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Wasn’t there a law that got released that says companies can not take the passports of their employees? I thought that there was but I could be mistaken. The place where a friend works now are demanding all employees hand in their passports or else they won’t get paid. Do they have a right to do this?

BuzBerry, a blog run by a group of young Kuwaitis are trying to encourage people to read. To accomplish that they’ve set up a competition in which to enter you need to read and review one of the following four books:

1) A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah
2) As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
3) Night by Elie Wiesel
4) The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Now here is where things get interesting, there will be three winners who will win one of the following prizes:

First place: Nokia 8600 Luna
Second place: Apple iPod
Third Place: Apple iPod Shuffle

If you are interested in participating in this competition you need to email them by August 8th informing them. The deadline for entering your review will be September 1st.

For more information on this competition check out the BuzBerry blog. [Link]

[YouTube]

Tonight I passed by the recently opened Burger Bar in Kuwait City. I got there and found the two parking spots in front of the place empty so I parked my car and got down when the Holiday Inn security guard came up to me and told me I couldn’t park there. Since Burger Bar is located adjacent to Holiday Inn downtown, the security guard told me I wasn’t allowed to park in the two empty spots outside the restaurant. He told me I had to park across the street. I thought that was strange but wasn’t in the mood to argue and just went back into my car and parked on the other side.

The place from the outside looked like a Japanese restaurant and when I looked through the windows I saw what looked like Japanese waiters. I thought to myself this must be the wrong place, even Nataly was like “Mark this looks like a Japanese restaurant”. Once we walked around to the main entrance we saw the Burger Bar logo and realized we were at the right place. We walked through some dimly lit candles outside (very Japanese-ish) into the restaurant where we were greeted by waiters dressed in red silk clothing and black bandannas which again was very Japanese-ish. The place was empty except for one table with two men so we sat down wherever we wanted. We had two choices for seating, what looked like long benches or one of the booths, we chose the booth since it looked more comfortable. Our table was the smallest in the restaurant and I think it could easily fit 8 people. I don’t know if they were made for extremely overweight people or they believe that people eat in packs like hyenas but whatever their reason, it felt really awkward having the whole table for just me and Nat. The music that was playing was loud and guess what genre… it was country music. So, so far the place looked Japanese, had Japanese looking waitresses dressed in Japanese like clothing, playing country music and serving burgers. Pretty strange combination but I was like whatever, its “different”.

We got the menu and I decided to order the mozzarella fries for starters, the mushroom burger for my main course and a junior cheese burger for Nat (junior = slider). The waitress asked me what I wanted to drink and I told her Pepsi. She then replied saying they didn’t have Pepsi. I looked at her surprised thinking to myself what the hell, no soft drinks?? So I asked her what do you mean you don’t have Pepsi? She was like we don’t have Pepsi only Coca Cola. I was like god damn woman I thought you meant you didn’t have any soft drinks! Pepsi, Coke whatever its all the same.

The food arrived a while later and was fairly disappointing. The fries firstly weren’t that great, there was only a small portion of mozzarella over them and they weren’t even melted right. The burger had a strange flavor to it. The actual hamburger bun was great but the meat tasted like “kafta”? I am not sure what but it wasn’t very burgery.

Overall I wasn’t impressed. The mushroom burger was for KD2.500 and that was one of the cheapest burgers on the menu, the majority were around KD4 and KD5. The fries I believe were super expensive costing KD2.700 and they were sooo not worth it. Nats slider cost 750fils which is slightly more expensive then Burger Boutique which brings us to the question, is Burger Bar in the same league as Johnny Rockets and Burger Boutique? Hell no. Final score 2.5 out of 5. Although the Japanese Cowboy look is strange, the design of the place is still pretty cool. Other positives are lots of parking spaces across the street and the fact that you don’t have to call 4 years in advance to book a table is a plus. Food is lousy though but might be worth a visit just to check it out.

