Automatic Wudu (ablution) Washer

How to make Wudu the automatic way

The Machine


Step 1


Step 2


Step 3


Soon to be seen in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain.

Read more about it here.

Cruel and Unusual Punishment

or well deserved? You be the judge.

Coneheads in Kuwait

A very strange phenomenona is happening in Kuwait.

Do you remember the movie coneheads?

Or Alien?





These extraterrestrials both had that strange elongated head.

Well I have been seeing elongated heads more and more, exclusively on veiled girls. Is it an alien invasion? Is it the chicken flu that is spreading around? I could not ask the girls, so I did the next best thing. I went to the Indian guy selling veils, and I asked to see a veil with a bump in the back to have that alien look. He explained to me that all the veils are regular veils but you can buy a huge flower hairpin and create that conehead effect. Something like this but with a much bigger flower.





Mystery solved, for all those that where wondering.

Two Movies I can't wait to see

I will not ramble on about them, just watch the trailers and you will know what I mean.

Fantastic Four - Rise of the Silver Surfer



Die Hard 4.0

Kabab Al Hija and Henry Ford

Henry Ford invented the assembly line method of manufacturing. The concept was to assemble each component of a product separately and pass it down the line to the next stage with further assembly. At the end of the assembly line, the result would be a finished product. This manufacturing method transformed the car industry allowing the mass production of cars at affordable rates for the masses. If not for Henry Ford and assembly lines, the elites would be driving cars and everyone else would be riding horses and donkeys.

Kabab Al Hija in Bned Al Gar, Kuwait have also revolutionized the manufacturing of Kababs. Inside, you will find an assembly line for Kababs, from the meat carcasses, the meat grinders, the coal grills, packing with Iranian bread and the final product packaging. Each stage has its own work area with one or more white clad worker assembling the kabab product.

I managed to snap a few pictures clandestinely, I did not want to be caught and arrested for industrial espionage. I did not take any pictures of my ordered Kabab, I was too hungry so I ate it :-)

Kabab Al Hija's crowded Entrance


Inside Kabab Al Hija



Kabab Al Hija's next door competition, notice no customers there.

My Desk - and others

I thought my computer set up was pretty cool, with 2 monitors, my big screen TV and all my remotes (DVD, TV and satellite receiver) all lined up.

Then I found this link with other nerdy desk set ups, Now I feel I need to buy more hardware.

I especially like this one:

Most Repeated Song on my iPod

Here is the most repeated song on my iPod these days.

Download Jessie.mp3

Youtube Live Performance.

Hope you love it just as much as I do.

Don't Have a Ladder? - No Problem

The signboard installers did not have a ladder, or scaffolding (or isgala in Kuwaiti ;-) ) No Problem, just lift the Hindi in the crane lift.

Wedding Announcement

There ain't no mountain high enough
Ain't no valley low enough
Ain't no river wide enough
To keep me from getting to you


Bao Xishun & Xia Shujuan

Together at last



Read More Here

Panda Scene

The mother Panda has her cub lying under her on the straw mat. A perfect idyllic scene showing the wonders of motherhood. Then the cub does something, watch it here:

Yabeela

Apologies to LiL ALiEN, someone emailed me the Yabeela pics, and I posted them.

The Original is here.

C is for Cookie

Sesame Street's version of V for Vendetta.

Too weird to describe, but hilarious. Just watch it.

Laila in the Sky with Diamonds - or Hailstorm in Kuwait

I was in the middle of watching the movie "Blood Diamond", in my darkened living room. I hear something banging on my window shutters. It starts slow then increases within minutes to a powerful roar, I jump up and open the outside door of my Diwaniyah and I witness the hailstorm at its peak. Mark called it Hurricane Laila, which is very appropriate.

I just saw in the movie Blood Diamonds how raw uncut diamonds looked like. I looked down my welcome mat and saw the same precious stones all over, but when I grabbed a stone, it melted into water.

Here is a pic of my welcome mat with all the diamonds hailstones that landed within a two minutes.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (November 11, 1922–April 11, 2007)

Wikipedia Entry

New Yotk Times Article

Rest in Peace

Bad Weather

Yesterday was the worst weather ever, red dust all morning then monsoon like rain causing torrents of mud.

In bad weather, be sure to drive slowly, safely, buckle up and watch out for the drivers around you.

This poor guy was not very careful.

