Moved out - Part 2

Somehow , my new blog hasnt been listed on Safat blogs. i guess the guys been busy. Anyway , this is just a repost. you'll can visit me on http://blog.rayboy.org

Thanks

Moved out....

I decided to move out of blogger.com ... have been having too many problems... you guys can visit me on http://blog.rayboy.org

Of Surplus Funds, Paying Gift Money & Writing off loans verus Power Cut, water Problems!!!

Im not sure that this is a controversial topic... But i do know this...

Of the recent Oil price increase in the span of 6 months. Kuwait has been havign a major surplus of their economic funding. In return to this the Government has decided to fund , their people, writing off loans.

It nice to know that the government is concerned about their people who as "supposedly" having financial difficulties.... To what i have understood living in kuwait for the last 20 years, that Kuwaiti's have alot of benefits in many sectors in kuwait. Somehow I dont understand the meaning of "financial difficulties".

The Salary scale difference to a local citizen towards an expat is extremely huge. So i dont really understand...

But being one of the richest countries in the world, and having huge donations to countries with crises... my question arises what actually is being done about building the economic infrastructure? .

• PreProgrammed Power Cuts
• Water Shortage
• Increase of inflation on consumer products due to monetary grants for citizens
• Shabby roads in many places
• Kuwait Tourism? is there one?
• ETC ETC?

the Government should consider the fact that these surplus funds could help kuwait , be a better place.. The Above points.. i dont find it expensive for a rich country like kuwait. But fixing the above points .. i do feel will make this place extremely great and cool place to work and live in.

My question in all of this ... is

WHO IS BLIND to PROBLEMS... when you have so much money ?

Residency Renewal Nightmares....

Its time to crib....crib crib...!

My Company Mandoop just resigned 2 weeks before my residency was due. So we have a new guy who has come in and taken over. Somehow he couldnt get my papers renewed with out me around...

So he says .. that i have tag along with him, since the shoon folks need to see my "FACE"...

EVen though i didnt understand the concept of seeing my face would help, i came.

So here we are at behbehani complex - sharq. In a Smoke Filled Room, with about 10 counters. But only 1 person working... this is like 10 am. My Mandoop seems to have got a queue number of 680 ...(300 people in front of us) while the teller is busy with number 379.

So i decided to wait around, while my mandoop buzzes with his other mates around. i just started to observe everyone ... i came down with the following notes.

1. The Place was smoke packed , even though there was about 10 "No Smoking " stickers.
2. The Queue Machine .. seems to have broken down after 30 mins .. and there seems to be a commotion, with all the people banging at it.
3. the lone lady, who was working behind one counter, kept on taking breaks every 10 mins thus delaying the queue further.
4. Suddenly 2 sumo looking dishdasha guys come and start waving their hands to everyone...and everyone is like "Saalam, Saalam, etc" i then found out that these are the so called Mudeers... (Coming at 10.30). Immediately about 20 people rush to them handing over passports and tons of papers.. The Mudeers get angry and shoo them away.
5. These So called Mudeers start calling out desperately ... HASSAN HASSAN HASSAN... everyone is looking around... The Mudeers get pissed off and start shouting again HASSAN HASSAN HASSAN.... and then eveyone is like where is HASSAN HASSAN....
6. Suddenly out of no where a peon (with uniform) comes running with 2 cocktail juices (spilling all over the floor)
7. The Mudeers kind of praise the peon( i think who is Hassan) with a pat on the back.
8. They sit on 2 counters and start talking to the lady on counter 1.
9. 30 mins go on .. no work done.
10. They start working.....
11. Lady Counter shouts at few people .. .everyone too scared to go to her.
12. My Mandoop takes the risk goes the lady.. using his Charm... somehow the lady agrees and takes in my papers .. looks at me... and says everything is ok....

Im out of there..... Half dazed with the smoke and the circus that i witness.....

I thought doing any work with the indian embassy was bad enough. i guess im wrong

Bootleg DVDs Exchange

I have a huge collection of DVDs about 250 ...of them. Which im converting into DIvx due to storage issues... (my Wife's been kicking me to keep my things organised.. so i got one of these TVISTO thingy and added a 500 GB Hard drive, and voila i have DIVX movies direct to my TV.

