Category: Kuwait

The Kuwait Advertising Awards it currently taking place at the Salwa Events Hall near Marina Crescent. I just got a message from my sister who is at the awards ceremony. The event started 1 hour late at 7 and they started of with speeches, according to her its very boring. I received another message from another art director from my agency who is there and according to him the event actually turned out to be very formal, so Nataly was right when she said it was a formal event.

Update: My sis called me after the event finished. Basically out of 22 awards my agency (JWT) took half of them while Nats agency (Saatchi&Saatchi) took the other half. Just to make it clear out of all the awards Saatchi took none were for Kuwait work, and out of all the awards my agency took only 1 was for Kuwait. The event supposingly was very unorganized and chaotic, my sister should be posting about it tonight on her blog.

I passed by Al Ghanim Electronics tonight to check out their HDTVs. They had a whole bunch of plasmas on display but none grabbed my interest, I was there looking for regular (tube/crt) high definition television. Turns out they only had 1 which supported the 720p resolution and it was the 36″ Sony which a regular reader (hola) pointed out to me was on sale for KD590 because it was the last piece. Sadly its widescreen which won’t fit in my display and also I was looking for a regular 4:3 ration TV not the 16:9. They had 2 other Philips TVs which supported HD and were pretty cheap BUT neither of them supported the high resolution 720p, just the low res 420p and 1080i. The 34inch was for like KD300 while the 29″ for like KD200.

So if anyone is interested in the Sony 36″ HDTV, its selling for an amazing low price (actual price is around KD800) and they only have 1 display model left.

According to a recent poll held by Kuwaitism, McDonalds is kicking ass!

First Place: McDonalds
Second Place: Hardees
Third Place: Subway

[Link]

The Kuwait Advertising Awards are being held tomorrow at 6PM and its supposed to be formal wear. Who the fuck gets dressed formally for an evening out at 6PM? Why didn’t they make the awards show at like 9 or 10PM? Most of the agencies finish work at 5 or 5:30 but no one usually makes it out before 6PM. Even if I make it out at 5:30 by the time I get home its already 6 and then I need to shower, get dressed and leave it would already be 7PM!

Anyway, I hope I am allowed not to go to it. I really don’t like social events.

Update: Its NOT formal. Nat told me formal and she heard it from her agency but its not true.

Step 1: Go to the back entrance of the Keifan soccer stadium.
Step 2: Go to the ticket collector, tell him you want to refund your Brazil vs Kuwait tickets.
Step 3: He will take your phone number, civil ID number and the tickets from you. He will quickly fill out a brief form and then send you to the next window.
Step 4: Guy with black briefcase will give you your money back.

Thats the whole process. It should take you just 2 minutes.

Well the Xbox360 is coming out in a few days and its time to move onto the next generation of videogame consoles. I have been reading most of the Xbox reviews online and I have concluded one thing, I need a High Definition Television. The majority of the reviews I have been reading have been saying that unless I have a HDTV I won’t be seeing much of an improvement over the current generation of consoles. So it seems the wise thing to do is to upgrade my TV which I have been wanting to for a while now. I don’t want to get a plasma/LCD TV for numerour reasons including the fact that the only plasma I can afford are the cheap Panasonic Viera series which are currently being advertised on billboards around Kuwait. The problem with the Viera is you get what you pay for and according to online reviews the Viera series have numerous issues with the most important one being they doen’t support the 720p resolution. I also believe that a high definition tube television would give a better picture quality then the plasmas and LCDs, so until OLED TVs get released I will be sticking with the old tube.

This is where the problem starts, I haven’t found many HD tube televisions in Kuwait. I only found two models at Sony, a 29″ and a 34″ and I haven’t found any other anywhere else. The 34″ seems like my best option at the moment but it costs around KD700-KD800 which brings me to the following question, is it worth getting HDTV in Kuwait?

In the States they already have cable and satellite channels broadcasting at High Definition, from what I know we don’t have anything like that in Kuwait. So paying KD800 for a TV so I can play high definition games on it doesn’t make a lot of sense. DVD’s are supposed to look better on HDTV’s but I don’t buy that many DVD’s and I mostly use my TV for watching TV shows.

So any HDTV experts here? Any tips and advice in purchasing a HDTV and using it here in Kuwait?

iPod Photo
White, 60GB (Fourth Generation)
Like new, used for one month only
Will include 2 hard cases for Free
Will also include 2 DVD’s full of English MP3s
and 1 DVD with Arabic MP3s
Asking Price: KD85

If you are interested leave a comment below.

Just a quick update on my Holga. I just gave in my first role of black & white film to Boushari. Its going to cost me around KD5.500 to develop 12 pictures. Turns out they charge 4 times the regular amount to develop black & white pictures because they have to develop them manually. So in conclusion these 12 random pictures I took better be fucking good and even if they are this is the last time I will shoot with black & white since the whole Holga experience is supposed to be dirt cheap. I never liked black & white photography during university so I don’t know why I bothered to try it again now. Anyway while there I picked up some colored film, cost me only 550fils, really cheap.

