Kuwait Ver. 2.0 unlike the new windows vista tha…

Kuwait Ver. 2.0


unlike the new windows vista that either has or is about to be launched (i’m not really up on all that crap) , this is one upgrade that WILL affect your life if a) youre a kuwaiti that intends to grow old here, or b) youre an expat that will (un)intentionally grow old here.

some serious shit is going down in kuwait, and missing it will mean that you’ll be left behind. for some its too late, theyve missed the train and now all they can do is wait for the shortbus. for others, theres hope, but it does mean reformatting your mental cpu and equiping yourselves with the best knowledge (software) that money can buy.

youd have to be living under a pretty sturdy rock to have not heard about the whole loan write-off deal being discussed at the moment. lets put aside the pros and cons of the argument for a quick second, cos lets face it, everyones gonna have an opinion, and well opinions are like assholes, everyones got one, as the saying goes.

previously, personal loans were incredibly easy for kuwaitis to get. if you werent kuwaiti, chances are you’d need to have a kuwaiti sponsor/guarantor who would be willing to foot the bill incase you decided to retire in style in paris rather than pay the bank its money back. the merits of such a policy aside, you can see where theyre coming from.

2 events last week signal the ending of this and the marginalisation of kuwaitis being considered ‘safe’ customers:

1- i was checking out the new mitsubishi pajeros in their al rai showroom over the weekend. having had a couple of decent sized projects in the past, our family business has purchased alot of cars from mr al mulla over the years. and theres one sales man in particular that we deal with on the floor.
as i walk in i see him get up to greet me, and since i’m just browsing i tell him so,….. dont want him to waste time with me since i’m not really there to buy, just killing time. 5 minutes later a kuwaiti walks in, nice clean dishdasha, proper flashy cufflinks, the works,….. he snaps his fingers in the air, and asks to be served by someone.
i look over to my dealer friend saying ‘ ahh you got a customer i’ll let you get on with your job’.
surprisingly, he laughs and goes ‘ pfffft, they have no money so why waste my time with them’.
ok i knew that, but what about their loans, i mean a sale is a sale right?
apparently not,….. financing, altho lucrative for mr al mulla and his financing friends, is a royal pain in the ass cos 75% of the time, the customer will be back in 6 months to transfer the loan to someone else, in which case my dealer friend gets his ass chewed for not screening his customers enough cos a transfer involves alot of paper work etc.

so we sat down, had some tea, and talked about the southern indian state of goa and what its weather was like.

2- Commercial Facilities company is now offering expats loans of 15 times your monthly salary, no kuwaiti guarantor, no collateral,….. and heres the kicker,….. minimum salary eligible is kd250. you dont even need to transfer your salary or anything.

has it really gotten so bad that financial institutions are now looking for fresh waters to fish cos theyve over fished their own little pond?

this is not new. this has happened in many other countries with large ‘foreign’ or minority populations, the indigenous get sidelined and perhaps rightly so because micro loans have a history of working very well. well ok these arent exactly micro micro loans but its alot less than the cost of a brand new cayenne, and there are simply more expats to suck dry 😛 (business is business). it basically spreads out the banks money more efficently.


now at the other end of the spectrum,……

the kuwait free trade zone has been in a royal tug of war since its inception. one family had the idea and helped push the idea thru to the point where their company got the deal to develop the area. kudos hombre! 😛

another family saw this and goes damn, thats a great idea 😀 , and proceeds to try and snatch it away….. which is nothing new here.

just yesterday the first family’s deal got canceled, or atleast it looks like its gonna get cancelled.

nothing new you say?

true,….. nothing new at all except the way it was done.

there was no kicking and screaming, tantrum throwing “mommy i want!” kinda stuff going on. and there was no “do you know who i am now give me your wife” going on either.

i’ll bet thats got you scratching your head 😛

dont get me wrong, it was a major bitchslap,…. but it was a sean connery bitchslap as opposed to the usual steve-erkel-esque bitchslaps we’re all used to.

