Whatever Floats Your Boat
Actually, I hate that phrase, but today it fits. I looked out the window and laughed – there is a tanker, floating above the horizon. At first, I almost thought it was a balloon. Look! See for yourself:
The day is so clear, I can see the tin roofs on Failaika Island with my bare eye. It isn’t much, but it is the clearest day in a long time:
In today’s Kuwait Times, Dr. Saleh al-Ajeeri tells us that the chances of rainfall are going away because the winds are changing, and that the temperatures are going to fall again. It’s hard for me to believe, on a day like today, warm and sunny and not a cloud in the sky, it’s hard to believe it is going to be cold. Dr. Al-Ajeeri says “The winter season is still going on and the cold will return during a season locally known as the ‘Scorpion’s Cold'” and that we can’t count on higher temperatures until the end of February.
SCORPION’S COLD?? OK, my Kuwaiti friends, I have never heard of that before. Can anyone explain to me what this is? And what it it called in Arabic?
Sweet Home Alabama – As You’ve NEVER Seen it
Courtesy of my friend, Momcat, who shares my quirky sense of humor:
ROCKING RUSSKIES
Written by To The Point News
Thursday, 06 March 2008
Prepare yourself for this one – maybe with a Stoli martini or two.
Back in the days of the Soviet Union, the Soviet Red Army had an official choir composed of male soldiers and musicians. It still exists. The Red Army Choir performs throughout Russia to this day.
Now consider the Finnish rock band called The Leningrad Cowboys. A little while ago, they held a concert in Russia, in which – to the screaming applause of Russkie teen-agers – they got the Red Army Choir to join them on stage for a performance of “Sweet Home Alabama.” In English. You couldn’t make this up.
We’re talking seriously off the wall here. Better have that Stoli ready when you watch it:
(Prepare to die, laughing!) DA! Da! Da!
Wooo HOOO, ShoSho! The Great Kuwait Market Magic Challenge
Watch out! Ya’ll have some serious competition! ShoSho sent these in, and she blew me out of the water. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wait till you see:
How does she do it? Look at those colors, look how saturated they are!
My friends, I remind you, the deadline in January 31st. You still have this one week to get your entries in.
I am heartened by the number of cameras I see down in the market – whether you enter or not, you are down there, taking photos and enjoying the sights and sounds and smells and tastes of a Kuwait national treasure.
Even the way the vegetables and fish are arranged shows artistry and an eye for beauty and composition. Look how ShoSho captures the colors and textures of the Sadu woven goods and carpets. Wow. Wow. Wow.
Send your photos to Intlxpatr@aol.com. If you send them, I will print them. 🙂
(ShoSho, you set a very high standard to beat!)
Lost, by Gregory Maguire
Gregory Maguire has found an interesting niche. He takes fairytales we all know – stories like The Wizard of Oz and Cinderella, and tells them from another point of view. The first, Wicked, was very very clever, told from the point of view of the Wicked Witch of the West, who turns out to have been a freedom-fighter, but got a lot of bad press. LLOOLLL. Like, what is not to like about an author who turns “reality” upside-down?
His second book, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, did the same for the Cinderella legend – told it from another point of view, and Cinderella comes out looking not-so-saintly at all.
Both of these books became best sellers, and Wicked even went on to become a long-running Broadway play.
I picked up Lost because of the cover and because I wondered what another take on Alice in Wonderland would look like.
It took me forever to start reading it, and once I started, it did not engage me. We meet a woman, an author, and she is behaving very strangely. As we continue to read, she continues to behave strangely, inexplicably, and as the book proceeds, we begin to get a more complete picture. At no point did I see a clear parallel between this plot and Alice in Wonderland, although the main character’s experiences were equally chaotic and full of non-meanings. The book was opaque, and frustrating – to me. You may have a totally different take on it.
The main character, a successful author, seems to be divorced, and decides to travel to London to see her cousin. When she arrives, he is not at home, his kitchen is being destroyed and renovated, and she moves right in anyway. There are apparent hauntings. When I got to the end of the book, I knew a little more about the character than I knew before – and I didn’t care.
