Since Ive been traveling ALOT the past couple of weeks (4 trips, 7 different stops), I cant not write this. They tried the new Airbus A380 yesterday for the first time! We need these babies here in Kuwait for flights to Dubai!!!

Nice, 555 passengers, two floors! You know what I would love to see in airplanes? Two things….

• Internet connections - The flight will seem ALOT shorter if you had a chance to surf the net from up in the air, right?? I know Lufthansa are introducing this late this year, but why the delay?? Its something so obvious, it shouldve been there a long time ago!
• Casinos in the sky - Now with two floors, this would make time go quicker, and also make the flights more fun! Dont forget that it would be a huge money maker for the airlines themselves!!

One thing I like in airplanes so far is the online entertainment system in Emirates flights, I always play the trivia game, where you compete with other passengers in a knowledge trivia game! It’s fun…..but primitive to what should be on planes now, no?

Like I mentioned in the previous post, Mr. Fouad Al Mugahwi publishes old ads from his collection in AlWatan every now and then.

This ad comes from yesterday’s Al-Watan newspaper, page 54, and is for a German car that I won’t even try to spell! For more information about the ad and the car itself, click on the picture and read what Mr. Mugahwi wrote about it!

While I was traveling last weekend, I shut my phone off. But when I switched it back on, I got three SMS mesages on my phone telling me to turn to AlQabas on Saturday, 23rd of April. When I got back to Kuwait, I did, and I saw this -

Been planning on posting this for a while but been too busy! Anyway, it felt good seeing that!
So far I have posted four ads, Pepsi, Commercial Bank of Kuwait, Hilton, and Gulf Bank.

If you were interested in them, and like the subject, you can do two things -

• Give me any old ads u have ;P
• Check out AlWatan newspaper, there’s a section called “Min AlMaathy” (From the Past), by Fou’ad Al Mugahwi. Its not on a daily basis, every now and then, and he publishes really nice old ads from his collection. Today, you can find it on page 54.

Not much talk, just pictures…..

Try to guess where I went!

I got back last night from my trip, and I will give full details very soon, but when I came back and looked at the newspapers, I was shocked when I read about this latest murder!

This reminded me alot of the last murder a few months ago in January when the father killed his daughter, and was planning to kill the others too if he had time!

In January’s murder, the father apparently just came back from Hajj, and he proceeded to kill his daughter. In this week’s murder, the father just got back from Umrah two days before the murder.

Please, don’t get me wrong here, and don’t think of this as an attack on anything! This is just me thinking out loud, trying to find a connection! And let me get this straight out, Umrah and Hajj are a wonderful experience and a closer bond to God that I would love to try sometime.

Keep an open mind in this one….

OK, obviously, someone who kills his own children is someone who is very deeply disturbed. This person’s mind does not work the same way as yours or mine does. These two men are deeply troubled, and both suffer from some sort of paranoia judging from the the circumstances, one person killing his 13 year old daughter because he had doubts about her actions (autopsy showed that he was just dillusional), and this guy kills his children because of doubts about his wife!

What would happen if you take a troubled (and maybe weak) mind and take them to a place of such grandeur that can shower your brain with so many emotions? The feeling of entering a mosque stirs something inside each of us, imagine multiplying that by infiniti!

All the old churches in Europe are huge, and for one main reason, to show you the greatness of God and how small you are in his presence. I have never been to Mecca, but just thinking of a place so big, being surrounded by tens of thousands of pilgrims from all around the world, all wearing white and concentrating on one thing, and seeing the Ka’aba in front of you, the holiest symbol of Islam, must make the strongest person in the world feel weak in God’s presence!

In the presence of greatness, in the churches in Europe and much more obviously in the wide spaces Mecca, an individual feels insignificant in the bigger scheme of things, he is nothing but a piece of sand on a beach.

I am sure different people feel different things when in Mecca. I am also sure that some people lose sense of reality when faced with the flooding all these overwhelming emotions. Could a disturbed mind lose value for human life after seeing how small he is in the bigger picture??

Obviously, there are bigger reasons and deeper insights into these people’s minds, and that is left to the experts. But for some reason I couldn’t get this idea out of my mind when I read the newspapers…..any thoughts?

I know I shouldnt be on the net this much when Im on vacation, but today is the day that FIFA announce who were the lucky few to get tickets to the World Cup! I applied for a TST (Team Specific Ticket) for the US (to make a long story short, they guarantee 7 matches all the way from start to final regardless of who gets there), and I have been waiting on fire (3ala naaar) since the lottery was done last week on the 15th! They said that they would announce the winners on the 22nd, and I probably checked my email 100 times already today, and finally was able to access “customer self service” in the FIFA World Cup ticketstore, and after logging in, i got this message -

Application not successful

Well thank you for ruining my day! Add to that the fact that all TST for US are already gone! I will have to try again on May 2nd and will have to pick another team. So far, tickets for Argentina, Brazil, England, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, USA, and Germany are all sold out!!

