Recently Kuwait has decided to remove its currency from its US dollar peg, instead tying it to a basket of currencies. It was a fairly big announcement for everyone in the region.
All of the countries in the Gulf peg their currency to a fixed exchange rate to the US dollar (for example in Qatar 3.64 riyals always equals $1 US). This generally made sense to petrodollar countries since oil is bought/sold in US dollars on the open market. By fixing your currency to the US dollar you remove any risk that would come with the currency fluctuating.
Unfortunately the US dollar has been sliding/underperforming so much in recent years that it is starting to affect the region. Inflation has been high in recent years as it costs more to import goods into the region due to the Gulf currencies weakening against exporting countries, despite the fact that the Gulf countries have booming economies due to petrorevenue. And I’m talking serious inflation, on the order of 25-35% a year right now (estimates I’ve seen for Qatar have it at around 27% for 2006). There are plans in the works for a unified Gulf currency by 2010, involving Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, UAE and Oman, all of which have pegged $US currencies, at which point the currency should be strong enough to ‘free-float’ on the currency markets. With Kuwait removing its peg experts believe that the unified currency is no longer going to happen.
In response to the peg removal Saudi, Bahrain, Qatar and Oman said they have no plans to do so but UAE has so far not said anything. Speculation is that they might follow suit and remove their peg. If that happens the unified currency is definitely dead.
What does this mean to you? Right now Kuwait is a significant oil producer but not enough to really impact global oil markets. If other Gulf countries follow suit then currency exchange fluctuations will affect the price of oil, likely making it more expensive for North Americans as the Gulf currencies gain against the US dollar. Well, maybe not Canadians since the Canadian dollar has also gained strongly against the US.
So I’ll try to keep an eye on this and let you know if there are further developments.
No need to panic and hoard gas though, I doubt the price would impact more than 5-10% even if all the Gulf countries removed their pegs.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
A trip to the British Embassy
For those of you who didn’t know I’m actually half-British. Dad was from Belfast while my Mom was from Winnipeg. This entitles me to British citizenship though it was something that I never pursued. Not sure why, I guess growing up in Western Canada it was never a big deal – if you were already a Canadian citizen what would being a UK citizen get you? It’s not like the family had any plans to move back.
30+ years and one EU later having that citizenship was looking more and more like a worthwhile thing, especially now that my work is more specialized in insurance & reinsurance. London is one of the ‘Big Three’ centres in this area (the others being Bermuda and New York) so it is definitely possible that I might wind up there in time. In any event it just seems prudent to get my UK passport before they do some crazy rule changes that would cut me out.
It took a while for my family and I to get the required documentation together from Northern Ireland and Canada but it was eventually compiled together. So with application and paperwork in hand it was off to the British Embassy in Doha to submit it.
Not surprisingly security at the embassy is fairly tight – concrete blocks to prevent cars parking near it, metal detector, security-monitored double doors (i.e. you go through one door into a small room, then a door at the other end of the room once the first door is closed) but it took maybe a couple of minutes to get through it all. After that I steeled myself for the ensuing chaos and walked inside to the passport section.
Now I was steeling myself because last year I had to renew my Canadian passport when visiting the family in Calgary. What a zoo that was. It was like a rock concert, you had to line up early just to guarantee that you’d be seen that day. I think each time I went the wait through the line up was something like 45-60 minutes – and I went pretty early. By the time I left they were always turning people away.
Anyway at the UK Embassy I had to:
- wait in line for a clerk to give them my forms
- wait for them to go through my forms to see if everything is there
- wait for them to go away with the forms for whatever reason
- be told to have a seat as I will be speaking with a consular officer about the application (I wasn’t expecting that)
- have an interview with the officer, basically to clarify some details like why after 30+ years I was applying for UK citizenship now.
- Pay my fees
Total time for all of this: 40 minutes!
Wow, was that ever fast! I figured it would take a lot longer, and the moment I was told to take a seat for a discussion with a consular officer I pretty much wrote off the rest of the morning right then and there. But it was all very fast, efficient, and best of all – pleasant. All of the staff were very nice and helpful, even the consular officer was kind and polite.
Maybe they do that to help soften the blow of the passport application fee, which is approximately US$245. Ack! That is some serious fees for a passport, I think my Canadian one was a third of that.
Anyway, the docs are submitted, the fees are paid. Now I’ll sit back and see what happens. I’m not even sure how long it will take. I hope the passport photos that I submitted were okay, but I had my friend Eric in Bermuda sign two different sets (he’s a laywer) and I submitted both of them, so that if one set is not acceptable to the passport office maybe the other ones will.
Hopefully in a month or so I’ll be a dual Canada/UK citizen!
30+ years and one EU later having that citizenship was looking more and more like a worthwhile thing, especially now that my work is more specialized in insurance & reinsurance. London is one of the ‘Big Three’ centres in this area (the others being Bermuda and New York) so it is definitely possible that I might wind up there in time. In any event it just seems prudent to get my UK passport before they do some crazy rule changes that would cut me out.
It took a while for my family and I to get the required documentation together from Northern Ireland and Canada but it was eventually compiled together. So with application and paperwork in hand it was off to the British Embassy in Doha to submit it.
Not surprisingly security at the embassy is fairly tight – concrete blocks to prevent cars parking near it, metal detector, security-monitored double doors (i.e. you go through one door into a small room, then a door at the other end of the room once the first door is closed) but it took maybe a couple of minutes to get through it all. After that I steeled myself for the ensuing chaos and walked inside to the passport section.
Now I was steeling myself because last year I had to renew my Canadian passport when visiting the family in Calgary. What a zoo that was. It was like a rock concert, you had to line up early just to guarantee that you’d be seen that day. I think each time I went the wait through the line up was something like 45-60 minutes – and I went pretty early. By the time I left they were always turning people away.
Anyway at the UK Embassy I had to:
- wait in line for a clerk to give them my forms
- wait for them to go through my forms to see if everything is there
- wait for them to go away with the forms for whatever reason
- be told to have a seat as I will be speaking with a consular officer about the application (I wasn’t expecting that)
- have an interview with the officer, basically to clarify some details like why after 30+ years I was applying for UK citizenship now.
- Pay my fees
Total time for all of this: 40 minutes!
Wow, was that ever fast! I figured it would take a lot longer, and the moment I was told to take a seat for a discussion with a consular officer I pretty much wrote off the rest of the morning right then and there. But it was all very fast, efficient, and best of all – pleasant. All of the staff were very nice and helpful, even the consular officer was kind and polite.
Maybe they do that to help soften the blow of the passport application fee, which is approximately US$245. Ack! That is some serious fees for a passport, I think my Canadian one was a third of that.
Anyway, the docs are submitted, the fees are paid. Now I’ll sit back and see what happens. I’m not even sure how long it will take. I hope the passport photos that I submitted were okay, but I had my friend Eric in Bermuda sign two different sets (he’s a laywer) and I submitted both of them, so that if one set is not acceptable to the passport office maybe the other ones will.
Hopefully in a month or so I’ll be a dual Canada/UK citizen!
Sunday, May 20, 2007
A Day in the Life
After sending that last e-album about Jordan I received a few emails noting that I must be having such an exciting time living in the Middle East. Uh, it's not all that actually. Remember, e-albums show the highlights, much of the week is the same toil & trouble that one gets from the average workday in the West.
So . . . here's my average workday, like today.
