Category: Personal

Today was the Young Creatives competition in Dubai. Our flight arrived last night at around 1AM to Dubai and by the time we got to the hotel it was 2. Still, we managed to wake up at 7 and headed to Dubai Media City where the Cannes Lions competition was being held.

At 9AM we were briefed by the client which turned out to be WFP (World Food Program) and we had to come up with a campaign that would help promote their Food for Education program. We had until 6PM to come up and execute our ideas which was a surprise because we were told originally to expect 12 hours to work on it.

Anyway we managed to come up with around 19 different ideas which we finally narrowed down to three and then to just two which was the maximum amount of creative work we could present. We are pretty confident one of our ideas should get us in the top 3 but we will have to wait and see.

At the start of the event they introduced me and my partner as the only team that isn’t from Dubai. Turns out this was the first time a team from outside of Dubai participated which put Kuwait in the spotlight. My partner is Kuwaiti and I grew up in Kuwait so we were truly representing Kuwait.

Hopefully one of our directions hits the top 3, we should find out the results by May 8th I believe. I will try to post our favorite direction here but at the moment I am not sure if I am allowed to. I am going to go skiing now so will I post again later on tonight once I come back.

I am at the airport now waiting for a flight to Dubai. Originally we were supposed to leave on the Sri Lanken airlines flight at 7:10 but that got delayed till around 9:30. Problem is there is a soccer match tonight and me and my partner are supposed to watch it at the Double Decker pub in Dubai. We tried getting on the Emirates airline flight which takes off at 6 but it was fully booked and in the end there was only 1 seat left and they gave it to this guy who had like a gold skywards card or something.

I am now sitting in Starbucks just waiting for our late flight. We are going to miss the soccer match which I was looking forward to watching…

I finally picked up my car today from the BMW dealer but before I picked it up I got taken backstage to the garage and given a short tour plus introduced to a few people.

Overall I found the employees backstage to be a lot friendlier and more interesting then the people they have in the front dealing with customers which is kind of ironic. They told me they had received calls from various people around the world regarding my email and post (thanks to everyone who told me to email BMW in Germany and Dubai). The workshop manager told me no case ever grew to this proportion and that next week a delegation is even coming to Kuwait to check on the problems.

I told the workshop manager I was positive they weren’t coming because of my complaint alone but because they had been receiving a lot of complaints from many people. I also told him I wouldn’t have even sent out the emails or posted what I posted had there been friendly and good customer service.

Anyway they fixed the car and didn’t charge me for it and now its running perfectly so I am happy.

The weather today is really gross. I rode in on my bike in the morning and later at lunch I had to ride back home and it was just awful. Its not only really dusty but at some points on the Gulf Road the air becomes really hot for some reason and it just makes things disgusting. It was terrible, I think riding season is nearly over.

I will be traveling to Dubai on the 1st of May and I will be back on the 3rd. I will be going there with my partner from work to participate in the Young Creatives compeition thats part of the Cannes Lions which is regarded as the most prestigious international advertising festival. The Young Creatives competition is for creatives 28 years old or younger and you enter as a team made up of an art director and copyrighter.

Last year me and my partner wanted to participate but they were fully booked, this year we managed to get in luckily because I turn 29 in August so I wouldn’t have been able to participate ever again. To get to Cannes we need to qualify and thats why we are going to Dubai. Different creatives from the Middle East will be participating in the qualification process on May 2nd with the gold winner going to Cannes to participate in the main international competition.

This is how the competition works. They put all the creative teams participating into one large room. They then bring in a client which is usually a non profit organization to brief us on the job. Once the client is done briefing us, the teams have 12 hours to come up with a campaign and execute it. Every team will have a workstation to work on, there will be no Internet access (for 12 hours!!!) and you aren’t allowed to bring in anything with you either like CDs, cameras, laptops etc.. There will be a work station usually sponsored by Corbis or Getty Images where you can search for photos but there is a list and you have to sign up and wait for your turn.

Its a very exciting event and getting gold would be amazing since it would mean me and my partner will be traveling to Cannes in June and putting Kuwait on the map. You can check out the winners from last years competition [Here]. As you can see the work from last year was extraordinary. I am nervous but it should be a lot of fun.

Yesterday night I watched a movie called Smokin’ Aces which is kinda like Ocean’s Eleven except bigger, meaner and a lot cooler. The movie has a huge cast and I mean HUGE! Here is a list of some of the most recognizable ones:

Ben Affleck
Jason Bateman
Common
Andy Garcia
Alicia Keys
Alex Rocco
Wayne Newton
Ray Liotta
Ryan Reynolds
Jeremy Piven
Peter Berg
Martin Henderson
Christopher Michael Holley
Maury Sterling
Curtis Armstrong
Matthew Fox
Nestor Carbonell

Full list of cast is [Here]

So you can see the cast list is just awesome, even Jack from Lost is in this movie.. even Herb from the old TV show Moonlighting is in this movie! The movie is about a mob guy who turned snitch and now has a 1 million dollar bounty on his head to whoever can kill him. Different assassins try to get to him and it becomes a race to see who can kill him first.

