2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003
oobject has a top 20 list of skyscrapers in the Gulf, nearly all of them are in Dubai but Kuwait’s upcoming Mubarek Tower made the list. My favorite is the Ras Al Khaimah Convention Center (Dubai UAE) pictured above which is designed by OMA and led by Rem Koolhaas. Its made to look like the Death Star from Star Wars. [Link]
New York Times must have been on something when they came out with this list of “53 Places to go in 2008” because they’ve placed Kuwait in position number 32! We beat places like Las Vegas, New York and London, thats just insane! [Link]
Thanks S!
I was researching zombies on wikipedia when I found information on something called zombie walk. Its an event where a large group of people dress up as zombies and then walk around city streets. A quick search on YouTube resulted in a ton of videos, the one above was taken in Toronto but if you follow the link you can find the rest on YouTube. [Link]
A friend of mine told me about this service so I called up Zain today and signed up to it. Basically the service sends you an SMS whenever you get a fine. To activate the service it costs KD3 and every time you get a traffic violation they send you an SMS with details on the violation and that SMS costs 250fils. If you want to sign up you need to call them on 107.
Before you get too excited this isn’t in Kuwait, its in Dubai. But, with cheap Jazeera tickets it still comes out to be pretty affordable. You could probably fly out in the morning, skydive and come back in the evening. The video above is of some guy skydiving and here is the link with more info and prices. [Link]
I just heard about Mishaal who is a local weather forecaster. Supposedly he is extremely accurate and is the next Oujeri and he is only 17. He has a website with his own forecast, will start checking it to see how accurate this guy is. [Link]
Picture from Q8ia Forever
I just found a video blogger here in Kuwait. It a girl, her name is Rashisha and she has tons of videos on YouTube ranging from her singing karaoke with her brother to videos of her taken while she is driving complaining about work. She also has a blog which I added to “Our Friends” section on the right. Lots of wacky stuff check her out. [YouTube Link]
update: Here is another local video blogger, a guy called Stan. [Link]
I really really really hate Aramex. I stopped using them for my important packages ages ago and instead started using U Shop We Ship who are much better. I now only use my Aramex account for my magazine subscriptions and it seems I can’t even trust them with that anymore. Today I got a package after not getting anything for 2 months and it turns out I have 2 months worth of magazines missing! I have been trying to call them since morning to try and see what happened but their lines are all busy, ALL THE TIME! I can’t understand why people still use Aramex, USWS isn’t perfect, they have their own issues but at least packages get shipped promptly from the US and do arrive in Kuwait on time. Where are my magazines???
So it didn’t get shut down by the ministry, it was just moved into GameWizz.
Can anyone here recommend a good car sound system place. I am looking for a place that has either JL Audio, Bazooka or Rockford Fosgate. I passed by the places in front of Al Raya and they have neither.
Tonight I passed by Sultan Center and noticed they no longer had Indian eggs and instead have replaced them with fresh locally produced eggs by KUPCO selling for a very reasonable KD1 for a tray of 30 eggs. I guess the local egg crisis is nearly over?
Badar Al Badoor increased the price of their Kebab and shawerma sandwiches to 300fils.
A very handy site to bookmark specially if you do your own laundry. [Link]
And because the former dictator had reason to be paranoid, the boat has bulletproof glass, closed-circuit television, storage space for a large cache of weapons, including heavy machine guns and surface-to-air missiles, and a secret passage that runs the length of the boat for easy access to a fast patrol boat and a mini-submarine pod for emergency exits.
Maybe we could all pitch in and buy the yacht and then take it out to Kubbar where we spend the whole day partying on it. At the end of the night we burn the yacht to symbolize our hatred to Saddam but we keep the mini-submarine since thats just too cool. [Link]
The egg crisis in Kuwait is a mix of market forces, bird flu, production issues, feed prices and inaction from government forces. The Kuwait egg market is pretty huge; we consume over a billion eggs a year and we just produce around 40% of that. The rest we have to import from Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and India.
Production in the gulf has dropped dramatically this year due to the bird flu epidemic. Kuwait was hit first which led to 6 out of the 8 farms to stop production, cutting our production levels to 15%. These farms have just recently started production and will take another 12 months to reach their full levels.
Saudi Arabia has recently been hit by the bird flu virus which has cut their production. This has also led to Kuwait placing an import ban on Saudi eggs in order to protect our local farms and people.
Due to the high demand from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf countries our other exporters like Jordan and Syria have placed an export ban to keep the remaining eggs in their own country to avoid their own crisis.
The only remaining eggs that we can import are Indian. Indian eggs are considered the cheapest and lowest quality eggs that you can find in the market. They take over a month to arrive from India to Kuwait via container and sometimes not qualified for human consumption. Sadly main supermarkets are marketing them as “fresh eggs”. Fresh eggs are considered by USDA and GCC law as eggs are maximum 3 days old from the farm. Indian eggs are over 30 days old from the farm.
The other factor in the egg crisis is due to feed supply. Since under Kuwaiti law chickens must be fed 100% organic feed without any chemicals, feed additives or meal. This adds up to 70% of the cost of the egg and this year has been a huge increase in feed prices leading the Kuwaiti egg producers to also increase their prices.
They have requested from the government to offer them a subsidy on the feed to reduce their cost, yet the government has not been helpful. Instead the Ministry of Commerce and Kuwait Coop Supermarket Union has been demanding from them to reduce their prices to pre-bird flu and feed increase prices or face being shut out of the supermarkets.
This is of course a guise of “protecting the consumer”, since they are still selling Indian which are over a month old as “fresh” eggs around 1KD when the real cost of Indian eggs is around 400fils. The Coops are making over 250%. Compare this to real fresh Kuwaiti eggs which are just above that price. This is so they can increase their profit margin by cheating the local consumer and leverage the Kuwaiti egg producers to submit to their control.
Other Gulf countries are facing the same shortage in Kuwait, but instead of fighting the local producers they have been offering them support by giving them bigger subsidies and allowing market forces to choose the egg prices.
So support your local egg producer by buying from their official stores in Shuwaik area near the vegetable market. They are offering real fresh eggs and at reasonable prices, and demand for the Coops to bring Kuwaiti eggs back.