my dream pool and a bloody foreigners take on the …

my dream pool and a bloody foreigners take on the 5 thingy,….

if you have a pool…………….

you better start using it soon.

its getting fuckin hot, but the pools still juuuuuusst right

use it before it starts getting heated by the midday sun.

there simply isnt anything better than a nice cool dip after running around town all day.

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the recent political events here are like a wierd but well intentioned hippie aunt who comes to your sickbed with some ungodly concoction of possum juice mixed with esoteric ancient herbs blended into a smoothie while chanting lost tongues.

on the one hand you reckon shes nuts, but then again youre grasping at anything that just might open up your stubborn right nostril.

so you gulp it down, wretching at the salty after taste, and now you just have to wait and see.

chances are it’ll make you worse

as a foreigner observing the recent events i must admit that the grassroots movements are to be applauded. those that participated need to continue their struggle and i’ve got a good feeling they will.

having said that,…

while their intentions are well meaning, namely the eradication of corruption etc,… they should bare in mind the agendas of the powers that are behind the movement itself. its not enough to simply fight for something you believe in.

while one would assume that 5 would result in progress and more being achieved,… what if the whole idea was only to make it easier for the opposition?

there has always been a sensitive detente between the powers that be in this country, and by that i’m not just talking about within the ruling family. how 5 constituencies would have worked out would have been interesting to watch.

i for one think that it would have resulted in some serious political conflicts as opposed to the smoother running of the country.

atleast to begin with.

but then maybe serious political strife is what is needed for true democratic growth. lets face it, nothing good ever came easy.

29 is just stupid for somewhere this small, so despite what i’ve already written i actually support the principle of the 5 movement.

10 is equally idiotic and not just 33% less so.

everyone knows the “dark side”(as opposed to the light orange:P) only wants to be able to do what it wants to do so its not even worth commenting on them.

having said that tho, heres a question thats been on my mind,…..

does the stereotypical view that arabs prefer one strong ruler impression still apply ?

it seems to have worked in dubai. superficially they seem lightyears ahead, but then they have always been a trading port exposed to foreign ideas for centuries.

if progress is something that you take seriously,…..

understand the true nature of whichever side of the fence you are on. know what they really want to do with your vote.

chances are its not as pretty as you thought it might be.

when it comes to politicians in general, never give them the benefit of the doubt. it pays to think the worst of them and then hope that it doesnt come true. atleast then you wont be disappointed.

and while you need to remember that they work for you and not the other way around,….. remember, thats not how they see it once the elections are over.


but then again i’m a foreigner so what do i know

if you thought salhiya was full of posers,….. …

if you thought salhiya was full of posers,…..

so i’m strolling along fahd al salem street in the city, on my way to Q8books to see if they have anything good this weekend.

i notice that they’ve done up the area next to the building Q8books is in, and there seems to be some sort of coffee shop there, so i figure i’ll grab a mug of java there after the bookshop. ( umm yeah i havent been down there in ages as you can tell.)

due to the way the area is designed i couldnt actually see more than the tops of the coffee shop from the street i was walking on, so i figured it would be a great place to read and have a cuppa.

lol,….

for those of you who’ve been to salhiya plaza, you’ll know what i’m talking about….

any one who hasnt been,….

well you’ll be shocked.

this is where you can observe the kuwaiti youth, and sometimes the not so youthfull, in their pre-mating or mating display grounds.( i know theres a technical term for that but i cant recall at the moment. )

i always thought starbucks was bad, but this really takes the fuckin cake.

it was almost deadly silent, there was only the slightest hum of conversation since everyone was busy ogleing everyone else, while trying not to look like they was ogleing.

you could feel the sexual tension in the air, which was just as thick as the bluetooth radiation haze that’ll probably give you cancer.

since i was with a friend who was just as shocked as myself at this place, we decided to stay and watch

attenboroughs voice kept coming into my head,…

” and here,… we see,…. the local population in their native mating habitat,… notice the display of cool non-chalant indifference both sexes engage in,…..the male flexes his steroid-produced muscles in a fake stretch designed to display his masculine prowess and rattle his expensive watch,….while the female constantly flicks her hair, shooting passing glances to and fro,…..

