Category: Kuwait

ALL the management at my agency are leaving tonight for a three day seminar in Dubai. What does this mean? It means I will be in charge of the creative department for the next three days so I created a schedule of things to do for all of us here.

Day 1 – We all ditch work and go to the beach. This way by the time management come back on Thursday, everyones tan would have settled.

Day 2 – We all ditch and go to Entertainment City. Many of the employees here haven’t been to Entertainment City yet so it would be a good experience for them.

Day 3 – We go Ice Skating at the skating arena near the office. This way we can go skate for an hour and be back to the office to catch up on some work before management come back Thursday.

Day 4 – Management come back, find out what I did and then fire me.

I was checking out Missundaztoood’s website and saw his her Only in Kuwait list. I found the list funny and it reminded me of an incident I witnessed recently. Me and Nat were walking in Salmiya around 2 weeks ago when we spotted this car with a lady in it outside a shoestore. She honked the horn and the salesman came out. She told him something and he went back into the shop and came out 2 mintues later with 2 pairs of shoes. She tried them on in the car and then gave them back to the guy and drove down a few meters to another shop and honked again.

The lady was drive by shoe shopping, I had never seen that before!

Today I received two phone calls in regard to my complaint about the StarWars incident I had last week. The first call was from Alan Hall, the General Manager of KNCC. He apologized about the incident and told me they would investigate it. When I asked him if they had received any other complaints he told me no they hadn’t but that they also generally never receive any feedback from anyone, good or bad. He then told me they would contact me again soon.

Around 5 minutes ago I received a call from another guy, he again apologized for the incident and gave me his number and told me the next time I go to the movies to give him a call 1 hour ahead so I can get free tickets. He wasn’t very clear on the issue so I asked him if I brought my wife can I get 2 tickets, he said yes. I said thank you and closed the phone.

The free tickets gesture is nice of them but I don’t think its good enough. I am not being greedy or anything but there are a couple of issues here.

1) I already paid for 2 tickets last time and wasted my time going to the movies at midnight on a work day to watch the movie and they fucked up. If they give me 2 free tickets in return then I am not getting anything extra.

2) Do I get 2 tickets or more? I asked the guy if I need 2 tickets for me and my wife would that be a problem, he said no. What if I need tickets for me and my friends? The guy wasn’t very clear on this issue.

3) I have to call the guy before I go to the movies? Would he remember me? When is this valid till? What if he doesnt pick up? I think calling a person on his mobile before I go to the movies is to much of a hassel and I wouldn’t be in control. Plus do I still book the tickets online or do I tell the guy what movie I want and he books the seats and buys them for me?

4) I booked the tickets and paid for them online, why couldn’t they credit my account with the free tickets? That would have solved a couple of issues. First I would know the exact amount of tickets I got. Secondly I can book my tickets online whenever I want and pay for them with the credit I have.

In conclusion, I am glad they called me back but I am disappointed with their gift.

Update: I just called the guy again to get clarification on the booking issue. Turns out I have to tell him what movie I want and he will book the seats and get me the tickets. I should have asked him how many tickets I get but I forgot..

Update 2: Just received the email below from Alan, very nice of him:

Mark

I refer to our discussion of this morning and thank you very much for providing the feedback. We are in the process of a major investigation as to why this happened. We do not take such matters lightly.

As a gesture I would love to welcome you and your wife back to enjoy a screening of Star Wars, with sound, at your convenience.

Santhosh, our operations manager will be contacting you to co-ordinate.

Kind regards.

Alan Hall
General Manager

This is what I have heard from various sources:

– Al-Shaya are going to close all their shops at Souk Sharq and move to the new 5th Avenue mall opening on the 5th ring road

– Blue Fig is closing down because its not doing good

– Al-Shaya purchased Blue Fig’s location and are opening 3 new restaurants in its place, one of which will be Le Pain Quotidien

Want to know if you have any speeding tickets? Call 198 to find out.

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Husband forces wife at gun point
A Kuwaiti woman recently filed a complaint with the Farwaniya Police Station accusing her husband – who was armed with a gun – of forcing her to sign on a promissory note for KD 15,000, reports Al-Anba daily. The husband admitted to the charge saying she owes him the money. In a similar incident, an Egyptian man filed a similar case with the same police accusing a compatriot of forcing him to sign a promissory note for KD 1,000 under threat of using firearm. Meanwhile, a Kuwaiti woman recently filed a complaint with the Jahra police accusing her ex-husband of kidnapping their children, reports Al-Rai Al-Aam daily.

Wife assaulted: A female Kuwait University student, recently filed a complaint with the Salwa Police Station accusing her husband, an employee of Kuwait Airways Corporation (KAC), of assaulting her. The wife has submitted two medical reports to substantiate her claim, reports Al-Rai Al-Aam daily.

