Fonzation

Finally, its time to come out and reveal my surprise!!!

My surprise is this will be my final post!

Why?

Cos Fonzy is proud to present

An Ananyah Production

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!Click Here!

After every weekend, you find it hard to get your brain to start functioning the first day. So you are sitting at your desk struggling to get things done which on a day during the middle of the week, would take you half the time. Half the day has past and I am feeling like a truck ran me over. Best medicine is a nice kick-ass coffee from second cup to have while working. Got me a caramel machiato and am sipping on it with big smile :D Cheers!!

Friday afternoon, I went to Rawda Co-op to take care of some grocery shopping. I had not eaten anything all day since I was so bummed out after Thursday night. But as I was walking out, I came across a baked potato stand. The smell overwhelmed me and, since I am a sucker to backed potato, I just had to try it. So I ordered me a potato which they cut in the middle and fill with cheddar cheese, topped with ketchup, mayo, salt, pepper, and other stuff you can add, but that was it for me. It was definitely one of the best baked potatoes I have ever had and its for only 750 fils. You gotta pay 4 times as much in restaurant where it tastes half as good. Highly recommend it.

I believe in the saying "quality not quantity". This past weekend was one of those times that reminded me of how true this quote is. The past weekend was pretty different. We were supposed to go to a party in a far isolated area in the desert but things didn’t work out. So we ended up simply going with the flow and seeing where we end up. We ended up going to a friend’s chalet who was hosting a small scale party which was pretty boring at first but, half way through the night, we were having our own fun which was great; I even got the chance to DJ and spin some of my musicJ At around 2:00 we got a call from another friend inviting us to another party so we head to it. It was very chilled out, and more like a night cap kind of night, which was nice. We chilled there for a few hours, and I didn’t even feel the time pass; next thing I know I am at home 6:00 a.m.!! I collapsed instantly and spent most of my Friday asleep recovering and making up for many lost sleeping hours.

There will be a lot of demonstrating going on in Lebanon today. Yesterday, on the news, Dr. Samir Geajea was asked if there will be a demonstration today to overthrow the lebanese so-called president, Emile Lahoud, and he stayed quiet shaking his head. That didn't look good. Many say that overthrowing Lahoud wont help much as there is a bigger power behind him, Syria, which needs to be resolved. But getting rid of this useless president, who has done nothing for the country but make it easier for outside forces to interfere and ruin the country, will definitely be something good for Lebanon and its people since nobody wants the country to be ruled by him. After all these terrorist attacks and assasinations, the people are all wound up and want answers and will resort to violence if they have to. If Lahoud is out, the people will at least calm down. The chances of a civil war are growing by the day, and as much as I hate admitting it, it might come sooner than we think.

Personal Note: Im sitting here on my desk reading the same page over and over again cos the only thing on my mind is the state my country is in and what will I hear on the news at the end of the day. God help us.

The Lebanese embassy in Kuwait will be accepting condolonces for Sheik Pierre Gemayel and Mass will be held at church. For more details, read Rampurple's post.

Today is the independence day of Lebanon. This day is celebrated every year with joy and happiness but this year it is full of darkness and depression as we bid farewell to the martyr, Sheik Pierre Gemayel. It just keeps getting worse with time. With this day, we are inclined to think and believe that Lebanon is actually an independent country whereas the fact is that it has never won its independence; there is always a stronger power controlling the government. Lebanon is a country that all the bigger guys want a piece of and has become the land where all disputes are handled irrespective of what happens to the country and its people. It might be our independence day, but I sure as hell dont feel independent. I am afraid of what the future holds.

I saw this ad on the back of the bus and for a split second I was thinking "what the hell are they talking about?" I mean we all know what they use this quote for most of the time :) But for the yellow card?!?!?!?! Couldnt they think of another catch phrase, ok they did get my attention but I was disappointed knowing it was for the yellow pages! What a poor advertisement, if I wanted to get a copy of the yellow pages, now I changed my mind. I mean, they might as well wrote "size doesnt matter!"