06:00 alarm goes off
06:15 I get up
06:50 I'm out the door to catch the carpool
07:20 dodge some crazy drivers and arrive at work
07:30-12:30 push paper around in a cubicle etc. I push a mean paper!
12:30-1:30 lunch at City Centre Mall food court. These days it's usually a veggie sub (no cheese). Gossip about work with coworkers.
1:30-5:00 push more paper, maybe go to a meeting or something.
5:00-5:30 dodge some crazy drivers and arrive at home
evening: dinner, 30-minutes on the treadmill, maybe do an errand or laundry, surf and answer emails if the server in the computer room isn't as slow as molasses that evening.
9:00ish chill out with a decaf coffee and reading
10:00 bedtime.
Yes, yes, I know, why aren't I selling this script to NBC? I mean, it's like Desperate Housewives, only with abayas and camels.
Now I'm depressed. Ugh, I need to pick things up a little. I think I'll spend the next week looking for something more exciting for the evenings than just doing Arabic lessons twice a week.
So . . . here's my average workday, like today.
06:00 alarm goes off
06:15 I get up
06:50 I'm out the door to catch the carpool
07:20 dodge some crazy drivers and arrive at work
07:30-12:30 push paper around in a cubicle etc. I push a mean paper!
12:30-1:30 lunch at City Centre Mall food court. These days it's usually a veggie sub (no cheese). Gossip about work with coworkers.
1:30-5:00 push more paper, maybe go to a meeting or something.
5:00-5:30 dodge some crazy drivers and arrive at home
evening: dinner, 30-minutes on the treadmill, maybe do an errand or laundry, surf and answer emails if the server in the computer room isn't as slow as molasses that evening.
9:00ish chill out with a decaf coffee and reading
10:00 bedtime.
Yes, yes, I know, why aren't I selling this script to NBC? I mean, it's like Desperate Housewives, only with abayas and camels.
Now I'm depressed. Ugh, I need to pick things up a little. I think I'll spend the next week looking for something more exciting for the evenings than just doing Arabic lessons twice a week.
Saturday, May 19, 2007
DVDs, so what have I got
For those of you who know me I'm not a huge fan of movies. I'll go see one occasionally but it usually has to be one that I really want to see. I'm less inclined to go see a movie just for the sake of seeing one. I am always willing to see a film by certain directors (Terry Gilliam & Tim Burton come to mind) but otherwise it has to be something that would really catch my interest. The only movie I've seen in theatres here, and it was one of those things where I was hanging out with friends and they said "let's see a movie", was Little Man. Ugh, watching garbage like that is enough to put anyone off of movies for the next decade.
I rent movies even less and when I was in Bermuda I didn't even own a DVD player. I have a player now though, because in the summer you have to do something. Even picked up a few movies here and there. Not many though, it has to be something I would want to see more than once. My tastes lean towards sci-fi, fantasy and foreign films or documentaries. Right now my Babylon 5 DVDs are what I primarily watch, but I've taken the occasional break from that to watch 2001 or Afghani movies like Kandahar. I'm still looking around for a copy of Metropolis and Brazil, but I haven't had much luck around here. Looks like I'll have to wait until I visit Canada next.
Just for completion's sake, here's the list of the rest that I have:
Alien
Dark City
Osama
Born into Brothels
City of God
Final Fantasy: the Spirits Within
A Hard Day's Night
Monty Python: the Holy Grail
Blade Runner
and, uh, one or two others I can't remember off-hand. Don't plan on adding a lot more either but we'll see.
I rent movies even less and when I was in Bermuda I didn't even own a DVD player. I have a player now though, because in the summer you have to do something. Even picked up a few movies here and there. Not many though, it has to be something I would want to see more than once. My tastes lean towards sci-fi, fantasy and foreign films or documentaries. Right now my Babylon 5 DVDs are what I primarily watch, but I've taken the occasional break from that to watch 2001 or Afghani movies like Kandahar. I'm still looking around for a copy of Metropolis and Brazil, but I haven't had much luck around here. Looks like I'll have to wait until I visit Canada next.
Just for completion's sake, here's the list of the rest that I have:
Alien
Dark City
Osama
Born into Brothels
City of God
Final Fantasy: the Spirits Within
A Hard Day's Night
Monty Python: the Holy Grail
Blade Runner
and, uh, one or two others I can't remember off-hand. Don't plan on adding a lot more either but we'll see.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Critical Thinking - Nigerian Scams
Okay, I’m sure we’ve all heard about Nigerian email scams or 419 scams as they are also called. You get an email from someone you don’t know, usually in Africa (originally they were always from Nigeria but now people in other countries have picked up on it). This email usually has some long spiel with it but the crux is usually this: there’s a bank account in Africa with tons of money in it, usually multi-millions of dollars, and if you help them access it they will give you 50% of it etc., in other words a deal too good to be true. Of course to help them you have to send them some money first, for application expenses or whatever.
Anyone who send them money will never see a dime. Ever. And as for the bank account, they’ll keep stringing you along with expenses to squeeze more money out of you. Victims of this crime generally don’t come forward since they were technically helping someone commit fraud – they think they are assisting people to access a bank account that doesn’t belong to them in order to get millions.
There are other variants of this scam as well but basically you should never, ever, respond to any email that you weren’t expecting that was sent by someone that you don’t know. Never believe the tales of woe that these scammers spin. They’ve been doing this for years so they are very good at getting people to cough up some money (I saw one documentary that went to Nigeria and one of these scammers estimated that if someone replies to the email he has about a 70% success rate getting money). So just do not reply.
Now you might think “who falls for emails like that?” but millions of dollars is lost to these scammers every year. At one point there was an estimate that this scam was the 4th largest source of Nigeria’s foreign currency imports, but it has tapered off a little as people have gotten a little more savvy.
So why am I bringing this up? Due to a recent article in Australia. Here’s how bad it can be for victims of this crime:
“The biggest losses were incurred in the Nigerian investment scams, and only about 24 per cent of the people we contacted and told they were participating in this scam believed us," Supt Hay told reporters in Brisbane “So, 76 per cent continued to send millions of dollars after we told them they were participating in a scam."
So after the police track the victims down and told them it was a scam 76% continued to send the scammers money. They were so caught in the scammers web, so unwilling to admit that they had been duped, they kept chasing the dream. The human mind can be a very stubborn thing and unfortunately these people paid the price. Sometimes a true believer in something will continue to do so even if shown to be wrong.
This doesn’t happen just with Nigerian email scams but with other things as well; alternative medicine scammers thrive on this principle, as do cults, pseudoscience believers, doomsday prophets, conspiracy theorists; many reach a point where they have dug themselves in so deep that they can’t bear to admit that they were wrong, so they dig themselves in even further.
I remember being on the Bad Astronomy boards back in 2002-2003 where the fuss was this doomsday prophet predicting that some rogue planet would pass by Earth on May 15th 2003 causing mass tidal waves, earthquakes etc. A small number of people bought into this and started doing crazy things like selling their homes to move to ‘safe areas’ that this doomsday moron had said would be relatively safe from the disaster, there was even one report of a person killing their dog to spare them from the impending doom. No amount of common sense (things like “if this planet is going to hit us in a month why can’t we see it now?”) was convincing some of the diehard believers, who would instead find whatever piece of irrelevant evidence to shore up their beliefs.
So what happened after May 15th when nothing happened? Most of the believers saw the light, but many turned to the doomsday moron, who by this time had of course changed the date of our impeding doom - a common trend amongst doomsayers whose predictions don’t come true. I think that nut lost most of the followers by that time though. But there will always be another nut around the corner to ensnare the gullible.