it had style!

ever heard of the state audit bureau?

no one pays taxes here so i dont blame you if you havent, and even if you have a company, chances are youve never met anyone that works there.

theyre accountants,…. so how bad can they really be 😛 ?

pretty fucking evil if you know how to use them properly, as with most things in life.

the free trade zone deal was cancelled after the state audit bureau apparently found some discrepancies in the deal, and therefore “suggested” the government take action. and really surprisingly, the government follows their advice and bends over backwards.

why?

in the interest of greater transparency and accountability?

hahaha fuck no !



someone asked daddy to pull some strings.

but he did it in the right sequence, in other words he knows how to use wasta.

he went the legal route, dug up all the dirt, and found a loophole so big the free trade zone could fit thru it ironically enough 😛

then he found the evil accountants, set the dogs free and makes the government accountable.

so the government has no choice but to comply otherwise they lose face.

brilliant, fucking A grade strategic planning! ( i’m really not being sarcastic here)



heres the thing,…. notice the difference in the two sections of society?

one side is sinking in debt, while the other is advancing themselves properly.

one side pickets the parliament while the other surrounds himself with the best legal minds money can buy. and you cant say its a money thing cos surrounding yourself with people better than you is a mental decision not a monetary one.

one side will use wasta to get their myopic grandma a drivers license while the other doesnt, even tho he could, instead he piles into the legal and legit way of doing things and is probably gonna wind up with the rest of the country in his back pocket soon.


but hey dont get pissed at the dude, cos you can take part in it all.

i am and i’m not a kuwaiti. i havent even met the dude, altho some people who have say hes a pompous ass. pompous asses have their merits too.

his company is publicly traded here.

to be a part of kuwait 2.0 be sure to pick up some shares of the firm if you can figure out who i’m talking about 😛



whether you can spare money for the investment or not is not the point of this post.

there is a mental shift going on here. a shift that is a result of many factors converging over time. alot of kids coming back from abroad are shaping the way the country is evolving. high oil prices are bringing in alot of money, the smart people will be using that money to attract real mental talent to the country. ( whether they stay or not is something else). foreign ideas are being brought in to make the country better for those that know what theyre doing, so naturally it’ll be worse for those that dont.

and for anyone reading this that might argue about it all being a western-jewish-jim-carrey-coutrney-love-media conspiracy,……. ahh shut the fuck up!

its your older generation allowing this to happen because they know there is no going back to the way it was before, the only hope is for them to steer it in the right direction.

they know you cant go on like this.

we know you cant go on like this.

and i’m sure you know it too.

the question is, are you gonna do anything about it or just bitch and moan like everyone else about how hard life has become?

cos matey, its only gonna get worse, and you know what happens to computers that become obsolete.

Above The Law or How I Gave A Cop The Middle Finge…

Above The Law or How I Gave A Cop The Middle Finger And Got Away With It

• around 430pm, on a breezy afternoon a few days ago, i was on my way to the office to finish up some chores.

• dammit! i just realised i was low on gas, so i pulled into the nearest gas station and filled up.

• now as i was filling up, it seemed like everyone in kuwait had woken up from their afternoon naps and realised they were late for work, so as usual everyone was in a rush on the roads.

• as if driving itself on the roads wasnt dangerous enough, trying to join the oncomming traffic with a tank full of gas is damn near suicidal if you think of it. but as with most things we get used to it and think nothing of it since theres nothing we can do about it.

• still, i took my time, no cars were behind me edgeing me to go, so i chilled for a bit till i saw the break in the traffic.

• ah-HA! theres one!

• i’ll be the first to admit it was a small one, but if that busted up 8yr old nissan sports car didnt speed up then i’d be fine.

• pfffft, guess what the dumbass in the busted up nissan did as soon as he spotted me trying to join the lane……

• now youd think, ok i’ve probably pissed him off, but he’s going to brake and slow down beside me.

