*imagining Rgaya o Sbeecha with a khaisha full of cash coming out of the bank X1000*

Thanks Bo9ale7.

I was told that the gas stations in Kuwait won’t be operating tomorrow due to a strike. I don’t have anymore info about this. We just filled up all of our cars’ tanks.

Update:
The strike was only in KNPC stations, and Mr. Solutions just said that it has ended coz the KNPC management agreed to give the union what they want.

Our friend got his neck hurt while playing volleyball in the chalet and we rushed him to Al Adan hospital.

The whole Adan experience was a sad one. I went in expecting the worst kind of doctors with the worst attitudes. I expected to have a bad experience as a result of incompetent staff. But that wasn’t the case.. that wasn’t the case at all. The doctors were doing their jobs to the best of their abilities and the nurses were running around to help as much as they could. I’m not going to talk about the receptionists because, simply, they do not qualify as human beings (inshallah ma3ashat’hom zaqqoom bichbood’hom) so i won’t mention them (again).

The one thing that was bringing the whole thing down.. the one thing that was wrong with the hospital (aside from the building itself) was the people. The patients and their families. As soon as we were by the doctor’s door the shoving and cutting inline started. We saw our number flash on the screen and went to the doctor to find a whole other family entering before us and taking our turn. And when they came out, another women wanted to cut inline and even had the nerve to feel offended when we refused to let her go in before we do.

When we were in the doctor’s office and our friend being diagnosed, there was atleast 5 attempts to open the door. The nurse had to lock the door.

There are always people complaining about the doctors in Kuwait and how they’re not doing their job. How they get misdiagnosed and stuff.. But now I know, in my opinion, the main cause behind such complaints.

The Kuwaiti people need to take lessons and be parented all over again before we are let out on the streets. We should go to some sort of a facility with courses where they teach us how to respect our own boundaries.. and then a whole set of other courses to teach us all about other people’s rights. How do you expect the doctor to give you a fair treatment when the nurse has to block the door by force as to not let other people in while you’re being diagnosed? How do you expect to get the doctor’s full attention when there is some idiot outside the door banging like a maniac wanting in? What goes through YOUR mind when YOU cut inline??

I think the state of Kuwait’s hospitals perfectly fits the state of it’s People’s mentality.

My friend Talal who is a student in Dubai just wrote us saying there is a big issue going on with all the Kuwaiti credit cards (Visa, Master, and even Visa electron) that’s been used in Dubai within the last 6 months. He said they’re suspending all the cards and issuing new ones due to recent theft incidents.

He also said that NBK is going to send him his card via DHL, and that if someone who’s in dubai and in desperate need for cash, they can lift the block on his card just temporarily in order for him to withdraw some money and then block it again right away.

Did you guys know about this thing? I didn’t. All I know is that they’re replacing all of their cards with new ones with a chip in them. Sort of an update and not something serious.

Thanks Talal.

Update:
I just spoke with someone from NBK and he confirmed that there have been many pretty big hacks and theft incidents on credit & debit cards used in Dubai in the past 6 months. And it’s happening with all the other banks too, not just the NBK.

I’m sure we’ve all seen Zain’s new backup ads by now with the old man and his old wife. It created quite a stir when they first aired during ramadan.

The ad basically used the old wife character to portray how she (the mobile) can be easily replaced by the old husband with another mobile incase of loss, damage..etc if he subscrib with Zain’s backup service. Most women (and some men) in my family found it offensive. My mother wanted to write a post on this blog and give Zain a piece of her mind. Other female members of my family were also offended and quite shocked by how degrading to women this whole ad campaign was. Other people had mixed reactions. Me and Mishary had our own little debate where one of us thought it is completely and utterly inappropriate to compare mobiles to women (wives) and the other thought they were funny. We even received emails asking us to say something about those ads. Here is an excerpt from an email we got:

“Zain should stop airing them immediately and apologize to all the people who felt offended by the Ads”

I also asked some of my friends and got different responses. Their responses:

1. I LOVE it! I laugh each time I see them on tv.
2. They’re hard to get.
3. Sexist and offensive.

and this has to be the best response and the most intriguing argument I got:

4. The ads ruffle some insecure feathers. It plays on typical and old stereotypes. Our grandfathers used to think somewhat similarly about women; they’re replaceable. And this what annoyed the Kuwaiti females the most.. It would’ve been offensive if they hired a young couple to do the ad, but they didn’t, they made them old, and that is how (most) old Kuwaiti men used to think about women anyway.

ma3alaina.. We’ll let you decide for yourselves. Participate in the poll on the right sidebar to answer this question:

What do you think of the new Zain backup Ads?

 

 

 

How long it will last?