Rant over. Please everyone, keep that adage “if it’s too good to be true . . . “ in mind with all of your dealings in life.
Anyone who send them money will never see a dime. Ever. And as for the bank account, they’ll keep stringing you along with expenses to squeeze more money out of you. Victims of this crime generally don’t come forward since they were technically helping someone commit fraud – they think they are assisting people to access a bank account that doesn’t belong to them in order to get millions.
There are other variants of this scam as well but basically you should never, ever, respond to any email that you weren’t expecting that was sent by someone that you don’t know. Never believe the tales of woe that these scammers spin. They’ve been doing this for years so they are very good at getting people to cough up some money (I saw one documentary that went to Nigeria and one of these scammers estimated that if someone replies to the email he has about a 70% success rate getting money). So just do not reply.
Now you might think “who falls for emails like that?” but millions of dollars is lost to these scammers every year. At one point there was an estimate that this scam was the 4th largest source of Nigeria’s foreign currency imports, but it has tapered off a little as people have gotten a little more savvy.
So why am I bringing this up? Due to a recent article in Australia. Here’s how bad it can be for victims of this crime:
“The biggest losses were incurred in the Nigerian investment scams, and only about 24 per cent of the people we contacted and told they were participating in this scam believed us," Supt Hay told reporters in Brisbane “So, 76 per cent continued to send millions of dollars after we told them they were participating in a scam."
So after the police track the victims down and told them it was a scam 76% continued to send the scammers money. They were so caught in the scammers web, so unwilling to admit that they had been duped, they kept chasing the dream. The human mind can be a very stubborn thing and unfortunately these people paid the price. Sometimes a true believer in something will continue to do so even if shown to be wrong.
This doesn’t happen just with Nigerian email scams but with other things as well; alternative medicine scammers thrive on this principle, as do cults, pseudoscience believers, doomsday prophets, conspiracy theorists; many reach a point where they have dug themselves in so deep that they can’t bear to admit that they were wrong, so they dig themselves in even further.
I remember being on the Bad Astronomy boards back in 2002-2003 where the fuss was this doomsday prophet predicting that some rogue planet would pass by Earth on May 15th 2003 causing mass tidal waves, earthquakes etc. A small number of people bought into this and started doing crazy things like selling their homes to move to ‘safe areas’ that this doomsday moron had said would be relatively safe from the disaster, there was even one report of a person killing their dog to spare them from the impending doom. No amount of common sense (things like “if this planet is going to hit us in a month why can’t we see it now?”) was convincing some of the diehard believers, who would instead find whatever piece of irrelevant evidence to shore up their beliefs.
So what happened after May 15th when nothing happened? Most of the believers saw the light, but many turned to the doomsday moron, who by this time had of course changed the date of our impeding doom - a common trend amongst doomsayers whose predictions don’t come true. I think that nut lost most of the followers by that time though. But there will always be another nut around the corner to ensnare the gullible.
Rant over. Please everyone, keep that adage “if it’s too good to be true . . . “ in mind with all of your dealings in life.
Sunday, May 13, 2007
An experience with the locals
So Friday I went out with the Qatar Natural History Group for a cruise in a dhow to celebrate the end of the season. Around 50 of us boarded the dhow at the Corniche for a cruise along the Corniche and the developments at West Bay (where my workplace is) before anchoring just off of an island a few miles away for a swim and barbeque. So far so good. Then trouble came.
Trouble is this case is jet skis. There were a number of other boats there along with small speed boats and well over 2-dozen locals zooming around on jet skis. Mostly guys in their early twenties with no consideration of other people. It actually got quite scary at times, our dhow was anchored maybe 50m from shore and the jet skis would constantly zoom along in-between the dhow and the shore while people were swimming. I was shocked that they’d do this since it would be easy to hurt someone who was swimming in the water. Many times the dhow owners and others who could speak Arabic would yell at the guys to go around the dhow because there were people swimming. A few did, but most either ignored us or basically brushed us off then deliberately rode through. Unbelievable.
Not surprisingly there is no such thing as a Coast Guard here that monitors pleasure craft. An American who was on the cruise was simply stunned and noted what would happen back home to reckless jet skiers and boaters. But here is not the US. Here being an idle rich kid with no sense of rules; where connections, money, and daddy’s influence puts you above the law; you can just do whatever you want. It’s really sad. And it doesn’t bode well for the citizenry in the future. Sadly many of these guys are probably the same ones getting themselves and others killed with reckless driving and drag racing.
But other than that downer note things went fine. No one was hurt, thankfully, and the BBQ and cruise back while the sun was setting was really nice. I’ll have to remember to do that again sometime, or maybe when guests come by, but it really depends on the time of year. It was almost at the point where it was too hot to do this, in a few weeks going out in a dhow would be quite uncomfortable. And December to February would be too cold. Anyway, an eventful day.
Trouble is this case is jet skis. There were a number of other boats there along with small speed boats and well over 2-dozen locals zooming around on jet skis. Mostly guys in their early twenties with no consideration of other people. It actually got quite scary at times, our dhow was anchored maybe 50m from shore and the jet skis would constantly zoom along in-between the dhow and the shore while people were swimming. I was shocked that they’d do this since it would be easy to hurt someone who was swimming in the water. Many times the dhow owners and others who could speak Arabic would yell at the guys to go around the dhow because there were people swimming. A few did, but most either ignored us or basically brushed us off then deliberately rode through. Unbelievable.
Not surprisingly there is no such thing as a Coast Guard here that monitors pleasure craft. An American who was on the cruise was simply stunned and noted what would happen back home to reckless jet skiers and boaters. But here is not the US. Here being an idle rich kid with no sense of rules; where connections, money, and daddy’s influence puts you above the law; you can just do whatever you want. It’s really sad. And it doesn’t bode well for the citizenry in the future. Sadly many of these guys are probably the same ones getting themselves and others killed with reckless driving and drag racing.
But other than that downer note things went fine. No one was hurt, thankfully, and the BBQ and cruise back while the sun was setting was really nice. I’ll have to remember to do that again sometime, or maybe when guests come by, but it really depends on the time of year. It was almost at the point where it was too hot to do this, in a few weeks going out in a dhow would be quite uncomfortable. And December to February would be too cold. Anyway, an eventful day.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
I'm ready for the Weekend!
Well last night I started a new Arabic course. It has been around 8 months since I took Arabic, and I was really starting to lose what little of it that I had learned, so it’s good to get back in the saddle and learn. This time the course is being given by a nearby university (CHN Institute) and while it costs ~$400 for fifteen 2-hour classes work will compensate me for it if I attend most/all of the course.
So far it appears to be better than the previous free course that I took with the Qatar Centre for the Presentation of Islam, which was about 30% Arabic and 70% learning about Islam (search my blog for QCPI if you want to know more). The teacher is a Jordanian lady with decent English skills. From our first class it became obvious that this one is focused heavily on conversational, leaning key sentences and phrases that one would need in everyday life. Except maybe for the marital status issue. We learned many sentences about how to ask and reply about your marital status (married, single, divorced, widowed). Someone else in the class even asked if it was common for Arabs to enquire about this, it’s not something you generally get asked by everyone back home.