So now she knows this is possible, she wants me to tradeoff my DVDs for exchange of other movies....

So here i am .. SPending about 3 to 5 hours a day Getting my movies into DIVX format...

So anyone want to exchange for other movies... pls let me know
So far i got these done , which i can give away, all DVDs are in Cases

- Garfield
- Teaching Mrs Tingle
- Sindbad-Legend of the Seven Seas
- Hitch
- X2
- Electra
- Lion King -1
- Lilo & Stitch
- 4 in 1 ( Last Samurai/Mission Impossible 1 / MI -2/TopGun
- Stuart Little-2
- 4 in 1 (Resident Evil -2/Electra/Monster/In The Cut/CatWoman)
- 4 in 1 (Underworld/Mexico/KillBill/The RunDown)
- House on Haunted Hill (VCD - 2 disc)

--- more to follow

Disclaimer : im not selling the dvd's, but am giving it off in return for any other collection im looking for...

Im Currently Looking for these

- Golden Child
- Voltron - Cartoon Series
- Bionic Six - Cartoon Series
- Alfred Hitchcock Series
- Operation Condor 1/2

If you guys have any list of DVD's which you want to trade off , pls let me know

Creativity on your Treadmill......

We had purchased an automatic Treadmill this january... so that i could run at home, since jogging out is not possible.. since im too lazy to get up at 6 am or too tired to jog at 6 pm...

BUt ever since we got it home, its like about 10 times since January i have actually ran on it.... i have been looking at ways to make it more interesting to do so, so i placed it across the window , so i could watch cars go by the baghdad street(Salmiya)

Some how this video gives me better ideas.

Work ... Work....& More Work...

Been looking forward to taking my family for an outing, after being a workaholic, i need to make amendments and be with my family.... so i was thinking what to do ,,, maybe a swim at the messilah beach , or to a barbeque , probably a long drive down to Doha... But somehow the weekend seems to fly more sooner than a normal work day and everyone in my family seems have some deadline or the other finishing all their work tasks during the holidays...

i was just wondering , i though i was the workaholic , was trying to make time for home. If we all go out it usually for groceries or for shopping for clothes... There dont seem to be much good movies this month..

What everyone else is upto?

Customized Workhorse!!!

I just purchased a New Laptop, i noticed that most of the blogger are MAC folks.. but somehow still didnt manage to get hooked onto the mac revolution. Been an Avid user of Linux, but work calls me to use windows.

Anyway found this amazing new Laptop from HP built for the business user. Its ths HP NX6310 I purchased it for about KD 360, but then further upgraded , the specs now is

Intel Duo Core 1.8
1.5 GB DDR2 Ram
256 DDR Intel Mobile Grahics Accelerator
80 GB SATA Harddrive
Wirless/Bluetooth
DVD rewriteable / RAM drive
Active crystal Display 15 inch screen
and the rest (Onboard sound,network,modem,)
and its very light on the hands

anyone having the same?

Souk Haraj --- Gold Mine In Junk

I wonder how many of u , have found that place useful. Decided to drop in there last 2 weeks, to find many things.. found the following things which became extremely useful

1. Concrete Drill Bits for my Drill Machine - 10 Items ( .500 fils)
2. Wireless PCMCIA cards - 1 Item(.500 fils)
3. Network PCMICA cards with dialup - 2 items (1.o00 Kd)
4. All In one Pliers with screwsets - 3 items(1.000KD)
5. Furniture Rods -3 items (.400 fils)

all in perfectly good condition. By the way the PCMCIA cards came with drive CD.

any one else found cool stuff there?

Radio 99.7 -- Censored??

Well i dont know if this has been happening over a long time.. or its just recent..

Few days back had turned on the FM in my car to listen to some grooves. And there came "It wasnt me" By shaggy... So im like thats nice... and when he goes to the chorus

""Honey came in and she caught me red-handed
Creeping with the girl next door
Picture this, we were both __________ naked
Bangin' on the bathroom floor""

The volume suddenly decreased to hide the censored word... i was shocked for a moment .. then i thought maybe they have a bad copy of the track.

But from that day..on wards on most sound tracks if there is any words(which they think are obscene) the volume goes low for a split of a second.

Maybe they should put a "beep" sound on every word they catch....

SAD.... isnt the word