The best pictures I have seen of the new Land Cruiser so far. Interior looks pretty cool, exterior still looks like crap. They also have pictures of the new LX570. [Link]

Just found a blog called q8istuff.blogspot.com that has some cool vintage pictures related to Kuwait. I found two posts so far, one of the Free Kuwait demonstrations and meetings in London taken after the Iraqi invasion in 1990, and the second set of pictures are of the Kuwait football team from the late 70’s and early 80’s. The Kuwaiti football ones are extremely fascinating.

Here is the link to the Free Kuwait Pictures. [Link]

Here is the link to the Kuwaiti football team pictures. [Link]

“One day your computer will be a big ass table”

[YouTube]

note: this video is a parody of this [Link]

Has anyone tried the recently opened Burger Bar in Kuwait City? I haven’t been to it yet but I heard they had a soft opening and the place is located next to Holiday Inn downtown.

I have heard a lot about In-N-Out Burger from my friends, everyone who’s tried it tells me that they have the best burgers in the world. I just found this article on Laughing Squid which talks about why it has such a cult following. There is even a picture of their 100 patty, 19,490 calorie burger. We really need more burger places in Kuwait, Wendy’s and A&W should seriously reopen. [Link]

Today was the third and final day of the three day shoot. When I woke up in the morning I was worried that the shoot was going to get postponed till tomorrow since today was declared a national mourning day after the assassination of the politician yesterday. Luckily it wasn’t canceled and we went ahead with the shoot.

We started shooting late at around 10AM today because it took a lot longer to setup the market then expected. Once everything was setup it just looked really great and full of colors and colorful characters. I took a ton of pictures which you can check by clicking the link below.

Tomorrow morning I have to attend the color grading of the film in the morning and that should take a few hours. Once I am done I have to quickly rush to my hotel, pick up my luggage and head off to the airport to come back to Kuwait. I can’t wait to get back.

Today was the second day of the three day shoot. I was on set at 6:30AM and we were done awhile ago around 8PM. It wasn’t as exhausting as the first shoot but since I’ve only had a total of eight hours of sleep in the past two days I was extremely tired. I was still better off then some of the guys in the production team who had slept only two hours in two days.

While in the middle of the shoot we got word that there was an explosion a few kilometers away. We later found out a politician was assassinated. Another explosion, another day. Things are just a total mess over here.

To check out more pictures from todays shoot click on the link below.

I just got back to the hotel room, its 6:30 in the morning. We were out shooting since 2 in the afternoon and it lasted all through the night up until the break of dawn. I am extremely exhausted but I wanted to upload a few pictures of the shoot before I went to sleep. There were over 100 people on the set today so it was really packed. This was the first day of a three day shoot. Check out the pictures by clicking the link below.

Sweden was leading the game 3-0. Denmark then caught up in the second half and tied 3-3 but a Danish player ended up punching a Swedish player and got a red card. If that wasn’t entertaining enough a Danish fan then ran out onto the stadium and punched the referee. The game was finally canceled with only a few minutes remaining. Here are the highlights:

[YouTube]

Nine Inch Nails – Right where it belongs [YouTube]

I was also listening to Nine Inch Nails – Beside you in time [YouTube]
This is the coolest song on their live concert DVD because near the end of it when the song builds up to the peak, Trent Reznor interacts with the huge projection display in what has to be one of the coolest moment in any live concert. If you don’t want to watch the whole song just forward to 3:30 and wait for him to smash the screen.

Ansam posted a letter someone had written to Carrefour management complaining about the shopping cart rules. The person was pissed because he wasn’t allowed to push his cart through the mall. Well yeah, I kinda understand why that rule is in place. Imagine everyone roaming around Avenues with a shopping cart, it would be total chaos. But, if I understood his letter correctly, you are also not allowed to push your cart in the parking lot outside the designated Carrefour area. That I think might cause a problem since when you enter the Avenues parking during peak hours its difficult to find an empty parking spot yet a lone one thats in the Carrefour area. Anyway you can read the letter on Ansams blog. [Link]