Posted by BlackBerry BOLD

No Comment .. (Gal 6aleg’ha wekheth ekhet’ha gal …… )

Today I got an email saying that Disney’s products causes cancer, But i didn’t believe it until i checked the official website of Disney and found this warning:

“WARNING: This product contains a chemical known to the State of California to cause cancer, or birth defects or other reproductive harm.“

It is located under most of the product of Disney, you can check it out yourself by clicking this LINK.

You can find it on the bottom right corner in the page.

They called him and informed him that he won! He won a discount card and should come to claim his prize. He went and sat through an hour of questioning, which was the only thing he had to do in order to get that discount card. After answering the questions for an hour, they told him that his card should be ready in 3 days.

He’s been calling them for 3 weeks now, they’re either ignoring his calls, promise to call back and never do or put him on hold and never return. They scammed him. And you know whats funny? They just called him on his other mobile number, and without knowing it was him, told him that he just won a prize and should come by!

She wasn’t the best maid, she didn’t speak english or arabic and she was lazy. We were going to let her go as soon as we come back from our vacation. When we came back we were surprised to find that she wasn’t only planning on stealing many of our things, but she also was abusing our trust by wearing and using some of our stuff behind our backs.

Some of the stuff she was planning on stealing:

• Blankets.
• Clothes.
• Food (Rice, Dates, Milk.. among other things)
• Crystal Salad bowls.
• Kitchenware.
• Soaps (more than you could ever imagine)
• Many other little things.

She was planning on shipping all this stuff in this big metal box (shown Below). The box weighted more than a 100kg. The below pictured things are only a sample of what was in the box.

Ofcourse she denied having stolen those stuff and claimed she bought them with her own money, and the funny thing is, the dates were a gift from a relative and the name of that relative was printed on the cover, and when we asked her she said she got it from a shop in the city. When she was promising not to steal again while crying her way out of our house, we couldn’t help but feel very [very] sorry for her.

The other day Abdullah was in Bayan Co-Op and he found this, i wont say more about it, but do they think we are that dump?! me7na zaydeen las3aar bas ha ?! benqalel el kameya! (The price stays the same but the amount is less.)

Can anyone explain this?

I’ll keep you with the rest of the pics.

Read the rest of this entry »

In the past 4 days my internet was SO SLOW! I cant even write a post. So as usual I called 107 and they kept me waiting for almost 20 min. Ok o ba3dain ?! what do you think the solution was? Take your sim card from the router, restart it and wait 10 mins. (( for those who dont know Zain’s its a normal procedure with ANY PROBLEM)) So, I waited 10 min with no sucsses. I called again and made a complaint. Until now the problem isn’t solved. And the guys there keep sayin ‘Zain Thanks Your Call!’ thanks for what?! Don’t thank me! solve my problem! Sij I’m annoyed at them!

We were having some technical difficulties all day today. The site wasn’t showing up for some people, and for others, including me, it was frustratingly slow. Turned out the hosting company had some server overload and they promised to have it fixed by now.

Thanks 9K2HN for the help. We appreciate You.

The conveyor belt at the suitcases’ X ray machine before the check in cunter, Dubai Airport:

One by one, the bags started to rise and fall over each other, the place was getting crowded, lots of people in one place trying hard to find and pick their bags, thats when I noticed that the little blue box containing our phones and wallets was about to get nudged out of place and all the things would fall into those little silver rollers. “Please! Hold the machine! just stop it for a second.. our things are falling” I said to the Emarati lady (clown face) operating the X ray machine. Her reply was: a disgusted look, a very obvious change in her face features that implied even more disgust, and a squeaky whiny “Whaaaat?!!”. Me and INM asked her again to stop/hold the machine coz we can’t find and pick the bags when there are lots of other bags piling up by the second.. She stopped the machine to say “I can’t stop the machine!!” “You just stopped it!” INM pointed out. She gave another condescending reply and showed disgust. We picked our bags and started walking toward the check-in counter. We were a good distance away from her when I said to INM “she don’t know how to operate the machine” (mat3arf teshte’3il).

Next thing we know, someone barked nearby and came up to us. He was a nobody, a tiny officer, who I think was employed to fill a void that never existed. He was Emarati too. The guy (greasy hair) heard my comment to my friend about clown face and was offended on her behalf. She did NOT hear me. He raised his voice and began motioning with his hands and asked many questions. “Yes I told my friend that she’s doesn’t know how to operate the machine. I don’t think she’s doing her job properly, thats just my opinion” I said to greasy hair, and he started to bark even more and asked for our passports (the passports were with Mishary, and he was at a counter very far away from us) He demanded the passports and INM went to bring them. Long story short, the guy took our passports, asked about our take-off time, and we told him that its on 8:20. He gave us a look that said “You might not be on that plane when it takes off.” Seeing him in that pose trying a bit too hard to fake authority was a sight out of a sitcom.

