Month: July 2008

I passed by Eastpak earlier tonight to check out their bags. I have an Eastpak bag for every occasion but I needed a travel bag that is smaller than my backpack but larger than my shoulder camera bag. My small Eastpak camera bag is actually a great size specially since it fits my Asus Eee but once I start cramming in the rest of my stuff it gets pretty tight. Anyway it turns out Eastpak have a 50% discount on some of their bags so if anyone is looking for a new bag now is the perfect time to get one.

Naif have an offer now where you can get three chicken shawermas for only 500fils. Thats around 166fils per shawerma which I think is the cheapest in Kuwait or at least the cheapest I’ve ever seen.

I’ve had the E71 for a few hours now and so far compared to my previous phone the Nokia E61i, the E71 is better in every aspect. For those of you who own E61i’s you will be glad to know that the E71 is a much much faster phone, MUCH faster. Everything launches in a split second and moving from menu item to menu item and opening or closing an SMS is all instantaneous. The size of the device is also smaller, width wise its around 20% less fat and its also slightly less thick. The camera is finally usable and the keyboard although smaller than the E61i doesn’t feel cramped or strange in any way. I’ve also noticed the phone is a lot more customizable which is a plus and its also smarter. For example in the main screen if you no longer want to display SMS notifications, you just highlight it and press the delete button and it will ask you if you want to hide it from the main screen. The power button has now moved to the top which is a good idea since I had a bad habit of accidentally shutting the phone with my ear, not fun specially if you are in the middle of a conversation.

On the negative side the GPS seems extremely slow and unpractical. The phone also loves finger prints and smudges which is very iPhonish. The case also seems more fragile. I’ve dropped my E61i so many times and I am not sure the E71 can handle as much abuse. Overall though I am really impressed with the phone. I was expecting it to be better than the E61i and it has exceeded my expectation in every way so far. Oh and its no longer showing me MTC on the main screen, its finally showing me Zain KW!

A reader just emailed me an informed me that the Nokia E71 is out in Kuwait and available in Sharq. There is a store there called Phone Center and they are selling it for around KD170 depending on your haggling skills. Their phone number is 2454022.

Thanks Jassim!

Update: After I posted this I left the house and was heading to Avenues when I got a phone call from the Nokia dealer in Fanar. I had put my name down on a waiting list for the E71 and once the Fanar branch got the phone they called me. It was around 9PM, they had just received two E71’s and they told me to come in and pick it up so I turned around and headed back to Salmiya. They were selling it for KD159 which was cheaper than what the phone was being sold for in Sharq. So far the phone is really really great and the Nokia dealer really surprised me, I was actually expecting them to forget about me and never call me once the phone came in but they actually called me right away, really great service. Thank you!

Update2: Mac users, if you want to use the E71 with iSync follow this link, someone made a plugin that will get it working. [Link]

I heard a lot of bad stuff about Toshiba hard drives yet somehow I ended up buying one. Back in February Nataly needed a larger drive for her MacBook and I ended up going to Red Star in Walla Complex in Hawalli to see what they had available. I usually buy my stuff from Red Star or SoftIsland across the street since they both usually give me the best prices. The largest drive they had in my budget was the 160GB Toshiba. I didn’t want to get it but the salesman there convinced me that unlike the old Toshiba drives that were made in China and were prone to failure, the new drives are now made in Philippines and were supposedly of much better quality. I bought into that and went ahead and purchased the drive.

Just before we sold her MacBook the drive ended up dying. Luckily she had everything backed up on her old drive and so was able to recover her work but the Toshiba drive was dead. I put it aside and forgot about it until a few days ago I accidentally found the original invoice. There in very clear hand writing it stated “6 months warranty”. I checked the date and realized it had only been 5 months since I bought the drive so I headed to Hawalli today and got the drive replaced. I wasn’t to sure if they would replace it for me or not since most of the places there are pretty shabby but Red Star were pretty cool and after testing it out told me I could come back tomorrow and get a replacement. Since I didn’t want to come back the next day and since I also didn’t want another Toshiba drive I ended up settling on a 120GB Seagate and a nice discount on a decent HDMI cable.

I just installed the drive in my PS3 and its working perfectly. I will never buy another Toshiba drive ever again and I would not recommend them to anyone. They are cheap which makes them tempting but you really should stay away from them.

I passed by Marina Mall today to pick up my MacBook from the Apple store Digits. My computers logic board died and last month they told me they would fix it under warranty but it would take around 2-4 weeks for the part to arrive. Well it ended up taking 3 weeks and my Macbook is back from the dead. The whole thing only cost me KD10 which I believe was for shipping or customs. Now I’ve got three completely different sized laptops. I’ve got the 15″ MacBook Pro for work which I am finding extremely enormous. I’ve got my Asus Eee which I am finding super tiny compared to my MacBook Pro. Finally I have my perfectly sized 13″ MacBook which lies somewhere in the middle. It feels good to be back typing again on my MacBook.

I saw a new Dodge Charger police car today mounted onto a tow truck. I think the Ministry is still deciding which car to go with and changes are still being made on the cars. For example I noticed the front bumper on the car (pictured below) was different than the one pictured [Here]

I know I said I was going to post only two videos today but I had totally forgotten about this video which a friend had sent me earlier. A hilarious commercial from Syria and supposedly it was released this year! [YouTube]

This is my second video post for the day. This one is of a video I found on YouTube showing a project thats supposedly going to built on Failaka. It seems they will be turning Failaka into one large resort but the strangest thing is that they will have a large zoo and amusement park on it. Pretty strange since I would rather they fix up the current zoo before having a new one built and entertainment city needs some new rides as well. [YouTube]

Two videos for today, this is the first one. Its a video of some people flying kites in Kuwait, I posted about them before but now there seems to be wayyyy more kites and not small regular kites I am talking about really cool big ones, just check out the video. [YouTube]

Marks & Spencer in Kuwait is pretty strange. Its been open for a really long time and they seem to be doing pretty well but they’ve yet to open up in a popular mall. I usually pass by Marks & Spencer for their food section, they’ve got a ton of munchies and random items like jams, salad dressings and cornflakes. Their food packaging is also beautifully designed so I just buy random stuff because they look good. If you haven’t been to Marks & Spencer its worth checking out, they’re located right next to Marina Mall, I am not sure they have another branch elsewhere.

Check out the promo Channel 4 did for their Kubrick season. [Link]

If you don’t know who Kubrick is or if you haven’t watched The Shining, ignore this post.

I don’t know why but I find this short sketch extremely funny, probably because its really stupid. The clip if from the now defunct Lebanese TV series SLCHI. Its pretty old from 1996 I think and its also in Arabic so many of you might not get it. [YouTube]

How much does it cost to sponsor a bridge here in Kuwait and once I sponsor it would I be allowed to paint the whole bridge in fluorescent pink? I am sure it would look a million times better than the one pictured above and at least I would be adding much needed color to the Kuwaiti landscape.

I just found out that on July 26th a drifting competition is going to be held in an underground parking lot of a mall in Lebanon. The event sounds really cool and some Lebanese rally champions are going to be judges at the event. Hopefully Red Bull is going to bring the same event to Kuwait since I know that a lot of guys here would love to participate in that. Here is a link to the facebook group. [Link]