Otherwise the weekend is almost upon me. Only thing planned is a dhow cruise around the harbour on Friday with the Qatar Natural History Group. Sort of a farewell for the season, the group doesn’t meet during the summer because it is too hot for excursions. They are also making arrangements for an October trip to Yemen that I am tempted to sign up for. As for the cruise I haven’t been on a dhow yet so I’ll take some pictures. I’ll also spend some of the weekend sorting my Jordan pics for an e-album to send to everyone, and maybe watch some Babylon 5 episodes. Such a stressful life I lead.
Ma Asalaam (c u l8r)
So far it appears to be better than the previous free course that I took with the Qatar Centre for the Presentation of Islam, which was about 30% Arabic and 70% learning about Islam (search my blog for QCPI if you want to know more). The teacher is a Jordanian lady with decent English skills. From our first class it became obvious that this one is focused heavily on conversational, leaning key sentences and phrases that one would need in everyday life. Except maybe for the marital status issue. We learned many sentences about how to ask and reply about your marital status (married, single, divorced, widowed). Someone else in the class even asked if it was common for Arabs to enquire about this, it’s not something you generally get asked by everyone back home.
Otherwise the weekend is almost upon me. Only thing planned is a dhow cruise around the harbour on Friday with the Qatar Natural History Group. Sort of a farewell for the season, the group doesn’t meet during the summer because it is too hot for excursions. They are also making arrangements for an October trip to Yemen that I am tempted to sign up for. As for the cruise I haven’t been on a dhow yet so I’ll take some pictures. I’ll also spend some of the weekend sorting my Jordan pics for an e-album to send to everyone, and maybe watch some Babylon 5 episodes. Such a stressful life I lead.
Ma Asalaam (c u l8r)
Monday, May 07, 2007
Critical thinking news - beware of fake countries!
Just wanted to highlight an amusing report from Australia about a pair of con-men who formed a fake bank from their fake country and started printing up their own currency to spend. After speaking to a few of my Austalian collegues I found that these crooks have pulled this kind of scam before in the past. They go to jail for a few years, are released, then create a new "country" and continue scamming.
There is a reason why they do this - because they successfully either con people out of money or manage to use their fake money to pay expenses. People actually accept money from a fake bank/country.
Now while this is a rare anomaly, creating your own country, it is not new. Check out the wikipedia entry on
micronations. Over history there have been many of these, but the trend has been on the upswing in the last few decades, especially in Australia. Why Australia I have no idea, maybe because there are so many Pacific Islands out there with weird names (Vanuatu, Niue, Nauru etc) who's going to bother to check if one is legit or not? Sometimes these things are used by crooks, but other times it is used by deluded people as some form of tax protest - declare your own country therefore you don't have to pay taxes to that mean ol' government!
I think Family Guy did a parody of this once, the big guy declaring his house and yard a separate nation (for whatever reason).
Lesson to be learned - if you've never heard of a country, or don't know what their currency looks like when you're offered some, don't take it until you do some research. Beware of fake countries.
There is a reason why they do this - because they successfully either con people out of money or manage to use their fake money to pay expenses. People actually accept money from a fake bank/country.
Now while this is a rare anomaly, creating your own country, it is not new. Check out the wikipedia entry on
micronations. Over history there have been many of these, but the trend has been on the upswing in the last few decades, especially in Australia. Why Australia I have no idea, maybe because there are so many Pacific Islands out there with weird names (Vanuatu, Niue, Nauru etc) who's going to bother to check if one is legit or not? Sometimes these things are used by crooks, but other times it is used by deluded people as some form of tax protest - declare your own country therefore you don't have to pay taxes to that mean ol' government!
I think Family Guy did a parody of this once, the big guy declaring his house and yard a separate nation (for whatever reason).
Lesson to be learned - if you've never heard of a country, or don't know what their currency looks like when you're offered some, don't take it until you do some research. Beware of fake countries.
Saturday, May 05, 2007
Hey, I've been here a year!
I just realized that it has been a year (since May 1) that I've been in Qatar. So to celebrate . . .
My apartment was fumigated! (Whoohoo! Let the okay times roll!)
Actually this is a standard thing that happens every three weeks to a month. Someone comes by and sprays some insecticide around the edges of the apartment. Stuff seems to work too as I find the occasional dead ant of silverfish every now and again. It's not like Bermuda in the summer though where you couldn't go a week without finding a column of ants attacking the garbage or a massive roach crawling around somewhere. Heck in Bermuda we even had a lizard living in the house plants.
Anyway what was different about this spraying was that the guy decided that 9:00am on a weekend was a great time to stop by (grrrrr). Thankfully I was pretty much awake by then so I was able to open the door for him. Then after spraying the stuff, which stinks up the place pretty nicely, I opened the balcony doors to let fresh hot air in.
Now as many of you know I'm one of those guys for whom odd things happen to. Not good things, not tragic things, just odd things. Like having a waiter quit in the middle of my order, things like that. Things that make you sit back and wonder at the unlikely coincidence of it all.
So here I was standing on the balcony for fresh air (I really do hate the smell of the insecticide, and the reminder that if I can smell it I'm also inhaling it) and I notice a couple of flies dart in then out of the door. Then a few more. Then more. Always dashing in, then dashing out. At that point I looked a bit closer and realized that they weren't flies - they were some type of small bee. I decided to go inside and shut the door as I didn't want some bees flying around my room. Good thing too because then came . . .
A bee swarm! Hundreds of the buggers came from nowhere and were flying all around the balcony! Gaaaaaa!
I quickly ran to the other balcony door and closed it as well. So now I was stuck in an apartment reeking of insecticide while a swarm of bees danced around outside preventing me from airing out the place.
I certainly didn't want to stick around inhaling chemicals so I put on a jacket (bee protection, its 40 degrees out), grabbed my car keys, and dashed out to my car. It was obvious that I wasn't going to be using my apartment for a while now. Went out to have breakfast, came back and the bees were gone. At least I hope so and that they haven't formed a nest nearby.
My place still reeks of insecticide. I think they switched brands because I've never known it to be that bad before. I took the chance and opened my balcony doors again. I sure hope that I don't regret doing that.
Maybe I'll reflect on a year here some other time.
My apartment was fumigated! (Whoohoo! Let the okay times roll!)
Actually this is a standard thing that happens every three weeks to a month. Someone comes by and sprays some insecticide around the edges of the apartment. Stuff seems to work too as I find the occasional dead ant of silverfish every now and again. It's not like Bermuda in the summer though where you couldn't go a week without finding a column of ants attacking the garbage or a massive roach crawling around somewhere. Heck in Bermuda we even had a lizard living in the house plants.
Anyway what was different about this spraying was that the guy decided that 9:00am on a weekend was a great time to stop by (grrrrr). Thankfully I was pretty much awake by then so I was able to open the door for him. Then after spraying the stuff, which stinks up the place pretty nicely, I opened the balcony doors to let fresh hot air in.
Now as many of you know I'm one of those guys for whom odd things happen to. Not good things, not tragic things, just odd things. Like having a waiter quit in the middle of my order, things like that. Things that make you sit back and wonder at the unlikely coincidence of it all.
So here I was standing on the balcony for fresh air (I really do hate the smell of the insecticide, and the reminder that if I can smell it I'm also inhaling it) and I notice a couple of flies dart in then out of the door. Then a few more. Then more. Always dashing in, then dashing out. At that point I looked a bit closer and realized that they weren't flies - they were some type of small bee. I decided to go inside and shut the door as I didn't want some bees flying around my room. Good thing too because then came . . .
A bee swarm! Hundreds of the buggers came from nowhere and were flying all around the balcony! Gaaaaaa!
