Category: Kuwait

The DailyStar newspaper, Kuwait edition is now online. [Link]

A Jazeera Airways pilot left the following comment regarding my previous post on the Kuwait Airways crash landing:

Ok the replacement plane is one to fly passengers back its not a charity, you do have a return flight you have to make. They aren’t giving Kuwait a free plane. Secondly, that plane is repairable unless there is structural damage or the cost to repair is too high, and crash landings or gear being stuck is a common problem, has nothing to do with the age of the aircraft. There is a manual release on gear, this breaks open the gear doors locks and releases the hydraulic system which is why the gear doors are hanging down like that. Finally, the use of emergency slides is a crew discretion, in a situation like this they would probably fear hydraulic fluid catching on fire or any other substance around the plane, pilots can’t tell what is going on outside thus they want to clear the plane as quickly as possible, remember they can’t tell whats going on behind them. From my view, Good job on handling the situation.

And another point sure KU customer service is crap, but trust me the people in Dubai are an outstanding team, they try their best, I’ve personally seen them in action a few times. The hotel situation is not up to them, you can’t find 50 hotel rooms in a busy traveling season in seconds or hours, and also do you think Dubai has a lot of empty top notch hotels. Upper management is corrupt in KU not the people who are holding the fort in the stations abroad. And yes KU has lost its touches around 2001/2002. They now officially suck.

Here is the new MTC-Vodafone TV commercial for the new e-GO internet device. The commercial hasn’t been released yet on TV, so this blog is the first place to broadcast it.

A friend of mine yesterday told me that a Kuwait Airways plane “crashed” in the UAE and they were trying to cover up the incident. I didn’t believe him because you can’t cover up an aircraft crash. Anyway today it turns out there wasn’t a crash but a Kuwait Airways plane had to do an emergency landing because the landing gear failed to open. I will definitely never be flying with Kuwait Airways again.

Now two things grabbed my attention in the article. First, UAE offered Kuwait a replacement plane. I found that really strange because its not like Kuwait is broke and can’t afford a new plane. They must have looked at all the aging Kuwait Airways aircraft and gotten the idea Kuwait can’t afford to get a replacement and decided to donate one to us…

Then near the end of the article I also read about how Kuwait Airways later dropped the passengers off in Dubai with no hotel reservations or anything. I mean come on. When a plane crash lands and passengers get hurt and are forced to evacuate the plane, its a very traumatizing experience. At least, at the very least other then the million apologies to the passengers and the extra free air miles and cash for all the trauma they endured, at the very least put them up in a hotel. According to the article, Kuwait Airways just dropped off the passengers on the side of the road without offering to put them up in a hotel. The passengers are now planning to sue Kuwait Airways and I hope they end up winning.

Morale of the story, never fly with Kuwait Airways.

[Link to article]

Just got back from the Kuwait Advertising Arab Awards, it was better then last years event but it was still extremely poor. The way the categories were divided and the way the ads were nominated didn’t make any sense. Our agency submitted work to some categories for example but during tonights event those categories didn’t exist. I heard the same feedback from other agencies who participated, everyone was just confused to what the hell was going on. The actual presentation of the awards was also a mess, they couldn’t get the TV commercials playing right (how hard is it to press play and pause) and the woman announcer had the most cheesiest one liners. The event was also supposed to start at 7PM according to our tickets (which had a major mistake btw), but according to their website the event was supposed to start at 7:30PM but in reality the event actually started at 8. There were also less agencies participating this year probably because after last years fiasco no one wanted to be involved with the KAAA.

On a positive note the stage looked good, BUT it was a near copy of the KREA awards. Compare the picture above to the picture [Here]. Notice the starry backdrop?