” while the male engages in his display while seated with his “posse”,… the female begins the display of her feminine charms once she is within sight of the location,….strutting her stuff from a distance and drawing attention while further away,…. the males’ chance for a closer inspection of what her momma gave her occurs at the cashier where she pauses to fully display her assetts in the bright lights of the cake display case.”

lol ok i’ll stop now

besides i’m sure everyone knows how things go.

also i cant completely complain,…. i got a once over and a smile from a local girl on my way out

a rare occurance,….

so unless my fly was down,…. it was an ok experience all in all

but yeah,…. not going back there anytime soon….

and lmao, they have the funniest philippino waiter who is probaly the campest guy i ever seen, with a fake american/philippino accent….. and hes loud as fuck which makes it funnier when you hear him screaming something like ” i need more cream, i’m out of cream abdulahhh!”

i snorted my coffee through my nose when i heard him yell that.

oh and incase you’re wondering,… no their coffee wasnt that good

hmmmmmmmm,……. every once in a while things ge…

hmmmmmmmm,…….

every once in a while things get serious.

they get the kind of serious that becomes a defining moment in your life.

a limited number of options present themselves to you and you have to chose between the easy, the not so bad, the hard, and the mind numbingly impossible.

each individual choice will lead you down a route that will most likely be distinctly different from the other. and yet at some point they might converge. but of course you dont know what is down those routes, and chances are you’ll probably be slightly off if not completely wrong about where one decision may lead you.

call it a fork in the road if you will, but i prefer the word “node”.

ever get deja vu?

theres a school of thought that suggests that deja vu is the actual reliving of that precise event in that precise time and space. but in this case time refers to the time of day not the larger idea of time. so they say that when you get it theres something youre not doing right cos this life is meant to be another chance to do things right this time. like a cosmic groundhog day that lasts a life time instead of a day. i think its a derivation of both buddhist and hindu thought.

the search for enlightenment by reincarnation.

anyway, i’m getting off topic.

the comfortable choice is predictable, and well comfortable and thus by definition would probably be dull. more importantly i probably wouldnt learn anything from it.

that leaves the harder routes, and of the harder routes,… the choice to be made must include both where i want to be a few years down the road, and whether or not i’m going to enjoy the journey.

its only recently in the past few years, that i’ve found what i believe to be my true calling if there is such a thing. without a doubt i know i really love what i do, and theres nothing else i’d rather be doing,……

ever get the feeling that your whole lifes been leading up to something?

that all the bullshit, all the crap along with the good stuff,… all that was just training for something to come. that everything up to now both good and bad, was moulding and crafting you into the person you are today just so you can handle something that will turn you into the person you will be tomorrow.

they aint shittin you when they say it builds character.

those have all been nodes that lead me to this point in time.

and because of them i can work my markets without the fear i see on everyones faces. and because of all the other stuff i’ve dabbled in, both professionally, personally and on the side as hobbies etc,….

lol, looking back on it now, if my life was a tv show, itd be a variety show complete with trampolining midgets, a chinese gospel choir, inuit opera singers, suicidal comedians, political activists, a couple of porn stars and a grown man in an easter bunny suit.

doesnt make sense?

lol my point exactly

i can keep going as is of course and chose not to make a decision.

but i dont think that will help me grow at all. and it certainly wont grow what i do into something great or something with purpose.

so now its time to get my shit together, and hell its gonna be a bumpy ride, but the journey alone should make for a great fireside tale when i’m 90,…umm ok maybe only if youre a trader…..lol i know i’m gonna bore my future grandkids to death

i wonder if its just a coincidence that my node is occuring on the same day as Iraqs new government is being sworn in. both events so full of promise and potential, but both requiring extremely hard work to pull off successfuly.

lol, for someone who spends all day trying to predict the future,… i sure could use a psychic right about now

dilemmas for the week: to go bald or not to go ba…

dilemmas for the week:

to go bald or not to go bald,…….

i currently have a rather sensible haircut.

i have in the past grown my hair to just below shoulder length and i’ve gone shaved.

i’ve had my sensible haircut for a good few years now,…. and its getting a tad old. i’m not really one to fiddle much with my hair so my options are to either shave it or stick with what i have.

hmmmm,……….

dilemma no.2 revolves around the fact that i’m planning the purchase of a musical instrument.

i cant decide between a guitar or a keyboard.

i’m torn cos i’d love to play both,… but the keyboard allows you to compose for just about any other instrument.

the guitar on the otherhand is just too damn cool \m/:P \m/

then again i’ve always wanted to be able to play a piano whenever i see one in hotel lobbies, peoples houses etc……

but rockin a keyboard has always and will always look lame

especially those strap on your shoulder ones from the eighties.

pffft,…. decisions, decisions!