I quickly ran to the other balcony door and closed it as well. So now I was stuck in an apartment reeking of insecticide while a swarm of bees danced around outside preventing me from airing out the place.
I certainly didn't want to stick around inhaling chemicals so I put on a jacket (bee protection, its 40 degrees out), grabbed my car keys, and dashed out to my car. It was obvious that I wasn't going to be using my apartment for a while now. Went out to have breakfast, came back and the bees were gone. At least I hope so and that they haven't formed a nest nearby.
My place still reeks of insecticide. I think they switched brands because I've never known it to be that bad before. I took the chance and opened my balcony doors again. I sure hope that I don't regret doing that.
Maybe I'll reflect on a year here some other time.
Thursday, May 03, 2007
Expensive hotels: R-I-P-O-F-F
In my last two business trips (Jordan & Bahrain) I had the privilege of staying in some pretty nice 5-star hotels. Not something that I'm used to doing. I didn't have a lot of cash in my younger days so whenever I went somewhere 'affordable' was the key word, which meant 2 & 3-star accomodation.
Thanks to recent stays at top hotels I can tell you two things:
1) they are not worth the extra $100+ a night
2) considering you're already paying so much for a room it's surprising how much they'll nickel-&-dime you to squeeze more money out of you.
Case in point: internet service. In both of my recent stays I needed to log on to the internet to check my work email. Now in 2 & 3-star hotels, if they have any kind of business centre or internet computer at all, the price ranges from free to something nominal like $2 an hour. I've been in motels in nowheresville Ontario that provided free internet access. So what happens in hotel #1 (Jordan)? I can buy a half-hour internet access card for US$7, or an hour for $10. $7 for 30 minutes!?! I looked at the front desk clerk like he just robbed me at gunpoint. Even though it was the company that was paying, still, $7?
I needed it to check email for four days so I purchased the $10 'deal', spent ten minutes checking my email, then left.
The next day I go back to the business centre and my card isn't working. I go back to the front desk and tell them. What do I get:
"Sorry sir, but the cards are one-use only. Once you log off you can't use them to log back in again."
ONE USE! I paid $10 for an internet card that you can only use once!! WTF! Nice that they told me that ahead of time.
Let's move on to Hotel #2 (Bahrain). I go to the business centre. Sure enough I have to buy an access card. What's the price? US$14 for 2 hours!
Now I'm only there for one night so I ask "do you have cards with less time on them?"
Nope. 2-hours minimum.
So having learned my lesson from Hotel #1 I ask "Is the card only one use or can I use it multiple times?". The guy tells me I can use it multiple times, which is nice, but then says . . .
"but the card expires after 24 hours."
WTF! The minimum card is two hours but it all has to be used within 24 hours? For US$14!?! Jeebuz H. Kee-rist! This is what you get for paying $200 a night for a room?
The way I see it these swank hotels figure that since you're already paying through the nose you must be rich - and you aren't going to care about a few more bucks here and there. Drives me nuts. And don't get me started about the price for everything else there like food etc. I'm stunned that I wasn't charged to use the pool, buncha gangsters.
And no, the rooms are not so special that it is worth the money. A room at a cheaper hotel is just as good it just may lack a couple of minor perks like having a wider array of free toiletries or a robe. The perks aren't worth the money.
I'm going to be travelling in London and probably Paris this summer and I can tell you that I'm going to be staying in 2 or 3 star whenever possible. These swank hotels are not worth it.
Thanks to recent stays at top hotels I can tell you two things:
1) they are not worth the extra $100+ a night
2) considering you're already paying so much for a room it's surprising how much they'll nickel-&-dime you to squeeze more money out of you.
Case in point: internet service. In both of my recent stays I needed to log on to the internet to check my work email. Now in 2 & 3-star hotels, if they have any kind of business centre or internet computer at all, the price ranges from free to something nominal like $2 an hour. I've been in motels in nowheresville Ontario that provided free internet access. So what happens in hotel #1 (Jordan)? I can buy a half-hour internet access card for US$7, or an hour for $10. $7 for 30 minutes!?! I looked at the front desk clerk like he just robbed me at gunpoint. Even though it was the company that was paying, still, $7?
I needed it to check email for four days so I purchased the $10 'deal', spent ten minutes checking my email, then left.
The next day I go back to the business centre and my card isn't working. I go back to the front desk and tell them. What do I get:
"Sorry sir, but the cards are one-use only. Once you log off you can't use them to log back in again."
ONE USE! I paid $10 for an internet card that you can only use once!! WTF! Nice that they told me that ahead of time.
Let's move on to Hotel #2 (Bahrain). I go to the business centre. Sure enough I have to buy an access card. What's the price? US$14 for 2 hours!
Now I'm only there for one night so I ask "do you have cards with less time on them?"
Nope. 2-hours minimum.
So having learned my lesson from Hotel #1 I ask "Is the card only one use or can I use it multiple times?". The guy tells me I can use it multiple times, which is nice, but then says . . .
"but the card expires after 24 hours."
WTF! The minimum card is two hours but it all has to be used within 24 hours? For US$14!?! Jeebuz H. Kee-rist! This is what you get for paying $200 a night for a room?
The way I see it these swank hotels figure that since you're already paying through the nose you must be rich - and you aren't going to care about a few more bucks here and there. Drives me nuts. And don't get me started about the price for everything else there like food etc. I'm stunned that I wasn't charged to use the pool, buncha gangsters.
And no, the rooms are not so special that it is worth the money. A room at a cheaper hotel is just as good it just may lack a couple of minor perks like having a wider array of free toiletries or a robe. The perks aren't worth the money.
I'm going to be travelling in London and probably Paris this summer and I can tell you that I'm going to be staying in 2 or 3 star whenever possible. These swank hotels are not worth it.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Off yet again
I'm off to Bahrain for two days to write my accounting exam and meet with some clients. These past few months I've just been Mr. Jet-Setter. Many of coworkers are starting to get annoyed "are you off somewhere AGAIN?". Many of them haven't been on a business trip for upwards of a year.
It's getting hot in the Gulf now so I'm not sure how much time I'm going to spend wandering around Bahrain - and taxis there are a ripoff. You have to haggle with them each time and they utterly overcharge but more times than not the drivers are pretty cool. They are always Bahraini and once you settle on the fare they are generally friendly and talkative. The last Bahraini cab driver I was with happily answered my friend David's questions about having more than one wife ("a real headache, don't do it") :)
Anyway, wish me luck (about the exam, not the taxis)
It's getting hot in the Gulf now so I'm not sure how much time I'm going to spend wandering around Bahrain - and taxis there are a ripoff. You have to haggle with them each time and they utterly overcharge but more times than not the drivers are pretty cool. They are always Bahraini and once you settle on the fare they are generally friendly and talkative. The last Bahraini cab driver I was with happily answered my friend David's questions about having more than one wife ("a real headache, don't do it") :)
Anyway, wish me luck (about the exam, not the taxis)
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Getting a cold
Arrrrgh, I have to leave tomorrow for Bahrain for meetings and to write an exam and I'm coming down with a cold. I hate colds. I get colds fairly often, I figure that since there are 200+ viruses that cause them by now I'd have gone through over half of them. Just by process of elimination I should get colds half as frequent as before - but no. Thankfully I don't think that this will turn out to be a bad cold, a bad cold being one where you have to sit in bed all day feeling miserable, with the assistance of some d-rugs I should be allright for tomorrow. I hope.
