Category: Personal

I have both MyUS and Shop&Ship accounts but I tend to use my Shop&Ship the most since the prices were always cheaper than MyUS. MyUS only used to make sense for me when an item was expensive but not that heavy since I don’t pay tax when shipping to my MyUS address. But, a few days ago I was ordering some parts for my car and I realized it would be much cheaper shipping to MyUS.

Item Cost Shipped to MyUS: $256
Item Cost Shipped to Shop&Ship: $278.71 (includes 8.87% tax)

Item Weight: 10.95 lb
MyUS Shipping Cost (using DHL Express): KD14.278
Shop&Ship Shipping Cost: KD22.3 (because I get the 31% S&S FLEX discount) or KD31.1 (if you don’t have S&S FLEX)

So just by choosing to ship this one item to MyUS I saved a total of KD15. Even if I paid tax it would still be cheaper to use MyUS. It wasn’t like this before so now I’m curious to know if their prices became cheaper. I think I’m just going to straight up use MyUS from now on. The package also arrived super quick, shipped April 3, got delivered to me April 6. Oh I have to mention, Shop&Ship charge KD1.5 for custom clearance, DHL charge KD4. But I still save more with DHL.

I’m a huge fan of Ai and its potential, so when I heard about Bee and saw the price, I knew I had to try it. Even though reviews weren’t that great, the idea of Bee intrigued me and it was only $49, so not really a huge investment. I figured it was worth getting just to play around with especially since there wasn’t a monthly subscription or anything additional to the $49 I needed to pay for. I’ve had it now for a couple of weeks and my first impression, I really like it, well the idea of it at least.

Bee Ai is basically two things, a mic you wear on your wrist like a Fitbit, or you can clip it onto your shirt. The second part to Bee is the software. The Bee mic constantly records everything around you and the software with Ai keeps track of everything for you. So for example, I went to Xcite last week to check up on some Dyson vacuum cleaners. The next day I asked Bee “How much did the guy say the Dyson vacuum was?”. Bee responded telling me the price of the handheld model I asked about and the larger model. It’s like ChatGPT but for my real life in a way.

But, Bee is also totally unreliable at the same time. It can’t tell the difference between a real conversation I’m having with an Xcite employee, or me watching an episode of White Lotus. It’s really unreliable, but also so accurate and great at the same time which is why I’m loving Bee more than hating it. When it gives me summaries of my day it’s generally accurate and the way it words it makes me feel good about the day, like I did so much and it was epic.

When Bee gives me suggestions to add to my to do list they’re usually very accurate. Actually, more like wow how did it know that kind of accurate. Like Bee knows I have a dog called August, it understood I was trying to teach my dog tricks and my dog was struggling. So Bee added the following to my suggested to do list:

I was talking to a friend about one of my cars and an interior trim piece I needed to get, Bee added it to my suggested to do list.

I had a conversation with another dog owner about the possibility of getting a second dog. I didn’t know the dog owners name at the time but Bee still added the reminder for me to follow up with Waldo’s owner about the potential of getting a puppy. Bee did’t know the name of the person but recognized that the owner has a dog called Waldo and so referred to them that way. Thats common sense smart.

It’s actually a bit unreal how smart (and how stupid) Bee can be. It’s still too early for it to be really useful, but the potential down the line, it’s similar to the Apple Vision Pro, like you need to think much further down the line with improvement in technology and abilities. The idea of having basically an Ai assistant taking notes down for you throughout the day has so much potential, an Ai memory. I already use the blog as my digital memory, especially since back in the day I used to share more personal stuff here, but now something like Bee can become my real world memory. I mean it even recognized that on Sunday the talk of the day was the Ya Hala drama.

If you want to try Bee out, they just started shipping their 3rd batch. Here is the link to their website.

I’ve been in Sri Lanka now for close to a week, and it’s pretty insane, and I don’t think in a good way.

I landed here on the 20th and checked into the Uga Riva Hotel in an area called Negombo that’s around 20mins from the airport. It’s kind of a getaway spot and the experience was pretty great although the amount of bugs was just pretty crazy.