Who Manufactured your Mobile

To see the country of manufacture for your mobile, press "* # 0 6 #" without the spaces. A 15 digit serial number will appear.
Find digits 7 and 8.

if they are 02 or 20 then the mobile is assembled in UAE (yaay Gulf Made)
if 80 or 08 then it is German made (not bad)
if 10 or 01 then Finish made (very good)
if 00 then French made (best quality)

My new Nokia N95 is Finish. Cool

Girls versus Boys

Or rather the title should be Girl writing versus Boy writing. By reading the different blogs by boys and girls, I noticed that girls write about their feelings, what happened to them, their thoughts, etc. Boys write about gadgets, weird things, their super powered computers / cars / bikes, etc. As a perfect example of the different styles of writing, read this exercise that an English proffessor at the University of Phoenix gave his students. It is a long read but hilarious:

---

An English Professor assigned his students to a joint writing exercise that quickly degraded -check it out...

"Today we will experiment with a new form called the tandem story. The process is simple. Each person will pair off with the person sitting to his or her immediate right.

As homework tonight, one of you will write the first paragraph of a short story. You will e-mail your partner that paragraph and send another copy to me. The partner will read the first paragraph and then add another paragraph to the story and send it back also sending another copy to me.
The first person will then add a third paragraph, and so on, back and forth.

Remember to reread what has been written each time in order to keep the story coherent. There is to be absolutely NO talking outside of the e-mails and anything you wish to say must be written in the e-mail. The story is over when both agree a conclusion has been reached."

The following was actually turned in by two of my English students:



Rebecca (last name deleted), and Gary (last name deleted).

THE STORY:

(First paragraph by Rebecca)
-----------------------------------------------
At first, Laurie couldn't decide which kind of tea she wanted. The chamomile, which used to be her favorite for lazy evenings at home, now reminded her too much of Carl, who once said, in happier times, that he liked chamomile. But she felt she must now, at all costs, keep her mind off Carl. His possessiveness was suffocating, and if she thought about him too much her asthma started acting up again. So chamomile was out of the question.



(Second paragraph by Gary )
--------------------------------------------------
Meanwhile, Advance Sergeant Carl Harris, leader of the attack squadron now in orbit over Skylon 4, had more important things to think about than the neuroses of an airheaded asthmatic bimbo named Laurie with whom he had spent one sweaty night over a year ago. "A.S. Harris to Geostation 17", he said into his transgalactic communicator. "Polar orbit established. No sign of resistance so far..." But before he could sign off, a bluish particle beam flashed out of nowhere and blasted a hole through his ship's cargo bay. The jolt from the direct hit sent him flying out of his seat and across the cockpit.



(Rebecca)
---------------------------------------------------------
He bumped his head and died almost immediately, but not before he felt one last pang of regret for psychically brutalizing the one woman who had ever had feelings for him. Soon afterwards, Earth stopped its pointless hostilities towards the peaceful farmers of Skylon 4. "Congress Passes Law Permanently Abolishing War and Space travel," Laurie read in her newspaper one morning. The news simultaneously excited her and bored her. She stared out the window, dreaming of her youth, when the days had passed unhurriedly and carefree, with no newspapers to read, no television to distract her from her sense of innocent wonder at all the beautiful things around her. "Why must one lose one's innocence to become a woman?" she pondered wistfully.



( Gary )
---------------------------------------------------------
Little did she know, but she had less than 10 seconds to live. Thousands of miles above the city, the Anu'udrian mother ship launched the first of its lithium fusion missiles. The dimwitted wimpy peaceniks that pushed the unilateral Aerospace Disarmament Treaty through the congress had left Earth a defenseless target for the hostile alien empires who were determined to destroy the human race. Within two hours after the passage of the treaty the Anu'udrian ships were on course for Earth, carrying enough firepower to pulverize the entire planet. With no one to stop them, they swiftly initiated their diabolical plan. The lithium fusion missile entered the atmosphere unimpeded. The President, in his top-secret mobile submarine headquarters on the ocean floor off the coast of Guam , felt the inconceivably massive explosion, which vaporized poor, stupid, Laurie and 85 million other Americans. The President slammed his fist on the conference table. "We can't allow this! I'm going to veto that treaty! Let's blow 'em out of the sky!"



(Rebecca)
---------------------------------------------------------
This is absurd. I refuse to continue this mockery of literature. My writing partner is a violent, chauvinistic semiliterate adolescent.



( Gary )
---------------------------------------------------------
Yeah? Well, you're a self-centered tedious neurotic whose attempts at writing are the literary equivalent of valium. "Oh shall I have chamomile tea? Or shall I have some other sort of F***ING TEA??? Oh no, I'm such an air headed bimbo who reads too many Danielle Steele novels."



Rebecca)
---------------------------------------------------------
A**hole.



( Gary )
---------------------------------------------------------
B****.



(Rebecca)
---------------------------------------------------------
Get screwed.



( Gary )
---------------------------------------------------------
Eat sh**.



(Rebecca)
---------------------------------------------------------
SCREW YOU - YOU NEANDERTHAL!!!