This is the list for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region according to the Economist. I guess Kuwait is in a pretty good spot.

1. Israel 8.20
2. Lebanon 6.55
3. Morocco 5.20
4. Iraq 5.05
5. Palestine 5.05
6. Kuwait 4.90
7. Tunisia 4.60
8. Jordan 4.45
9. Qatar 4.45
10. Egypt 4.30
11. Sudan 4.30
12. Yemen 4.30
13. Algeria 4.15
14. Oman 4.00
15. Bahrain 3.85
16. Iran 3.85
17. UAE 3.70
18. Saudi Arabia 2.80
19. Syria 2.80
20. Libya 2.05

[Source]

Last month I purchased an old 300mhz Apple clamshell iBook. It had 32MB of RAM and was running OS 9.2 slowly. So I ordered a Kingston 256MB RAM stick for my iBook and it arrived earlier in the week. The first thing I did once I installed it was to replace OS 9.2 with Linux. The reason simply was I needed to be able to browse on the iBook and Firefox wasn’t available for OS 9.2 and I had heard OS X would run very slow on my Mac. So Linux was my only option and after over 1 hour of installing the OS I tried it out and was very disappointed. Although it was very responsive and it did have Firefox, I wasn’t very comfortable using it and I decided to give OS X a shot. If OS X turned out to be very slow then I would come back to Linux as my last option.

I formated the drives and proceeded to install Panther (OS 10.3) onto my ibook. Installation was brisk and in less then 30 minutes it was done installing and rebooting. When the OS launched again I played around with it a bit and I was shocked. Panther was pretty responsive and very very usable. It was not slow, there was no lag and I wasn’t even bothered by the 800×600 screen resolution. I was simply amazed at how well everything was running. I quickly copied Firefox and Adium from my main mac at home and proceeded to set things up importing my bookmarks and setting up my system preferences, everything ran extremely smooth and I even managed to install OS 9.2 in case I ever needed it.

After a week of using my iBook it has finally become my main Internet browsing portal. I am getting online from my living room while watching TV and I am really enjoying it. Sure I could be surfing from the living room with Nat’s powerbook but its not mine and even when I setup my own account on her powerbook it still always felt as if I was using HER powerbook. My previous Internet portal in the living room was my Audrey and I think I will have to find another place for it (maybe the bathroom) since because of my iBook I am no longer using it. This iBook is mine and I feel right at home with it… until the next generation of iBooks get released. So far its great and I even am posting from it right now. So in conclusion a Mac capable of running OSX smoothly cost me KD25 ($85) for the iBook and KD12 ($40) for the RAM. Unbelievable fucking cheap!

In case you haven’t heard, Jazeera Airways has an amazing offer, for the next 3 days you can purchase tickets to any of their 5 destinations for a price of KD5 (one way). I calculated a 2-way ticket to Lebanon including all the taxes and the total amount came to KD32 ($109) which is like wayyyy cheaper then anything else. It’s even cheaper then taking the bus or your own car. I tried to find the offer on their website but its not there, you can only see the price when you are trying to book. My friend recently travelled with them and he was very satisfied. [Link]

Shuwaikh is flooded because of the heavy rain today morning, at least the area behind City Center. I was there today morning in the Wrangler and the main road and all the back streets were flooded in knee deep water… and even deeper in some places. Doesn’t this happen every year? Why haven’t they fixed the drainage system there?

When it gets cloudy, cold and wet we love it here in Kuwait. Its been raining all day today and atleast a dozen people have come up to the window next to me, look out and say what nice weather we have today. Another example would be BusyNow, I was checking his blog and he posted a picture from the Munich airport (he went on vacation) and its like cloudy and wet outside and his comments were “Im in munich now the weather is great and i like the place.”

With all the cool shows on TV I no longer have enough time after work to watch them all plus have enough time to go biking and shopping. So now that my iPod Video is here I will be able to watch TV while I am at work working. I love working while watching TV, its really comfortable. I currently have season 3 of Arrested Development, season 1 of The Office and 1 episode of Magnum PI all on my iPod. iPod video rocks!

I was informed earlier that you can find the iPod Video in Kuwait. zMacShop is selling the 60GB White iPod Video for KD150 while Mac & More is selling it for KD195. The 30GB White iPod Video is being sold at zMacShop for KD130 while Mac & More is selling it for KD175. zMacShop have already sold out all the black iPod videos.

zMacShop
116 Walla’a Complex – Basement
Hawalli, Ibn Khaldun Street
Kuwait City – Kuwait
Tel: +965-261-7575
Email: [email protected]