I rented a car for my stay and the first two minutes of driving out of the rental lot were the most chaotic 2 minutes of my driving life. Firstly, other than the fact everything is the opposite here, steering on the right, the lanes are the opposite, the driving is pretty wild. Like I learned how to drive in Lebanon and find the experience driving there very relaxing even though most people find it chaotic. The driving in Sri Lanka on a scale of 1 to 10 is like a 7 or 8. Lebanon would be like a 6. People are completely carefree and everyone just relies on everyone else not crashing into them. It’s like organized chaos? The only people who seem to drive differently are bus drivers who drive with full confidence as if they’re the only people on the road and everyone else will get the fuck out of the way. We all really do get the fuck out of their way.

Anyway, first place I stayed in was great. Then I headed down south to an area called Ahangama. I was meant to stay at a place called Dreamsea for the first few days. The reviews online were really great, the place looked amazing in the photos, but once I checked in I was like wtf were all these reviews about? I mean just basics like the room door wouldn’t close, the bed had dried blood stains, room had bugs all over, bathroom looked very dirty. Basically it was horrible and I wouldn’t spend the night there. Thankfully I had booked another spot around a 15 minute drive from that resort for my last 4 nights called Trebartha East. It’s a small hotel located on a hill inside a cinnamon plantation. I whatsapped them asking if they had any rooms available right away and they had one, so ended up checking in a few days early and been staying there ever since.

The place is incredible, every morning I wake up and feel like I’m on a safari in the middle of the jungle. There is nothing around me except a jungle. I love it here, I’m actually sitting by the infinity pool writing this post out overlooking a valley where at any given moment there are a heard of water buffalos with white cranes grazing, or peacocks just casually strolling. It’s very surreal and beautiful. I wake up to the most beautiful views and the hotel has like 4 rooms so it feels very private and we are very secluded from the chaos thats just a 15min drive away.

But everything else here seems to be such a hit or miss. You can’t trust any reviews since most were left I assume by backpackers who have very low expectations or requirements? I’d head to a restaurant that has 4.6 rating on Google but walking by the kitchen I’m like no fucking way I’m eating here. Thankfully I’ve found a few spots that were surprisingly great.

I’ve also gotten the hang of driving here. You just need to be alert the whole time, at any moment you can hit a motorbike, Tuktuk, bus, tourist, grandma, dog, cat, cow, school kids, dog, cyclist, dog, or dog. No one ever gets out of the way, you’re always expected to maneuver around them, dogs included who just want to sleep on the side of the road. Their main road here is just two lanes, their inside roads are one lane, and I swear at one point google took me up a walking path cuz I could barely fit my tiny SUV on it and thankfully didn’t come across a Tuktuk coming the opposite way.

It’s been such a wild experience, totally love or hate moments with nothing in between. I can’t wait to get back to Kuwait.

It’s been two years since I launched my Instagram account, and what a year this one has been. Since we are at the end of the year I wanted to do a year in review kinda post so that I have a record of it somewhere.

It was a pretty stressful year trying to find content that would be suitable and engaging enough for Instagram. If a post won’t generate more than 1,500 likes, then I wouldn’t consider publishing it. It’s a difficult ask, and a lot of pressure, especially since I only have around 55K followers, but it’s one of these policies I created for myself so I could keep the quality of my posts high. Plus, I work better when pressured so this helps.

There are exceptions of course, sometimes I like to post things I care for, like I posted about British Film week recently, and another post about a local creative winning an award for a book design. Both posts I wasn’t expecting much engagement on, but I didn’t care really. Other times I post stuff not expecting much engagement, like my Primark post, but then it turns out to be my 2nd most reached and engaged post, and the most shared of the year. I haven’t figured out yet what post will blow up or not, don’t think I ever will. The biggest surprise was probably my post on the new IKEA store in Shuwaikh. I published it and went to walk my dog. I didn’t even check my account again for over an hour because I didn’t want to feel the disappointment of publishing an un-engaging post. To my surprise the post had blown up and it’s now my 3rd most reached and engaged post of the year, I think it has over 6,000 likes. No idea why, but I think the whole comparison to a movie set must have caught people’s attention.

One thing I’ve been trying to tackle is copycats. I used to have that issue back when there were so many bloggers, I’d post about something and then they’d post the same thing. With Instagram I’ve had to deal with people using my photos without permission, or copying content ideas or formats and always without crediting the source. It’s very frustrating obviously because it’s not easy coming up with new ideas or topics, and then people just copy it. But people aren’t just copying me, there is so much copying of each other it’s ridiculous. Someone flies a drone over a new project, posts about it, within hours you have a dozen other vloggers flying their drones to capture the exact same thing and post about it. Someone posts about some hole in the wall fatayer place, suddenly everyone is discovering hole in the wall fatayer places. Mostly, I just find other peoples content so uninteresting and so hard to watch. Why do most vloggers sound like car salesman on a TV commercial?