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when a friend worries about you,… do you feel flattered and touched that they are concerned,…. or do you feel like deckin them cos they think you dont know what youre doing?

what is it that prevents people from appreciating an alternative view or perspective?

the reluctance to trully understanding, if not agreeing with a certain philosophy will result in me saying sure you are entitled to have your own opinion,….

….. but since you arent willing to walk a mile in my shoes,….

i’m entitled to the opinion that your opinion is just plain schtupid!

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i had a bigmac for dinner

The cattle run was on at the KSE today: thats ex…

The cattle run was on at the KSE today:


thats exactly what it looked like on the floor today. only the pic is a bit more orderly, and atleast the wildebeest know what theyre doing

Boubiyan Bank made its debut on the market today, and it looked like everyone and their grandmother ( not an exaggeration there this time) was looking to get the cash for it. people was queing up three deep, and you know how well they que here without a ticket system,… yup it was a bloody mob at every brokerage desk.

lol even the damn mobile phone network sucked ass cos it was jammed,… youd think it was new years day for fucks sakes!

OMG and the crap that a bunch of newbies were spitting gave me a fuckin headache.

still its good to know that somethings never change. no matter how old this profession gets, whether you play the game now or 100 years from now,… this game will always be the only game where grown men and women allow their dreams to get the better of them.

for everyone plays the game at some point in their lives, cos its the only game in town that actually matters.

on the plus side,.. i, and a couple of regulars, called it a day at around 1045 am.

i spent the rest of the day at the pool

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more than math, more than economic theorey, more than an MBA most definately,…. the most useful thing in my arsenal is, surprisingly, the history lessons i took in high school.

you never know where youre going if you dont know where youre coming from.

and you can walk the trading floor fearless and with a grin on your face when its all crashing if you can say i’ve seen this film before and i know how it all ends

my ankle is itching ,….

even Al Gore’s stocks are going down! …

even Al Gore’s stocks are going down!
Al Gore look alike going WTF?!!! last week at the KSE

lol ok maybe they are maybe theyre not, i wouldnt know,…..

but thats the look i been seeing all week on the KSE floor.

that and alot of empty seats, and some dude fast asleep……

and i learned another phrase in arabic:

mafee siyoulah

oh that and:

shiiiiiillll!!!……… said in the same way Ludacris sang “,…..till i get them in their birthday suit“

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i love it when the markets head south. cos for the majority of last year and the first quarter i been sitting on my ass waiting and second guessing my own judgement.

half of the fun of this line of work is that you can say ” i’m sitting this out” and it still sounds like youre working

seriously,… if you were anything else youd get fired if you said that.

its like calling golf(i spent the whole day walking on a lawn or riding a cart) and fishing( i spent the whole day sitting on a boat) a sport. they are hobbies that require alot of skill to be successfull at,…..lets not kid ourselves shall we?:P

for that same reason i dont call this work,… i call this a lifestyle.

it certainly isnt easy,….but on the otherhand its not exactly rocket science, atleast not until NASA gets listed, and come on whos gonna buy that financial blackhole

then again maybe NASA should go private,…. maybe then we’ll all get those space cars that we were meant to be flying in like the jetsons promised us. maybe since they would need to make money theyd break out all the good science stuff we can actually use,…. like the military did with teflon oh and microwaves:P

I WANT MY FUCKING JETPACK ALREADY DAMMIT!!!

if you were a child of the 80’s ( and the before’s) youd understand all the promises made to us that they FAILED TO DELIVER!!!

umm who they is exactly i havent a clue,….. the bastards!

i think i’m gonna give up thinking of something to post about.

in case you havent noticed dear reader i started on one thing and went off on some odd tangent that seemed more fun.

lol stream of consciousness is just another name for no fuckin structure



I WANT MY FUCKING JETPACK ALREADY DAMMIT!!!


and a space car, and a thingy inthe wall that makes anything you want, and a rosie housekeeper robot, ooh i actually wanna get one of those robotvacuum thingies,…. and a house in orbit, and holidays on the moon, and sex in zero gravity!

ok,…. mostly sex in zero gravity

but i want my damn jetpack too!!!