Hookah is a water pipe type smoking device. It’s used for smoking flavored tobacco and rather popular in Middle East. I smoke a hookah every now and then (much less often now that I’m not in school anymore). It is relaxing and great for social events.

I bought my hookah from Buy Hookah website (a while ago) and couldn’t be happier with it. I bought the Scorpius Magdy Zidan hookah with Namoor hose. The hose makes all the difference.

My favorite flavor is (by far) Starbuzz Blue Mist, and Starbuzz Blackberry.

I still buy my tobacco and other occasional hookah needs from BuyHookah.com. The shipping is fast and I have no complaints.

My cellphone (Droid ERIS) was stolen last week from my hotel room and whoever stole it was uploading inappropriate pictures to my Facebook account using my phone. I reported the phone stolen and stopped the service on my account until I get a new phone. The phone was a Verizon phone so it can’t be used on any other account but my information on is now all stolen.

I did a little research and found a new app that allows you to find your stolen cellphone and allows you to wipe out all your phone’s data remotely if it is stolen. It’s called Lookout Mobile Security. Right now it seems to be free. I hope it stays that way until I get my new phone (Droid Incredible) in mail.

I had bought the stolen phone few month ago so I wasn’t eligible for a discounted upgrade and had to pay full retail price for the cell phone. Good news is the hotel agreed to reimburse me for the cost (a little over $550).

A while ago I wrote a post about the best workout headphones. I still own them and use them daily. However they are for workout only. I wanted a pair of higher quality noise canceling headphones for myself. After a lot of research I bought the Sennheiser PXC 350 headphones last summer. So far I love them and here is a short review of them.

I won’t get into the headphones features list. You can find that online elsewhere.

During my research over summer,  I went to Best Buy few times and tried the new Bose noise canceling headphones. They have a $300 price tag. In my experience many of the best electronic brands are often the brands that most people haven’t heard of. Names like Paradigm, B&W, and Denon are not exactly household names, but they are far better than Sony, Kenwood, and Bose brands.

Sennheiser is another one of those brands. They make mostly professional audio equipment such as headphones priced at over $1000. The PXC 350 is one of their lower models targeted at general public.It is priced at $325 but you can find it on sale for less than $200 right now.

The Noise Canceling

I absolutely love it. It blocks noise like no other. It is perfect when listening to audio books on the way to work or on the way back or when I’m just sitting at the coffee shop. I’ve also tested it many times on the plane. The best one was when I was on the plane from Cleveland to San Francisco. It was a 4.5 hour direct flight. The headphones were on my ear the entire time when I was listening to music and when I was sleeping. It greatly blocked the engine noise all the way and I never felt uncomfortable.

Over The Ear & Sweating

One concern with over the ear headphones is that your ears might start sweating on long flights and making the headphones impractical. That is definitely not the case. I had the headphones on during the entire 4.5 hour flight to San Francisco without any trouble.

My Unusual Use

I lived in Indiana when I bought the headphones and live in Ohio right now. One thing the two states have in common is the terrible cold weather. Back in Indiana, I often had my headphones on when walking to school every day. After a while I realized that I loved the sound quality just as much as I enjoyed the warm ear covers that the headphones had become for me.

A while back I wrote a review of the book “The Culture Code, an Ingenious Way To Understand Why People Around The World Live And Buy As They Do. The book discusses how different cultures view same matters differently and tries to find the unconscious reason for people’s choices.

For example the culture code for shopping is “reconnecting with life”, the culture code for health is “movement”. The American code for cars is “Identity,” while the German code for cars is “Engineering.” If you haven’t read it, start reading it tonight.

While the book topics are simply amazing, since the first time I read the book (I’ve read it 3 times by now) I was anxious to learn how to find the culture code for other products/values/people that were not in the book. For example I wanted to find the American culture code for “Hookah” and see if it is any different than the Middle Eastern culture code for it.

I tried to understand how Clotaire Rapaille (the author of the book) found the culture codes that he did and tried to apply them myself. I surveyed customers, conducted study sessions with them, and analyzed the results. In the surveys and study sessions I asked three main questions:

• Try to remember the “First Time” you used the product in as much detail as possible.
• Try to remember the “Most Powerful Memory” of using the product in as much detail as possible.
• Try to remember the “Most Recent Memory” of using the product.

About two months ago, I bought a Dell laptop. The laptop got shipped less than a week after purchase. I received an email with FedEx tracking number and it was supposed to arrive on Thursday of that week.

I live in River Market Apartment complex in West Lafayette, Indiana. When FedEx delivers packages they give it to the leasing office and the tenants (we) pick it up from there.  After every package that we pick up we have to sign a paper saying that we did pick up a package that day. On Friday (the day after the laptop was supposed to arrive), I went to the leasing office to pick up my laptop.

The lady working there, Ms. Bunch, told me she had not received a laptop in the past couple days. She said “I’m positive I didn’t get a laptop, I would have remembered getting that”. I went upstairs to my apartment, looked up the tracking number on FedEx website and there it was: FedEx delivery confirmation with a signature of the recipient; and guess what! the signature belonged to a person name “Bunch“.

So I went downstairs with a print out of the tracking number and signature. Ms. Bunch then said, “Oh, I remember, yes I did  receive it, but I can’t find the package right now. I don’t know where it is.” She looked all over the office and couldn’t find my laptop. She never acknowledged that the office had lost the package or took responsibility for it. She even got pissed at me for being upset that they had lost my laptop.

I said to myself, they might have misplaced it and it will be found by Monday. So I picked up another package that I had over there, signed out for it, and went home.

I went back to leasing office on Monday to check for my laptop and Ms. Bunch told me (to my most utter surprise) that I had picked up a package on the Friday before and as far as she knew that was the laptop. She even brought the signatures book to show me my signature. I was furious. I still had the other package and tracking number sticker for the other package and it was NOT a laptop. It was a keyboard. The package was still not opened.

I called River Market Apartment main manager and she practically gave me the middle finger over the phone and said she was not interested to look at my evidence.

Long story short I have now filed a law suit against River Market Apartments and am going to get my money back. Either someone in their office stole my laptop or they simple lost it. In either case they are responsible for it.

I will post periodic updates about the case.

If you plan on renting a place in West Lafayette, save yourself a bunch of money and headache and don’t get even close to these guys.