Al-Ahli Bank Retail Banking Division is pleased to announce the New Loan Campaign which includes:
(1) 4 Pprsche Cayenne - (1 every 2 weeks)
(2) KD 30,000 for 3 winners at the end of the campaign 31st Jan 2007.
(3) KD 100 for any customer who introduces a friend who take a loan.

This offer is for customers who have existing salaries with no loans, or have transferred their salraies to ABK, and get a new loan. Staff is also included, so if anyone wants a loan, let me know and I can get an incentive :P This offer is valid from November 19, 2006 to Januaru 31, 2007.

Yesterday was yet another sad and depressing day for Lebanon and all the Lebanese. Pierre Gemayel, the 34 year old industry minister and son of former Lebanese President Amin Gemayel, was shot dead in broad daylight in the New Jdeideh area north of Beirut. Reports said that a sport utility vehicle either rammed or pulled alongside Gemayel's silver KIA sedan and then was fired upon through the driver's side window, hitting the minister and at least two others. {More}

Looking outside my window from my office on the 12th floor :P, I see some traffic building up and for the first time I could see the cause of the traffic. So following the traffic to its source, this is what I see:

A DAMN PEDESTRIAN!!!

Goes to show traffic in this country is due to the dumbest reasons!

If you cant read the flier this is what it says: AUB alumni celebrates 140th anniversary. This is definitely one event I wont be missing!
Event: "Comedy Night" with some of the top Lebanese comedians (these guys are hilarious!!).
Date: Thursday, December 7, 2006
Location: At Arraya Ballroom, Courtyard Marriot Hotel
Time: 8:30 p.m.
Price: 20 KD
Contact: Check the flier, and if you still cant read the numbers, let me know.

After working myself to the max the past few weeks, I was feeling exhausted and I had reached my limit. Last night I was supposed to meet up with some friends for coffee, so decided to take a short nap and then get up and meet up with them; this was at 7:00 p.m. When I woke up, the clock read 5:00 a.m.!!! Ooops:P Yeah, I was pretty worn out, sleeping max 4-5 hours a day for over a month; there will come a time when you simply just cant go on and yesterday was my breaking point. But I really felt like going out, I guess I got some explaining to do :P Got me thinking though on whether this system I am following is healthy or not. I mean is it better to work yourself out to the extreme for a while then crash at once and make up for all the lost rest or sacrifice some of your entertainment and socializing hours at the end of every day and get an early sleep so you wake up refreshed every morning? For me, I dont think I can handle sleeping early and letting work be the only activity in my everyday life; if I dont see friends at least every two days, I know I will lose it. All in all, it was a terrific and refreshing much needed good sleep :)

Gotcha! :P

Nose Picker I

For those who dont know what the title means, its an arabic saying, mostly Lebanese, meaning "if he bothers you, get rid of him" and these pics speak for themselves :)

Yesterday was my first day at my course at IBS. When I first walked in, they had name plates for each of the students which we had to pick up and place before us. To start with, the teacher was 20 mins late and it was extremely boring waiting for him; when I got there, there were only 3 other guys in the room but the front table was full of plates. When the teacheer finally showed up, most of the other people had shown up. As usual, I sat all the way at the back of the class, just like the good olds days in university:) When the lecture finally starts, the dude is speaking in arabic!! We are supposed to be in an english-speaking institute, yet he is speaking arabic. Well that was fine by me, but there was one Indian student who had to focus on the notes to understand. The good thing was that we were given a copy of his notes so no need to take notes, that was a relief. It was a 3 hour class during which we had a 15 minutes break, when I had a coffee and a cigarette. All in all, the material was diverse and had some interesting points, although I already know most of the stuff which is why I am looking forward to learning new stuff in later classes; the teacher knows what he is talking about but sucks at explaining stuff, is dull, and for some reason, I dont think he likes me. As annoying as it was having to attend classes again, it reminded me of the university days, best days of my life!

