Category: Interesting

Spotted this new orange wheel lock today. Its a lot smaller than the previous bulkier version which is why I am predicting people won’t notice it and try to drive off with the lock.

Update: Here is a closer look…

Records recycled into bowls and coasters, I imagine the bowl is pretty fragile but still looks pretty awesome. [The Bowl] and [The Coasters]

A history of wars from WWI to the Gulf War with food representing countries. For example Kuwait is a Kebab while burgers are Americans. [YouTube]

While watching the video if you can’t figure out what food item represents what country, here is the cheat sheet. [Link]

Thanks Rawad

What do they have in common? Well yesterday I was sitting with the creative director of FutureBrand who designed the Zain identity and it turns he also designed the Bvlgari logo. Now that’s pretty cool.

Update: FutureBrand are one of the leading branding agencies in the world, I think they are in the top 3 or top 5.

Mishary from SOMEcontrast took pictures of new petrol machines now installed at the Oula gas stations. They look pretty cool but not to sure if the petrol machine actually accepts cards like in the US or we still need to drive up to the window and pay. Now where are the gas station mini markets I heard we would get after the privatization? [Link]

The biggest surprise is at spot number two which is Chili’s Awesome Blossom. One of my favorite starters but I had no idea it had over 2,700 calories! [Link]

Note: The pasta dish at number four looks pretty good and luckily for us Macaroni Grill just recently opened at the Avenues.

Note2: I think I just discovered how Kuwait is the 8th fattest country in the world. 3 out of the 20 most fattening dishes are available at Chili’s and Kuwait has the largest Chili’s in the world. Everything makes sense now!

via

The other day while at work some people said they saw a blimp in the sky. I tried looking for it but supposedly it had disappeared behind some buildings. No one believed them of course including me, that is until today. On my way to the north I spotted a huge blimp in what looks like a US military base. Its to the left of the 6th Ring Road past highway 80. I quickly pulled out my camera and took the picture above. I wonder what its used for and what was it doing in Kuwait City the other day?

I think I just found the funkiest designed clothing store in Kuwait and sadly its only for woman. I was leaving Platform and on my way out back to the main road when I saw this extremely trendy looking storefront right across the street from the BMW showroom. I didn’t know what it was and I wasn’t sure if it was open or not so I started driving really slow and then I noticed some girls walked into the place. I couldn’t tell what the place was because the windows were sand blasted so I parked my car and hoped for the best. As long as it wasn’t a lingerie store or someones house I figured I would be ok.

I opened the door and walked in and to my surprise it was a clothing store and it looked really trendy. The clothing racks were lined up on the side of the store and there were two pinball machines right in the center and in the rear there was a huge pink seating area. I walked around a bit and then left and will definitely go back with Nataly. The place is called 4 and it wouldn’t look out of place in Soho.

Note: Notice how I have 3 posts today on 3 different new stores?

I just found out about this shop called We Love Kuwait from blogger Armani Exchange. According to Kuwait they are NOT a bookshop, they are a place where you can find carefully hand-picked books for your children, arts and crafts materials for your quality time with your children and they also arrange gift baskets for your kids filled with fun goodies that would keep them busy for days. Looks like and interesting place. They are located in the mezzanine floor of Muthana Complex in Kuwait but they also have a website full of details and even a blog. [Link]

I just found out about this incident (yes 20 years late) but I still found it very disturbing. In 1988 an American warship stationed in the Gulf shot down an Iranian airliner carrying 290 civilians killing everyone on board. The Americans thought it was an attacking F-14 Tomcat fighter. Whats even more fucked up is the Americans never admitted wrongdoing, accepted responsibility, nor apologized for the incident! I am not a big fan of Iran but this is sickening. [Link]

A friend sent me a link to Yamli, a website which does a bunch of things my two favorite being:

1) You search the Arabic web but using English letters. Meaning you type the Arabic as it sounds using English characters like 3arabi and it will convert it for you to عربي

2) You can type a document in Arabic but again using English letters and it will do the conversion for you as you type.

You can try it out, its easy. [Link]

Thanks Katia!

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!

Aramex called me up today asking if we could sit down together and discuss the problems I have with their service. I am thinking, why get the opinion of one guy when you can get the opinion of a whole bunch of people?

So if you use Aramex and have problems with them please post it below as a comment so they can read it. It seems they have a genuine interest to improve their service.