Category: Kuwait

Thanks for everyone who participated in the H3 Ride & Drive contest. Over 60 people participated but sadly we only had 10 tickets to give away. I just sent out an email to the 10 winners, 8 were chosen by random and 2 were handpicked. I gave a ticket to the first person who sent in a picture of an H3 and I gave a ticket to one user who looked like he walked around the Marina Mall Alghanim parking lot looking for H3s because he found and shot 9 different ones. Anyway I hope to be seeing you guys at the event.

The other day I posted about bluetooth advertising and how if you are shopping in Sultan Center you can now receive ads on your phone. I like many of you had some concerns regarding this service and how easily it can turn into spam. Well someone from the company responsible for this bluetooth advertising commented the following:

Hi, I’ve been following your conversations regarding bluetooth. My company is actually implementing these bluetooth services in Kuwait and I’m always interested to hear what people have to say about it. I agree with everyone that spam is a major problem which is why when we put our network together we were sure to set non-spam parameters. If you reject the message once, you shouldn’t receive another request for at least a week. Also, no matter which location you go into, you shouldn’t receive more than 3 messages in a week. If this is not the case in any particular location it’s probably because we are doing testing and optimization. Within the next few months we hope to bring a number of services that you would actually find useful, so bear with us. I think you’ll be impressed.

I think the fact that its limited to 3 messages a week per person is a good thing. But the big problem is that I don’t think its possible for us to opt out of this service. This means anyone with a bluetooth phone is forced to receive 3 adverts a week. Sucks.

Update: Nibaq pointed out something very important regarding this bluetooth service. Read below:

Very interesting. So it registers your MAC address of your phone. Even though you aren’t accepting messages when the machine does a search it will regonize your phone and store it.

Spread these machines around town not sending anything but just registering phones and what do you have? A wonder tracking device.

Sultan can see how many times you visit the store in a month, and which stores. You can even track how long a customer is at the store.

Just another reason to have my bluetooh on Non Discoverable mode or simply off.

This is just a final reminder, if you are interested in winning tickets to the Ride & Drive event then you must email me a picture of an H3 you have taken in Kuwait by the end of today. The winners will randomly be chosen and sent an email tomorrow with details on how to collect the tickets. Send your H3 shots to EMAIL REMOVED

Earlier in the month I posted about the interesting Universal Store I found in Muthana Complex and yesterday night the owner of the store commented on the post clearing up some details. Here is his comment:

Hi everyone

Firstly, thanks for all comments that I have seen here from you guys, I was really shocked when I found out that someone posted the store on their website, I got the site address from a note which I found in the store when I was there to check up on some work.

I wanted to clear up a fact, we are not connected to Universal Studio which is located in the states (The famous movie maker), our name is diffrent but the logo is similar with some changes, so we are far away from the courts 🙂 we chose this name and logo because our work and products are related to the movies and everyone knows UNIVERSAL STUDIO = movies so we wanted to have an emotional link with the customers first, and maybe you will not believe me if I tell you that even with this emotional link we chose there are still some people which don’t know if these products or figures are for movies characters!

Besides that we have a direct connection and we are an authorized distributor for Sideshow Collectibles & Sideshow Weta, the company which made all Lord Of The Ring movies items and costumes (we still not fake! 🙂 ) www.sideshowtoy.com

About the prices, we dont find ourselves expensive when it comes to most of our items. Our prices are somewhat similar to the main company prices, add on that they are COLLECTIBLES! which means they have limited quantity worldwide and whenever they are out of stock you will find the items triple the price on eBay!

The store is small I agree because we found that we cannot go for a bigger one because this kind of store are only for movies fans and thats means a small market. We also cant import all items which we decided to import before at this time because we are waiting for our one year work result and the right time to improve all our products lines, and soon we will offer a free catalog on DVD disk which is made by the original company SIDESHOW TOYS.

Finally, sorry for my long post, its only to give some information about the original post and to correct some ideas, and thanks for you all guys again.

Best Regards
Universal Store Company

Just saw this accident on the Gulf Road opposite Shaab Park. Looked like a really nasty crash.

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Someone told me that Krispy Kreme Doughnuts is opening up in Kuwait. This story was supposingly published in a newspaper that Khorafi got the rights to it. Anyone got more info?

Update: An anonymous reader has replied with the the following:

khorafi owns 6.7% of Krispy Kreme.The franchisee contracts have been signed and americana is in the process of setting up operations in Kuwait and Dubai simultaneously. hopefully by Sept – october Kuwait will have its first Krispy kreme Store.The quality will be the same as everything is imported,even the machines direct, from the US.The flagship restaurant wil have the trademark “doughnut showcase” window!

