After reading the first book from Barney Stinson I had to get the other two books recently released. One book being The Playbook and the other being Bro On the Go, these are essential reading for any man, it sets the rules and clearly shows a path. Barney Stinson is a man among men, he has cut through all that is confusing for men and made it so simple for any Bro to live his life to his most Awesome potential.

When reading the playbook you can hear the voice of Barney Stinson in your head and you can’t stop laughing at the most insane ideas. Some of them are lame and you wonder how the hell he gets laid, and some are genius but it would take the utmost precision to pull off those plays. Then Bro On The Go gives you all the rules necessary to act in life when in the mall or at the office. Easy light and fun to read, the essential to life from Barney Stinson.

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Bro At The Gym “God did not design spandex for dudes”

A Bro At A Party “If your working on a chick and she mentions her cat more then three times, cut your losses and get out of there.”

Link: Amazon (Playbook)
Link: Amazon (Bro On The Go)

There are two things that I love taking with me when I’m traveling or even when I’m leaving the house and thats my iPad and my Moleskine, sometimes I can’t take both or the iPad is too bulky so I just end up taking my Moleskine with me. When I first heard about the case for the iPad from Moleskine I was excited, I honestly didn’t think that Moleskine would make it. I kept refreshing the Amazon page every week to check if it was available, the email notification didn’t work for me, and as soon as I saw it was already backordered, but I placed an order for two and received it after two weeks which isn’t too bad.

The Good

• Exceptional build quality, the Leather is very nice, just what your used to from Moleskine Notebooks
• Snug fit for the iPad, slips right in
• Functionally great, with the note book attached. Working on your iPad and taking notes couldn’t be easier
• When closed it looks great and professional, nice and clean
• The notebook is replaceable, next step is different kinds of notebook replacements from the plain to the lined
• Very reasonably priced for a case

The Bad:

• Left handers don’t have much luck, you have to flip the notebook
• It gets rather heavy and its really thick, more then I expected

Verdict:

• You will love the Moleskine iPad Folio Cover if you miss having a notebook iPad combo
• If you want a think case then this isn’t for you
• If you love Moleskines then this is for you

Overall I love it, and I’m going to enjoy carrying it with me when I need to take notes and have internet access.

Link: Amazon
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Continue Reading…

With a million things going on and a lot of shows to watch I haven’t had much time to read these days, but I decided a few weeks ago to start reading some of the books which are piling up. The hardest part is choosing the book to start with, and all of them are very different. I just decided to read the books that I will find most interesting and entertaining at the moment.

• Tokyo Vice
• Haliburton’s Army
• Enemies & Allies

Whenever I get a package its like a surprise, I have an idea whats in the box but not always sure. Especially lately since I preorder a few items and this time around I have gotten some fun items. I have at last found the Transformers All Spark Cube, full metal engraving of the one from the movie, from the first transformers movie, it will prominently be sitting on my desk. The other two are books I have been looking forward to, one is the book from Simon Peg, pretty much anything from Simon Peg is worth watching or reading, he is a comic genius and I love all his movies so I have been waiting for this book. Then there is The Stig, or Ben Collins as we have come to find out, after all this time at last we know who the Stig is. There has been controversy surround this book because BBC didn’t want it released, and I don’t think he is The Stig anymore but it is still worth reading what a man who has been driving the most insane machines in the world at insane speeds and how it feels.

Moleskines have gotten more and more popular over the years, the perfect writing pad that everyone enjoys to use. I for one have quite a few, one or two for work, and about a dozen I use for personal stuff from sketching to notes, to remembering events and doodling all kinds of things. I always wondered what kind of environment they worked in to create such amazing products that people love, and now thanks to Visual Therapy I got to see the haloed offices of Moleskine in Milan. You get a sense of how the notebooks are produced, a glimpse of their design studio, and a really big notepad that I would love to have.

I probably have close to 20 Moleskines unopened sitting on my top shelf in my room. Some are plain paper, some are squared, some just lines, and then there are the different sizes. I just can’t get enough of them, a few months ago I found which are A4 size, Moleskine drawing notebook, usually they are half the size. You can never have too many Moleskines, and I will probably pick up more when I see them.

Link: VisualTherapy

Its been a long while since I have been in a bookstore in the UK, as soon as I passed by Waterstones I stopped to check out the books. The reason I like Waterstones is because they have a recommendation section where people who work there recommend books with short reviews which are pretty interesting, they give you a mix of choices and different genres to enjoy.

I was walking around and tempted to buy a lot of books but kept walking as I still had a lot of books to read. My favorite section in the bookstore is the Scifi section, Waterstones always seem to be updated with a lot of books for science fiction and fantasy. So I headed down to my shocking surprise I found the new Trudi Canavan book, I didn’t know she had one out, I was happy as kid in a candy store, I flipped through it real quick, I didn’t think I would get to read any of her books anytime soon but lo and behold she had a new book. So I picked that up right away knowing that I will be reading it very soon. So many other books I skimmed through, I just took their names down to be noted for later, I have a list of a few dozen books that I want to read, but if its fiction I don’t mind picking it up any point in time. I just love the smell of books and paper in Waterstones, never could get enough of it.