A little while later many officers came and started questioning us. We told them what happened. No one believed us. Greasy haired nobody said “He yelled at her to stop the machine then yelled again and told her how she’s not doing her job properly and how she can’t operate the machine. He was yelling at her!” Me and INM couldn’t believe our ears. The guy was lying his face off! We asked him if that is exactly what happened? “Wallah thats what happened!” He lied. We raised our hands as to say “We can’t compete with a lier”.

The questioning lasted a good 30 minutes. Me and INM stood our grounds. We did not offend clown face. She did not hear us. We did not want her to hear. greasy hair heard us and he told the girl what we said. But now that we’re painted guilty and liars, I stopped talking to the guys and asked clown face one question..

Me: Was I standing facing you, yelling at you and saying….etc?
Clown face: You said mat3arf teshte’3il.
Me: To you? Did you hear me? Was I standing there and yelling at you with those words?
Clown face: she was portraying 2 looks now. *disgusted look* and *I can’t believe he’s talking to me and no “sorry” came out yet* look.
Me: Did you hear me say that to your face, Was I Yelling?!!
Clown face: What difference does it make!? You said it!!
Me: I’M ASKING YOU! JUST ANSWER THIS ONE QUESTION!

You see if I got to prove that she did not hear me and that I wasn’t even addressing her with my remark, let alone YELLING, I would prove that greasy hair was lying and clown face too was not saying the whole truth and that they had no case. The other officer sensed where I was going and stopped me “You don’t get to ask questions, only we do.”

Clown face: At first I was ready to forgive them but now I want to take them to the airport police office! (Her demand was ignored by everybody).

She was expecting a “I’m sorry” from me. Poor thing.

Nothing got to me till now, nothing. Not until the fat officer started handing us our passports.

He said many things. 2 things stood out:

1- Keep your opinions to yourself the next time, We don’t want to hear them.
2- We, emiratis, don’t insult employees while they’re doing their jobs (the way he said was a direct stab at my country and it offended me as a Kuwaiti).

I was offended by Dubai’s airport employees. We were talked down upon. Implicitly called liars many times. Treated as if we were criminals.

And all that for what?

For asking clown face to hold the X ray machine to stop the bag piling on top of our stuff and then telling my friend (far away from her) how I think she’s incompetent.

ma agool ila…. Malat 3albamyah.

We arrived at Dubai’s airport 40 minutes late due to some annoying bearded guy who refused and his family to sit in the seats they were given. The guy didn’t stay onboard for long coz he didn’t accept the seats given and they didn’t have any choice other than letting him off the plane. The reason of the delay and the apologies were announced over the speakers atleast 5 times, They were quite mad at the bearded guy when they phrased the reason. Anyway, As soon as we arrived we rented a car and headed to Burjman. We window-shopped for a bit and then went to The Noodle House; The happiest place on earth.

I’m a big fan of The Noodle House. I used to eat there 2wice a week when I was studying there.. I was happy they decided they wanna eat there. It’s been like 5 months since I last ate there, and I missed it.

The food is unparalleled, no matter where I go and how many chinese/Asian dishes I try, The Noodle House remains the best in every way.

We’re planning on taking Dubai by storm and make the most out of the little time we have here.

I took my Nintendo Wii to AlRehab in Hawally to solve the previously mentioned problem. I asked around till someone suggested trying a shop called The Japanese Corner “Alrukn alyabany.” The guy there said I need to upgrade “a6awwer” the console so it could play NTSC, PAL and DVDRs. He asked for 20kds for the chip he’s going to install, and we ended up agreeing on 18kd. 2 hours later the chip was installed.

The problem is partially solved now, Mario galaxy worked but Mario Kart didn’t. I’m going back to the shop to see what could be done.

Thanks for the tip guys.

I bought some Wii games from europe and I’m trying to play them on my Japanese Wii and they’re not working. Its saying that its unable to read the disc. I read over the net that my Wii console is an NTSC one and the games I have bought are PAL. Is there any way to still be able to play the games? any software or modification?

master, over at fyonkat just wrote a post about her embarrassing encounter with a waiter in geneve, Read it here, and She inspired me to write about my own embarrassing encounter with a waiter. It happened in 1996. Here is how it went:

Me and my friend were sitting in a cafe near the lake. We ordered cokes and the waitress brought them over, she was very friendly and all smiles.