Three monster video game systems are being released this season. Each has its own distinguishing specifications. I found this article that compares all three then you got separate articles for each on their special features and top games and other stuff. Personally, I would go for the PS3 or the XBox 360. Nintendo haven't been coming up with as much unique stuff. You can check out the comparison article then if you want more details, check out the links below.

Another test. This one is for your inner Wii, whatever that means, but I do know it has something to do with the Nintendo console Wii. But, as always, these tests are interesting and you learn some new stuff about yourself. Take the test if you are interested in knowing what your inner Wii is. This is what I got:

"A friendly and social person like you will be right at home with the Wii whether you're playing one of the great games or exploring the cool channels. And for a social butterfly like you, the photo channel is sure to be picture perfect!

From birthday parties to coffee dates to shopping trips, you enjoy being around other people. You not only want to experience life, but you also want to capture and keep those great memories for years to come. No wonder you're able to create lasting connections with those around you. With your zest for life, your inner Wii is always fun to have around. Rock on!"

Finally, the move is over. For the past week, I've been very busy packing my stuff and closing cases for this day to come. Today wehn I came into work, I see my desk totally empty; there was nothing there, not even the chairs!! It turns out they finally made the move official and we are now located on the 12th floor and damn it is one hell of an incredible view!! :) I got an amazing sea view and I get to see the country from a perspective I have never seen before. Plus I got my own office, no longer a cubicle:) Thats a plus!! Also, it is all peace and quiet here so no worries about distractions and can now actually get some work done. The only problem is being seated on the glass and when the sun comes, it will hit me strong. Working on get some blinds for that! But, all in all, am happy with the move. These pics are what I see out my window!! Incredible:)

Steve called me less than an hour ago from Los Angeles. After a long Thursday night, he was on his way Friday morning at 10:00 with a hangover:P We had a gathering at Kabab-Ji to bid him farewell and later went to a small house party, and then continued the night (actually morning:P) at his place till 5:00 a.m. Sounding exhausted from the long trip, he hit the sack after being greeted by relatives for 3 hours and is probably still asleep now, keeping in mind they are 12 hours behind us. Apparently, from the second he got on the plane leaving Kuwait, transit in London for 9 hours, and then on his way to L.A. he was enjoying the drinks all the way having beers and cocktails throughout:) He will be gone for one whole month!! As much as I envy him and it feels weird without him being around, he deserved this vacation and needed it badly. When he returns, he should be able to start fresh and be in a much better mood. Hope you have a great time bro and make the best of every second!!

Today has been the slowest day ever. To start with, I slept barely 2 hours last night and woke up in the grumpiest mood ever not wanting to go to work although I knew schools were off and roads were empty. And it was very hectic at work and since I am so spaced out, it was taking me double the time to get things done. Also, I usually turn to blogging for a bit to change my mood but for some reason nobody is blogging, only a couple posts were up so far and extremely minimal visitors! And now that the day is finally over all I can think of is bed, my new boss comes up to me asking me to help him move a suitcase from the hotel to his new apartment but doesnt have a car. Since I am new, and so is he, I have to get on his good side as of now so I agreed. But if he asks me to carry it, am gonna shove it up his ass! Cant wait till tonight comes cos I got one hell of a night planned. Tonight we are going to Kabab-Ji to have dinner where a lot of people will be gathered up to bid Steve farewell, who is leaving tomorrow for a month's vacation in the States. After that, got a house party which I dont have to worry about getting cancelled:) Thats it for now. Am off to get all this shit out of the way and go hug my pillow.

