Now things are getting interesting, about two weeks left for GulfRun and the events will be starting. My car has been in the shop for the past week, and it needs another ten days before I get it back. They replaced the clutch and flywheel so the car was working perfectly. Then came the long list of items which are to be installed on the vehicle to “upgrade” the performance slightly. My plan was to destroy my previous adversaries on the track with the time attack, but I just saw the list of vehicles that will be coming to GulfRun and my hopes were slightly damaged. There are some very track intensive vehicles and I no longer have the power advantage as before.

Just take a look at the list of vehicles that will be participating in GulfRun 4 and some of them are very modified.

Link: GulfRun

This additional numbers are causing slight havoc and some systems haven’t yet adapted to it. I don’t get my Aramex texts anymore, it seems they are working on it. 17/10/08 is the cut off date, I’m not sure what exactly is  going to happen or what isn’t going to happen.

• 1+800 numbers
• 2+Landlines
• 9+MTC
• 6+Wataniya

The most annoying part is that I am getting 5-7 wrong calls a day, and at the worst of times. For the past few weeks I’m not really answering numbers that I don’t know because I’m tired of saying you have the wrong number, especially those numbers where you have no clue where they are calling from.

Since before the weekend K-Net has been having problems with their point of sale machines. I tried using it at the Zain Head Office but it kept saying “Transaction Void”. I called the bank to make sure all was in order and it turns out that K-Net is having issues. I tried my K-Net card and my credit card and both didn’t work. I even recently tried booking a ticket on Jazeera Airways and K-Net card wasn’t working so I used a credit card and that went through on Visa. 

I still say MTC instead of ZAIN all the time, and I think for the past two months a lot of people have been having major issues with MTC/ZAIN. Some major overhaul or major failure is going on and I don’t even have a clue about it.

Network Upgrade/Disruption: I have been roaming with my MTC/ZAIN phone for the past couple of weeks and before that for a few weeks, and its in areas in Europe which have really good signal. For some reason a lot of my phone calls can’t go through and if they do go through they disconnect easily. But when I use the Vodafone chip the line goes through without a hitch and connects very easily and quality of the line is good. I know that some network upgrades are being performed but at the same time network performance has deteriorated dramatically.

Pricing Ridiculousness: I was happy for the first time in decades that MTC/ZAIN sends me a text message for disconnection. Usually when I travel I never use my line outside of the Gulf, and keep it to a minimum but due to the situation I have had to keep it on. MTC has no criteria for price caps and they don’t look at the history of the customer, I have been paying high bills for the past few years yet whenever it goes over a certain amount they always disconnect when I’m abroad but this time they let me know 5 days ahead that they will disconnect so I managed to get it paid. I never use my credit card/check card because they can draw huge sums and not notify you. I’m not the first or last person that will face this problem but MTC/ZAIN over charges for all roaming charges, you might not have used it much but they will charge you more then you did sometimes so its important to find out how much you are really using it and the minutes they are charging you. Keeping an eye on the bill is very important.

Disconnections: I don’t think I can drive from any location in Kuwait to other without getting the conversation disconnected. To the point if I drive to the gas station and back I know that it will disconnect. Its getting to the point that if a phone conversation doesn’t disconnect then something must be wrong, and even paying this much they can’t seem to keep a stable network.

Network Busy: Whenever I’m calling from outside of Kuwait to Kuwait, I get this Network Busy Tone which drives me nuts, and it happens very consistently. I just think that the MTC Roaming service is pretty bad and I have switched to multiple networks and still no hope in the matter.

I think a lot of people are frustrated with MTC/ZAIN at this point because of the lack of service. There have been a improvements but over the past couple of months it has been a downhill. Hopefully it will improve at some point because its getting ridiculous.

 

 

I tend to top up the oil every few thousand kilometers so I took in the car a little while ago, and everything seemed fine. The other day I was going somewhere that I didn’t know so I tried looking for it but couldn’t find it. I usually take out the navigation DVD anytime I take the car to service and this time I didn’t. I passed by in the morning to have an oil change a few parts installed and I complained to them about the navigation disc being missing.

Went back and forth, arguing with the service manager that I know exactly what happened. It was there before the car was taken, and not there after it returned. I kept arguing and a new DVD Navigation disc costs 198 KD, it was back and forth. I’m going to get the car back in a couple of days and there is no way I’m paying for a new Navigation DVD, it was taken by somebody at the dealership for sure. Its annoying when something like this happens and they deny it and say it isn’t there fault for the disappearance.

The first day of Ramadan is always an interesting start, I was thirsty by noon and just kept wanting water. I really don’t have any issues with not eating, getting parched is what gets to you. After futoor I felt like passing out but we had to go to some Dewaneyas as part of tradition.

I thought it wouldn’t take longer then an hour and a half, but I was long it took about three hours of driving around from Dewaneya to Dewaneya and taking no longer then 10 mins at each. It was quite hectic and lots of people going around, its nice seeing all these people but I was exhausted and wanted to pass out. By the time we were done I was sleepy and starving, I didn’t know whether to sleep or eat. I met up with some of my friends and we order Zait o Zaatar, I fell asleep before the food arrived. Everyone has their theory about what you should eat so you won’t be hungry or thirsty the next day, but at that point I would eat anything in front of me. It was a good day and hopefully it won’t take too long to finish all the rounds.

Link: Flickr

“Embarak 3alaikum Al Shahar”

What an interesting start to Ramadan, the airport is flooded with people returning. Its still very hot outisde, and I wonder how all the schedules are going to be adjusted. The best part is seeing so much family, I just get annoyed that there is a complete shutdown between 3 pm and 8:30 pm.

In mailbox: 23/8/08

In Kuwait: 24/8/08

This really doesn’t make any sense, I have never seen something delivered this quick, let alone somebody to get from the US to Kuwait that fast. I saw the item arrive in my mailbox by the 23rd of August and I have it delivered by the 24th is nothing short of a miracle, I don’t know if this was a mistake or a few changes taking place but I hope it continues that way.

A friend told me there is a very ugly house in Miseela, extremely ugly, and when I passed by I was shocked. I know different people have different tastes but there is no excuse for this atrocity of a house. I feel really bad for the neighbors, they have to live next to this eye sore day in and day out. Its horrid and just looking at it makes you feel nauseated, I can’t believe the amount of statues they have and what they have painted to the outer wall.

I think someone would be doing the world a favor if it was demolished. I can’t believe somebody really paid to have this built, and they named it Villa Akbar.

Continue Reading…

For some reason I still refer to them as MTC, and I don’t think I will be changing that anytime soon. I have been out of Kuwait for the last few days. Saturday night for about 6 hours nobody in Kuwait could call my Kuwait mobile and I couldn’t call anyone it was really strange. I thought they disconnected my phone because I was roaming and my bill went sky high, but it was only for about 5 days by then, didn’t think it could be so high that they would disconnect it. Even without the blackout the roaming signal was pretty bad, it was really hard to get through sometimes.