Financially, this year been really good to me, like a life saver since I got married and had a ton of things to spend on. I generated 0% of my blog income through the website, 100% through my Instagram account. That’s just crazy.

I compared the performance of this year to the past 10 years and 2024 was the highest performing. It’s not higher than 2012/2013 which was the blogs financial peek, but I’m getting pretty close.

Initially I was worried about labeling my ads as ads since I wasn’t sure advertisers would want that, but thankfully, they’ve all been fine with it. I think I only had one or two brands that refused to advertise with me unless I hid the fact it was an ad. Since I’m not in this for the money I obviously didn’t care. I’m also not accepting ads from brands that are being boycotted.

I’ve limited myself to 3 promoted posts a week which is a lot considering I post on average like 5 or 6 posts a week. But it’s good money and I don’t want to turn it away. So instead, I’m just more active trying to find more content to post. It’s a win win for everyone, readers get more content, I get financially rewarded.

Back to the subject of labeling ads as ads, I think my readers appreciate it which is why they’re actually more willing to engage with my promoted content. I still don’t understand how I’m one of the very few people who labels ads as ads. If it’s an ad just tell your followers its an ad, it’s not a big deal.

Now the plan for next year is to try and just keep things the same.

I don’t need more ads, at the current rate I’m more than good. I also don’t need more followers.

I think 55K is basically all my target audience in Kuwait. Anymore and I think I’ll be getting followers who shouldn’t be following me. I’ve had to block so many people this year, I just checked and as of this post I’ve restricted 371 people and blocked 584. I have zero chill. You get two strikes, first strike I restrict you, second strike I block you. The ability to restrict and block people are my favorite Instagram features.

Anyway, until next year.

I’m still trying to find anything I can about the Hunt Room, a restaurant that used to be located in the Sheraton Hotel before the 1990 Gulf War. Not sure why I’m so obsessed with it, I never ate there.

My family used to have lunch every Friday at the Al Hambra which was located on the other side of the hotel on the same floor. Once we were done with lunch I’d wander around the hotel as a kid would do, but I mostly spent my time at the telex counter reading the latest news headlines and that was located near the Hunt Room. So I’d always take a peek inside and I remember they had a huge lobster aquarium outside. But thats as far as my interaction with the place was which is why its confusion for me why I’m fascinated by it. Maybe because I never experienced it?

Not sure but whatever the reason, I’m constantly looking for anything I can find about the restaurant, Sheraton themselves don’t seem to have anything either. But I recently found this cute little plate on eBay. It’s such a great find because it has the Hunt Room Logo and the colors which I now remember clearly.

If you have anything related to the Hunt Room, memories, photos, whatever, just let me know in the comments.

My dog woke me up this morning at 5:30AM for his morning walk, and as I was leaving the house I noticed I had 6 new SMS messages from last night. When I opened them, it took me a few seconds to make sense of it.

The messages all came in at around 10:58PM Kuwait time when I was already fast asleep.

• Your account has been debited with GBP 0.00 at 19:58:32PM

• Your OTP for card ending with XXXX at Microsoft, 1249.99 GBP is XXXXX. Do not share etc..

• There is insufficient funds in your account to authorize your transaction at 19:59:24

• Your account has been debited with GBP 279.99 at 20:00:32

• Your account has been debited with GBP 279.99 at 20:02:12

• There is insufficient funds in your account to authorize your transaction at 20:03:15

Being half asleep because it was so early in the morning, I had to really work my brain to try and figure out if this was me or not. I’ve placed pre-orders before on things that get charged and shipped months later, and so I was trying to figure out if I might have ordered something from Microsoft months ago. I logged into my NBK bank app, clicked on my credit card and saw I had 0 pending transactions. I then assumed maybe this was my work’s credit card (I get those messages to my number as well) and that one of the employees might have been trying to purchase something for work.

But, I looked at the last 4 digits and it wasn’t the work credit card. Then it hit me, this wasn’t my credit card, it was my debit card! So I went back into the app, clicked on my debit card and checked under pending transactions, and sure enough there were two. This wasn’t me, so I called my bank up right away to report the fraudulent transactions.