David Gammell is one the best fantasy writers of our time, he passed a few years back now but his books still live on. The story is of Druss the Legend taking up his battle Axe “Snaga” to help the Drenai once more fight off the Nadir invaders at Dros Delnoch, and new Heroes must rise to fight with Druss. Now this is one of those rare timeless books, it isn’t a Pulitzer prize winning book or something of that nature but one very memorable one. It puts you in the middle of a heroic adventure, full of blood and sweat, dreams and fears, magic and might. At Dros Delnoch they are meant to hold against a horde of warriors who want their blood with 50 to 1 odds against them, a sea of soldiers where you see no end to them. Druss unites these warriors who are but farmers with some Heroic women to fight for whats right, can these soldiers hold on, how will Druss the Legend give them enough hope to survive. The characters are colorful and pull you in, there actions are their words, they fight for what they believe in because that is what Druss gave them. Druss became the Legend not just through his endless battles, but for never losing a battle, for never giving up against the worst odds, and never sacrificing his principles. I bought the 25th Anniversay edition because I knew which book this was, the first one from Gemmell and I have read a few that I love, and I knew that I had to read this, printed in 1984 and reprinted many times and the one I picked up was a 2009 reprint and still an amazing story.

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I went through my old storage earlier knowing that I had a disorganized mess to deal with and a ton of books. I was looking at the shelving and wondering how it was holding up with all that weight. I took everything out and started reorganizing everything, first thing I did was to organize all the books and items I had. I sorted out the books into two piles, books I read and those I haven’t. Then I organized them into books that I wanted to give away to Q8Books. This whole process of cleaning up and reorganizing took about an hour and half, I ended up having over 100 books to give to them.

The process was simple I called them up and they asked what type of books, I told them th e range is huge. So many type of books and they said they would accept it but a few books they didn’t want such as accademic books but I decided to give them the whole lots since it was only a few academic books. They said they would offer money for some books and credit for others at their store, but honestly I didn’t want either and asked that they take care of them, and at least sold them to someone who could make more use of it then me at this point. After I was done, reorganized all the books into a way that I found to be more coherent, might not make a lot of sense to people but it looks organized and somewhat related when I look at them now. Took the books in a very big old traveling bag that we didn’t use anymore, it easily weighed over 100 KGs with all those books, had to get some help to get the bag out of the car.

To find Q8 Books go to Q8Books.com , they even have a nice inventory of items to check out.

A few different book piles here and there, some I have gone through and a lot I haven’t but now the problem I have is the pile of books that I have read. There are a lot of books that I want to keep and a few I don’t want to keep anymore. The thing is I will never throw books away even if I don’t want them anymore, usually in the states I used to trade them in at the bookstore or I give them away to a used book store or someone that can make use of it.

I haven’t found a place such as this in Kuwait, I have looked around a bit but not sure where to look exactly. I want to give the books away but I’m not sure if they would be appropriate in a public library, or how well they would be treated in the English section. I just want to give them away to a place that could make use of them or sell them, some are reference books and some are fiction & non-fiction books. Anyone found a used book store that would take books?

Everyone has heard of In&Out at one point in time, I never knew what all the fuss was about back then, when I moved to the states I lived about 2 minutes away from one. The first time I had one of their burgers it was sloppy and very enjoyable, luckily one of my friends helped out with the menu. Then I passed by every once in a while, their burgers felt fresh but I used to eat a lot of them, and their milkshake is fantastic but wasn’t a big fan of the fries. Now over the years I kept hearing of so many people approaching them for franchising and expansion in Kuwait and the Middle East but nobody had any luck with them. They seemed to want to remain local but never heard or read anything about them. Now I saw this book on the shelf and Borders in Dubai, I picked it up right away without a second thought, some incite into one of the most private companies that I know of. After going through this book I am happy that I read it, it wasn’t what I was expecting but it did give me a look in this burger dynasty. In&Out has managed to keep its reputation and continue growth year after year without any affect from other fast food companies, and they aren’t sell outs. They have had their trials and issues that they have had to deal with, it seems they went through some rough litigation outside from the years I left the states but the business is still going so thats a good sign. In&Out was a college experience for me and part of my life for a one of the best times, so it always will have good memories for me. I used to remember when we would drive over to pick some up, I always remembered their opening hours, until 1am on the weekend and 12:30am on the weekdays. This book concentrated a little too much on the history in the beginning of the business and giving you a glimplse of the industry but I was looking for more information about In&Out and their juicy information, but it did satisfy a bit of that too. A great read, some sound business practices in the story of In&Out, a look at the one company that counters all the usual rules of a regular fast food chain, always putting the customer first.

Link: Amazon
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