• lol wrong assumption is the mother of all conflicts.

• instead he dodges and weaves around my car as if he was david hasselhoff and someone told him his new single actually entered the american billboard charts at 1209839207483278392 this time around 😀

• so i do the customary fist in the air and angry face thing 😛 keeping the pose long enough so he sees me in his rear mirror.

• lol, the fucker actually gets all pissed and slows down so i can catch up to him.

• then he does the what-the-fuck-are-you-pissed-about hand gesture that you see here, the one with a slight twist of the wrist, then i do the point-to-eyes-are-you-fucking-blind gesture, he yells something, i cant hear got my window up, i do the swirling-finger-at-temple-crazy gesture, which funnily enough sends him off into another rage 😛

• i think it has something to do with a foreigner answering him back 😛

• at this point i spot my exit coming up so i go ahhh-fuck-you-cue-middle-finger-and-accelerator.

• i always do that :P, but yeah i know, one day it was gonna catch up to me.

• now in my rear view i could see him fiddling with something, but i thought ok call your cop friend and give me a ticket then ya dumbfuck 😛

• but two seconds later, hes caught up and hes waving some ID card at me shouting police! pull over!(in arabic of course)

• so my dilemma was this, blow him off incase he was full of shit,… or pull over and find out if hes full of shit, cos if he’s CID the i might be in trouble trying to ‘evade capture’ (lol), and if not i’ll talk my way out of it.

• remember i was gonna take an exit?

• its that one on the other side of panasonic shuweikh al rai, the one that goes under the bridge onto ghazali. if you know it, you’ll know it gets busy there and one broken down car will cause a massive jam cos of the bottlneck.

• so i’m yelling WHERE THE FUCK YOU WANT ME TO PULL OVER DUMBASS?!?!

• DUMBASS: (SOMETHING IN ARABIC THAT MEANT HERE DAMMIT HERE!!!!)

• since he’s behind me i figure ok 😛 everyone will blame your crappy car for the jam 😀

• so i’m blocking one lane. his cars behind my pajero. people are beeping the fuck out of him cos he obviously doesnt look like a cop, and i’m chuckling at the whole deal.

• now his english sucked and from what i heard all he knows is “GIVE ME LISCENCE AND ID!” which he said like twenty times. which really amussed me cos i cant recall the last time i pissed someone off that much.

• so i hand over one not both cards, remebering the bogus cop stories you read about all the time here.

• he keeps yelling, frustrated that this bloody foreigner wasnt listening to him.

• hehehehe so i push it a little more and i say ” NO! YOU GIVE ME YOU POLICE/BADGE NUMBER AND NAME!!! MANY MAN NO REAL POLICE, GIVE ME NUMBER AND A NAME!!!”

• :O

• lol dumbass actually hands me his cop ID card, and my ID card back!

• reminded me of training dogs, use an assertive tone and even tho they could rip you to pieces they’ll listen to you. thats the only explanation i could find.

• so i’m taking my sweet time entering his name and number into my phone, letting him stew in his anger and letting him wonder WTF is he going to do with my number and card?!

• after i hand him back his card, we have another shouting match, he wants me liscence and ID and i say no 😛 over and over and over……. see theres no reason to fear plain clothes cops cos then its up to them to prove that theyre cops.

• so he goes YOU CAR UP!

• which i figure means “kindly drive your car up onto the curb so the traffic may be allowed to pass :D”

• done.

• cue shouting match again, until i say, YOU POLICE? YOU CALL SAYARA WHOOWHOOWHOO THEN I COME POLICE STATION!

• and looking like the geezy equivalent to archimedes yelling eureka! the shouts “OK!!!” and does that odd nod of the head that is customary here. “YOU NO GO!!!”

• his sudden enthusiasm made me think: oh well done skunk, now you gone and stuck your big ass foot in your big ass mouth again!

