Category: Kuwait

I just heard that Totally Fish has now opened at Marina Crescent.

As most of you know you can’t use Firefox with Watani online, so I called customer support and they gave me an email I should send my complaint to, [email protected]

This is the email I just sent:

Hi, I spoke with an IT person earlier and he advised me to email you my complaint.

I am a Mac user and I can’t access Watani Online. When I try to access Watani Online with Firefox or Safari it tells me to download Internet Explorer. But when I went to the Microsoft site to download Internet Explorer I got a message saying the following:

INTERNET EXPLORER FOR MAC NO LONGER AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD
In June 2003, the Microsoft Macintosh Business Unit announced that Internet Explorer for Mac would undergo no further development, and support would cease in 2005. In accordance with published support lifecycle policies, Microsoft ended support for Internet Explorer for Mac on December 31st, 2005, and is not providing any further security or performance updates.

Accordingly, as of January 31st, 2006, Internet Explorer for the Mac is no longer available for download from Microsoft. It is recommended that Macintosh users migrate to more recent web browsing technologies such as Apple’s Safari.

https://www.microsoft.com/mac/products/internetexplorer/internetexplorer.aspx

But when I use Safari I get an error and I can’t use IE because its not available anymore. Could you please allow Mac users to access Watani Online with FireFox or Safari. If not could NBK provide its customers with a CD that contains Internet Explorer for the Mac. But again, I am thinking that if Microsoft is recommending Safari it means IE on the Mac isn’t secure in the first place so I am not sure I would like to use IE anyway to access my bank records.

Awaiting your reply

If you are a mac user and have a complaint send it to the same email address.

Summer is here and guess what just arrived at my doorstep… 2 liters of Boozah Boozah ice-cream. Boozah Boozah belongs to the same group of young Kuwaitis that own Choowy Goowy cookies. I will have some ice-cream tomorrow night when Nat comes back from Dubai and then probably post a review.

If you are looking for a good deal on a Mac I will be posting two ibooks for sale in the next few days. One is a 12inch G3 600mhz the other a 14inch G4 1GHz. I am just waiting to get some pics of the ibooks and their finals specs and I will post everything online. The prices will be very good as usual like everything else I have previously posted for sale on this blog.

I took route 55 to get to the airport from my Kuwait City office and it was my first and last time I take that road to the airport. Too many traffic lights, lots of traffic, and just totally not the right way to get there fast. Anyway I am stuck in traffic and I look to my left and I see two Kuwaiti girls in a car. They look in their 20’s, the one driving looked like a nerd and her friend I guess looked decent. I didn’t think of them much and traffic started moving. We get to the next traffic light and they are still next to me. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed the decent looking girl was doing something, I didn’t turn to look because I didn’t want her to think I was checking her out or anything so I ignore it. Traffic light turns green we start moving and I look to my left and suddenly the decent looking girl is wearing a black hijab and her face is covered and you can just see her eyes. I was like what the fuck is going on here? We each drove off in different directions but I didn’t really understand what happened. Can anyone enlighten me on this? Is this like a normal thing?

Yesterday I had lunch at the newly opened Johnny Rockets branch right across the street from Al-Oustoura and Salhiya Complex in Kuwait City. I have to say its the best designed branch so far.. they actually have movable tables and chairs! Finally you can visit Johnny Rockets if you are a group larger then 4. When you go there though make sure you visit the bathroom beforehand since they don’t have a bathroom in the restaurant and you need to walk over to one of the neighboring malls if you want to use one. If you want to know how to find the place, go to the Sheraton roundabout in Kuwait City, then take the exit towards JW Marriott Hotel which would put Sheraton and KFC on your left hand side. Then take your first right which would take you to the front entrance of Salhiya Complex. You should see Valet Parking guys waiting there plus Al-Oustoura and Chopard on your left hand side. This would put Johnny Rockets on your right hand side but you won’t be able to see it but its there. Park your car (preferably in the underground parking over there). Then, if you are standing right in-front of Al-Oustoura start walking away from it and you should hit Johnny Rockets after like 25 meters or something. Here is the area on google maps. [Map]

Sultan Center are selling AstroBoy toy robots. The one in the picture above has a hand scanner that reads these special trading cards and in return they change the lights and noise he makes. And its cheap for only KD5!

We usually hear a lot of fire engine sirens outside my office since there is a fire-station 3 buildings away. Today though the sirens sounded really close so I looked outside the window and there were 3 fire trucks outside our office building and a little white smoke coming out of the building across the street. Everyone in my office gathered around the windows excited that they were going to watch the firemen put out the fire live in front of us. 15 minutes later (no bullshit) the firefighters were still downstairs not doing anything. Actually thats not true, there were 2 guys putting on their firemen overalls and boots.. shouldn’t they do that before they get to the fire?

Finally a larger ladder truck arrives and parks in front of the building. 10 minutes later the firemen are still running hoses and setting things up, the little white smoke coming out of the window by now had turned into thick black smoke coming out of many windows and the roof. Many of the employees who had gathered around the windows hoping to see some firefighting action had left out of boredom, it had been 25 minutes since the firemen arrived and not one drop of water had been sprayed onto the fire. 30 minutes after they arrived two firefighters got on the ladder and started spraying through the window. 10 minutes later the fire was put out and they left.

I don’t know if this is normal or what they did was right or wrong but I just find the fact that it took them 30 minutes to start spraying water on a fire that is 2 buildings away from their fire-station a bit too long. Yeah the fire was put out very quickly but after how much damage was done?

