Today marks the four month anniversary of my arrival to Dubai, and what better way to commemorate such an occasion than with another VISA renewal run to Oman? As you may recall from last time I had to do this (two months ago to the day) I rented a shitty Renault, drove to the Hatta border checkpoint, and on the way back got stuck in sand in the middle of nowhere ... you get the drift, it blew. Since two months later I am still without a vehicle of my own I had to rent another car, but this time I decided to go in style.
Yesterday morning I picked up a pimped out 2006 Audi A6 from the rental agency and it was off to Oman. This time instead of just crossing the border to get a new visa and then turning around to come home I figured since I was already driving that far I'd keep going and hit up the capital city, Muscat, which is about 3.5 hours drive from Dubai at a speedy 160km/h. I had no idea the mountains here were that big. Sure, it's not the Alps, but Dubai is so flat it's nice to look at anything different. Once I got to the coast (the Indian Ocean, that is) the road that runs down to Muskat is pretty boring - straight, flat, and kind of ugly. Fortunately the rental car had a booming stereo system with a sub and a shiny new in-dash control system that was good for hours of deafening entertainment - and you really haven't lived until you've driven through the Omani mountains listing to AC/DC at full volume. Now there are stationary traffic cameras on the highways here to "discourage" speeding, but they're so easy to spot that everyone just blasts along at 160 km/h + and then just taps the breaks whenever they one of the big ugly boxes.
Muscat itself is great - a real change from cosmopolitan Dubai. The architecture is much more traditional and the apparent pace of life there is much slower. Perched on a narrow strip of land along the coast and surrounded by mountains, pretty much anywhere you look there's a nice view to be had. While I was there I also checked out some of the finer hotels including this insane resort called The Chedi, which with its warm, post-modern design is the middle east equivalent of Le Germain in Montreal.
The last thing I have to say in this story that now seems to be pointlessly rambling on is an important lesson that I learned while on my drive back. DO NOT, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, GET COFFEE AT A ROADSIDE STOP IN OMAN. 'Yeah yeah' you think, we've all had shitty gas station coffee before. Well let me tell you, I don't know what this shit was, but it wasn't coffee. I had one sip of it and nearly puked all over the aforementioned bangin' stereo system, and if that happened it would've been a seriously long drive home.
Yesterday morning I picked up a pimped out 2006 Audi A6 from the rental agency and it was off to Oman. This time instead of just crossing the border to get a new visa and then turning around to come home I figured since I was already driving that far I'd keep going and hit up the capital city, Muscat, which is about 3.5 hours drive from Dubai at a speedy 160km/h. I had no idea the mountains here were that big. Sure, it's not the Alps, but Dubai is so flat it's nice to look at anything different. Once I got to the coast (the Indian Ocean, that is) the road that runs down to Muskat is pretty boring - straight, flat, and kind of ugly. Fortunately the rental car had a booming stereo system with a sub and a shiny new in-dash control system that was good for hours of deafening entertainment - and you really haven't lived until you've driven through the Omani mountains listing to AC/DC at full volume. Now there are stationary traffic cameras on the highways here to "discourage" speeding, but they're so easy to spot that everyone just blasts along at 160 km/h + and then just taps the breaks whenever they one of the big ugly boxes.
Muscat itself is great - a real change from cosmopolitan Dubai. The architecture is much more traditional and the apparent pace of life there is much slower. Perched on a narrow strip of land along the coast and surrounded by mountains, pretty much anywhere you look there's a nice view to be had. While I was there I also checked out some of the finer hotels including this insane resort called The Chedi, which with its warm, post-modern design is the middle east equivalent of Le Germain in Montreal.
The last thing I have to say in this story that now seems to be pointlessly rambling on is an important lesson that I learned while on my drive back. DO NOT, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, GET COFFEE AT A ROADSIDE STOP IN OMAN. 'Yeah yeah' you think, we've all had shitty gas station coffee before. Well let me tell you, I don't know what this shit was, but it wasn't coffee. I had one sip of it and nearly puked all over the aforementioned bangin' stereo system, and if that happened it would've been a seriously long drive home.
Picked up a bunch of electro tracks the other day including a nice little crunchy number by a gent by the name of Alex Grani. The track, titled Flip Desgreap, can probably best be described as the sound you would hear if Mr. Oizo beat the crap out of Mylo in a back alley with a Roland Jupiter 8. With luck this new infusion of electro will help stave off the encroaching wave of euro dance music that's been washing through Dubai this summer.