The call lasted exactly 20 minutes which I think was a bit too long, at least for me that early in the morning while walking the dog. The first thing the bank did was lock my cards, lock my access to the app and online banking website, write a report up after asking me a bunch of questions, and then submit a request for a new debit card. In the next 24 hours, someone from the fraud claim request department is going to call me for more information.

I guess this was bound to happen eventually even though I’m really careful and smart about where I use my cards. But, I didn’t think it would happen with my main debit card since I never use that online. I don’t even use my debit card to withdraw money from ATM machine’s when I travel, I don’t even physically use it anymore since Apple Pay became available nearly 2 years ago! And thats whats confusing about all this.

If this was my credit card I can at least try and imagine how it might happened. I don’t use my credit card on dodgy websites, but I do use it online a lot so I can come up with plenty of scenarios on how someone could have gotten my credit card number. But my debit card? I have questions!

• This is a brand new card I was issued around 20 days ago

• I don’t have my debit card number saved on any website since I use my credit card for subscriptions or online purchases

• I just got back from a trip to Greece but I only used Apple Pay while there

• I don’t use my cards to withdraw money from ATM machines when I travel so a card skimmer couldn’t have been used

• Based on the messages I got, the bank requested an OTP number for the large 1249.99 GBP transaction. But the message right after says the order couldn’t go through because I had insufficient funds. Does that mean whoever tried using the card had somehow gotten the OTP number but the order didn’t go through because I didn’t have any money? Or does the bank ask for the OTP first and at the same time check to see if I have funds which is why I got both messages? I’m curious about that.

• Finally, why did NBK allow the two other transactions without requiring an OTP or Pin code? It’s not like they were small amounts, they were 100KD+ each and I’ve been asked for an OTP for much smaller amounts

It’s really really odd, only because this was my debit card AND it’s brand new, I got it issued earlier this month. It’s the same old debit card number I’ve had for years, but with a brand new expiry date and CCV number. It’s been around 20 days since I got this new card so it isn’t difficult to know where exactly I’ve used it. Physically, like actually taking the card out and touching or inserting it into a machine, I think I’ve only used it at a couple of ATM machines, and only locally. That’s it. The rest of the time I’ve used it through Apple Pay. So, brand new debit card, with a brand new CCV number, how did they get it? I have a lot of questions to ask the fraudulent department when they call me!

Right now I’m leaning towards the idea that one of the ATM’s I used must have had a skimmer installed. I think I only used two ATM machines with this new card, a Warba machine inside a Trolley near me, and a Burgan Bank drive thru machine. So I might pass by them today and try and see if there is a skimmer installed, in case the bank’s hasn’t already found it.

Update: So I just got a call from the fraud department. The amount is still pending so they’ve submitted a claim to release it back into my account and I should get it in around a week. That’s the good news.

I then discussed how this could happen and although they’re still investigating, the person I spoke to seemed to be leaning towards the fraud happening online. He made it seem like ATM skimmers weren’t a thing anymore or at least they weren’t a thing in Kuwait because our ATM machines are newer and more advanced. I told him that it’s a new card issued just 20 days ago and I hadn’t used it online. He said he could see I used it with Talabat and PayPal. When I asked if they would inform me after their investigation where the fraud happened, he said they wouldn’t.

The bank would inform the other party about the fraud but not me. So for example if the fraud was due to Talabat having some sort of security leak, they wouldn’t tell me about it. I thought that was very odd.

Anyway, if I get more information I’ll update this post but I think for now they’ve considered the issue sorted with me. Other than my new ATM card and the amount refunded back to me, I don’t think the bank will be communicating anything else with me about this.

Update2: Looks like the issue might be with Talabat! A friend just sent me a link to an article on @dailyarabi that points to an article about a database belonging to Talabat being leaked.

Update3: I got my money back a week later.

If you ever need an English copywriter, I’d highly recommend a friend of mine, Naz. Naz has been copywriting for over 20 years and was my editor for our school paper, the Voice of AIS, back in the mid-90s. Speaking of which, I need to try and find copies of those if they still exist.

If you’re a business, Naz can help you with your website content, write press releases for you and even help you come up with a name and slogan for your new business. To get in touch with her, send her a message on instagram @nazwriteswell

When I first started this blog I was posting maybe 5 times a day? It was constant content but mostly non-Kuwait related. Then overtime I realized people were more interested with the Kuwait content so my topics because Kuwait focused and I dropped down to around 2-3 posts a day. Then, it dropped down to 1-2 a day. 14,000+ posts later and now I’m barely managing 1 post a day.