When I came into work this morning and checked my work email, I received an email from the HR department requesting I fill in the documentation for the IBS program. IBS stands for the Institute of Banking Studies and supposedly offers the top programs in the country. It was usually made only for Kuwaiti citizens but has recently been open to expats who are recommended by big organizations. So apparently I was recommended to join this program! :) I guess I got the attention of someone upstairs:) Basically, it is a three month program, every monday and wednesday, three hours each session. Although I already know most of the stuff they are gonna teach, it will be good to refresh my memory and have a certificate which will be great for my CV; plus all expenses paid. But one thing is for sure is that I am gonna hate my mondays and wednesdays! I start tomorrow:P

Been in Kuwait for over a year now and never tried Hardees. I barely used to have it in Lebanon except when I felt like their Roast Beef. I did end up trying it two nights ago, even if it were accidently. I ordered a chicken fillet combo and after I left, I remembered the pic posted on Mark's post about hotdogs and how good it looked, so I turned around and got me a hotdog sandwich..... it was a total disappoinment. As far as I'm concerned, the only time I will visit Hardees is when I am in the mood for a Roast Beef, otherwise they got nothing else to my liking. Oh yeah, I also like their cookies:)

I saw this poster on the road and thought I would share it with all Apple Bee's lovers. I think its been there for a while, but I just spotted it last night. Moving on, I spent all my world cup days there with a lot of people including Steve, Noush, Tal, Rampurple, Stallion, Maze, and many others. Cheers guys to great memories!!

Launched in Japan and soon in North America the Play Station 3 will sure be the hottest gadget in the market, I know I will be getting one as soon as they are available. But I read on Marzouq's blog that there is a rumour that it reached Kuwait and is 550KD, which I doubt to be true. Anyway, if you are a Playstation freak as much as I am then check out the rest of the PS3 pics........ cant wait till I get my hands on this baby!! :D {More Pics}

Correction: It was the Criticizer's blog where I read that the PS3 is being sold for 500 KD. My mistake.

Dont wanna sound like some romantic frenzy, but the sky seriously looked incredible this morning. This is exactly the view I want to see when I look up. Reminds me of home.

Working hours at the bank head office end at 2:30 but yesterday I walked out ay 7:30 in the evening so thats 12 hours of non-stop analysis of numbers and writing of financial reports, except for the hour I killed blogging:P Anyway, I had not had anything to eat except some biscuits in the morning so I passed by Jabriyah on my way home to pick up a sandwich for me and my dad, who for some reason likes Naif. So I went along with him. I parked next to Naif and walked into the place and started checking out the menu. Keep in mind that I worked 12 hours and had nothing to eat all day and was feeling very disoriented :P I was actually impressed cos I saw burger combos and hot dogs and stuff and was thinking "since when does Naif serve beef?" So I ordered what I wanted to order in the first place, chicken fillet combo, paid for it, and went outside to make a phone call while I waited for the food. I was pacing around talking on the phone with Soomi and I look up and I see Naif like 20 meters away. I WAS IN HARDEES!!!!! Damn I felt stupid!! :D

I am a member with the Lebanese in Kuwait (LIK) and been with them since over a year now. A few months ago, a new society was created called Cool Lebanese in Kuwait (CLK). LIK have been doing amazingly the past few years and ever since I joined them, I haven't missed any of their events. The CLK group have also been expanding and improving fast and are doing pretty well. They have been trying all sorts of different advertising and marketing strategies to attract as many members as possible and from what I'm seeing, its working. Been getting messages from them lately but never bothered to check their website until today. Personally, I didnt like their template and design much; I think its poor but they do have a lot of funky stuff up there. LIK, on the other hand, have a well organized and easy to read site. Also LIK events are on a higher scale and attract way more people. Still, lets not forget LIK has been around for years whereas CLK only a few months. Up till today, LIK attracted 1936 members and CLK 216 members. I see some strong competition coming up! Typical lebanese! Always competing!