• i could see it now, NEWS FLASH: driver beaten and sodomised by cops for resisting arrest on 4th ring road, and nice big picture of me smiling thru broken teeth 😦

• so we sit and wait for his friends to come after he made the call.

• my cars on the curb buthis sports car was still blocking traffic.

• so he starts to wave people away from his car. ( i was secretly hoping a truck driver would be half asleep and come barrelling into his little sports car 😛 )

• after about 5 minutes of him waving people on, i smile and say ‘hey open blinking lights!’ lol, talk about poking a cornered animal :P. he gives me an evil stare and repeats somethign he heard in a movie ” i know my job!”,…… then he switches his lights on.

• about 5 mins later, he decides to put his car on the curb too.

• heres where i couldnt help but laugh.

• he spent about 5 minutes trying to back his low sports car up on the curb, and managed to scrape his undercarriage quite badly in the process. and everyone watching were chuckling too 😛

• now the sun goes down, and the wind picks up, hes in a t shirt in his open top sports car (looking fly, or trying to), while i’m sat in my nice warm suv with a sweatshirt on.

• i then watch him get cold and decide to put his roof pieces on, his car being oldish it wasnt exactly the suavest looking of operations as the clips didnt really co-operate 😛

• more snickering on my part.

• then it seems he needed to pee, it being cold and all, so he drives his car under the bridge and takes a whizz.

• just to make him uncomfortable i stare at him grinning 😀

• me and dumbass then wait another 15 minutes in silence till his friends show up in a patrol car.

• naturally, he runs over to them and starts telling them how i flipped him off and was driving insanely and wasnt co-operating. so two uniformed dudes come over, and i decide to be all sugar and spice and everything nice and say salaam aleikhum 😀 ! complete with big ass smile!

• i have a nice chat with the guy in charge, he was nice and pleasant, so i gave him my liscence and ID like he asked. basically being the complete opposite to the asshole the dumbass was saying i was 😛 ( tactics my friends 😛 )

• then dumbass tries to make it look like he was doing nothing wrong after i said he saw me coming and sped up. he claims he was doing ONLY 80! i think that was the ace up his sleeve. thing is the patrol cop knows that 80 was for the fast lane on the 4th, and speed limits decrease as you go to the slower lanes. ( big ass grin on my face)

• patrol cop one takes my ID and liscence and takes dumbass’s liscences and pulls him to one side. all this time i’m sat in my car talking thru the window. patrol cop 2 doesnt speak, but he smiles and rolls his eyes at dumbass in a what-a-dumbass-waste-of-time-dumbass-is kinda way.

• ah-ha! nice guy i say to myself, heres an opening, and i go shwaya barid yeah? lol gotta practice my arabic. patrol cop 2 then has a chat with me, where do i work, how long i’ve been here. thank god for arabic class cos otherwise i wouldnt have a clue what to say.

• after a short convo he says anta kalem araby zain, i modestly decline of course, la la la, ana kalem bas shuwaya 😛 .

• i could see patrol cop one telling dumbass that this was all a waste of time, and my nationality was brought up as the main reason why dumbass was wasteing everyones time. ( i understand more than i can speak 😛 )

• nothing quite like one cop verbally bitchslaping(in a nice way) another cop :D.

• i got my cards back and patrol cop one goes everything ok, i go shukran!shukran! ma’asallama! and all four of us part ways.

• lol not even an apology was asked of me!

• so, many thanks to patrol cop one and two, two of the nicest cops i’ve met here. and i must say that i have never had a problem with cops in this country. actually, one of my ‘wasta’s’ i was thinking of calling if i needed help was one of those special bodyguard cops that was my neighbour for years. i’ve had cops help changeing tires, and almost always taking my side ( cos i’m always right of course 😛 ) in roadside fenderbenders.

