Category: Mags & Books

I am looking for “The Copy Book”. If by any chance someone has a copy they want to sell then please leave a comment below. ISBN: 2880465931

There is a Choowy Goowy review in Bazaar this month did anyone read it yet?

Note: If you read the article you will get my title

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.

I like Campaign. It comes out every two weeks week, its free, it gets delivered right to my desk and best of all its actually informative. [Link]

Susan, a regular reader of the blog just passed by and gave me a copy of the newly released Kuwait Explorer “The Complete Residents Guide”. I have been skimming through the book and at first glance it looks really clean and very nicely organized. I am going to spend the next few days reading it and then give my review on it but so far it looks like it going to kick Kuwait Pocket Guide’s ass. You should be able to find the book at Virgin and the Kuwait BookShop in Muthana Complex. Here is link to the book on Amazon UK. [Link]

Yesterday me and Nat went to the supermarket and got the following: A box of Kellogg’s Cornflakes, a box of carrots, cucumbers, tomatoes, fresh meat, chicken breast, Basmeti rice, eggs and KDD Yogurt. You would think this stuff was ours to eat but its actually for our dog who arrives tonight from Belgium. Its official, my dog will be eating healthier food then me! Geo will be on a raw meat diet which means no crappy canned dog food. Do you know what they make dog food out of? Stuff thats not fit for humans, meaning you know how hot dogs are made up of all the left over meat? Well dog food is stuff you can’t even make hot dogs out of! Its like junk food for dogs, they are convenient for dog owners because all you need to do to feed your dog is open up a can and dump it in his bowl. On the other hand raw meat is the best thing you can feed your dog, its what their bodies were meant to eat and digest. Before dogs started living with humans they used to live in the wild and hunt their food and eat it raw and its what any good breeder feeds his dogs.

When I first asked my breeder what he fed his dogs he told me raw meat I was shocked and disgusted. I was always told raw meat was bad for the dog and this guy was telling me thats all he fed the dogs. So I did some online research and it turns out feeding dogs raw meat is very common amongst breeders and has recently started to gain popularity in the US with pet owners. I read an article on Salon.com that talked about the raw food diet and how new places have popped up all over the US where they deliver you raw meat daily for your dog. It turns out vets don’t recommend raw meat because it keeps the dog healthier meaning less vet visits. From what I read raw food also makes your dogs breath smell better and his poop smaller and more solid. And if every now and then you give your dog meat on a bone his teeth will also be better.

So if you have a dog or are thinking about getting a dog then think about feeding him healthier food, think about going in the way of raw meat. There are a ton of articles online about this and my favorite would be the Salon one. There is also a book you can get from the Kuwait Bookshop in Muthana Complex (Kuwait City) called “All About Dogs”. It costs only KD1.300 and is written by a breeder who has been raising dogs forever. Inside the book he talks in detail about the raw meat diet and lists you all the advantages and disadvantages of it. The ISBN of the book is 1899606327 and you can find it on Amazon for $3.43 but if you live in Kuwait its just easier to pass by the bookshop. If you want to read the Salon article you can also do that by clicking [here]

I got a really cool book today called The Polaroid Book. I haven’t opened the package yet so I don’t know hows the book inside. I just really love the books package and I am afraid to open it. Looking at the reviews on Amazon it seems other readers also didn’t want to open the package. I guess I will just keep the book closed until I get bored of the package and then tear it open.

Bye bye Emigre… [Link]

The editor of Bazaar has replied to the previous post Bazaar Magazine Knows Shit. This is what he had to say:

mark,for your information I am a regular reader of your blog and am always very impressed by it as I am by all of you guys!. I wish we had a tenth of the freedom you guys have in expressing yourselves.Moreover,just to clarify something to you,we dont edit writers and we dont pick and choose what we print and what we dont print depending on OUR point of view. We dont neccesarily agree with what our writers submit,but we do give them space to express themselves. Unfortunately,sometimes that means that some readers will definately not agree with something written.These views do NOT represent our point of view,and to prove it,have a look at all the positive articles on blogging and on bloggers we have had over the years.I strongly urge you to write a column regarding the article that came out with your views on the matter and I promise you it will get published in bazaar! best regards.

