Category: Kuwait

Axis of Evil will be back in Kuwait again on December 16th. It will be held at AUK again there will be two shows. Tickets will go on sale in about a weeks time.

Thanks Reema

I am traveling tomorrow to Beirut for 3 nights so I was just checking moi.gov.kw to see if I have a travel ban and while I was there decided to check on my speeding tickets. I was hoping they had miraculously disappeared but instead I was greeted with a new amount, KD680. Since the last time I checked another ticket got added to the system and its dated October 31st. This is a good sign because in October and November my average speed was higher than the rest of the year so 1 ticket for October is good and now I am hoping November isn’t going to be bad. I’ve been looking for wasta to solve my tickets issue since I heard without wasta I will most likely serve jail time and although that sounds really fun I currently can’t fit it into my schedule.

While at the MOI website I decided to check out other things like my car insurance. Turns out I have two cars and a bike registered under my name that have expired insurance. My car I found out about last week but the other car and my bike I didn’t know about. I don’t even know what the other car is actually, the Wrangler is in Nat’s name. Weird.

Anyway I still can’t figure out how to check if I have a travel ban. I guess I will find out tomorrow.

Why do companies bother getting rights for a brand if they are not going to bother getting the merchandise? Last night I passed by iCity who are the dealers of Wacom tablets in Kuwait and they didn’t have any tablets available in stock just one which was the display model. The salesman told me they get Wacom tablets only by order and that it takes 4-6 weeks to arrive. What the hell?? I could order the tablet myself from Amazon and have it delivered to me in a week AND it would cost me nearly half the price iCity is charging.

Under normal circumstances I would order from Amazon but I need the tablet in the next few days for a friend and ordering from Amazon is not an option. Does anyone know who else sells them in Kuwait (grey market)? I tried Virgin, Jarir and Hawalli and no one has it.

Burgan Bank today launched a new logo and personally I think it can’t get any more generic than this. I think they should have just given their old logo a face lift by simplifying the sun rays and maybe going with two tones of blue instead of the Gradient. For their typeface I would have killed the serif and gone with san serif which they actually did in the new logo. Actually the only positive thing in the new logo is their logo type but their icon on the other hand is very boring and forgettable. Not only that but where is Kuwait in the logo? Gulf Bank have the dhow, NBK have the camel, CBK have the arabesque star and now Burgan Bank have a… ribbon? Where is the locality? Where is the strength and trust? They’ve recently redone their branches into a very clean modern looking environment so why did they go with a logo that was already outdated in style before it even launched. This logo should never have left the design studio yet let alone presented to the client and gotten accepted.

What other bloggers have to say
Tatabotata: “This is the most disgusting redesign I have seen in a while.”
Patrick: “Why? But why?!”

Elsewhere
AMEINFO: “The design of the new corporate identity draws inspiration from a ring, which has been used cross-culturally for thousands of years as a symbol of partnership and commitment.”

Further Information
The logo was done by an agency in Bahrain and not LOM | FDP who were responsible for their branch redesigns

Update: The agency in Bahrain behind the redesign is Vision Communications.

This is a video of the Flugtag event put together by BahryTV and our team comes up in the video a few times including our flight/crash. I think BahryTV is my favorite local TV station although all I have watched are the stuff they’ve uploaded online. [YouTube]

Here are some more clips from BahryTV on YouTube. [Link]

I used to like the old Kuwait Airport since I grew up with it but like everything else in Kuwait its being modernized and not in a good way. The new airport is generic looking and doesn’t have the character of the original airport which was designed by one of the most significant architects of the 20th century, Kenzo Tange.

I was at the airport on Friday and noticed they’ve taken out the old retro looking arrival sign and replaced it with this colorful ugly LED panel. I used to really like the retro one and I wonder where it is at the moment, did they just trash it in the junk yard? Anyway if you want to check out old pictures of the Airport when it first opened like the first one in this post click [Here]

If you want to see pictures of other great architecture projects from the 70’s and 80’s check [Here]

To be honest at first when my friends were talking about Axis of Evil I thought they were either a boy band or some DJ but then I remembered they were a comedy act which I had first heard about on CNN. Well Axis of Evil are coming to Kuwait tomorrow but don’t get your hopes up, tickets were already sold out from the first day. The comedy act is being handled by AUK so if you know someone there (not a student) they might be able to hook you up with tickets. Tickets were priced at KD20 each. Is anyone scalping tickets?

Check out their website for more information. They are going to be in Lebanon from December 5 to 7th and I am going to be in Lebanon from the 6th to the 9th so I might just check them out there. Tickets start at $20 in Lebanon. [Here]

update: They are going to be at Dar Al Awadi tomorrow from 1:00pm to 3:00pm for MUNCH’s opening.

Budour emailed me telling me about her home-based bakery specializing in desserts. According to her, what makes her different from other dessert places that have popped up is that she takes pride in making simple straightforward good desserts without the fuss. I haven’t tried her desserts so I can’t vouch for her but the pictures on her site do look appetizing.