A lot has changed obviously in the 20+ years since I started. Back then the only other source for content were physical newspapers and magazines. Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter and TikTok didn’t exist and so my blog was the only source of interesting Kuwait related content that was fast/live. Magazines you had to wait till the end of the month to read about something and newspaper were just not interesting and still aren’t interesting.

But now with soooo many sources for content I’m still finding my way of how to still be relevant and interesting. I think 99% of the content out there is trash, and I still don’t get this yelling salesman style of tiktok videos that people seem to do.

It’s been over a year since I launched my Instagram account and I really don’t think there is anything like it in Kuwait, mostly because of the wide range of content I cover. I at least think it is all interesting. Well based on the engagement people are also finding it interesting. But I really haven’t changed my content style much, it’s always been random. Scrolling through my Instagram account now makes me more aware how my brain is all over the place.

But, content is also taking a lot longer to put together. I use the app Simplenote for my blog, basically anytime I have a topic idea I create a new note. Then as I collect information on that topic I fill in that note. As of right now I have 203 potential future topics to post about, with some of those topic ideas even broken down further. For example, I have a “Design Highlights” note but under that I have 9 future posts. And these are solid topics, not random restaurants I’m invited to try, which I have zero interest in going to.

Yet I can barely scrape together 1 post a day for some reason. I’m trying to understand why and I think that’s mostly because it’s taking me longer than before to collect the information for posts. I’m now turning 46, I was 25 when I started blogging. I have a lot less free time, I have more responsibilities now and I don’t think I can do slapstick posts, basically random posts without substance. I understand that because of my Instagram account where I’ve set a personal benchmark where every post needs to be a blockbuster hit, but I should be able to post random shit here. My Instagram posts take a lot longer to put together than my blog because I spend so much time on the photo, and so much time getting the headline interesting without having to clickbait, and then I need to manage my writing since I’m limited to just 2,100 characters on Instagram. But, I do a lot of random posts on twitter than I do here.

As I just wrote that last sentence, I think I answered my own question. It’s a lot easier to post on twitter than it is on my blog where I need to sit down in front of a computer and do it. I no longer get on my computer in the evenings, I don’t have a laptop open in front of me while watching TV. Maybe that’s what I need to change, either start getting on my laptop again in the evenings, or just get comfortable posting on the blog through my phone.

I tried posting from my phone maybe 10 years ago and it would mess up the look of the post. But the WordPress app has changed a lot since then and so has my blog theme so maybe it’s not an issue anymore. I’ll try to post from my phone again and if it works it should hopefully improve things moving forward.

This is a bit of an odd one, but I haven’t used Google as my primary search engine in three months. Instead, I’ve been using a search engine called Kagi and I love it.

I first heard about Kagi through the blog Daring Fireball or maybe his podcast “The Talk Show“. I tried it out for a few days and liked it, so I subscribed and I’ve been using it since.

I like Google a lot obviously and I’ve been using it ever since they launched. My favorite search engine before Google was HotBot which was launched in 1996 by Wired Magazine, but I haven’t used anything other than Google since. I tried Bing, I tried DuckDuckGo but neither of them did anything for me.

This past year I’ve been experimenting with trying new things that could possibly improve my online experience. Earlier in the year I dropped my favorite browser Google Chrome for Apple’s Safari. It’s been nearly a year and it’s still something I’m getting used to. Google Chrome had become too bloated and on Macs, it drains the battery a lot quicker than Safari. So I dropped it. It was difficult at first mostly because of some extensions that are only available for Chrome, but it’s been a mostly positive experience and I’m glad I’m now using Safari. It’s so much faster and feels lighter.

With Google, my issue was that it became harder to find what I wanted quickly without having to first sift through a bunch of shitty websites that are filled with Ai generated content, or I have to dig past sponsored posts to get to what I want. So I decided to try Kagi and it works really really well.

I started with the free trial which is limited to 100 searches but I went through it really quickly. I then had the choice to pay 5$ a month for 300 searches, or 10$ for unlimited searches. I went with the unlimited searches which was the right choice because looking at my search usage, I’ve exceeded 300 searches every month.

Usage
Oct 2023: 739 searches
Nov 2023: 1319 searches
Dec 2023: 643 searches

Setting up Kagi as my primary search engine on Safari on the Mac and on my phone was a bit of a hassle since Safari doesn’t have Kagi as a search engine for me to pick from, but Kagi have an easy step by step guide which did the trick.