Take a listen here
Take a listen here
Loose Change 2nd Edition is a 9/11 documentary that focuses primarily on inconsistencies with the 9-11 Commission's report about what it was that flew into the Pentagon and what actually caused the twin towers to collapse. Although it did manage to raise a few good points, as a whole I'm afraid to say that its reliance on circumstantial evidence and flawed reasoning left many conclusions it derived on rather shaky ground and accordingly the argument as a whole may be easily dismissed by mainstream media as yet another wacky conspiracy theory. What I did find interesting was the historical footage that was shown about US military planning during the 1960's which included proposals to incite domestic terrorism to build up public support for an invasion of Cuba. The full documentary can be viewed here.
The unintended consequence of poorly-constructed conspiracy theories on this subject as described by Terry Allen is that "the 9/11 conspiracy hypotheses distracts from the growing chain of evidence documenting how the Bush administration actually manipulated this country to war on a train of lies riding tracks of fear -- cynically using the bodies of the 9/11 victims as fuel."
The unintended consequence of poorly-constructed conspiracy theories on this subject as described by Terry Allen is that "the 9/11 conspiracy hypotheses distracts from the growing chain of evidence documenting how the Bush administration actually manipulated this country to war on a train of lies riding tracks of fear -- cynically using the bodies of the 9/11 victims as fuel."
It's just a burger, but, sometimes, it's the hardest decision a person makes in a day.
Fun POP at Burger King:
From: Advergirl
Fun POP at Burger King:
From: Advergirl
Some blog reported this act of pure genius:
On February 26, 2004, we had a snowstorm here in Raleigh, and all the news channels posted the businesses and schools that would be closed the next day. One of these fine news organizations, Time Warner Cable's News 14 Carolina, chose the most convenient but least secure method to allow businesses to report closings: the Internet. Well, it wasn't long before members of The Wolf Web, an NCSU message board, exposed this flaw. They went crazy, as you're about to see. The best part of the whole thing was once a closing was accepted, it could be edited on the Internet and would go straight to TV without having to be reviewed again, so a fake closing that seemed plausible the first time it was shown could be outrageous the next time.
Can we really be the first people to think of this? The first Nine Inch Nails album, Pretty Hate Machine, was released in 1989 (wow, that really dates me) - with all the fantastic electro remixes of 80's tunes going around right now (think MSTRKRFT, Mylo, etc) we, the good people at Advance 44 International Studios, thought it was about time somebody did a nice dirrrrrrty electro remix of Head Like a Hole. Coming soon to a stereo near you ....
This past saturday the five or six people that were actually awake at 7:00am were treated to a very special hour of talk radio. John Deykin, when not busy running one of Dubai's largest ad/branding agencies, hosts weekly morning radio shows on Dubai Eye Radio 103.8 FM, and Saturday he invited Christine and I to appear on his show as expert guests. Fortunately, the topic in question was probably the only thing that we'd consider ourselves experts in - talking about our experiences relocating to Dubai. Now I can't say I've ever been on the radio before and had it not been for the ridiculously early hour we had to wake up at to get down to the station we may have been a bit nervous, but as soon as we saw John we got right back into our usual groove and it was all good. I don't know how many pots of coffee John drinks to be that cheery that early, but the hour flew by and before we knew it we were getting booted out of the studio to make room for his 8am (and presumably more respectable) guests.
I have no idea yet why this got cancelled on such short notice - I can voice plenty of theories but most of them would probably land me in trouble with the thought police (aka those who sponsored my visa) so I'm just going to leave it at that for now. But the Sasha show this past Thursday was going to be the big one for what will otherwise be a pretty slow two months in this fair city - it's not like back home where all of the good concerts come through in the summer. In Dubai, everyone who can afford to do so gets the hell out of dodge to get away from the stifling heat, consequently nobody bothers to book any big acts between July and September. Why do you think Bon Jovi will be playing here in August? I rest my case.
A huge imagery update has been made to Google Maps and Google Earth and you can now see all of Dubai in high-res, including the Palm islands and the Burj Al Arab (7 star hotel). I briefly entertained the notion of throwing a google sightseeing map together, but then I came to by senses and instead will be off shortly to watch England trounce Portugal.
A few quick links: