Its been a while since I have upgraded or messed around with any of my desktops. I have two which are running pretty good, they do the multitasking job that I need and I can open up about 100 tabs without even causing a hiccup. But the other two are in dire need of upgrades, one of them has ceased to function and it houses my iTunes which is making things very annoying to update playlists. Apple has some very screwed up ways of managing iTunes which makes me really hate them.

I have been thinking about getting a Windows Laptop for a while now and the one that I have been eyeing is the Asus ZenBook but I just heard that they are going for major hardware upgrade this summer so I’m going to wait on that.

Also one of the reasons I want to upgrade my hardware is the release of Diablo III in May, I want a machine that can handle the abuse so I will be building that soon, once I have searched the depths of New Egg for the hardware I have in mind.

London is one of those places I really enjoy going to, there is always something to do, and this time around I didn’t have enough time at all to do what I want. The weather couldn’t be any better, very cold and sunny the whole time I was there, four days is just not enough to have fun in London and I always want to stay there longer when I get there.

My Usual Simple To Do List:

• Waterstones Bookstore
• Phoenix Palace Off Baker Street (Chinese Food)
• Harrods Pizzeria
• Movie @ Apollos
• Movie @ Vue Cinemas West End
• Bike Store To Check Out Some Gear
• Harrods
• Walk In Regent Park
• Forbidden Planet

Forbidden Planet is one of my favorite stops in London and I tend to spend hours there roaming about. I literally can’t help but stay there for hours, they have a fantastic comic book and science fiction section in the basement which you can really get lost in. As usual at the end of my trip I ended up eating at the Caviar House, it really hits the spot and for about a decade it was always my last bite to eat while in the airport. For some reason I like taking my time at the airport, gives me time to check out the books in WHSmith.

The other day I was told about a new road that takes you to Bubyan Island so I thought to just drive over there, just get into the car and drive. I looked on Google maps and all I had to take was 6th ring road all the way, and I forgot that directions in Kuwait now works, a few roads off here and there but overall it works. 117 KM to Bubyan Bridge, I honestly want to cross to see whats on that Island, its huge and I never heard anything about it so I thought to check it out, never knew why I didn’t before.

Saturday early morning we got into the car, filled it up with gas and took a few bottles water and pass Starbucks on the way. The drive is about 2 hours to the location we had in mind and I think I got caught by two speeding cameras on the way but I’m not sure of what speed it registered since I was going around 135 and they don’t usually snap at that speed. After passing Jahra it turns into an empty road and I get very surprised there is a new stretch of road that has just been finished.

Next to the new stretch of road is the Sheikh Sabah Nature Reserve, and I don’t know what exactly is in it but there were a few interesting sights. Because of these roads and odd shaped exits I felt as if I was in Abu Dhabi, every 5 to 10 Kilometers there is an upper level round about that you could exit and go back around to go in the other direction and honestly its very cool, reminded me of roads in Spain or Italy.

We just kept on going until we hit the construction area and we hit a few major bumps but luckily I was in the land cruiser and it did an amazing job of taking those bumps. We ended up in the middle of no where and we found the bridge entrance as I was approaching a bunch of guys in military uniform step out of the shed only to tell me that we can’t cross the bridge, I thought to try my luck any even though I knew that nobody was really paying attention, I could have probably crossed if I drove through, but I didn’t want to risk getting shot for crossing a bridge. I hope that when its done it will be open to the public because it looks like it will be a lot of fun to drive over.

Yesterday was the first day I went to the gym as part of my plan, and I have lessened the amount of food I consume recently as well. Overall the plan is somewhat working, I feel a bit healthier and better overall because I’m sleeping lighter. Still I’m not even the same league as M.F.W since he is going over board with pretty much everything, he set his sights to destroy me in every way shape or form but I have plan to win.

After working out at C Club for about an hour I felt that I didn’t have the right type of direction or help that I need and recently I found out about a new gym called Inspire who have trainers who pretty much put you through your worst physical nightmare to get you into shape and on your time. People recommended Core and Sidekick to me, and they are excellent gyms but they aren’t for me. M.F.W trains every morning between 6 and 7 am and at Core Fitness then goes to the gym again after work then plays football twice a week, not including barely eating anything but protein at this point. He may have a head start on me but I am very good on planning and this time around I will execute these plans.