• but the moral of the story is this:

• sun tzu had it right in his book the art of war, every battle is either won or lost before a single shot is fired. ( i think it was him)

• my nationality allows me certain leverage, which i’ve always know, but never tested till now. dumbass didnt know, nor could he.

• dumbass was being a dumbass and all agro cos he thought that doing so would intimidate and i’m sure its worked many times before, but his not being in uniform fucked his chances of really doing anything with anyone other than illegal residents or labourers new to the country. as such he was ill equiped for the battle he flung hiself into.

• i never use wasta unless i really really really cant get something done myself, so if i couldnt have talked my way out of it at the station, then yeah i would have called my friends. doing so would have shamed dumbass in ways he’s never dreamed of, so that would have been a last resort. humiliation is not a good side dish to victory, might feel good now, but you’ll pay for it later.

• all of the above combined allowed to me handle the situation the way i wanted to handle it. and poor dumbass really didnt have a chance to begin with.

• but i’m pretty sure that when i comes time to renew my liscence and registration, i’m probably gonna find a huge fine on my car ready and waiting for me courtesy of dumbass.

• unless of course he really was a dumbass and didnt take down my plate number 😛

eeeeeeeexcellent…………… muahahahahah…

eeeeeeeexcellent……………

muahahahahahahahahahahaha…..

>:P

gasmasks and other crap,…. from now on thats g…

gasmasks and other crap,….

• from now on thats gonna be my calling card.

• kinda goes with the name dont you think? 😛

• i’ve still got the czech gasmasks which i’m sure alot of people bought during the iraqi invasion.

• and yup i was skeptical about how useful theyd be since they looked older than an old dudes oldest part of his body.

• however, during the run up to the war, i did watch the czech army doing their biochem attack drills and they wore the same thing.

• so at the very least, if saddam had lobbed pot of mustard/nerve gas our way, atleast i had the comfort of knowing that the czech military would also feel their testicles rot too if they didnt work 😀

• i love the way they look, really old school, you know, the kind of thing you’d see in a 1950’s cold war public service announcement about how to prolong your life an extra few seconds incase the commie reds had too much to drink one night and decided that it would be a laugh to fry the world 😛

• seriously, ‘duck and cover’ !?

• all that would have done is make a neater pile of your ashes for the new world order to clean up!

• and while we’re on the nuclear issue,…..

• the whole iran thing does worry me a bit.

• and its not the grrrr-isreal-must-die-so-launch-a-shehab/kassam/kababji- rocket thing that worries me, cos frankly they havent got the balls to do it, and i doubt they’d be that stupid to let one off in their own neighbourhood.

• i’m betting a nuclear containment suit that most of the technology going into irans ‘peacefull’ bombmaking factory is going to be russian or chinese.

• the last thing i bought from china stopped working after 2 months.

• and russia had chernobyl.

• so stop with the whole ‘johnny and bernard have one so why cant ahmed(inajadsanjani)’ arguement if you happen to disagree with me, and ask yourself this question,……

• would you buy an iranian tv / car / fridge / mobilephone / computer / nuke ?

• i for one wouldnt want anything remotely nuclear near me.

• i like the colour of my ass as it is and i’d really rather not have it glow in the dark,…. what would be left of it anyway.

• but,…..

• i do have to have a place in the middle east for work, so beirut here i come 😀

• i know i know, that probably sounds a bit silly after what i said about iran, but for some reason beirut sounds safer than here. war i can see and deal with,….

• invisible radiation which will be neither confirmed nor denied by the government i’d rather not deal with.

• and before anyone gets all uppity about what i just wrote regarding iran, i’m not making a political statement, i’m making a my-ass-isnt-meant-to-glowinthedark statement.

• oh and one more prophecy of doom before i call it a day:

• traffics gonna get worse.

• lol, no, seriously.

• there are more cars on the road,…definately.

• but its not dangerous cos there are more idiot drivers.