This is just a reminder for the H3 Ride & Drive contest. Majority of people are still sending pictures taken from the Internet, those pictures don’t count. You need to take a picture of an H3 yourself here in Kuwait using your cameraphone or regular camera to win the tickets. Anyway for more details on the event and contest you can check my old post [Here]

Sultan Center just started a new form of advertising using bluetooth. If your phone’s bluetooth is on while you are shopping in Sultan Center you might get a animated ad sent to you by them. Its an interesting concept but I think its annoying more then its a good thing. The only way not to receive these ads is to turn your bluetooth off which is a hassel if you are gonna do this everytime you go shopping there. If you want to check out an example of an ad they sent my phone click [here]

I was able to get more info on the Hummer H3 Ride & Drive event and I was also able to get 10 tickets to give away!

On the 27th and 28th, Alghanim Automotive is having a Hummer H3 Ride & Drive event which will happen at the Gharnata park, near the ministry of health. This is an event that is organized throughout the Middle East and Levant. It is a full day experience, with test drives, professional hard track drive (no other 4×4 can do that stuff), Hummer gear fashion show (with 2 sexy models from Dubai), open buffet, shisha, kids section, the works!

Now the cool part is since Alghanim Automotive are the sponsors of 2:48AM they have given us 10 tickets to give away. Each ticket will allow entrance for two people so you can bring your friend along. Since there are only 10 tickets to give away I have decided to do a small contest.

The Contest
All you need to do to win a ticket to the Hummer H3 event is to take a picture of an H3 on the streets of Kuwait using your camera phone or regular camera and email it to EMAIL REMOVED. It can be a shot of a parked H3 or one on the streets.. its up to you. Ten winners will then be randomly chosen and they will be able to go pick up the tickets from Alghanim Automotive. The last day to submit the pictures is April 24th so you have 5 days to find an H3 and shoot it. My advice is to pass by the showroom in Al-Rai or the Marina Mall parking lot.

Here is a map to the location, if you go there without a ticket they won’t let you in so take a picture and send it in. [Map]

Note: Please do not send me pictures of H3’s from the web, they have to be taken by you here in Kuwait. It’s been less then an hour since I posted this contest and already I received 2 pictures of H3s that were taken from the Hummer website or something..

So after all the build up to the Mardi Gras event at the US embassy I didn’t end up going. Not knowing there would be food at the event me and Nat decided to go have Sushi first which later was followed by a bit of shopping. By the time we were done we were too late and there just wasn’t enough time to pass by the event. I heard it was a real blast though with lots of free food and alcohol. Oh well maybe next year..

I was just at Marina Mall and noticed Mac & More is opening soon there. The shop will be located in the area between Pearle and Tomy Hillfiger.

There is a Hummer H3 Ride & Drive event on the 26th and 27th of this month. It’s an off-road event where people will be allowed to take the H3 out for a test drive on a professional course. The event is by invite only so I am once again trying to get myself an invite. The Mardi Gras event is tonight btw, hopefully I can take pictures. When I first saw the H3 last April at the showroom I thought it was ugly but now that I see it on the streets the design is growing on me. I think black is my favorite color on it.

Anyway I will try to get more info on this H3 event since I think its being organized by Alghanim Automotive who are my sponsors.

A friend of mine had three of his sisters and one his friends get food poisoning at Johnny Rockets on Friday. They all just had milkshakes and later ended up in the hospital. So its better to stay away from the Salhiya branch milkshakes unless you want to get food poisoning to.

I tried Papa Johns pizza for the first time yesterday and it was really amazing. What everyone has been saying about Papa Johns is true, they do make the best pizza in Kuwait. I really really liked it a lot and I loved the pizza dips they gave with the pizza. They don’t deliver to Salmiya which sucks because it means I have to drive to Jabriya and pick it up but its worth it. If you want to try them out you can call them on 827272. I had the Little Italy pizza which has mushrooms, oregano, black olives, pepperoni and Italian sausages except I ordered it without the sausages.

My office is across the street from Muthana Complex in Kuwait City and I Have been working there for over a year now and I used to visit Muthana daily. Now I pass by there once or twice a week. You would think that after visiting Muthana a couple of hundreds times already that I would know it inside out, well thats what I figured until yesterday I found a store that I didn’t know existed.. the Universal Store.

My usual entrance into Muthana was closed so I had to walk around the building from the outside trying to find an open entrance. While walking around I found a store called Universal Store. From the outside I saw that the store sold movie related items but once I got closer I noticed they sold movie collectibles and props. So I go in and ask the saleslady how long the store has been open and she tells me 1 year! How the hell did I miss this shop? Anyway the shop is small but packed with goodies. You can check out most of their products by checking out their website. I don’t know and don’t think they are an official Universal Store but you never know. [Link]