I think everyone has filled up at an Al Oula Gas Station at some point or another, and their employees in their green uniform come up and fill your car. I usually like filling my car unless I’m wearing a dishdasha and don’t want to get it messed up. They fill up your car if you stopped for any sort of gas, some of them are young men and some of them are older men. And their nationalities range from East Asian all the way to East African. I remember when it was public owned you would only see a few guys and not in uniform so its good to see they have a brand and stick to it, but I always wonder what they are paid and how they are managed.

One time I was at the gas station I was talking to one of the men working outside and I guessed he was from Somalia which I guessed right. He was giving me details on my car which were very specific, he seemed to be educated and when I was talking to him sounded like any normal guy. So I asked him about the details of the job, they are paid 60 KD per month for working 8 hours a day 6 days a week, and they provided with a place to stay but not food. If they work 12 hours a day its 95 KD per month for 6 days a week. That is substantially low, and I honestly thought they would be a lot higher since the minimum wage for help working in the household has gone up and they get more then that, but it depends from which country they are from. I stood their talking to the man for about 15 mins and thought it was a waste that he is in this job and not something else, but he said this is a job and he needed it so I can’t blame him.

Just to be clear the staff don’t look mistreated and Al Oula have done a decent job of cleaning up and rebranding these gas stations. I think they want to open more services in their gas stations but the Baladiya won’t let them even though it was originally part of the deal. Still I think they should raise the minimum wage and find a business case to justify it or work it out, they wouldn’t be in this business to loose money, and they operating within the law but still I think sometimes they should have the chance for a better wage.

So tip them if they filled your gas, that one or two KD adds up and makes the world of a difference to them. I usually tip between 1 to 2 KD per fill up when I’m filling up my car and 1/2 to 1 KD when filling up the bike even though its the same amount. One thing that surprises me is that sometimes they are really surprised when they are tipped. I know a lot of people take these men for granted and assume its their right to get a fill up, but they are less fortunate and it a laborious job with sometimes long hours and the summer is coming along which will be excruciating to work outdoors which they are all the time.

In Kuwait you tend to deal with a lot of strange people, especially when you interact with them in the Government Complex. Its like you are in a Mexican Standoff or between a bunch of Hyenas which are ready to pounce on you the moment you give them your back. Still I try to keep an open mind and assume the person in front of me isn’t evil and maybe even human.

When interacting with woman in Kuwait that I don’t know I try to be a slightly formal and not offensive, because I never know how they may react and usually it moves along fine. A few times over the past few months I get surprised by people who smile at me that I wasn’t expecting, like when I stop a car to let them cross they smile and wave, and I think “Thank you for being courteous”, I always stop for people crossing, men almost always thank, but a lot of women ignore you and think its shameful to interact with a man in anyway so I’m sometimes surprised when a woman thanks me or when she smiles I’m totally shocked.

I do understand that our youth are somewhat idiots and view a smile as an invitation to bother women, so sometimes I honestly can’t blame them because they don’t want to be harassed by young men who have no manners, so when they smile I am very pleasantly surprised and it does make people’s day. I always appreciate when men thank me for even the simplest thing, being cordial doesn’t seem to be at the top of people’s list these days. So seeing a woman smile at me for a very simple act really surprised me recently, I just got used to women having blank or angry faces in Kuwait when out in public and I am not out very much, so its refreshing to see people smiling.

(I think the Akita Dog above always looks like it’s smiling)

I don’t know how this exactly happened but one thing lead to another and I have several challenges ahead of me to accomplish by the first weekend in July. This was instigated by M.F.W. during one of our work meetings, somehow the subject got diverted to what we can or can’t accomplish if we set out minds to it and who is better at what, and I was thoroughly insulted by him on several levels so the challenges arose from that.

Two Challenges to Accomplish by the 1st Weekend of July 2012:

• Weight Loss & Strength Gain, who will win, and I currently weigh 112 KG
• Wakeboarding, who has the best skills and points will be awarded, tricks and all capabilities

I’m honestly taking this very very seriously, I won’t be losing at either. Luckily I have a lot of weight to lose so I’m going to take this to the extreme. Gonna hit the gym until I collapse and going to regulate my food to a degree, my issue isn’t really food its lack of movement and that will be something I will work on.