• its more dangerous because there are more normal people falling into the whole get a stupidly huge loan for a car you cant afford mentality. and since business is business, banks and dealerships are making it easier and easier for every 18 year old to cruise around in the latest jag.

• and since theyre all in debt, their mind’s arent settled, and thus the driving environment gets dangerous since their minds are wandering under the huge burden.

• and since i figured that out, i’ve figured this out as well,….. early morning driving is much more dangerous than night time driving.

• cos all the late bastards think they can still make it to the office on time by playing michael schumacher, in the hopes that the boss wont cut a much needed KD10 from their salary.

• if youre gonna get docked a couple KD cos youre late then you might as well be late ffs!

• otherwise chances are you’ll kill someone sooner or later.

• speeding is only forgivable in the event of a pregnancy emergency or imminent dairhoea!!!

Freestyle Cypher Battles Downtown. the idiot tha…

Freestyle Cypher Battles Downtown.


the idiot that i am, i was looking for rhymers and lyricists in all the wrong places.

poetry is alive, or so they say.

pffft, the problem with poetry is that poets like to think theyre poets!

i had all but given up on finding anyone that might be interested to lay down some lines and work on tracks together,……

when all of a sudden the gods of the holy “boom-bap-boombap” decided to shine a light on me in a dark carpark downtown.

behold!

the underground!

there was about seven of them, dressed in the universal uniform of hiphop,…. namely the hooded sweat shirt and baseball cap, gathered around in a loose circle chatting amongst themselves.

the first proper cypher i’ve seen here in kuwait. a comforting sight if ever there was one.

a cypher is basically a loose circle, where rhymers spit their lyrics. the main idea being that each MC plays off anothers energy as well as the groups. and in the background theres a human beatbox pumping out a rythm with his mouth.

now this is worlds away from the freestyle battles that you probably saw in Eminems 8 Mile, but its fundamentally the same thing so we’ll just go with that for now.

saddly they werent rhyming that night cos most of them werent there. apparently up to 11 MC’s fight it out every weekend, but this week only a couple showed up, so i settled with just chatting to them.

most of them are highschool kids, and this thing has apparently been going on for a while now. while many might think that it would be international school kids, its not. well, its a mix, but mostly dominated by arabic school kids. and they spit in arabic or english or a mix of the two languages.

now that is perhaps the best thing about it all.

its not some hoitytoity crap that a couple of western educated kids decided to do in a trendy cafe, nor is it non-black non-americans trying to be just that. (i must admit i do find it funny when i see that 😛 )

it appears to be a grass roots thing.

the way its meant to be.

hiphop not as a result of globalisation, but rather as a glocalised movement, specific to the region, specific to the country, and not some half assed carbon copy.

this i gotta say is when the real talent comes out, when youre not trying to be someone youre not.

i didnt hear them rhyme yet, and even when i do, the arabic lyrics i probably wont understand, so i’ll have to get that translated.

but the good thing is that the foundation is right.

the setting is right.

the purpose is right.

when all of that comes together, theres bound to be something good there.

so i’m heading back there next week armed with my mobile digital recorder to capture some performances.

if anyone wants to watch or think they can battle it out too, youre more than welcome, its not too hard for anyone to find 😛



now, to put on my p diddy shoes and find me a Notorious BIG so i can one day buy myself that private jet on my christmas list 😛

Slumming it. every once in a while a guy’s gotta…

Slumming it.


every once in a while a guy’s gotta do what a guy’s gotta do.

its natures calling, pure and simple.

every once in a while we get all Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr and need to either destroy or build something.

