just a game system, its a portable entertainment center. Its a movie player, music player, picture viewer, videogame system and maybe in the future an internet browser. The system has a lot of potential and I am person waiting for MAME to be ported to the PSP, that would kick ass. Final score 4.5 out of 5.

Someone at the office just got me the KDD space shuttle icecream called Columbia (yeah after the space shuttle Columbia that blew up). I hadn’t had it since I was a kid and so it was nice to have it again. I was trying to figure out what it tasted like though and I couldn’t figure it out. So I checked the ingredients and there was something called Boysenberry. That sounded a bit fishy, Boysenberry, Poisonberry… notice the similarities? So I did a quick search and it turns out Boysenberry is an actual fruit, who would have thought!

A boysenberry is a cross among a blackberry, red raspberry and loganberry. It was created by Rudolph Boysen, and first commercially cultivated by Walter Knott.

So now I know what Boysenberry is, I still don’t know how KDD could call an icecream after a Space Shuttle disaster.. [Link]

I just witnessed the strangest thing. There is a new pigeon on the ledge outside my window and he seems like a tough guy. The first thing that grabbed my attention was his hairy feet, like really hairy. Didn’t know pigeons good have hair on their feet yet alone this much. So I was was starring at the pigeons feet thinking what name to give him, when suddenly he started chasing this pigeon. They were both running outside and the hairy feet pigeon was trying to peck the other pigeon with his beak. Finally the second pigeon flew away. Hairy pigeon then proceeded to chase another pigeon! This fucker like chased 6 other pigeons off the ledge until he was the only one standing there. THEN, if that wasn’t enough, their were 2 pigeons sleeping below the ledge, the guy jumped them both! In the end he was the only pigeon left. So I decided to give him the name Zaeem which means chief in arabic. Then when everything went quiet, a super pigeon appeared. This other pigeon which I decided to give the name Rambo started chasing Zaeem. He wasn’t able to make Zaeem fly off but he was able to chase him till he ended up at the far end of the ledge. Now every-time Zaeem comes close to the other pigeons near my window, Rambo chases him back to the far end of the ledge. It’s really fun watching all this. Makes you wonder whats going on in their minds. I also decided to call the toeless pigeon Tobby.

Here is a picture of Zaeem with his hairy feet

The PSP sold 620,000 handheld units and 1.1 million software units in March while the Nintendo DS has sales of only 420,000 to date since the begining of the year. The PSP launched on March 24th that means that Sony sold nearly one PSP per second in the first 8 days of the handheld’s launch. [via]