For the past few months, my new department had no head so it was being run by the most senior analyst. But today, the new boss came in. He called us in one by one to interview and get updated on our backgrounds, what each is responsible for, what we have done, and what plans we have within this field. It took me a while to be on the liking list of my previous boss, and it seems it will be tougher with the new guy. He was impressed though by my background and my bilingual skills. Still, from my first impression, he is an up-tight, know-it-all, strict, and serious pain in the ass!! He wont last if he keeps up with this attitude! So I guess, in a way, back to square one.

A guy was challenged to eat 52 pieces of sushi in 20 minutes. If he loses, he has to pay for them all.

Wanna know if he made it?

Last night Steve and I went to Virgin, Marina Mall. I was surprised by how much the place changed. For starters, the panasonic section expanded and now has its own entrance and its own cashier. Now that got me wondering, why the hell is virgin renting out that space? I mean, its not like they got a huge area to be covered and they dont know what to do with it. This virgin is probably the smallest in the world and instead of making use of it, they decide that it will pour in more profit than if they use it efficiently. Moving on to the House/Trance CD section which I could get to blindly and what do I see? "Sorry for the Inconvenience"!!! Apparently, they are redecorating and shifted all the CDs to another area. I go to where they shifted the CDs and I find maximum 20 CDs!! I kept looking around thinking I missed something, but I didnt. Because of renovation issues and customs problems, they have not imported any new CDs during the past few weeks! My CD collection is bigger than the one they got displayed!! All I can say is that Virgin continues to dissapoint me, be it prices, meeting the worldwide known Virgin standards, and not being up-to-date on their products. And I hate where they put the new cashier stand, more wasted space. They gotta shape up, they have a lot to be sorry about!

Related post by Toxy on lack of DVDs.

For years I have bedazzled all those around me using my thumb with my SMS skills, be it the fact that I write messages blind folded as well as the speed at which I write. I can write a message while driving without looking at the phone and back in school and university I used to write messages to my friend at home asking for answers to exam questions, or during a boring meeting, or while getting a lecture from my boss or parents..... all under the table; and I never checked my spelling cos I rarely ever misspell. Today I ran into a very interesting article talking about the fastest SMSer who broke the guiness record by writing a 160 character SMS in less than 42 seconds. So I thought to myself.... big deal, I can do that!!

I set the timer and started typing like crazy and had a set text in front of me. I tried it with and without the dictionary. My results were:

Without dictionary: 1 min 13 seconds
With dictionary: 53 seconds

Usually there is a road block next to my house cos it is one of those roads that once you are on, there is no where to run. But there was never some set schedule when they stop there. But ever since end of Ramadan, security has been intense. Almost everyday when I leave to work and when I come back home and when I go out, there must be at least one car parked checking for ID, car registration, or any other kinds of violations. I see cars parked on the right cos of a dented fender, underage kids driving, expired licenses, even suspicous drivers who have a girl with them in the car or just dont look right. Several times I saw little girls in the back seat of the police car waiting for their fathers to come pick them up. The way I see it, they are doing a great job in upholding the law and they are very polite to all until they discover they have committed a felony... basically innocent until proven guilty; now I hope they do the same with all those crazy drivers on the highways!

Everyday when I head to work I am surrounded by a mob of kids since there is a school facing my building. You seem them standing in the middle of the street beating the shit out of each other, running after each other, eating a sandwich or something, or hiding behind some car smoking. Every single one of them, maybe one or two exceptions, is a devil of some sort. I mean what do you expect when all the students are boys or girls. The boys end up being trouble makers and the girls end up feeling deprived of seeing the world. I have always been in mixed schools and I think I would have gone crazy if I were in an all-boys school. The shit these kids pull in the morning is unbelievable, I never even thought of doing anything similar when at that age. Take smoking for example, I started with I was 20; I saw 14 year old kids carrying packs and the stupid bakala dude was selling them although it is illegal for those below 18! I sometimes actually worry these kids would do something to any of our cars cos I have seen them flatten tires before of those who told them to get off the cars. But luckily, I got an alliance going on with some of them:)