having been responsible for my fair share of destruction in my day, i decided to settle with the latter, which incidentally came in especially handy since we’re moving into a new office which needs refurbishing 😛

so up at the crack of dawn!
(8am, 😛 hey, market opens at nine and it only takes me 30 mins to shit, shower and shave in between sips of coffee and news feeds)

on go the jeans!
(which umm isnt really special cos thats what i wear everyday anyhow,…. although i did put on an incredibly old t-shirt cos i knew i was gonna get dirty)

on go the boots!
(umm again,…. normal everyday footwear, for some reason i like knowing i got support around my ankles which you only get with boots,….. even tho i dont actually do the laces up :P, still got a bit of the early 90’s grunge kid in me apparently)

spend 5 minutes hooking tape measure to belt,…… i looked like a dog chasing its tail if you can mold that image with trying to clip a tape measure on your belt.

loaded up with notepad and pens i felt all architectyish again. well more than architectyish,….builderish, which i’ve always prefered.

out the door and into the lift.

checkin myself out in the lift mirror,…

“Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr, today, i build because i own a pair of testicles and wish to scratch them when they get sweaty after a hard days work!”


😛


there is a certain level of comfort you get when you downshift what you do and what you look like, and subsequently what other people think you do.

let me clarify,… i can walk out of the stock exchange in jeans and a t-shirt, and some people who see me there everyday will know i’m an investor there. others will think i work for some old kuwaiti dude, but then theyre just morons and would think the same if they saw warren buffet sittng on the exchange floor.

now if i were to dive head first into a bin to collect coke cans ( you know you can actually get money for those things these days), the i’d probably draw odd looks.

however, dress down enough, and you can get away with virtually anything 😀

now i’m not actually doing the work cos i know fuck all about timber and carpentry, but theres a carpenter that we hire as a freelancer. so he picked stuff out and i help carry shit too and fro after agreeing on finishings etc.

i’m Grrrrrrrring today remember, so i’m hauling these huge sheets of timber from the shop, cross the road, and into the sawmill,…. going Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!

i unload, and turn to get another big ass sheet,….

when i see the carpenter, who is half my height and width, skipping down the road with THREE massive sheets hoisted on his shoulder!

disheartened, i reverted to designer/supervisor mode,….

and scratched my balls, ….. cos it was a warm day.

but back to my point about slumming it, dress appropriately and you really can get away with murder!

looking like a day labourer, i did the following:

– carrying some tools, i pushed ahead of the que to get into an office lift,… hahaha, i was sweaty and stinky so had it almost all to myself and no one even yelled 😛

– one medium sized peice of timber and me and the carpenter in a lift,… could easliy fit another 3 people, but every floor that it stopped on i put my hand out to stop them coming on and said “sorry we’re full 😀 ” with a smile. lol not a word!

– the best is when youre carrying something, not even big, but it should look heavy,….. and you need a door opened, JUST YELL!!!

HEY YOU OPEN THE DAMN DOOR!!!

HOLD THE GODDAMN LIFT!!!

ARE YOU FUCKING BLIND, CANT YOU SEE I GOT SOMETHING HEAVY HERE?!?!!?!

YEAH YOU DAMN WELL BETTER HOLD THE DOOR!!!

and the do it!

lol had it been me i would simply slam the door if some moron yelled at me like that.

on the otherhand, its surprising how some people are obviously sooooo important and busy ( read mendoub, bum, tea boy, accountants from certain countries that think theyre the shit) that holding the door open for someone luggin something would take too much of their precious time.

the only guy that did open a door without my yelling said ‘your welcome’ in an american accent after i said thanks in my trans-atlantic accent. he was an arab in case youre wondering, which says alot, but is something for another post perhaps.

after sorting everything out, we took a break for a few minutes.

then we capped the day off with a lunch at a small pakistani restaraunt frequented by day labour in mirqab. thats where carpenter dude said he normally eats lunch.

slumming it has its advantages, the best being a big ass chicken biriyani, with half a chicken, some chickpea sauce, salad and a laban type thing for KD0.550 per person!!! and yes it did taste great, and no its been 4 hours and i havent had to go to the loo.


oh and no building took place today, just moving material 😛

tomorrow i build!

well the carpenter will build,….

for tomorrow i shall supervise!

and maybe scratch a bit here and there.