I am personally not a good writer (my vocabulary is very basic) but maybe another blogger out there like Nibaq, shewritesq8 or K can write an article from a bloggers point of view.

I just read a post on K The Kuwaiti’s blog about an article in Bazaar magazine on local bloggers. While the whole world is talking about bloggers and realizing their online importance, our local Bazaar magazine seems to think us bloggers don’t have a life and are just a bunch of loser hermits living at home. I guess that article basically summarizes the magazine’s naive mentality. I should blame the author of the article but I would rather blame the editor instead since he was the one who approved this crap. Maybe the Bazaar editor should try using the Internet one time and maybe check up on the definition of bloggers before he would agree to allowing a lame ass article like that get published. Oh well, it is Bazaar in the end so you can’t expect too much intelligence. [Link]

Picture by Nibaq

I just downloaded a copy of the newly renovated I-Mag magazine to check it out. I wasn’t expecting it to be any good but it turns out its actually better then the majority of the free English magazines you find at Starbucks. Check it out [Link]

Tips on how to take care of your book collection. [Link]

Just checked out this months issue of Wallpaper* magazine and turns out Kuwait is in it. Here is the summary of Septembers issue featuring Kuwait:

Navigating six of the world’s most exciting cities, moving and sheikh-ing in hip Kuwait, snooping around Rupert Murdoch’s Mayfair pad, living like royalty in a Bavarian castle, gazing at Tel Aviv’s latest design stars, dressing up Dubai-style, cutting a dash in sharp tailoring, admiring the new talent from the ICFF and much more

The magazine features Sheikh Majed Al-Sabah (Villa Moda), Sheikha Hussah Al-Sabah (Dar al-Athar al-Islamiyyah), Emad al-Samhan (Grass Exhibition), Rola Dashti (Women’s rights movement) and Maha al-Ghunaim (Global Investment House). I like how Wallpaper called Kuwait “hip”, puts things in a different perspective.

Found this really cool graphic novel for the PSP. Issue 1 is already out and Issue 2 should be coming out this month. [Link]

Yesterday night I passed by The Kuwait Bookshop in Muthana Complex. What I like about the Kuwait Bookshop is the amount of old books they have. Since its the largest bookshop in Kuwait and has been open since before the Gulf War they have a lot of books that have been in the shop since it first opened. For example I found a 1985 edition of the Guinness Book of Records on one of the shelves. I even ended up buying a book from 1985 myself. Ozy was with us at the bookshop and he found a book called “The New Observer’s Book of Automobiles”. The funny thing is the car on the cover was a 1985 BMW M635CSi… very new! Its actually a pretty cool book for anyone who is interested in information on the cars from the 80’s like the Lancia Delta HF Turbo or the VW Golf MKII. I also picked up a copy of Niccolo Machiavelli – The Prince and Aesop’s Fables. I already read The Prince in university but I feel like reading it again and I have also read Aesop’s Fables but the version I got seemed to contain more stories then the version I read so gonna reread this again.

I usually don’t have time to read books but recently I have been reading all my magazines in the beginning of the month and then I spend the rest of the month just flipping through them trying to find articles I haven’t read. Now I will try to read books instead when I am done with the magazines. I also prefer short stories since my memory is terrible for novels but I don’t mind thin books like The Prince. One of my favorite books of the moment is Supercade which Nibaq got for my birthday. It contains a lot of pictures and magazine style of writing. Basically every game or every video game console thats mentioned is treated like an article by itself. I don’t have to read the whole book from the beginning I can just flip through and read what I want when I want. Nibaq also got me another book called “The Ultimate History of Videogames” but that book is literally like a history book. I am going to try reading different bits of it randomly but I think I have to actually read this one from the beginning till the end.

Anyway here is a larger picture of yesterdays books.