Category: Information

I’ve always wondered what was the logic behind the name of some items at IKEA. They always have Scandinavian names but what do they mean? According to Wikipedia it turns out there is a format IKEA follows. Firstly most of the names are usually either Swedish, Danish, Finnish or Norwegian in origin. Secondly most of the names are based on a special naming system which IKEA has put in place and is as follows:

Upholstered furniture, coffee tables, rattan furniture, bookshelves, media storage, doorknobs: Swedish placenames

Beds, wardrobes, hall furniture: Norwegian place names

Dining tables and chairs: Finnish place names

Bookcase ranges: Occupations

Bathroom articles: Scandinavian lakes, rivers and bays

Kitchens: grammatical terms, sometimes also other names

Chairs, desks: men’s names

Materials, curtains: women’s names

Garden furniture: Swedish islands

Carpets: Danish place names

Lighting: terms from music, chemistry, meteorology, measures, weights, seasons, months, days, boats, nautical terms

Bedlinen, bed covers, pillows/cushions: flowers, plants, precious stones; words related to sleep, comfort, and cuddling

Children’s items: mammals, birds, adjectives

Curtain accessories: mathematical and geometrical terms

Kitchen utensils: foreign words, spices, herbs, fish, mushrooms, fruits or berries, functional descriptions

Boxes, wall decoration, pictures and frames, clocks: colloquial expressions, also Swedish placenames

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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]

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