For those who didn’t know, like myself until the other day there was a very large recall on all Tylenol products. There was some sort of smell that got tied into the medicine, which is a material used for treating wood. I for one have always been a proponent of Tylenol, it does a great job most of the time but I’m surprised that I didn’t hear about this until recently. So if you have any Tylenol in the house make sure to toss it out, I now most people use Panadol in Kuwait but recently they introduced Tylenol and I brought some over from the US with me when I came back from the US. I noticed on this trip that there weren’t any Tylenol in any of the shelves of the pharmacy, I asked why and they said they didn’t have stock of them, nothing about the recall, so I just picked up some Advil. I prefer Advil most of the time, but its only available in the US and not every location had so I picked up Tylenol. I have a few bottles of the gel caps and they are all going to be thrown in the trash. I was wondering why I got rid of the headache but my stomach was acting up after taking Tylenol, but it didn’t happen every time. Not worth the risk, I’m tossing it all out and if you know anyone using Tylenol then toss it out too.

The FDA said about 70 people have been either sickened by the odor – including nausea, stomach pain, vomiting and diarrhea – or noticed it. The recall includes some batches of regular and extra-strength Tylenol, children’s Tylenol, eight-hour Tylenol, Tylenol arthritis, Tylenol PM, children’s Motrin, Motrin IB, Benadryl Rolaids, Simply Sleep, and St. Joseph’s aspirin.

Eid vacations have turned into one and two week vacations for people in Kuwait with the Government giving extended vacations in all directions. I had a few days off so I took them to travel for a bit, but usually I like staying in Kuwait for Eid, the town is like a ghost town and its easy to get around.

Right now the weather is fantastic and its amazing to be outside, I like Eid because you get to see a lot of family and all these adorable kids. I do go somewhat broke giving out Eedeyas and yes not all the kids are the same, some you give different then others, I have my favorites.

This time around I’m taking advantage and went out of town for a bit so I hope everyone has a fantastic Eid with friends and family.

What the hell is going on with Phone lines in Kuwait. I just came to accept that when people call into to Kuwait the call quality is usually crap, but when you call out you get a decent line. Over the last few years for some reason the lines have gotten worse, and lately most of the time when someone calls me from overseas I get some random 222#####, very rarely is it with the caller ID and sometimes its a 5 digit number like 29268. Now recently over the past two weeks I have gotten some strange caller ID numbers which start with 9982#### or 9878####. Now it seems that some Zain lines are being used as Voip numbers, I’m sure that it isn’t Zain doing this because all international lines in Kuwait are controlled by the Government for the most part, if they know they have control over it. Seriously, when someone calls me from abroad I would like to know who it is.

Things have gotten very ridonkulous with Customs in Kuwait, everybody faced problems but I have never had a package stuck in the Ministry of Information for over a month and a half, and I only had Gears of War 3 and Toy Model in the box, nothing else. I kept calling DHL they keep telling me two days later again and again, it was a headache. The items arrived in Kuwait on September 16th, they said the items had to go to Ministry of Information since they shutdown their desk at the airport so they said that would take a 7 to 10 days, I said thats fine so 10 days went buy and nothing, then they told me a few days later it cleared then they said it would take another week in customs because of the mess they have. Then they were on Strike and I was told my package was lost and it would take a few more days to find it then a few days more to clear it.

It went on week to week like this, until I decided to go check in Customs and they said they never received any package back from MoI. I asked where it would be and went to MoI, and I found the items were still there and never taken back. It was a disaster, I basically went to so many different offices asking what they wanted and nobody knew. At one point I spoke to one sensible guy and told him you have had the package for a month and half and havne’t decided what you want to do with it. He spoke to another guy and signed a few random papers and gave the package to me. DHL don’t have a clue about it and I’m not paying them anything for it, I wanted to blow up and rip the guys at DHL to shreds but at that point I have my package and I’m not going to bother with them, but for over a month for a toy and video is ridiculous.

Recently I had a chance to try Kabab Ji again, its been a long time since I had their sandwiches and I’m glad I did. I heard a while back that the management changed and they are getting high quality meat and things are more organized so I thought to try it out again. My usual option is Villa Fayrooz but honestly over the past year they have screwed up order and the food has dropped drastically in quality. Mais Alghanim is good but the delivery at times takes too long so the food is cold so I thought to try out Kababji again.

We had about six kabaab sandwiches and each two were a different kind, I can’t remember the names except for one which is antabli. I was surprised, the quality of the sandwiches were great and humus was pretty good too. Out of the six I finish four and was stuffed, didn’t give my friend a chance to have three, I was too hungry and too quick for him. After that I think I have ordered Kababji at least four times this month and each time it has been good. I hope that Kababji manages to maintain the level of quality they have brought it back to, back in the day I used to eat their sandwich three times a week but I don’t mind having it once every two weeks or every week, the sandwiches just a have a little too much bread for my liking but other then that the sandwiches are great.

Its official, it has been over two weeks now and KEMS has been blocking torrents. The Data Caps were somewhat removed quietly and nobody made a fuss about it but it really does seem that Kems doesn’t care about its customers. Just a few weeks back they just went and turned on their traffic throttling and blocking torrents. Its very sad that they can change the terms of our agreements without any notification. Usually in normal situations we would be able to sue because what they are doing is illegal, when you pay for your service they are bound by that contract but in our case they are changing it whenever they want.

Kems was doing so well over the past 3 years and they keep getting better and better, they were really one of the best ISPS, consistent speed, quality connections, almost never down. But then the last 6 months they took a turn for the worst and attacked their own customers with their actions, even bad mouthing their own customers. I don’t know what they had in mind for their PR campaign but it wasn’t a good one.