I think maybe the fairy-tales-told-from-another-point-of-view thing has gotten old, maybe a little stretched at this point. He’s now done a couple more Wizard of Oz retellings, and I don’t think I will bother with them.
I DO recommend Wicked, if you haven’t read it. It is fresh, and delightful.
Intlxpatr Has an NBK Account?
Also in my Intlxpatr mail this morning, LLLOOOLLL!
When I clicked on the “Update Now” type so that I could print their web address and encourage YOU to submit false data, their website did not even work.
Losers.
Beware. These scammers are out there. Some aren’t as stupid as these guys. Some can fool ya.
Dear valued Watani Online Bank member:
Due to concerns, for the safety and integrity of your Watani Online Bank
account we have issued this warning message.
It has come to our attention that your Watani account information needs to be
updated as part of our continuing
commitment to protect your account and to
reduce the instance of fraud on our website.
If you could please take 5-10 minutes
out of your online experience and update your personal records you will not run into
any future problems with the online service.
Once you have updated your account records your Watani account
service will not be interrupted
and will continue as normal.
To update your Online Banking records click on the following link:
Update Info
Thank You.
© Member FDIC Copyright 2008 Watani Financial Corporation1-800-Watani .
Chris Rock: Hard to Make Fun of Obama
On this historic inaugural day – you’ve gotta keep a sense of humor. But making jokes about this President is not so easy, according to Chris Rock, a comedian I truly enjoy. Here is an excerpt from his interview with CNN, which you can read in whole by clicking on this blue type.
By Jacque Wilson
CNN
(CNN) — Chris Rock is best known for two things: being funny and being crass.
“If you’re the president you only have two jobs: peace and money,” Chris Rock said.
“This is what people come to see. I’m just doing my show,” the comedian said with a laugh.
He’s also known for his political commentary, but there’s one person he’s having a lot of trouble making fun of — president-elect Barack Obama.
This is apparent in his new DVD “Kill the Messenger,” which combines three shows from his international tour: New York; London, England; and Johannesburg, South Africa.
“It was a tour nobody wanted to do… because the general perception is that comedy doesn’t translate,” Rock said.
But thanks to the Internet, the world is a lot smaller than it was even 10 years ago. And people are digging the same jokes, he said, including ones about John McCain and Sarah Palin.
As the DVD readies for release on January 20, CNN talked with Rock about his lack of Obama jokes, Inauguration Day and why racism will never die. The following is an edited version of that interview:
CNN: I watched the special last night, and I noticed that you did a lot of jokes about John McCain — his age, his war hero story — but not so many about Barack Obama. Is it harder to make fun of Obama?
Chris Rock: He’s just one of those guys, you know, like Will Smith. There’s no Will Smith jokes. There’s no Brad Pitt jokes. You know, what are you going to say? “Ooh, you used to have sex with Jennifer Anniston. Now you have sex with Angelina Jolie. You’re such a loser.” What do you say? “Ooh, your movies are big. You make $20 million.” There’s nothing to say about Brad Pitt.
CNN: Why is Obama like that?
Rock: It’s like “Ooh, you’re young and virile and you’ve got a beautiful wife and kids. You’re the first African-American president.” You know, what do you say?
Chris Rock is irreverent and very very funny.
Villa Moda Sale
I was out goofing off with a bunch of girlfriends when one said “Let’s go to the Villa Moda sale and see what they’ve got in today.”
These are my bestest friends. I’m the driver. They are all excited. We go.
It is in a building I have always been curious about, that great big building on Gulf Road in Salwa, south of Bida’a circle, the one that has palm trees growing out of it. I have always figured it was a wedding hall or something, and wondered what it looked like inside, so once I got my friends all OOhing and aahing and arms loaded with things to try on and all the Manolo Blahniks, I snuck off and took some photos of the interior, which is sort of Middle-Eastern done by Disney:
All this was just the basement! Literally, a bargain basement, some items marked 90% off. Women were leaving with armloads of clothes, shoes and accessories.