Wake-boarding is one of the sports that I love and I consider myself to be ok at it, not horrible but with the gym workout I’m going to increase my agility and endurance so it will help with Wake-Boarding and then I will take the risks of bodily injury to perform some crazy tricks, in my head they are crazy but can I do it.

Now I’m going to start this coming week and jump right into it. I’m going to start this off on my own and then probably look for some professional help with the gym then get some world champion wakeboarder to train me for 10 days. M. F. W. I will destroy you!

MISSION ACCEPTED (Insert Mission Impossible Theme Song Here)

What Happened To Me:
The last few days my site was acting weird and then the second day it tried to redirect me to some Russian site which then got flagged by my Google Chrome browser as malicious code. I tried to figure out what was going on but didn’t know where to look, and my WordPress was just update so I wasn’t sure what was wrong with it. After a good hour of Googling and checking forums I would a few things to look for in the index page and several other pages but still I was getting redirected. After looking at a few forums I found Sucuri which is a company that does exactly what I was looking for it identifies and monitors websites using any time of platform, and in my case WordPress, and they help you remove the malicious code.

What is Sucuri and What Do They Do:
The Sucuri Web Integrity Monitor detects unauthorized changes to your websites, DNS, Whois and SSL Certificates. They Scan your web site for malware, virus, spam and many other security issues. Even if your using WordPress, Joomla or Mediawiki. With the support

What I Did:
I found some scripts here and there, and deleted them but they were still all over the place. After a good amount of Googling I found that Sucuri is one the good Malware monitors and removal services for a very reasonable price, for $90 a year they monitor and update your site after 3 hours and if something is wrong you just submit a ticket and they get right to it. After giving them my login information and my ftp information I sent my trouble ticket for Malware removal since I couldn’t find it all myself and Chrome was still flagging my website and trying to install malicious software from a Russian website. AFter submitting the ticket and a set of questions I got an email back about 4 to 5 hours later with an update on all the areas that were cleared and that we are good to go and I have not been blacklisted by any website yet which is fantastic. Honestly I recommend anyone who faces a malware issue to get Sucuri right away and let them handle, they did a fantastic and smooth job with me.

Next Steps After Clean Up:

• Update All Your Website Software – Which They Were Thanks To Jacqui
• Change Your Website Login Passwords – Making Them Even More Complex To The Point I Might Forget Them

Link: Sucuri

Just as I was getting back to writing a few posts today since I found a minute to take a break I realized that something strange but didn’t think much about it. At around 7 pm when I was about to write a post everything on the backend of WordPress went berserk, the posts looked fine and the search and all the buttons were working but the backend was all jumbled up. There was a short moment of panic since I didn’t know what the hell was going on and I really didn’t like that feeling. For those who don’t know it says on the bottom my blog was put together by to awesome techies, Ananyah and Jacqui, and in this case I emailed Jacqui with the subject line “MAYDAY MAYDAY” and as usual she replied instantly! I sent her a screen shot of my messed up WordPress and basically said help, she replied that she will get to it in 30 mins which she did. After a little while she told me to check the backend and was totally different, she updated it to WordPress 3.31 with everything up to date and working smoothly, 3.31 is so cool and smooth. I have spent a few hours tinkering on the backend and I’m loving it, seriously Jacqui is a savior as usual and between the two of them they always come up with some cool stuff for me. Click on the images to see the old WordPress and the new, some people might not even know what the old one looked like but the picture is above and the new one below.

My friend is an idiot but I love the guy, he does love to do things like this, lets refer to him as Preetooo. In our dewaneya we do events like Milsim and other things together, and during one of those events I spent around 400 KWD for the group which they pay “The Collector” and then he pays me, which in this case is PreeToo. I asked Preetoo about the cash he said he will give it to me on the weekend which was last week, but he forgot so I called and harassed him for forgetting. Then he said is gonna give me the cash in a few days and he is gonna hit me with, the bastard didn’t lie. He hit me with a brick, more like a few bricks in an envelope. As you can see from the pictures, turns out Preetoo was wanted to be cheeky about it so he gave me the 400 KD in quarter and half KD notes. Feels like 10000 KD cash too bad its like that, and now I have to go to the bank and have them count it to check that it isn’t counterfeit money and I think they will think something is wrong for me to have that much change on me.