The experience has been really good, I mean it has to be if I’m paying 10$ a month for it instead of using the free Google. All the results I get are relevant all the time. I no longer, or at least very rarely get sent to one of those Ai generated sites and the whole search experience is ad free.

The only time I ever use Google is when I want to search for images. Images.google.com is still better than Kagi’s image search so I always check Kagi first, not find what I want and then head to images.google.

So yeah it’s weird but I don’t Google anymore and surprisingly it’s working out really well. The next step is to try to use Apple Maps over Google Maps just to see if there are any benefits, but I think that is going to be a struggle since Google Maps is pretty great at what it does.

If you want to check out Kagi, here is the link.

So this is a quick update on my previous post about the garbage issue behind my house. It’s taken me a while to post this update because I was waiting for things to settle but I do have some very interesting information.

In my last post I posted about how after complaining to the baladiya about the overflowing garbage, they started removing the bins one by one until there were none. After sharing the photo of the huge pile of garbage on the floor because there were no bins, the baladiya came and cleaned it up. They didn’t replace the bins but went around warning all the buildings not to dump garbage there anymore. Overnight there were no longer any bins or any garbage.

So I was talking to our building manager about the garbage situation and he filled me in on how the whole thing works and this is where it gets interesting.

If you look at the photo above you’ll see the bins are different colors. Each color represents a different garbage collecting company. There are a number of companies that are licensed by the baladiya to collect the garbage, different buildings work with different companies. Our building works with a company that has blue bins and we pay 50KD a month to dump our garbage in their bins. The building next to us might have a deal with the red bins or yellow bins and pay 35KD a month to dump their garbage in it. When I flagged the garbage issue with the Baladia, they told the companies to remove their bins which is why every day one bin was disappearing, it was the companies coming and collecting their bins.

So when that happened, the buildings in the area got stuck with no where to throw the garbage. If you have a contract that says you can throw your garbage in the red bins, you can’t throw them in the blue bins and vice versa. Luckily for our building, there was a blue bin down the street so our building cleaners had a place to dump our garbage, they just had to walk further down the street. Not sure what other buildings did, but for a few days, there were no bins and no garbage in the sand lot.

Then bins started arriving, but it wasn’t like before:
– The bins were newer and cleaner (photo on top)
– They were laid out in pairs with two from every company
– We finally got 6 bins instead of 5
– The garbage hasn’t overflowed since

It’s been over a week since the new system was implemented and the garbage hasn’t over flowed since. Not sure if adding one extra bin is the reason the garbage stopped overflowing, maybe the red company had too many contracts for one bin and the Baladia forced them to put a second bin, I’m not sure. Also, there no longer is a blue bin so I’m guessing our building has now signed up with another collector, or we’re still dumping our garbage in the bins further down the road.

Whatever the case, the whole thing was interesting and the garbage situation seems to be sorted… for now.

Yesterday I experienced the worst rain I’ve ever experienced in my life. It was insane, and it feels like it only hit Salmiya.

Last night I decided to walk to Marina Mall but as I left my apartment it started to drizzle and my Apple Watch told me there would be light showers. So went back home, took my car and drove to Marina and then Symphony Mall since I needed to pass by AAB World.

While in Symphony I started hearing loud bangs, one of the shops under construction hoarding was fluttering from the wind. I looked at my Apple Watch and it said the windspeed was 24km/h which wasn’t that bad. But then I noticed people starring up at the glass roof and thats when I realized it was raining, heavy.

My car was parked a short walk from the mall and because I didn’t have an umbrella, I kinda was waiting for an opportunity to get to my car when I got a call from my building guy telling me I should get home and move my cars because the parking was starting to flood.

My underground parking is 3 basements, the last basement usually floods ankle deep during storms and so I tend to move my cars up to the middle or top level basement. When there is a storm warning, I sometimes move my cars to a multistory lot down the street and park it on the high floors. This time I didn’t get any warnings (light showers my ass weather app) and ALL my cars were parked in the most bottom basement.

Realizing the urgency of the situation I ran to my car (getting super soaked in the process) and drove back as quickly and safely as possible. Traffic was moving slow on the Gulf Road but thankfully it was moving. The water was so deep you couldn’t tell where the road ended and the sea began. You also barely could see because it was raining so heavily and there was even hail.

