Don’t ask me why, I just do. I get depressed the day before Eid. When I got the call earlier today, and I was told that Eid was Saturday, all I kept thinking to myself was ‘whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?!!?’

Let me exlpain -

1. I have to suffer the agony that is Eid
2. I also end up losing a day of vacation, meaning instead of going to work for 2 days only this week, its 3 days! I needed this long break!!
3. Arsenal game tomorrow at 3, which means I will probably miss alot of it, if not all! What makes it worse is that its a London derby game, Arsenal - Tottenham!

Oh cruel destiny!!!

On the plus side, Ramadan is finally over! Life goes on, and I will start my day with a big cup of coffee from starbucks

In recent days, everybody has been talking about Kuwait losing to India 3/2. As usual, everybody remembers football and the shit state that we’re in everytime we lose. I agree with everyone in saying that Kuwait football is far from being in a healthy position, in fact, it could be said that Kuwait football SUCKS!! But, even with us sucking, we actually have a high chance of reaching the second round of qualifiers for the world cup. If we do that, it would be an achievement, beating China to that spot!

Anyway, my point is that even in the shit recent form that we are in, there are two countries much worse than us. Qatar and UAE. There are lessons to be learnt from their experience.

Qatar spent millions the past 3 or 4 years on football, and instead of getting better as a result of the spending and bringing in foreign players such as Batistuta, Effenberg, Sonny Anderson, De Boer brothers, and Desailly…..to name a few, they got significantly worse. Qatar have no chance of advancing to second round, beaten twice by Iran and once by Jordan with one more game against them. Their only wins were against Laos!!

UAE is in an even worse position. After Al-Ain surprised everyone in the last two years, turning into Asian champions and destroying everyone in their path, the national team sucks even more than either us or Qatar! UAE lost their last two qualifiers against the Asian giants of Thailand and Yemen! LOL! And im not talking about 1-0 loss, it was 3-0 against Thailand and 4-1 against Yemen!

When you look at these results in other countries, who have spent all the money on their football, you wonder if its actually worth us getting into that too and spending millions on an organization which will be corrupt! One look at the clubs’ boards and you’ll see how impossible it will be to run a full football federation on a professional basis. We all know who will head the football federation no matter how bad our results are, and even when they resigned, they were voted back unanimously! LOL!! Absolute joke!!

The problem is that our players are always expected to win, but WHY!? For them to participate with their teams, they risk their work carreers, their education, and more importantly, public scrutiny for every move. We have to remember, they are not professionals!! They do not get paid to play football!! They come in part time after work hours and try their best, sometimes.

So, an argument could be said that we will never do anything until we get professional football which will force players to go to training, to be dedicated, to follow a healthy diet, and so on. To be honest, it would be nice if they did all of that now, but they really are not forced to, in the end, its just a part time thing that will last 4 or 5 years and then they will back in obscurity. For them to be professional, ALOT of money will have to be spent on getting the infrastructure reestablished and changing the whole Kuwaiti mentality on sports, which, according to what was said earlier, is probably useless, judging from the Qatar and UAE experiments.

So in the end, its a loss cause. What we should do is be realistic and decrease our expectation and keep reminding ourselves that sports in Kuwait is created for leisure only. Instead of investing in Kuwait, we should try sending our young exceptional players abroad to gain real experience. Use the model that Nigeria, Senegal, Turkey, Korea, and Japan have used in recent years with excellent results!!

Remember, football will always remain as 6umbakhiyaaa in Kuwait!

Is it just me, or has this Ramadan been the longest, slowest Ramadan EVER?!

My sleep is so messed up, yesterday I woke up at 1 pm, missed work obviously. Whats worse, is that I slept at 1 am, got up at 4, couldnt sleep till 7:30, then slept till 1! Its 2:30 now, I feel like its 6 pm! Its been this way everyday since the first week! At work, im a zombie, and it has nothing to do with not eating or drinking, its just NOT sleeping!

Plus, I reach home at around 3:30, which means I have about an hour to sleep 3ala ma i change o settle in bed o time to clean up after sleeping and changing and going for fu6oor. So, basically the day starts after fu6oor, and even then, it takes an hour or two for ppl to get adjusted with life after food, so to be more precise, the day starts at around 8!! So you have to fit family, friends, any extra work, chores, and leisure in 4 hours a day! NOT ENOUGH!!

Im glad i only eat fu6oor, otherwise it would be even worse if I eat really late then sleep! Less than a week to go…..I, for one, cant wait for normal service to be resumed! Dont get me wrong, I like Ramadan, visiting family and so on, but it just seems to drag on way too much this year!

end of rant!

This topic is a very intriguing one. Indian movies are very popular all over the world, with Bollywood producing more movies per year than any other film industry in the world, including Hollywood. Most Indian films have followed the same formula since the 80’s, with a full dosage of action, romance, humor, music, and everything else all put together in every movie. The main difference is that in recent years, many of these films have become very beautifully made.