In other news locals' driving skills continue to maintain their already poor standards. One coworker related a tale from the weekend where a guy took a roundabout way too fast and flipped his Land Cruiser, another mentioned how hanging out at certain roads at 3am is a great way to see rich and stupid teens taunt death by going 200km/hr+ in BMWs and Lambourginis. Yet another discussed almost getting wiped out by a car doing 130km/hr in an 80 zone and promptly changing 3 lanes. Without signalling. During the night. Without headlights. Traffic police generally won't touch locals and even if they did so something a fine like QR1000 (~$275) is nothing to a Qatari driving a Lambourghini. Jail time is the only serious deterrent that I can think of but it will be a while yet before the police and court system imposes something like that on a local.
I need to look up the stats on vehicle fatalities sometime, should be interesting.
In other news locals' driving skills continue to maintain their already poor standards. One coworker related a tale from the weekend where a guy took a roundabout way too fast and flipped his Land Cruiser, another mentioned how hanging out at certain roads at 3am is a great way to see rich and stupid teens taunt death by going 200km/hr+ in BMWs and Lambourginis. Yet another discussed almost getting wiped out by a car doing 130km/hr in an 80 zone and promptly changing 3 lanes. Without signalling. During the night. Without headlights. Traffic police generally won't touch locals and even if they did so something a fine like QR1000 (~$275) is nothing to a Qatari driving a Lambourghini. Jail time is the only serious deterrent that I can think of but it will be a while yet before the police and court system imposes something like that on a local.
I need to look up the stats on vehicle fatalities sometime, should be interesting.
Friday, April 27, 2007
Okay, I'm back
Back from my trip to the Dead Sea. It was for a 3-day seminar but it was still great to go somewhere different, and the resort where the seminar was held was very nice.
Went into the Dead Sea a couple of times and whattya-know, you really do float in the stuff. The Sea is about 10 times saltier than the ocean so not only can you not sink in it, you really have to be careful not to get any in your eyes or drink it. A little bit was near the corner of my mouth so I instictively brushed it with my tongue - and it caused a mild burning sensation. Ugh. If you swallowed a mouthful of it you'd probably be in great discomfort for days.
I watched a fly accidently land on the Sea and it was dead in 30 seconds. The Sea is aptly named.
I had a number of interesting chats with a seminar participant who was Palestinian. Needless to say life in Palestine is not a bowl of cherries. Is was interesting how he just accepted the stuff that happens with a sort of "that's just how life is" mentality. Spending hours at checkpoints, the inability to travel nearly anywhere, permit restrictions (his wife is Jordanian but her Palestinian visa expired, so if she leaves Palestine she wouldn't be let back in. She's stuck there until it's sorted out. It's been years.), economic collapse, and so forth. It was unnerving to hear just what life is like for your average Palestinian. And it also made me grateful for being who I am and where I am. He hopes for peace but doubts that it is coming.
I never asked why he doesn't try to leave. With his wife being Jordanian you'd think he could live in Jordan. Maybe he's not allowed to, I don't know.
So take a step back and look at your comfortable life, and note that even if you don't think things are great it could definately be worse.
Went into the Dead Sea a couple of times and whattya-know, you really do float in the stuff. The Sea is about 10 times saltier than the ocean so not only can you not sink in it, you really have to be careful not to get any in your eyes or drink it. A little bit was near the corner of my mouth so I instictively brushed it with my tongue - and it caused a mild burning sensation. Ugh. If you swallowed a mouthful of it you'd probably be in great discomfort for days.
I watched a fly accidently land on the Sea and it was dead in 30 seconds. The Sea is aptly named.
I had a number of interesting chats with a seminar participant who was Palestinian. Needless to say life in Palestine is not a bowl of cherries. Is was interesting how he just accepted the stuff that happens with a sort of "that's just how life is" mentality. Spending hours at checkpoints, the inability to travel nearly anywhere, permit restrictions (his wife is Jordanian but her Palestinian visa expired, so if she leaves Palestine she wouldn't be let back in. She's stuck there until it's sorted out. It's been years.), economic collapse, and so forth. It was unnerving to hear just what life is like for your average Palestinian. And it also made me grateful for being who I am and where I am. He hopes for peace but doubts that it is coming.
I never asked why he doesn't try to leave. With his wife being Jordanian you'd think he could live in Jordan. Maybe he's not allowed to, I don't know.
So take a step back and look at your comfortable life, and note that even if you don't think things are great it could definately be worse.
Friday, April 20, 2007
Off on business
I'm away on business in Jordan until Friday. Plan to have a nice long float in the Dead Sea too.
As an aside: T-shirts that have "Ramones", "Sex Pistols", or that image of Che Guevera are completely and utterly past their time. Wearing them does not make you look rebellious in any way, it only makes you look like a sheep who thinks its cool to wear stuff 30 years later than actual rebellious people. Che Guevera must be rolling in his grave about how he's become little more than a capitalistic fashion icon for wannabe rebels who probably have never read anything he's ever written, or know anything about his life.
As an aside: T-shirts that have "Ramones", "Sex Pistols", or that image of Che Guevera are completely and utterly past their time. Wearing them does not make you look rebellious in any way, it only makes you look like a sheep who thinks its cool to wear stuff 30 years later than actual rebellious people. Che Guevera must be rolling in his grave about how he's become little more than a capitalistic fashion icon for wannabe rebels who probably have never read anything he's ever written, or know anything about his life.
Another rant about the media
Well halfway across the world and however many days after the Virginia shooting I still can't turn on the TV news without seeing big reports about the shooter, his photos, his plays, his life. BBC World even was so low as to discuss the complaints by the police of NBC showing the videos/pictures, while showing the pictures and videos in a splitscreen. Al-Jazeera English, which claims to show a "different perspective", has been giving this as much focus as the other networks it pretends to be different from.
And yet at no point in time has BBC or Al-Jazeera provided that kind of coverage about the victims. Not their names, their dreams, their goals in life, nothing. Hey BBC, maybe some of the victims wrote plays too! Ever consider reading them to viewers?!
Oh, and thanks for the 15-second update on how 100,000 people died in Darfur. Feel free to go back to Virginia now to talk to your expert-of-the-day psychiatrist for 5 minutes about what the shooter had for lunch that day.
The shooter is dead and yet he won. He wanted fame and knew how to get it. Sent pictures to a network who happily gave him what he wanted. He not only killed dozens of innocent people, he used their deaths, and the grief and pain of their families, to propel himself into a sick form of immortality. Just like he wanted. And the media gave it to him - a parting gift from people who apparantly will walk over 30+ graves for ratings.
I hate the media sometimes. I just hate them.
And yet at no point in time has BBC or Al-Jazeera provided that kind of coverage about the victims. Not their names, their dreams, their goals in life, nothing. Hey BBC, maybe some of the victims wrote plays too! Ever consider reading them to viewers?!
Oh, and thanks for the 15-second update on how 100,000 people died in Darfur. Feel free to go back to Virginia now to talk to your expert-of-the-day psychiatrist for 5 minutes about what the shooter had for lunch that day.
The shooter is dead and yet he won. He wanted fame and knew how to get it. Sent pictures to a network who happily gave him what he wanted. He not only killed dozens of innocent people, he used their deaths, and the grief and pain of their families, to propel himself into a sick form of immortality. Just like he wanted. And the media gave it to him - a parting gift from people who apparantly will walk over 30+ graves for ratings.
I hate the media sometimes. I just hate them.