By the time I got to my neighborhood, the rain had stopped but the roads were all flooded but I was in my lifted Hilux so I wasn’t too worried (thank you Hilux for being a beast). I knew I didn’t have much time, I only had three out of seven car keys with me with the rest up in my apartment, but my priority was the Lotus since it’s the lowest of all my cars and I had that key on me. When I got to the basement the water was still shallow but there was a river coming down the parking entrance and a pipe in the basement had burst.

I first moved my Lotus up right away and then I’m not sure how, but I managed one by one to move all my cars up to the higher floors safely. I started with my lowest car and moved to the next tallest car until they were all on the safer higher floors. My Datsun had a fuel leak which I luckily just repaired this past weekend. My BMW M3 had a dead battery but I knew that and had a battery booster with me so managed to start the car easily. Suburban I hadn’t started in months and luckily just started. I feel really really lucky all the cars started and I was there in time to save them.

The water eventually got knee deep in the basement to the point even my tall knee high Hunter boots were filling up with water. I actually had four shoe changes starting with the sneakers I was originally wearing, to my water proof ankle hhigh hiking boots, to tall knee high boots to finally realizing I should just be in shorts and flip flops cuz the water was too deep.

I’ve never seen a storm like this. Sadly one of my neighbors wasn’t home and couldn’t get his car out in time and it’s now half deep in water and flooded on the inside.

After I calmed down and my adrenalin rush subsided, I decided to get online to see how the rest of Kuwait coped. To my surprise, all the drama seemed to have just been in Salmiya. wtf!

I wasn’t planning to review the iPhone 15 Pro this year and mainly because I didn’t think people were still interested in the iPhone anymore, but I was wrong. After watching countless TikTok’s of the long queues in Dubai and then similar long queues in Kuwait of people lining up to get their hands on the new iPhone, I realized, people still care a lot.

Full disclosure, I have a long-standing relationship with Xcite who provided me with this iPhone to review. They’ve been very supportive from the very early days of the blog and I’m a huge Xcite fan.

I’ve been using the phone for over a week now after upgrading from my iPhone 13 Pro, and to be honest, it doesn’t feel any different. This isn’t a phone that’s going to make Android users want to switch over, and it also isn’t a phone that’s going to make existing iPhone users run out and buy one.

But, this is the best iPhone ever made.

People complain about Apple’s incremental updates but I don’t understand why they make it sound like it’s a bad thing. The new iPhone is faster, has a better screen, better camera, better battery life, is lighter, and now even has USB-C. It’s better in every way compared to the previous iPhone but that doesn’t seem enough.

I tend to want to upgrade to a new phone because of the camera which I use a lot for my blog. I do have my Fuji X100V always nearby, but the iPhone’s standard 28mm and the ultra wide lens tend to be more useful than my Fuji’s 35mm and the iPhone is always on me while the Fuji isn’t. So any extra bit of improvement in the camera is always beneficial for me.

So, should you upgrade?

I upgraded from an iPhone 13 Pro and didn’t really notice much of a difference overall. If a friend with a 13 Pro asked me if they should upgrade, I’d tell them they didn’t have to. On the other hand, if you’re an iPhone Max user, the weight difference alone might be worth the upgrade. A friend who uses a Max felt a huge difference moving to the 15 Pro Max.

In any case, as of right now it’s still difficult to get a hold of an iPhone 15 Pro in the color and size you want from an authorized reseller. So good luck with that.

Last time I posted an Instagram update was back in March and since I hit 248 Instagram posts today, I figured I’d post another update.

Since March things have changed a lot. I’m now a lot more comfortable posting on Instagram and I’ve more or less figured out how it works best for me. I also now have a better understanding of what kind of content I can post here and what kind of content I should post only there. For example, this post isn’t going to be on my Instagram account.

The blog is where I can be more personal, or complain about things if I need to, while my Instagram account is more positive feel good entertainment. Back when I started blogging there weren’t a lot of platforms for people to voice their opinions on so I used to criticize and complain a lot because I felt I had to (I was the only voice). Now with Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, Twitter etc.. everyone has a voice and everyone is complaining all day. There is so much criticizing and complaining online that I no longer have to do it hence why I’m more chill here (can’t remember last time I complained about something) and which is why I want @248am to be a feel good account.