Hayatt Cancer Foundation is organizing a charity gala dinner on wednesday 26 October to raise money to buy novel chemotherapy for expatriate breast cancer patients and to buy equipment to start with the help of the Ministry of Health the machines we need to start breast cancer screening for Kuwaiti women. We need the help of all as this is a national cause and the problem not only of the women but of all the family as anyone can be the target and on each family it could be a mother, a sister, a cousin, anyone.

We are selling tables for this event:

• Table of 10 for 5000 KD – Front Row
• Table of 8 for 4000 KD – Middle Row
• Table of 10 for 3000 KD

We may also sell by seat 300 KD

The famous singer Amal Maher (sings Oum Keltoum) is our guest for the evening. A doctor is coming from USA to deliver a lecture on Breast Cancer for this occasion.

Your help is highly appreciated.

On the other hand , please Contact Me: 97700724

There has been a lot of talk over the past year over the pay in Government sector being low but in reality these people don’t work much or go to work between 2-4 hours or don’t go at all without any consequences. Its a disaster the way things are going recently, and they complained about incentives that Kuwaiti’s recieve in the private sector but it was an incentive so more Kuwaitis work in the private sector but now that has all gone down the drain with the ridiculous salary increases in the public sector as well as the salary incentives that they receive. Some of them might be valid but a huge majority isn’t and we are only setting ourselves up for failure in Kuwait at this rate.

This below is statement from a friend of mine and he says it very well.

Think about it this way.

How many hour private sector work vs government

The responsibilities/consequences of private sector vs government.

We work longer hours, and have more at stake if we fuck up then they do.

Also as a Kuwaiti employer you are responsible to pay all your electric bills monthly or they will close your file at the government. You have a mandoob whose only job is to make sure to visit all the ministries to make sure nothing blocks your file.

Public sector doesn’t have to pay their bills since they have no need for labor services or other government entity.

We as Kuwaiti business owners bust our asses to get shit done in this country just to have someone in Baladia or Commerce to fuck us over cause we actually followed the rules.

We are Greece in the making people. If we dont start controlling the public sector they are going to run us to the ground.

Now the starting Salary for a Fresh Graduate in any of the Public Sector Oil Companies is 1800 KWD and for the Audit Bureau is 1500 KWD. That doesn’t include that some people will or have already recieved ridiculous salary increases for doing nothing, some people’s salaries will have increased by 6000 KWD monthly which is insane. I honestly think that some people should be paid more for the work they are doing but a huge majority of people working the public sector don’t even work so why should they receive more money for doing nothing. Then you have the strikes for people who only work a few hours a day and want more, its really sad seeing the state that Kuwait has reached, someone needs to make the tough decision and pull the plug like Regean and Thatcher did to bring the public sector inline. We have departments in goverment where 10 people do 1 person’s job yet nothing gets done in that department.

I have friends who have been working the banking sector for over 9 years and their salary isn’t 1500 KWD, they said they are better off quitting and working in the oil sector at this point. If the private sector is to survive they have to really move forward with projects that involve the private sector not put all major projects all hold like it has been for a long time now.

I have lived in other countries before for college and work, but I really wouldn’t want to live anywhere else but Kuwait. I for one remember not having Kuwait during the Gulf War and it was a horrible feeling and at the rate we are going Kuwait won’t be around in 20 years or it will be a disaster of country in 10 years.

Top Picture From Flickr

Slide ‘N Glide‘s first drift event will be held at BIC (Bahrain International Circuit) located in Sakhir on Saturday, October 22nd 2011 starting at 9 AM until 5 PM. the event will be divided into 3 sessions:

• Practice session 1 (Slide ‘N Glide staff will ride with you)
• Practice session 2 (On your own unless you want someone with you)
• Competition (No pressure, it’s just for fun!)

I have always been a fan of Drifting, I have watched a lot of Formula D over the years and seen what some of these guys do during GulfRun and its impressive. I for one lack skills to keep the car going sideways but with more Drifting events such as these I can probably get better at it. The best part is people can participate and they can learn from the professional guys from SlideNGlide. The event is taking place in Bahrain International Circuit on the 22nd of October anyone can join, and it would be a lot of fun to watch, and a portion of the proceeds goes to Steps Rehabilitation Center, you can find more details on their website.

Link: SlideNGlide

A lot of us order lots of items from outside of Kuwait, and now with the arrival of the iPhone 4S people will be making a ton of orders to satisfy their Apple addiction, I for one am addicted to Amazon. Now things have gotten a lot worse then before with customs and I’m not sure if this will get any better.

Ministry of Information shutdown their desk at the Customs Airport Counter. So what does that mean, it means every package has to be taken from the Airport to the Ministry and checked out so the process was long before but now its even more ridiculous.

Previously:

• 3-5 Days International Delivery
• 3-5 Days Kuwait Customs Clear

Total 10 Days

Now:

• 3-5 Days International Delivery
• 3-5 Days Kuwait Customs
• 4-7 Days Ministry Of Interior
• 4-7 Days in Custom for the Delivery Company to Pick it UP

Total 24 Days

The Ministry of Information is going through to check what is or isn’t banned but they are going through everything and they don’t have a clue what anything is. I had a very difficult time explaining to them what Gears Of War 3 was, I don’t think they have seen a PS3 or XBox before.

Quick Update
Airport and Port Customs are on strike, good luck getting any of your packages any time soon.