Anyway my agency ended up collecting the most awards (I think), with a total of 12 bronze, silver and gold trophy’s but it really doesn’t mean much since the KAAA doesn’t have any credibility internationally. One of my favorite TV commercials ever which was created by our Beirut office won a Gold in the food category. The version of the ad they played wasn’t the one I liked though, it has a different soundtrack and editing so I figured I would share with everyone the version I like which I uploaded to YouTube a while back. The commercial was for the product Zwan, if you haven’t checked it out you can by clicking [Here]. And thats it basically, I got to see a lot of old friends and I got to wear a suit so everything else didn’t matter much. Hopefully next year I won’t go.

update: here is another review of the event [Link]

update2: Just found out that they canceled one of our categories because we were the only ones who entered it. So according to the KAAA logic if you are successful and have no competition you can’t win. Now lets play along with that for a moment, how about you call us and tell us that you canceled that category, at least then we could have told the client not to come to the event. No professionalism whatsoever.

The KAAA is tonight. Just getting ready to leave. I don’t like these events but its the only time I get to wear a suit without looking out of place.

MTC-Vodafone just launched e-GO today. Its a USB based internet device thats the size of a small phone and allows you to connect to high speed internet wherever you are. It works with Windows and Macs which is a good thing for me since I have a MacBook. Hopefully I will get my hands on it to try it out. [Link]

Starting Saturday, Kuwait will be issuing new license plates for the cars. I just saw an article in the Daily Star newspaper about it and I think the new plates look better then the current ones we have, but I don’t think they are better then Dubai’s. I just hope the new plates come in the really wide size also because this squarish one looks really weird on my Beemer.

The M45 is a nice car but its not a G35. The car isn’t as fun or as cool, its a family car. Its got a powerful V8 engine and all, but unlike the Infiniti G35 which they lent me last week, I don’t want to speed in this car. The G35 actually made me want to trade in my car for it but so far I haven’t clicked with the M45 like that. Maybe if I was older and had kids I would prefer the M45 over the G35 but at the moment I am not swinging that way. Its pretty comfortable though and I love how smooth and quiet it is on the highway.

On my way to work yesterday I saw some blue banners and something like a stage outside the House of Parliament. Thanks to a reader in the forum (RJV) I found out there was a demonstration yesterday asking for football reform in Kuwait. The full article is available on Kuwait Times if anyone wants to read it. [Article]

I personally haven’t watched that many soccer matches after 1990. Most of the games I watched were all pre-1990 and my favorites then were whenever Kuwait played against Saudi Arabia. Since I play the goal keeper position my favorite player then was Samir Saeed which is why I am now a big fan of Mr Baker (he owns it). I feel like playing football now.

Anyway in case you missed it, here is my post on
Haydoo, Kuwait’s lovely camel. [Link]

Diesel has 50% off on nearly all their items. That means a 100KD jeans is now available for 50KD which I still find too expensive for jeans. I get my Hurley and Billabong jeans from SWELL.com for like 18KD and they are neither torn, wrinkled nor rusted thank you.

During my lunch break I headed over to Infiniti to pick up the M45. Its going to be with me until Wednesday evening. I wasn’t really looking forward to it that much because I was expecting it to be slow and heavy but luckily they gave me the V8 362HP version which so far seems to be as fast as the G35 I drove last week. Styling wise the G35 wins hands down. The G35 looks sportier and sleeker but thats probably because the M45 is targeting a different more mature group. The M45 is a bigger car and its noticeable from the larger interior but they still try to make it look sporty by giving it 18inch 19inch wheels and 4 exhaust tips at the back. I didn’t have time to take a picture yet, just took this one from their website.

From Naharnet today:

Kuwait issued a decision Sunday banning men from working in shops selling “private” women’s garments like lingerie.

The decision, issued by the ministry of social affairs and labor, gave businesses until April 7 to implement the ban or face a fine of up to 700 dollars for each violating worker.

It said that special inspectors from the ministry would enforce the ban.

The ministry also ordered its labor departments to stop recruiting male migrant laborers for employment in women’s lingerie shops.

I didn’t know men WERE allowed to sell lingerie in the first place…

Thanks Shak

Anyone heard of or been to Burger Company? I first heard about it 10 days ago in the forum but today someone else mentioned it to me. Its supposed to be a 24 hour diner, the first in Kuwait. The place is located in Hawalli opposite “the college of business studies”.

Picture by vampire

In my W-net review I mentioned that W-net at full speed was only available in some locations. Over the weekend Wataniya sent me a list of the locations that have 3G. If you want to know if it works in your area or not download the file and see if your area is listed. [PDF]