Watch me go for France next round (my fav team) and hopefully get the tickets! I went for USA thinking that not many people will be going for those, but guess what, after Germany the host nation, the USA was the second highest application getter following England!! 7athhy il na7s and who the hell would’ve thought?!?!

At least they gave out 147,000 TST and there were more than a million applicants! So Im not alone in this, and I will be more positive next time and GET ONE!!!

Screw this, im having a great time! This wont ruin anything, it will only make me apply more next round!

I’m currently on vacation! I forgot to mention that before, but I am currently traveling and will be back in action in a couple of days! Details of the trip with lots of pics will be posted soon too….

Hope ur all having as much fun as I am
P.S.- I am sooooo tanned!!

Of all the emotions that human beings have, is fear the most dominant? Are we driven by that emotion throughout civilizations?

This was brought up today in a discussion. Is fear a stronger emotion and a driver for humans than love? anger? etc?

When we are kids, we don’t throw our food because of fear of punishment, you want to get good grades because of fear of punishment or fear of humiliation and so on …. In our society, many girls want to get married for fear of being 3aanis, not love! Some women also decide to wear 7ijaab bcz of fear of punishment and 3athaab ilgabir, not bcz they honestly believe that covering their hair is the right thing to do, and so on….

Humans have a fear of the unknown too, if you take the Egyptian civilization as an example, they were smart people, they were very advanced in some sciences, but for things that seem simple right now like floods and droughts and other natural disasters, they created gods and reasons for such events such as their gods’ anger and such. With the advancement of science, these solutions given the Egyptians became obselete, until the next unknown question comes up.

The biggest fear of the unknown comes from death and afterlife. What happens when we die? Religion gives us the perfect answer, u go to a better place if you’re a good person. How convenient is that?? The fear of death is solved!

Can people be so afraid of the unknown that they will be able to believe anything that can help explain?

Nowadays, the same concept is used in politics. If you instill a certain fear constantly, you will get to the point where people might believe anything no matter how farfetched it is, as long as it alleviates that fear! George Bush was able to win another term as president by using fear tactics, right?

Anyway, these are just random thoughts that have been thrown around in the discussion!

Mako salfa! Bes I in short I think fear is the strongest human emotion! Any thoughts?

I know I haven’t been posting much lately, but I have been extra busy! Normal service will resume soon, I promise, just bare with me for a while!

Anyway, I hope this photo doesnt make you hate my return, but think of the beauty in this picture…..more explanation of the why this is beautiful could be found here in part I.

If you haven’t heard the new Marina radio station, check it out at 88.8 FM. Its pretty cool, I like the fact that you get alot of international music, but the bilingual stuff goes too far sometimes. The dj would speak Arabic, and add a few English words in the sentence, which would be fine if they actually knew the language! It goes from funny to depressing sometimes. I haven’t really heard that station alot, so its not fair to really criticize, so maybe that dj is the only silly sounding one, I dont know?

Anyway, I would officially count myself as an old person. My radio dial is on 90.1 most of the time. Yes, I actually listen to the BBC alot! Sad, but for some reason nothing else attracts me, especially early in the day on my way to work! If Im in the mood for mazaaj music, its 87.9, classical Arabic music. My favorite music is on that station daily from 1-2 pm, old Kuwaiti aswaat, I rarely get a chance to hear it since Im at work, but when Im off to get lunch or something, thats what im listening to!

99.7 is a whole dif story. Most of the time, I cant stand any Arabic music that has been recorded in the past 10 years! So 103.7 is number 6 I think on my radio memory thing. I like English music alot, mostly dance, house, anything weird, and anything 80’s or before. Unfortunately, 99.7 doesnt do that, most of the time its pop music and hiphop for 14 and 15 yr olds.

There are two Dj’s in 99.7 that I really like, Vicky and Maha. Vicky, for the fact that she actually plays some dance music. Maha, because her taste in music just kicks ass and it seems she really knows her music! Her show on Fridays from 9-11 is probably the only show I might listen to knowing that its on at that time! I also really like the fact that she’s a Kuwaiti who’s better at what she does than all the other dj’s!

So,

• whats ur fav radio station?
• if u do listen to 99.7, fav dj?
• thoughts on marina station if u heard it?