With all these small businesses popping up I should probably go ahead also and open up my own shawerma place. It would be cool to have my own shawerma place and I can have a large pink magenta sign outside and my place would have some weird cheesy name that doesn’t make sense like “Rose of the Shawerma” or “iShawerma”. Anyway, you can check out the deserts Budour has to offer by visiting her website bdesserts.com

I haven’t had the chance to pass by the motor show yet but yo_ghurt has a ton of pictures on his flickr account which you can check by clicking [Here]

I think Kuwait should replace the dangerous lamp posts on the Gulf Road with these flexible and much more safer ones. I posted about this 2 years ago but I didn’t have a video to accompany my post but I just found it now on YouTube so I thought I would share it with everyone. The safer lamp posts cost more but its not like Kuwait is going broke anytime soon. [YouTube]

Here is a link to my original post. [Link]

What the hell?! I was just checking my traffic violations online and I have 20 fucking speeding tickets which add up to KD650! Why doesn’t anyone call to tell me something like “Hi Mark, we’ve noticed you’ve gotten 5 speeding tickets and we just wanted to call and tell you to start driving slower so you don’t get anymore. Drive safely have a good day”. Seriously what the hell…

Note: You can check your fines [Here]

I got an email today from a reader informing me of a new burger place that opened up called Cheeburger Cheeburger. Its an American chain that opened up their first international branch here in Kuwait last month and according to their website, their burger was voted the best burger in 28 cities. The problem was where they opened up their location, Souk Salmiya. I hate that place, its probably one of the worst designed malls in Kuwait containing some of the crappiest stores and its always over crowded and parking is always nearly impossible to find. Still, I decided it might be worth the visit and so after work I headed straight to Cheeburger Cheeburger.

The place is located on the top floor in the food court and their location is surprisingly pretty big. The interior is themed like Johnny Rockets which is the 1940’s-50’s style although I doubt they copied Johnny since both restaurants launched around the same time back in 1986. When I got the menu I noticed they had a limited time special offer going on where 1/3 lb burger with fries and coke was priced at KD2.250 while everything else on the menu had 25% off. I decided to go with their combo and I ordered a side order of onion rings with dipping sauce. The way you order the burger at Cheeburger is you choose the thickness of the burger, you then choose the type of cheese you want on it (they have 8 kinds) and then you choose what toppings you want and if you want any certain sauce. I didn’t get too creative with mine since it was my first time, I just went with swiss cheese, ketchup, tomato and lettuce.

A few minutes after placing my order my coke arrived and it was in a jar! I thought that was pretty creative since I don’t recall ever getting my softdrink in anything but a cup. While waiting for my appetizers I noticed a bunch of Trivial Pursuit cards on the table near the salt and pepper shakers. At first I assumed that some kid had left them behind but then I noticed every table had a bunch of cards. Turns out they have them there for the customers to entertain themselves with while they wait for their food to arrive.

The first thing the waitress brought me were my onion rings and fries followed shortly after with my burger. The onion rings were skinny but delicious, the dipping sauce had a lot to do with it. Anyone who’s had the awesome blossom at Chili’s will recognize the sauce immediately, I love it. The fries were good but nothing to set it apart from the competition. My burger, well I can’t imagine it being voted the best burger in 28 cities. It wasn’t bad, on the contrary it was good, it just wasn’t special. Thats probably my fault though since I went pretty safe with the toppings. The bread was good, the meat was good, it was everything else in the burger that didn’t stand out. Maybe next time I could try their one pound burger, according to their website if you can finish it they would put your picture up on the wall and I can’t imagine it being that difficult to finish.

The place in general wasn’t disappointing, they had a lot of little things that made it special and thats what I liked about the place. For example nyone who’s eaten at Johnny Rockets knows how crap their paper napkins are, they are too tiny and too thin. Well at Cheeburger Cheeburger their paper napkins are kitchen paper rolls which is fantastic. I know napkins aren’t usually important in a restaurant review but I just wanted to use it as an example of the little things I am talking about. My biggest disappointment in the place is the location and location is everything. I hate Souk Salmiya and I know I am not the only one. If Cheeburger Cheeburger was open at say Marina Mall or in Jahra then I would go back again over and over but sadly I doubt I would go back to Souk Salmiya unless I really had to. If it was located anywhere else it would most probably get a 4 out of 5 but because its in Souk Salmiya I am giving it a 3. My bill came out to be KD3.150 which I think is a steal. You can check out their menu by clicking [Here]

According to 4thring, the new Nissan GT-R will be on display at the Kuwait International Automobile Exhibition that is being held in Kuwait this month. If its true then it looks like this years motor show will be the best one yet featuring the Nissan GT-R, Spyker cars and the BMW concept car, the CS.

I passed by the animals section of Friday Market today and it was sickening. I hate going there and it had been a really long time since I was last there but I was curious to see if things had changed. They haven’t.

Isn’t there an animal care and control bureau here in Kuwait? Look at the picture of the dog above, it was spray painted, had strange stains all over him and what looks like wounds from a dog fight. Why doesn’t the government or animal bureau do anything about it?

The Stallion commented in my previous Kuwait motor show post that Fouad Al-Ghanim will be bringing Spyker to Kuwait and they will have cars at the exhibition. I checked the Spyker website and it confirms that they WILL be at the exhibition so thats going to be pretty cool. [Link]