Category: Interesting

I am going to be meeting Shark of Kuwait tomorrow night for coffee and I will be interviewing him for the blog. Anyone have any questions they want me to ask him?

I am watching a really cool documentary which I downloaded on the Coke Vs Pepsi war from the beginning up till today. They were just talking about how Fanta was created and I found it very interesting so I thought I would share it. Here is some info taken from Wikipedia:

Fanta was invented during World War II in Nazi Germany by the German Coca Cola (GmbH) bottling company. Due to restrictions on shipping between Nazi Germany and the United States during hostilities, the German bottling plant could no longer get Coca Cola syrup. The CEO of the plant, Max Keith, needed to do something to keep the plant in operation and came up with a fruit flavored drink made from whatever he could find. Using apple fiber left over from cider presses and whey, a byproduct from cheese manufacture, Fanta was created and became quite popular.

The name ‘Fanta’ came during an employee contest to name the new beverage. Keith told them to let their Fantasie (German for imagination) run wild. On hearing that, salesman Joe Knipp spontaneously arrived upon the name Fanta.

(IMAGE REMOVED AT THE REQUEST OF AFL)

Today morning Rayboy posted in the forum on how while walking his dog in a public park he found a dalmatian dog that was locked up in a small cage all alone and freezing to death. Once he got home he called both PAWs and the Animal Friends League of Kuwait (AFL) to get some help.

The AFL ended up organizing a “Seek and Rescue” party later in the day. Their mission was to see the state of the dog and if possible contact the owners. If the owners were not found and the dog was in bad shape, they would then break the lock and take the dog.

The AFL arrived at the location and found that the dog was in really bad condition. After desperately trying to find the owners they took the decision to break the lock and free the dog. They then took the dalmatian to their animal shelter in Wafra where the dog is now being taken care of.

I think thats just an amazing story. To have a group like the AFL here in Kuwait who actually take action when an animal is being abused is really amazing. I really hate people who get pets but then end up treating them like shit. Locking up a beautiful dog like the dalmatian in a public garden in this weather in a small cage is just horrible. I imagine the dog would have remained in the cage even during the summer. Thank you AFL for freeing the dalmatian.

If anyone would like to find out more about the AFL, donate to the AFL or even adopt one of their pets then you can visit their website animalfriendskuwait.org

Check out #5, can’t believe people actually walk on these planks. [Link] #

Really weird people, I only knew about Yokoi and Mehran. [Link]

When paying with a credit card or Knet card at Sultan Center you might have noticed that once the transaction goes through the employee swipes your card into their computer and your credit card number and other information gets dumped into their system. Cajie a reader of the blog sent them an email complaining about this, here is what he sent them:

I have been a frequent shopper of Sultan Center for quiet some time. However, I have become increasingly concerned about your procedure of scanning and storing customer’s credit card numbers in your sales system. This is a highly risky and unacceptable IT process, especially for such a leading retailer such as Sultan Center. Other leading merchants store only the last 4 digits of the credit card for verification purpose, which is just fine. It is my strong recommendation that your systems be reconfigured not to store sensitive customer data – especially in these days of increase rise in electronic fraud.

To his surprise the MIS manager at Sultan Center called him on the phone and assured him they made changes in their system to protect the customers financial data. After the phone call they sent him the following email with more details:

It was a pleasure talking to you over the phone, and we are really glad to have your comments and suggestions which will help us service our customers better. I would like to assure you that our Point of Sales system doesn’t hold or store the Full Credit card details, in fact this was rectified longtime back based on our Internal Audit department report. Now the transactions which are stored in our systems will only carry the last four digits of the credit card number XXXX XXXX XXXX 9021.

I hope that you are satisfied with this and Please don’t hesitate to contact us or me directly for any further queries. Wish you a very pleasant time in our stores and everywhere else.

It still doesn’t make me comfortable having them scan my card but at least now I know the information they do keep from the scan is very minimal.