Come and view the thrill of The Flying Bulls and their air show here in Kuwait on the 23rd in Al-Kout Mall and 24th of March in Marina Mall Crescent at 4pm. Brought to you by Red Bull Energy Drink – It gives you wings!

Thanks to Arabesque for pointing it out in the Forum, Marina FM have just relaunched their online website and you can now listen to them online and also check out whats going on in their studio using their live webcam. There is also a section on the site called “Blog” which should turn out to be interesting once they start posting. [Link]

[original source of info grafika]

I love hating Wataniya. Have you watched the Wataniya TV commercial where there is a guy walking on a red carpet that keeps rolling open in front of him? Well Kuwaitism found an ad from Taiwan by a company called Mio with the exact same concept. Check it out. [WMV 2.3MB] (right click and save as)

Update: Just uploaded a much higher quality video.

Update 2: Ok, sadly it seems Mio might have copied the ad from Wataniya. I just did a bit of research and I found out the Mio A700 which is the phone advertised in this commercial was released last month but was first announced in October. Wataniya on the other hand released their ad in October, but they must have worked on it atleast a month before. This means that Mio copied the ad from Wataniya.. and managed to do a better production job.

Update 3: Here is the video of the Wataniya TV ad. [WMV 1.14MB]

A couple of days ago I was contacted by Bazaar magazine and was offered a chance to have my own “B-Sides” page in the magazine every month where I could post mini reviews on anything related to Kuwait. At first the idea sounded really interesting, combining blog with print sounded like an excellent opportunity. But the more I thought about it the more I realized.. excellent opportunity for what? What could I gain with this?

Increased Readership
Bazaar prints around 25,000 copies a month while 248AM gets more then 3 times that amount of visitors every month and we are still growing. Bazaar readers would only read around 4 mini reviews by me every month while my blog readers would read at least 4 mini posts by me a day. My sites url would be advertised in that Bazaar page but from those 25,000 readers how many would actually think about checking out my site? When was the last time anyone saw a url in a magazine and then checked it out online.. it happens but just not that often.

Digital to Print
At first this sounded interesting, but then I realized isn’t that a step backward? Isn’t print trying to get online? Shouldn’t Bazaar start thinking about getting online instead? WIRED magazine have a small 2 page section where they print interesting posts from the web but I never liked that section but thats besides the point, WIRED can do whatever they want since their whole Magazine is published for free online anyway.

The Money
The first offer I got was KD20 (yes two and one zero) a month. I calculated the amount of time and effort I would have to put extra every month to have at least 4 mini reviews of something interesting to do with Kuwait and I realized KD20 wouldn’t be worth my trouble at all. Bazaar were nice to say they would consider another amount I had in mind but if they had KD20 in their mind to begin with I doubt they would go that much higher.

The Magazine
Do I even like Bazaar? Not really. I do think its the best locally published magazine but thats because their competition is really crap. I pick up Bazaar once a month so I can skim through it quickly and see if there is anything interesting. I mostly don’t find anything worth reading and the magazine ends up in the trash or left on a food court table. I enjoy reading local blogs a lot more then I enjoy reading Bazaar thats for sure.

Who’s the boss?
When someone suggested to Zaydoun that he should hook up with one of the newspapers as a syndicated writer, Zaydoun replied saying “I am my own editor… I can’t imagine being subjected to deadlines and editorial controls!”.

So taking everything above into consideration, I sent an email back to Bazaar today morning thanking them for their kind offer but that I wasn’t interested. I think I made the right decision.

After work I passed by PWC to pick up my Crunch which a reader of the blog was nice enough to get me from Camp Arifjan after reading my post about how Crunch isn’t available in Kuwait. 48 pieces, 24 regular chocolate Crunch and 24 white chocolate Crunch. I had 3 on my way back home and I think I overdosed on them so now I have to wait it out a bit so I can have some more. I love Crunch.

Aramex have a new customer service manager because they want to fix all their problems. If you are having any problems or if you have any feedback or comments about their service then let them know about it so they can fix it. I know I had a lot so I sent them like 2 pages worth of problems with their solutions.

Send all your Shop & Ship feedback and comments directly to the customer service manager, her email is: [email protected]

Thanks

update: just replaced the hotmail email with her aramex email

I got a phone call yesterday from the owner of Choowy Goowy cookies, he wanted to reply to my post titled “Choowy Goowy Waiting List“. Basically it turns out the reason why I was told it would need two days for the cookies to get delivered was because the Choowy Goowy bakery was being renovated and they had stopped all orders for 1 week. The day I called asking for cookies they had just started delivery again and they had a long list of backorders they needed to complete. Part of the reason for the renovation is so they could accept customers who want to pick up the cookies themselves.

I then asked him about the fact that the person who I spoke to on the phone told me that I couldn’t order just 1 jar. He replied telling me that VIP customers could order 1 jar if they wanted to but new customers would have to order more. He told me they currently have only 1 delivery car and its difficult and time consuming to go deliver 1 jar in Fahaheel for example and another 1 jar in Kuwait City. He told me they are still a small bakery and they are growing slowly but steadily and they would get another car in the near future but for now they only have just one.

On another note I will soon be trying their Sorbet icecream, the owners of Choowy Goowy also have Boozah Boozah and they are working on some new receipes at the moment but once they are done they will send me a batch of their icecream to try out. Cookies in the winter, Icecream in the summer.. I can’t wait.

If you would like to place an order for cookies call 2626559