Thursday, April 19, 2007
On fixing things and media attention
One of the nice things about living in a compound is that there are dedicated maintenance guys whose job is to fix whatever goes wrong in your apartment. If I have a problem I don’t need to grab a phone book to look up a plumber, electrician or whomever, I just have to call the main office and have the maintenance guys sent over.
What makes me even more fortunate is that the maintenance guys in my compound are a) competent and b) quick. Usually once or twice a month I hear horror stories from coworkers and other people living in other compounds about problems with maintenance staff. Guys who have to be shown how to do their jobs, or show up one to two weeks despite repeated calls about your washing machine being broken, or both – having guys who don’t know what they are doing show up after one or two weeks. And there is no choice in the matter, if you call someone else then you are paying the bill out of your own pocket, if the security staff even lets the repair guy in.
At my compound you call and they are there within an hour looking at the problem. I’ve only needed them a couple of times but both times everything was fixed promptly and I had no further problems since (which is a good thing since one of the things they had to fix was an air conditioner!). It’s like out of those 1950’s futuristic shows, just push a button and suddenly people show up to fix things!
The maintenance guys will be getting a nice bonus from me this Christmas.
As a side note I’ve been seeing all the media coverage of this university shooting in the States and have come to two conclusions:
1) similar disasters in non-Western countries would get about 1/5th the coverage;
2) the media have provided the shooter with what he wanted, attention and fame. He went from unrecognized nobody to having everything he did and wrote being scrutinized by millions;
Both of these issues indicate something wrong today with media. Now item #1 I don’t blame US media for, the shootings happened in the US so it is natural that they’d give it lots of coverage; but why were BBC and Al-Jazeera providing live feeds and tons of coverage? Repeated bombings taking out dozens in Baghdad get a news story of a few minutes on those networks, a US school shooting gets repeated and lengthy multi-day coverage. I don’t get it.
As for item #2, it wouldn’t surprise me if this trend increases the problem of these kinds of incidents occurring in the future. Now lonely suicidal nutcases know that taking a bunch of innocent people with them before they go will give them the attention they deludedly think they deserve. Just touch on the shooter’s name and move on, don’t dwell on them. I wonder if this nutcase was mentioning Columbine because he liked the attention those killers got?
Anyway, rant over, time for the weekend.
What makes me even more fortunate is that the maintenance guys in my compound are a) competent and b) quick. Usually once or twice a month I hear horror stories from coworkers and other people living in other compounds about problems with maintenance staff. Guys who have to be shown how to do their jobs, or show up one to two weeks despite repeated calls about your washing machine being broken, or both – having guys who don’t know what they are doing show up after one or two weeks. And there is no choice in the matter, if you call someone else then you are paying the bill out of your own pocket, if the security staff even lets the repair guy in.
At my compound you call and they are there within an hour looking at the problem. I’ve only needed them a couple of times but both times everything was fixed promptly and I had no further problems since (which is a good thing since one of the things they had to fix was an air conditioner!). It’s like out of those 1950’s futuristic shows, just push a button and suddenly people show up to fix things!
The maintenance guys will be getting a nice bonus from me this Christmas.
As a side note I’ve been seeing all the media coverage of this university shooting in the States and have come to two conclusions:
1) similar disasters in non-Western countries would get about 1/5th the coverage;
2) the media have provided the shooter with what he wanted, attention and fame. He went from unrecognized nobody to having everything he did and wrote being scrutinized by millions;
Both of these issues indicate something wrong today with media. Now item #1 I don’t blame US media for, the shootings happened in the US so it is natural that they’d give it lots of coverage; but why were BBC and Al-Jazeera providing live feeds and tons of coverage? Repeated bombings taking out dozens in Baghdad get a news story of a few minutes on those networks, a US school shooting gets repeated and lengthy multi-day coverage. I don’t get it.
As for item #2, it wouldn’t surprise me if this trend increases the problem of these kinds of incidents occurring in the future. Now lonely suicidal nutcases know that taking a bunch of innocent people with them before they go will give them the attention they deludedly think they deserve. Just touch on the shooter’s name and move on, don’t dwell on them. I wonder if this nutcase was mentioning Columbine because he liked the attention those killers got?
Anyway, rant over, time for the weekend.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
The classics never die.
Sometimes the classics never die. Remember hearing about, when phones were first coming into widespread use, how people were worried that if they spoke with a sick person over the phone they could catch their disease? That somehow germs transmitted themselves over phone lines? I guess it wasn’t a big leap of logic if you didn’t know how a phone worked – you could hear the person, so why couldn’t germs travel with the voice as well.
Well, some classics never die. According to numerous press articles there was a panic in Pakistan and Afghanistan because some prankster sent messages around about a deadly “cell phone virus” that would kill you if you answered the phone when certain numbers were trying to contact you. The rumour spread like wildfire, some people actually went to hospital figuring they had caught the virus, and many religious leaders were fooled as well. Newspapers had to publish statements from the various Telecom companies stating that it was a hoax because the telecoms were receiving hundreds of phone calls from panicked customers.
If this happened in North America or the UK I’d be railing right now about how education needs to be better funded and critical thinking taught in schools before hoaxes like this do real damage. But in countries like Pakistan or Afghanistan where for many a good education is simply a dream and families have greater problems, like finding food, then picking out colleges for their kids, I’m not surprised that many people would be taken in by the hoax. I don’t blame them for not knowing that viruses do not travel through cell phones, nor that it could transmit frequencies that could cause instant-brain injury – how would they know? I just hope that one day things will settle enough that poor people in those countries have access to good education.
Of course, I still want more critical thinking to be taught in the West as well. We may laugh at the cell-phone hoax, but meanwhile Westerners watch Oprah talk about ‘the Secret’, buy the latest New Age self-help book, take homeopathic meds, and wonder what our horoscope is like today. Same difference.
Well, some classics never die. According to numerous press articles there was a panic in Pakistan and Afghanistan because some prankster sent messages around about a deadly “cell phone virus” that would kill you if you answered the phone when certain numbers were trying to contact you. The rumour spread like wildfire, some people actually went to hospital figuring they had caught the virus, and many religious leaders were fooled as well. Newspapers had to publish statements from the various Telecom companies stating that it was a hoax because the telecoms were receiving hundreds of phone calls from panicked customers.
If this happened in North America or the UK I’d be railing right now about how education needs to be better funded and critical thinking taught in schools before hoaxes like this do real damage. But in countries like Pakistan or Afghanistan where for many a good education is simply a dream and families have greater problems, like finding food, then picking out colleges for their kids, I’m not surprised that many people would be taken in by the hoax. I don’t blame them for not knowing that viruses do not travel through cell phones, nor that it could transmit frequencies that could cause instant-brain injury – how would they know? I just hope that one day things will settle enough that poor people in those countries have access to good education.
Of course, I still want more critical thinking to be taught in the West as well. We may laugh at the cell-phone hoax, but meanwhile Westerners watch Oprah talk about ‘the Secret’, buy the latest New Age self-help book, take homeopathic meds, and wonder what our horoscope is like today. Same difference.
Saturday, April 14, 2007
I have joined the 21st century.
Okay I have now made the technological jump and got myself hooked up on Skype. It took me a while to get it figured out but my friend Knut had asked me to do it - if only because long-distance calls are a real burn $$$-wise. I tried it out today and it worked. No visual though, but I'll see what I can do to get that set up as well.
So between starting a blog and being on Skype I'm a 21st century man! (No, I consider this blog a reasonable cover for not having a MySpace account so I'm not planning to get one.)