I would love to get a glimpse of the upstairs. 🙂
Friday, January 9, 2009
Good morning, Kuwait!
It wasn’t supposed to be this cold this morning! I think it must have been another freezing night last night, but between extra blankets and the Qatteri Cat, we slept just fine. We were in Al Ghanim last night, and saw a big sale going on – space heaters! Everyone was out buying heat.
It is going to be another glorious day in Kuwait! Dress warmly, get out there and enjoy your Friday!
We watched Valkyrie and my husband said it stayed very close to the historical events. It wasn’t very exciting, or moving, to me. I think I might’ve changed the ending. 😉 The funniest moment in the film was where AdventureMan said “I think that coughing is coming from someone in the audience, not from the film” and from time to time, we saw a head pop up in the lower left hand corner.
Lucky People Tend to Notice More
From today’s AOL News
The key to good luck may be a heightened sensitivity to your surroundings.
Richard Wiseman, a professor at the University of Hertfordshire, spent a decade studying people who had self-identified as either lucky or unlucky. He posits that lucky people, through their superior observational skills, consistently encounter seemingly chance opportunities.
In one experiment, Wiseman asked his subjects to count the photos in a newspaper. In the middle of the paper he placed a message that read “Tell the experimenter you have seen this and win 50 dollars.” The lucky people tended to notice this, but the unlucky — with their narrower focus — often missed it.
What We’re Watching – Briefly
We could hardly wait to recover enough from jet lag to sit down and watch the final season of The Wire Season 5, generously loaned to us by our son. This season focused on newspaper coverage, how they choose what to run, how newspapers are changing and how they influence city management and police work.
It was a hoot.
McNulty, in the face of huge budget cuts, damaging Baltimore city police morale, creates a “serial killer” using bodies which actually died a natural death. From the beginning, you find yourself saying “No! McNulty, No!” it is just so blatantly self-destructive, so destined for exposure, but, as many con-jobs do, it succeeds brilliantly for a short while, with unexpected assistance from a journalist who builds his own coverage on a fictional phone call he claims to receive from the serial killer. Meanwhile, we follow the familiar faces on the streets, and think often of what our son has said – in law enforcement, the good guys aren’t always that good and the bad guys aren’t always that bad.
At the end of the last episode, they tie things together and show us a glimpse of where the characters we have grown to love end up with their lives. It is a brilliant series, one of the best we have ever watched. If you have never followed The Wire, we suggest you start with Season 1 and work your way to Season 5, so you get the fullest picture.
This weekend, we watched four movies:
Twilight
Burn After Reading
The Day the Earth Stood Still
Charlie Wilson’s War
I was really looking for Valkyrie and Australia, but the DVD guy says he hasn’t gotten good copies yet.
Twilight – based on a series of book very popular with readers about vampires, at first we thought the movie was pretty bad, but camp. We watched the whole thing. There were moments of good writing, but overall – if you have ever seen True Blood, which has the same Romeo & Juliet premise, breeching the moral barrier between human and vampire, how can two so unalike find true love, etc. . . True Blood is funnier, has better writing. Twilight is interesting, though, and ties in other interesting legends, American Indian, etc.
Burn After Reading – We really like many of the Coen brother’s films, especially Fargo, but we found this one had few of those golden moments and a lot of boring boring boring. Oh well.
The Day the Earth Stood Still – I have always loved science fiction, the way it takes the long view, so I was interested to see how this re-make would do. It was ok – good. We enjoyed the movie, which had some great moments, and makes it’s point – when pushed to the precipice, we CAN change. It had a lot of drama.
Charlie Wilson’s War – Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts, golden combination, in how the US got involved supporting mujeheddin against the Russians in Afghanistan. It was an interesting movie. Had many funny moments, so funny you know it probably had an element of real life, as the ridiculous pops up so often – or it does in my life (how about yours?) I was left wondering, though, if anyone ever really succeeds in Afghanistan, and if we haven’t overstayed our usefullness to the Afghanis.
Not a really great movie in the bunch. It’s a good thing we have good books to read. 🙂
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