One way of keep @248am a positive place is by censoring the comments. The comments on @248am are heavily moderated, anyone who shit posts gets their account restricted instantly. Basically by restricting an account that person won’t know they’re restricted and can continue shit posting as they want but their comments are hidden to everyone else including me. Anyone who leaves racists or hateful comments gets a straight up block. This allows me to keep the comments section a healthy place. People can still have different opinions and discuss them of course, but it’s all a lot more civil without the shit posters and haters.

Something about Instagram which is great is the ability to watch a post go viral live. Best example of that is my Chipotle coming to Kuwait post. Firstly how cool is it that I broke the news back in November? I know Alshaya probably hate me because I keep doing this but I really love them because they keep bringing all these cool brands for us. That Chipotle post blew up, I knew it would but did not expect this much. That post got over 6,000 likes, nearly 20,000 shares, 248 comments and reached nearly 77,000 people. Keep in mind I also have less than 30K followers there. I couldn’t put my phone on mute because I need to moderate the comments so the constant buzzing of my phone was super annoying, but watching it blow up from behind the scenes was actually thrilling as well.

I’ve also realized, all these local influencers with hundreds of thousands or millions of followers are most likely all fake followers, or if not fake they have like 0.3% engagement rate or something. How do you have 3 million followers but only get 100 or 200 likes per photo? Someone was once telling me likes aren’t important anymore, everyone is just watching stories etc. I don’t think thats true and I think I’m proving it. People want good content and they will appreciate good content when they come across it. People also read, I was worried no one would read my Instagram posts but they actually do and I love that.

Instagram has actually made me confident again with my blogging skills. I think because I wasn’t on Instagram I felt a lot of people had forgotten about me or I felt like because I wasn’t on Instagram my content wasn’t as good. But now that I’m there I’ve realized I’m still the best at what I do which is finding great content to post every single day. There aren’t a lot of people in Kuwait who can do it (if any), and the crazy part is, I’ve been doing it for over 20 years now and haven’t run out of ideas yet.

I’m currently in Barcelona on vacation hence the lack of postings. I should have posted this before I left Kuwait but I just had so many things to do I didn’t have time. I’ve been here for 4 or 5 days already and today is the first time I got my laptop out. Thats how much I don’t want to be online posting while I’m here. Will be back to Kuwait in a few days and things will go back to normal then. I actually have a couple of really interesting posts lined up so can’t wait to get started on them.

So it’s been 3 or 4 months now since I started my Instagram account and things aren’t going to plan. I mean they are in one sense, the account is doing really well and my engagement level is extremely high, but it’s also what’s causing issues with the blog.

I’m now running basically two completely different platforms whose contents aren’t very interchangeable. Originally the plan was whatever I post here, I just republish there, but I quickly realized that wasn’t going to work. A lot of the content that I post over here wouldn’t work for Instagram like the one I just posted about the newsletters from the 1990 Gulf War. There is very specific content that my Instagram followers like and it’s not easy to come by, so I’m constantly thinking about what to post next on Instagram and not thinking about what to post next on the blog. It’s a total mess.

To make matters worse, Instagram is draining mentally because every post is being judged publicly. If a post gets a lot of likes, shares, interactions etc.. that’s a thumbs up. If a post doesn’t get a lot of likes or a few interactions, that’s a thumbs-down. So it feels like I’m performing at a talent show every single day in front of judges. I had one post that went viral and got over 9,000 likes, then it’s like ok how do I top that for my next post? I know how I am, I keep trying to top or match my previous post and eventually I stop posting because nothing is good enough. It’s why I no longer post photos on my personal Instagram accounts and it’s something I went through with this blog as well. So I’m trying to loosen up and not try and have every post be THE POST but it’s hard to do when I treat the number of likes as a rating.

But honestly, it has reinvigorated me. Launching the blog on a new platform and having to deal with those challenges has gotten me excited again because it’s completely changed my routine. I feel like the underdog on Instagram and I really like that. I’m just doing what I’ve been doing for the past 20 years and it’s working.

I’ve also started generating income from my Instagram account in the form of promoted posts. I didn’t have plans for it originally but I started getting DM’s from businesses wanting to advertise so I quickly had to figure out how I could make that work. As always, I’m fully transparent with which posts are paid for and so all my paid Instagram posts are marked with a “Promoted” logo and labeled as a “Paid Partnership” on Instagram.

So that’s pretty much where I am with this whole Instagramming thing right now. I’ll post another update maybe 6 months from now, maybe things will be different then.