I tend to spill drinks at restaurants. Sometimes when I try to describe something my arms make drawings in the air and other uncontrollable motions. Lets just say I can’t sit at a cafe or a restaurant without making a scene and most of the time the spilled drink finds it’s way to my shirt, and this time it was no exception I spilled the coke all over the table with one swift motion. The waitress came running and said “C’est pas grave” (no problem) and brought a towel and started to clean the table.

Waitress: So…who is the pig!
Me: *pointed at my friend* HIM! he’s the pig! He spilled it!

The waitress smiled.

Friend: Me.
Me: *I was amazed at how he was ok with being called a pig*
Waitress: what day you were born?
Me: 1st of january.
Waitress: wow! 1st of january! on new year!
Friend: and I’m on 25th of december.
Waiter: WOW! he’s on new years and you on christmas!

We all laughed and chatted for awhile and then she left. I then asked my friend about the “pig” thingy and then he said..

Friend: She did not say PIG! she asked who is BIGGER! OLDER! not who is the pig!

Ohh….. hehe… Errrrrr….

Khosh wallah.

Thanks Om MiMi.

Update:

It appears that this product is either fake or someone wanted to market it to the wrong people, and whoever did this is going to get in trouble coz, according to the below statement, there is an investigation going about this product.

DVLz, a reader of our blog, just commented with the following:

The ‘Pasar Fresh Pork (Air Flown)’, packed for NTUC Fairprice Co-operative Ltd, 680 Upper Thomson Road, Singapore 787103, is not Halal-certified by Muis. Our investigations at eight NTUC outlets on 31 October 2007, immediately upon receipt of this feedback from a member of the public, revealed that the said product did not bear the Muis Halal certification mark.

Please be informed that Muis is working with the police on this matter. It was reported by Channelnewsasia on 1 November 2007 that the NTUC Fairprice had filed a police report over what it claimed as an act of mischief to tamper with the packaging of the pork product.

Source: muis.gov.sg/faqs/

Thanks DVLz.

My brother once told me not to try any chinese restaurants outside of Kuwait. He said that the chinese restaurants in Kuwait are very careful when cooking the dishes, they don’t want to alienate their Kuwaiti customers by cooking real chinese food, coz sometimes its too much for them to handle. My Brother basically said that in Kuwait they cook Kuwaiti friendly chinese dishes.

My brother’s favorite chinese restaurant in the world is Peacock in SAS Hotel, since Peacock is highly overrated in my opinion, I tried to take his advice with a grain of salt. I wanted to prove and make a point to myself, that there are good chinese restaurants out there, somewhere.

Today, I was out by myself, and I like to try new places when there is no one around. The reason I don’t prefer eating at new places with people with me is coz I don’t like the disappointed look and the “its all your fault” stare when the food turns out to be inedible (which often is the case). Anyway, As I was saying, I was out by myself and wanted to try a chinese restaurant, to prove a point. I entered the first restaurant I saw. Its called Chez Leung. There was no one inside besides the 2 chinese guys eating at a table near the kitchen and talking with the waitress, they were her friends, I think.

I chose a table and sat. I inspected the place for awhile, thinking to myself “this looks like a nice authentic restaurant. Look at the plants, the frames, the little plastic kitty waving, the plants again, the music… err.. the music?!” the Eagles “Hotel california” was playing from the speakers. Not so authentic. I was expecting some whiny girls singing words I don’t know. The waitress came, very friendly, took my order then went to the kitchen, all the while smiling like she’s just seen a friend. I took out my laptop, no wifi signal, returned the laptop back only to find the waiter standing next to me with my starters. The dish came out fast, definitely not a good sign. My starter was chicken on toast with sesame. It tastes bland, I couldn’t really taste the chicken, it tasted like a dessert called Samsamiya, Which I hated since I was little. My brother was half right by that now. But there was still hope, a chance for me to be right for doubting my brother. Not so long after she took my first dish, she came back with the main course, Hot & Sour chicken. It did not look very appetizing, and the mood they’re trying to set with the music is not working out well. By now George Michael’s “Careless whisper” was playing, followed by “you take my breath away”, Savag Garden’s “I knew I loved You”, Bryan Adams’ “Everything I do”. At first I was blaming the radio for playing all those songs, but after hearing them all back to back it was clear now that it wasn’t the radio playing all those songs, it was a them.. the restaurant! coz no radio would risk its reputation by playing all these sappy songs consecutively! (unless its 99.7 RKFM).

I finished eating and asked for the check. I couldn’t have been more off with the restaurant choice. The food was horrible, The place was not as authentic as I hoped for (I saw a ketchup bottle) and the music selection was… no comment.

I paid and headed to the door, A song started playing as I was stepping out the door, I couldn’t really catch it, it went something like this “If… I.. Shoould stay.. I would only… be in..”

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