( Gary )
----------------------------------------------------------
GO DRINK SOME TEA - *****.

***********************************************

(TEACHER) A+ - I really liked this one. Only group to get an A.

Why did the donkey cross the street?

I don't know why, but he fell flat on his face. Poor Donkey.

Funny Signs from Saudi Arabia

DHL!

I walked into the DHL office in Ardiyah late last night. I parked my car in the customer parking at the front entrance and proceeded inside. I wanted to send some official signed documents to a bank I was corresponding with.

The DHL office was small. A counter with computer terminals was on the left and seats for six people where on the right. The counter was painted in the standard Orange and Red DHL corporate colors. The white walls where adorned with promotional DHL posters. Just above where the counter met the wall hung framed pictures of Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmed and Sheikh Nawaf Al Ahmed. Sheikh Sabah and Sheikh Nawaf looked towards the length of the counter in a benevolent smile as if over looking what was being sent out of their country to far away foreign lands.

On the other side of the counter was an Indian attendant. He was busy processing a letter for a Kuwaiti man dressed in traditional attire. On the seats placed at the end of the room, another Kuwaiti man was waiting for his turn. I pulled a number tag from the numbers roll and sat waiting for my turn.

With nothing better to do but wait, I sat listening to the exchange between the Kuwaiti and the Indian.

"Who is the recipient?” asked DHL, the man answered in a low voice, "Al Sheikh Abdullah bin Saud". My ears pricked up. I looked up to see what the man was sending to Saudi Royalty, it was a large white envelope with a bulge in it, as if it contained a small package. "Your address please?” the attendant asked, the man responded with his address giving the street name, house number, block number in Firdous.

"Do you have a mobile number for the recipient?” the attendant asked. The man said no, again in a half whisper. "I am sorry, I cannot send it if you don't have the recipient's mobile", the man tried to explain quickly in a low embarrassed voice that Sheikh Abdullah was well known and the DHL office in Jeddah would know where to deliver it. Can you give me any mobile number; the man pulled out his mobile phone, clicked on his phone address book and said this was the Mobile of the Sheikh's secretary, reciting the numbers as he read them off his mobile's screen.

The Kuwaiti paid his DHL charges, received his receipt and left very quickly.

The next Kuwaiti sitting near me had a big brown envelope also bulging. It is a standard process by DHL to inspect the contents of the shipment. I shifted my seat to get a side view of the transaction. As DHL took out the contents of the brown envelope, four loose fax rolls came out. They where fax copies documents that had a letterhead similar to the Kuwait Military. "What are these?” the DHL attendant asked, the man said "just papers". The attendant wrote that down. "Where are you sending them?” the man showed him a piece of paper. The DHL Attendant, oblivious to the man's attempt at secrecy, recited the paper out loud. "Hmmm, mmmm airbase, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia", the attendant slowly read. "Your adress?” the man was asked, the man answered “Sabah Al Nasser Area", with the street and block number and house number. The transaction was completed and my turn came.

As I went to the counter, it could have been my imagination, but the portrait of Sheikh Sabah and Sheikh Nawaf lost their smile and instead had a stern sad look on their face.

Mac has joined the Dark Side

As seen in Virgin - Dubai

In this Internet age, there are so many ways to make friends and meet other people not in your immediate social circle. You have myspace, hi5, messenger, bluetooth, email, etc. etc. etc.

But how did the older pre-internet / pre-mobile generation get to meet others?

Well they placed their picture and interests in a magazine or newspaper and waited for the envelopes to fill their mailbox. Here are a few choice samples:

I am back

I just came back from Amsterdam. It was not a vacation but work. I had a free last day and I managed to snap a few pictures. A picture is worth a thousand words, so they say so I will keep the prose to a minimum. Enjoy.

Danish Dutch people are very caring of themselves and their fellow human beings, that is why you have emergency defibrillators and stretchers just in case you have a little emergency and need someone to zap you and carry you off.



One thing you notice about Amsterdam are bicycles, they are everywhere, even more than cars.




Multi-storey Bicycle Parking



If you don't have a bike you can always rent one.




Or you could take a Taxi Bike.



For longer travel, trains are used.


You pay your fare by banging on a touch screen and pushing coins down the slot.




If you travel by plane, you can always take your bike with you.



Danish Dutch people love their chips.

This place was doing more business than the McDonalds further down the street.



Hot cones of chips are served from the freshly made chips hills, the only menu selection you get is Ketchup or Mayonaise on your chips. I had Ketchup.



There is a vibrant coffee culture in Amsterdam, french style outdoor coffees are everywhere.



After your Cappucino, you have to pay for it.



Other coffee places are not really coffee places. Always read the sign at the door before going in.