3 Filipinos robbed
Police are looking for five unidentified persons for robbing three Filipinos in Jabriya, reports Al-Rai Al-Aam daily. In their complaint to police, the victims said the men broke into their apartment, beat them and escaped with KD 600, gold worth KD 1,500, and cellphones.

This is todays B-Side. It was a bit difficult at first to choose between the 2 pictures but in the end I dropped this one because it didn’t contain as many interesting elements as the other one. I also prefered the purple hues of the chosen picture combined with the greeness of the metals. This B-Side had a lack luster color combination.

Click here to see todays picture on Miskan.com

On Wednesday the 25th of May, the Paramount channel will be airing the first episode of the tv show Listen Up at 9PM. The show stars Jason Alexander (George from Seinfeld) and Malcolm-Jamal Warner (from Malcom & Eddie). Its supposed to be really good. Click here for other showtimes.

Now this is a logo done right. Bank of Bahrain and Kuwait recently rebranded and its pretty obvious its a way better logo then BKME‘s. The new BBK logo is visually attractive and friendly. The logo is very simple and clean and can easily be distinguishable from the competition. The color choice of blue is a common one among banks here in Kuwait but the addition of the 2 orange tones help differentiate it from the rest. I think at the moment, BBK has one of the nicest logos among the local banks. What I am wondering now is if Commercial Bank of Kuwait will be re-branding. There current logo was designed by a Pentagram, a world renowned agency. Actually I think I will post about that tomorrow. For more information on the BBK rebranding click here. I am not sure but I believe the BBK logo was done by Artograph in bahrain.

Found a flyer to a photography exhibition, I won’t be going to it but maybe someone else is interested.

Breathtaking Images of Ancient Egypt and Kenya
Photographs by: Mrs Haifa Al-Muhanna & Sakoma
Location: Diva House – Beside Al-Amiri Hospital
Date: 21st to 23rd of May 2005
Time: 6:30PM

After the catastrophe yesterday at Marina, where is the best movie theater in Kuwait?

I just got home from Star Wars, its 12:30AM. Yeah the movie started at 12:00AM but it was such a fucked up experience. From what I saw of the movie though, it was looking REALLY good, like REALLY good, BUT the Marina Mall theater is just terrible.

The issue I had was with the sound. The first 15 minutes of the movie was this huge gigantic space battle with explosions and chaos non stop. The sound though was incredibly low and was coming out of the front speakers only. I swear I could hear the guy next to me eating his popcorn! I told Nat we should just leave, she suggested I should tell someone. So I did, I went up to one of the movie ushers and told him to raise the volume, he went and told some Kuwaiti guy who was sitting watching the movie with us. He went out and came back in a minute later but the sound was still the same. So I told Nat lets leave, I wasn’t going to watch the movie like this. So we got up and left, once we reached the main entrance where we got the tickets from, I saw a guy who looked like management, I asked him who I should I ask a refund from. He looked at the tickets and told me that once the tickets were cut that I couldn’t get a refund. He didn’t bother to ask why I wanted a refund or why I looked pissed and wanted to leave, nothing. So I proceeded to tell him that I paid KD5 to watch Star Wars and you can’t expect me to watch it in a theater where the sound system is lower then mine at home. I told him the sound is too low and I already complained about it and no one did anything. He told me that no one had told him about the sound, he assured me he would fix it and told me to go back to my seat. So I did. I got back inside, by now I had already missed a good chunk of the movie but I was like its ok, at-least the sound will get fixed. It never did! It didn’t get louder and it didn’t go into surround.

Finally we decided fuck the refund, lets just get out of here. If the movie when action packed was low and imagine how a normal scene would be. When I got back up to the main entrance, I took a feedback form, filled it in and dropped it in the feedback box. I don’t know if anyone will read it or care, but I just had to do it. Now I am back home, disappointed and pissed off. The Marina Mall cinema totally ruined my movie rush. I was planning to start booking tickets online and make this a weekly thing but now I don’t think I will since its just better off watching a movie at home on my sound system.

What did I learn today? Marina Mall theater is one of the worst I have ever been to, and that KD1 for a large popcorn at the cinema doesn’t seem expensive after passing by Starbucks first.

To read the letter I emailed to the people in charge click on more

Who here is going to watch Star Wars tonight? I am going to the Marina Mall showing at 12:00AM.

Where is it playing tonight? Here is the list:

Marina 12:00 AM
Muhallab 12:15 AM
Al-Fanar 12:30 AM
Al-Kout 12:30 AM
Al-Sharqia 12:30 AM

I was watching Everybody Loves Raymond on my Tivo when a black screen with copy on it came on for a micro second and disappeared. So I paused the tivo and went back frame by frame to the black screen. I then took a picture of it and though I would share it with you. I love finding stuff like this.