I want this!! [Link]

This is cool marketing for the Blendtec blender. Every now and then they blend various objects with their blender from lighbulbs to cell phones. This week they blended an ipod. You can watch the video by clicking [Here]

I already knew the answer to this. [Link]

Brand Sluts means an obsession with consumerism but adapted and popularized by Marian Salzman in 2005 as a way to define consumers who flit from one brand to the next with no sense of fidelity to any one of them. While the connotation is negative, brand sluts are, in fact, savvy consumers.

Here are more “now” phrases. [Link]

Yes a strange top 10 list but nevertheless an interesting one. [Link]

Went Christmas tree shopping tonight. Found a gorgeous Nordmann Fir tree which we ended up getting. The place I went to just got the trees two days ago, he had a couple of cheap Norway Spruce trees but the majority of them where Nordmann Fir. I forgot what the place is called but its up in Al-Rai, on the 4th ring road where all the plant stores are located. He has a couple on display outside but the rest are all inside. Prices range from KD45 and up, depending on the size of the tree.

GIANT magazine has a collection of the 50 greatest commercials of the 80s and they include a video for each one. The WWF’s Wrestling Superstars commercial brought back good memories, I had a lot of the action figures. [Link]

Seems the local magazine Student-Talk doesn’t think too highly of us bloggers. K.TheKuwaiti has a couple of interesting posts regarding Student-Talk including the emails they sent him in reply to his original post. After reading their emails it kinda makes me appreciate Bazaar just a bit more.

Here are links to his posts:
Student-Talk Magazine is a joke
Student-Talk responds
Dima Al-Damen from Student-Talks, Talks

Here is some interesting information regarding the Kuwait national squad. It was written by ilbaasha and edited by me.

Why is the Kuwait national team called Al-Azraq?
Al-Azraq refers to the period of time at the start of February when it becomes extremely cold after few days of warmth and people start to wear winter clothes again. This is the last chance of getting rain in Kuwait and it indicates the start of the end for the winter season.

The national team mascot is Haydoo the camel; the word is used as a “sit down” order to camels according to the Kuwaiti accent dictionary.

Why and how was Haydoo used as the mascot?
Back in October 1981 Kuwait was playing a world cup qualifying match in Oakland, New Zealand where the Kiwi fans had signs reading “Go Back to your Camels!” which they were waving as the Kuwaiti team came onto the field. Kuwait won that match 2 goals to 1.

When it was the home game later that year, 100 camels were brought on the pitch before the match to show that Kuwait was proud of its past.

Kuwait ended up qualifying to the 1982 world Cup in Spain and was the first Arab country from Asia to ever qualify. A Spanish newspaper later claimed that the Kuwait national team will be late to the World Cup because they would be “traveling on the backs of their camels!”. So, the Kuwaiti Football Association decided to use a camel (named Haydoo) as their mascot.

Unlike the newspaper had predicted, the Kuwaiti team ended up arriving early. Too early actually and no one, not the journalists or the locals knew that the Kuwaiti team was even in Spain! To attract attention, the head of the Kuwaiti Football Association told a French journalist who there to cover the arrival of the French team that “The Kuwaiti team would withdraw from the competition unless they were allowed to bring their mascot.” Within hours the hotel was packed with journalists wanting to find out more about the mascot

The Spanish authorities and the hotel manager finally allowed the Kuwaiti team to bring their camel as long as it was left in the backyard of the hotel. The head of the Kuwaiti Football Association then called the minister of sport in Morroco to send a camel as soon as possible to Spain. He also ordered a T-shirt to be made for the camel. This hype and the Camel mascot helped make Kuwait’s presence extremely felt by the locals and journalists.

Haydoo, has been the mascot for the Kuwaiti national team ever since.

You can listen to the Haydoo song (its Arabic with some English). The file is in Real Audio format. [ Download Song]

Update: Here is the video