Maybe I'll start a dot-com franchise next! :)
Anyway if you have a Skype account and want to talk let me know. Time zone differences can make this a bit of a challenge, but I'm sure we can work something out.
So between starting a blog and being on Skype I'm a 21st century man! (No, I consider this blog a reasonable cover for not having a MySpace account so I'm not planning to get one.)
Maybe I'll start a dot-com franchise next! :)
Anyway if you have a Skype account and want to talk let me know. Time zone differences can make this a bit of a challenge, but I'm sure we can work something out.
Friday, April 13, 2007
A trip to the nightclub
I rarely go to nightclubs, it just isn't my thing. Even in high school, university, my 20s, I just was not big on going to clubs. I'm not a big drinker either and when I go out with friends I prefer chatting with people, something that is difficult to do when there is music constantly blaring.
Last night a coworker asked if I wanted to head out for a few drinks, there was a new nightclub nearby so he suggested there. I figured what the hey, I haven't been out for a while and I'm always willing to see somewhere new.
So here it is - standard nightclub experience in Doha:
cover charge QR90 (about US$25), included two drinks though. Believe it or not door fees like this are pretty standard here, possibly to keep out the riff-raff (labourers) or so that the club can at least make some money off of those guys who have no intention of paying money for overpriced drinks. Speaking of which:
Overpriced drinks. A beer was something like QR24 (~US$7) and spirits at least that or more. My friend and I considered having Bushmills and coke and he asked the bartender how much for a double. The bartender said QR167 (~$45). We said that he could put the bottle back on the shelf. I think at the liquor store you could pay less than that for an entire bottle.
music: supplied by a, I think, Philippino band playing various cover tunes. I think there is some kind of industry in the Phillipines that creates cover bands so that they can find work in the Middle East, pretty much every bar I've been into in the Middle East that has live music has a Philippino band playing it. Maybe the clubs can bring them in cheaply? That said, they were an excellent band.
crowd: it was a big club and it was packed (>500 people I figure) by 10:30 so it was definately a happening place. Problem is that in Qatar the vast majority of the population are ex-pats, which means that they are mostly men working in construction, oil & gas, finance etc. And I think that Qatari women would, in general, never be seen in a nightclub. I could be wrong about that but I don't recall seeing any Arab women in the club that evening. So that means a severe gender imbalance occurs at almost any establishment. In this case I figure the man-woman ratio was around 8:1, maybe worse, which meant a lot of guys just hanging around. It is tough for a single guy to meet any ladies in this town.
By 12:00 my friend & I had had enough. "I feel like I'm in a gay bar" I recall him saying. If someone from the West just landed in Doha and walked into this club he'd probably think the same thing.
At least it reinforced why I generally don't go to clubs . . .
Last night a coworker asked if I wanted to head out for a few drinks, there was a new nightclub nearby so he suggested there. I figured what the hey, I haven't been out for a while and I'm always willing to see somewhere new.
So here it is - standard nightclub experience in Doha:
cover charge QR90 (about US$25), included two drinks though. Believe it or not door fees like this are pretty standard here, possibly to keep out the riff-raff (labourers) or so that the club can at least make some money off of those guys who have no intention of paying money for overpriced drinks. Speaking of which:
Overpriced drinks. A beer was something like QR24 (~US$7) and spirits at least that or more. My friend and I considered having Bushmills and coke and he asked the bartender how much for a double. The bartender said QR167 (~$45). We said that he could put the bottle back on the shelf. I think at the liquor store you could pay less than that for an entire bottle.
music: supplied by a, I think, Philippino band playing various cover tunes. I think there is some kind of industry in the Phillipines that creates cover bands so that they can find work in the Middle East, pretty much every bar I've been into in the Middle East that has live music has a Philippino band playing it. Maybe the clubs can bring them in cheaply? That said, they were an excellent band.
crowd: it was a big club and it was packed (>500 people I figure) by 10:30 so it was definately a happening place. Problem is that in Qatar the vast majority of the population are ex-pats, which means that they are mostly men working in construction, oil & gas, finance etc. And I think that Qatari women would, in general, never be seen in a nightclub. I could be wrong about that but I don't recall seeing any Arab women in the club that evening. So that means a severe gender imbalance occurs at almost any establishment. In this case I figure the man-woman ratio was around 8:1, maybe worse, which meant a lot of guys just hanging around. It is tough for a single guy to meet any ladies in this town.
By 12:00 my friend & I had had enough. "I feel like I'm in a gay bar" I recall him saying. If someone from the West just landed in Doha and walked into this club he'd probably think the same thing.
At least it reinforced why I generally don't go to clubs . . .
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
The job
One thing you might have noticed about my blog is that I don’t discuss work. Well guess what – it is because I’m never going to blog about work.
One thing about being a regulator is that a lot of stuff that crosses my desk is confidential. I have access to private financial information on companies as well as other materials on their controls, pricing, etc. Keeping those things confidential is a big deal, in fact in my contract I’m required to sign a confidentiality agreement. Disclosing confidential information could land me in serious trouble with the law, including fines and jail time. In Bermuda disclosing confidential information held by the Bermuda Monetary Authority (where I last worked) could get you 10 years in prison. Not worth the risk as far as I'm concerned.
Also blogging about work is a surefire way to get in trouble. At least once a month you hear a story about some fool, usually in London or New York, who either emails people about something personal, or blogs about something at work that later comes back to haunt them. One I remember was while I was an auditor. Someone secretly videotaped a woman (an audit manager at a different firm) at a party in a compromising position. [No I wasn’t at the party and haven’t seen the vid so I’m not sure what it was about]. It circulated quickly around her office and someone accidentally forwarded it to a client. When the dust settled the guy who took the video and the person who emailed it around the office were both fired, and I believe the audit manager was transferred to a different office because she was so humiliated.
So the last thing I want to do is get in trouble blabbing about work via a blog. Just the other day one of my coworkers told me that he found my blog while Googling something about Qatar (cool!). If I started griping about coworkers or my job it wouldn’t take much for a coworker to figure out who I’m talking about – and probably start emailing my blog around the office.
So work is fine. It always will be. Thanks for asking.
One thing about being a regulator is that a lot of stuff that crosses my desk is confidential. I have access to private financial information on companies as well as other materials on their controls, pricing, etc. Keeping those things confidential is a big deal, in fact in my contract I’m required to sign a confidentiality agreement. Disclosing confidential information could land me in serious trouble with the law, including fines and jail time. In Bermuda disclosing confidential information held by the Bermuda Monetary Authority (where I last worked) could get you 10 years in prison. Not worth the risk as far as I'm concerned.
Also blogging about work is a surefire way to get in trouble. At least once a month you hear a story about some fool, usually in London or New York, who either emails people about something personal, or blogs about something at work that later comes back to haunt them. One I remember was while I was an auditor. Someone secretly videotaped a woman (an audit manager at a different firm) at a party in a compromising position. [No I wasn’t at the party and haven’t seen the vid so I’m not sure what it was about]. It circulated quickly around her office and someone accidentally forwarded it to a client. When the dust settled the guy who took the video and the person who emailed it around the office were both fired, and I believe the audit manager was transferred to a different office because she was so humiliated.
So the last thing I want to do is get in trouble blabbing about work via a blog. Just the other day one of my coworkers told me that he found my blog while Googling something about Qatar (cool!). If I started griping about coworkers or my job it wouldn’t take much for a coworker to figure out who I’m talking about – and probably start emailing my blog around the office.
So work is fine. It always will be. Thanks for asking.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)