Slowly but surely..

..civilisation and all its nuances are hitting Doha. A few days ago my brothers and sistercame home alle xcited about the new Virgin Megastore that just opened up in Qatar. Theykept goign on about how many books they have at the store, the music collection, the awesome MAC computers etc etc. I took it all in with a grain of salt, waiting till I actually went to see for myself what all the fuss was about. Well, I went today.

I walked out with three books, Amin Maalouf's Samarkand, Orhan Pamuk's Snow, and Milan Kundera's The Lightness of being. These are not Tom Clancy books, neither are they John Grisham. Overnight, the Virgin Megastore has become the trendiest, most cultured spot in all of Doha. I mean they carry Milan Kundera for god sakes! When everyone else here thinks Nora Roberts is the most respected author at this time (she has to be, look how many books of hers each bookstore carries), Virgin actually has books on politics, religion, philosophy, culture, and goddamnit, they even have a cultural focus section- today's focus being books by women from Asia, most notably Iran.

Then I walked over to the music section. First cd I see.. Ray Charles Live. This is going to be good. I counted seventeen Claude Challe cds. It has to be said that thier hip hop collection is lacking. Also noticeable was the gaping hole in the cd rack where all the G Unit cds were before some punk wannabe arab gangsta picked them all up. It seems stupidity spreads much faster than culture, everywhere.

I picked up one cd for my brother- an Ice-T compilation of West Coast anthems ranging from the early days of hip hop to the contemporary.

Just like that, 178 riyals gone. And that is nothing. I mean a Danielle Steele book sells for 80 riyals in other stores. I got three books and a boombastic cd for almost double that. I think its safe to say that Qatar just became a much better place to exist. Maybe not live, but exist.

Whats more exciting than all this is that, the store will ship in anything that I want, music cds, books etc., as long as it is listed on Amazon, for no extra cost. Which means that I can get the books I want when I want. This is amazing news. I really am quite excited.

In other news, I hate work.

Oh, in even more other news, I have a serious crush on a lady that is about 35 years old. I mean a serious crush. Lets just say that she moves in mysterious ways. Ehmm... that is all.