Before I get to my point, let me first say that I am not a big fan of Indian movies by any mean, I dont mind them, but id rather watch a half decent English movie anytime. On the other hand, my wife is a HUUGE fan of Indian movies, she knows all the actors (she says the reason she married me was bcz i look like her favorite actor!) and actresses. We argue alot about Indian movies, I dislike them because I hate how unrealistic they are, and I dont mean by jumping over walls and fighting 300 ppl while blindfolded with one hand, because that rarely happens in Indian movies these days. What I dont like is how the hero of the movie is a hero in every sense, always handsome, always funny, always smart, always right, and always always wins in the end (with one or two exceptions). I also obviously hate it when in the middle of a normal conversation between two characters, all of a sudden 200 ppl wearing the same thing jump into the scene and all suddenly start dancing and singing in unison with the main actor and actress appear to be changing lightbulbs in midair with both hands. That sort of thing pisses me off!

Ok, my wife’s argument is that most Indian people live in such poor conditions that they need this break from reality and this is their only way to smile or cry by following the fantasy created by Bollywood. As for the dance scenes, her argument is that they are symbolic, since no sex is allowed, this is a way to show that these two characters are intimate. Fair enough, I absolutely agree with these point, but my argument is, realisic portrayals of daily life issues (including sex scenes) would be something that the normal person can connect with more than fantasy. How come ALL of the bollywood films are made that way, there is no such thing as a genre movie, every movie has everything. Comedy films have action, action films have comedy, and so on.

The hero of the movie, the saviour of the day, is everybody’s fantasy. He has no faults! I would love to see an Indian movie where the hero is a normal everyday kind of guy, discussing real issues of the Indian people. For example, instead of having the handsome smart sexy funny hero in a dillema of which of girl to chose driving his fancy car to a fancy nightclub, with a big dance routine inside the club, with all the flash and glitter, wouldnt it be worth trying to have a normal everyday guy as the hero, showing his daily struggle with food, shelter, employment, and so on? Of course, there has to be some sort of hope or optimism in the story, but that also can be realistic. Instead of the guy getting the girl and living happily ever after, they could use an issue that has been important as of late, which is how many US companies are shifting their business to India, and how many small Indian villages are benefitting from this with the creation of jobs and so on. I personally think this story would give more hope and would have more impact on the normal person because it is something they face and connect with.

I do understand and agree with the other point of view, but all im saying is that alternatives should be available. With a population nearly a billion, im sure there will be many people who would appreciate that. Does anybody know if there are independant Indian movies, like the American and European independant or arthouse movies? And what do you think of my idea? should i move to Bollywood yet??

TAIPEI, Taiwan - A man leaped into a lion’s den at the Taipei Zoo on Wednesday to try to convert the king of beasts to Christianity, but was bitten in the leg for his efforts.

“Jesus will save you!” shouted the 46-year-old man at two African lions lounging under a tree a few meters away.

“Come bite me!” he said with both hands raised, television footage showed.

One of the lions, a large male with a shaggy mane, bit the man in his right leg before zoo workers drove it off with water hoses and tranquilizer guns.

Newspapers said that the lions had been fed earlier in the day, otherwise the man might have been more seriously hurt … or worse.

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Chan zain some of rabi3na would try to convert lions, niftak minhum!

In any other place in the world, this sight is very rarely seen, in Kuwait, its just part of the daily driving scene, everybody has seen many many of these terrible things……sad, but true!

Condemned Texas inmate dies in apparent suicide

HOUSTON (AP) A death row inmate was found hanging by a sheet in his cell in an apparent suicide, state prison officials said Wednesday.

Deon Tumblin, 27, was found Tuesday evening, officials said. Efforts to resuscitate him at the scene failed and he was pronounced dead in the prison infirmary.

The prison system’s inspector general’s office was investigating.

Tumblin had been condemned for strangling a 75-year-old woman at her home in 2000, then taking her car.

He arrived at the Polunsky Unit of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, northeast of Houston, in early 2001. He did not have an execution date.

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hahahahahahhaa……what the hell was he thinking?? He couldnt live with the fact that his life was going to end soon? lol
Either that or he thought he’d rather kill himself than someone else do it?

Today, I decided to look over some of the government related websites and see how good they are. To my surprise, most of them were excellent!

http://www.e.gov.kw Kuwait E-Government website is worth a visit if you havent seen it before. Whoever did this should be commended for the effort. From there, you can get into most other government websites through the directory (which is the best feature by far).

As an example to show how convinient and well done the websies are, check out this site at the Ministry of Justice and pick any service, it will tell you what papers you need, where to go, how long will it take (like that will be accurate!), and much more excellent info!

I just thought id mention this, because we complain when things are bad, and we should give credit when credit is due, and this really has to praised.

Unfortunately, not all websites are excellent, the Kuwait Investment Authority (KIA) hasnt been updated in four years. KIA is one of the richest organizations in the world, and the second most important source of income after oil for Kuwait. I hope it is in the plans to be upgraded like the other websites soon.

From today’s AlQabas, blogging phenomenon gets more recognition in Kuwaiti press, this time from a well respected, and one of the best writers in Kuwait -

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