As I mentioned earlier the cast in the movie is great but the best part is a lot of the actors are playing roles that we usually don’t associate them with. For example, Ryan Reynolds plays a very serious and dedicated FBI agent but he usually plays the role of a funny and silly guy in various comedies. Nestor Carbonell, the hispanic guy on Suddenly Susan, last time I saw him he was playing the role of Batmanuel on the short lived comedy series “The Tick“. In Smokin’ Aces he plays the role of a psychotic torturer / assassin. These role changes make the movie a lot more enjoyable because its really twisted and unexpected.

The movie is a lot of fun and even though its nearly two hours long it never gets dull not even for a single second. On IMDB it got a raiting of 6.5 out of 10 but I really don’t understand why. I personally give it a 4.5 out of 5. Its loaded with action and it stars some of my favorite actors, its the perfect recipe for a successful movie.

Check out the official website [Here]

I just got a phone call a few minutes ago from the BMW workshop manager. He was very sincere and apologized about how my radiator leak was handled and they want to now fix the car at their cost. They are sending a tow truck to pick up my car from the other garage.

I was driving the E-Class all day today and so far I have mixed feelings about it. First let me get the negatives out of the way.

The E-Class I am driving is the E200 which is the lowest spec’d E-Class at the moment. The engine is a small 4-cylinder pumping out 183hp which means the car isn’t fast at all. In fact I found it frustratingly slow when driving off from a stand still. When you first slam the gas nothing happens until the RPM passes the 2000RPM mark and only then the car moves so it feels very laggy, you have this 1 or 2 second pause before the car reacts. The 0-100 acceleration is around 11 seconds! The second thing is, the car doesn’t have any special options, no navigation system, no rear view camera, no seat warmers, the steering wheel and chair don’t retract when you come in and even the passenger side chair isn’t electrically adjustable.

Now that we got that negatives out of the way here are the positives. The car is extremely comfortable and its very relaxing to drive. The mood inside the car with the plush leather seats creates a very cozy atmosphere. The sound proofing is also great, even at high speeds there is barely any wind or engine noise, although the later might be attributed to the small 4-cylinder engine. The legroom in the back is really roomy and the car does have a large sunroof which is always appreciated. The AC and stereo controls are very simple to operate which is a godsend for people who don’t want to fidget around with a complicated control system.

Really though I am really curious to know why Mercedes has the lowest spec’d E-Class as a test drive vehicle. If I wanted to buy the car I would have been put off with the lack of power and features in this test drive vehicle. Its a Mercedes which is expected to last a long time so if I was going to buy it I would personally invest more money and get a higher spec’d model like the E280 or even the E350. But for those who are budget conscious or for people who don’t want to pollute the planet with a gas guzzling 6-cylinder car, the Mercedes E200 costs around KD12,000.

You can get more information on this car and a full price list on the local dealers website. [Link]

I haven’t posted a movie review in a while because as usual, most of the movies I watch turn out to be average. Big Nothing on the other hand surprised me because it actually turned out to be really cool and absurd.

The comedy stars David Schwimmer the guy from the tv show Friends and Simon Pegg, the guy from Shaun of the Dead. David plays the role of unemployed teacher who goes to work at a call center where he meets Simon who convinces him to join him in a simple blackmailing scheme. The scheme turns out to be anything but simple with twisted murders and lies.

Simon Pegg as expected is extremely comical while this is probably David Schwimmer’s best movie yet. The movie takes a lot of unexpected twists and turns that you spend the whole time laughing because you can’t believe what just happened. The way their simple plan falls apart over and over and over is just ridiculous! It was really entertaining to watch and isn’t long clocking in just 86 minutes. So for the final score I give it a 4 out of 5.

On my way to Marzouq’s place tonight I ran over a beautiful white fluffy cat. It was horrendous but there was nothing I could do to stop it. I was exiting the the Fahaheel expressway going around 80km/hour when suddenly out of no where this white fluffy cat jumped out of the bushes and right in front of my Wrangler. I slammed the brakes but it was useless the cat was too close, I quickly centered the car to pass over the cat but the cat still hit the bottom of my car. I pass over it and look in the rear view mirror, I saw a cloud of smoke from my brakes and then noticed the cat bouncing madly in the middle of the road. I couldn’t stop since there were a lot of cars behind me but I was hoping one of them would run over the cat and put it out of its misery. I felt awful and the thing is for the brief second I did see the cat it didn’t look like a street cat but more like someones pet. Sucks!

So I passed by the BMW dealer today and they tell me that I have a leak in the car which is causing it to overheat. They then give me the list of parts required to fix the leak, here are the items:

SP: KD30
Mount. plate: KD13.850
Exp. Tank: KD18.950
Thermostat: KD14.200
Radiator Cap: KD4.650
Switch: KD4.400
Housing: KD24.600
Fan Clutch: KD45.850
RMFD. Pump: KD21.950
Hose: KD9.050
Hose: KD7.700
Hose: KD7.500

Parts = KD202.700
Labor = KD98.750
Mis. = KD20.000
———————-
Total = KD321.450

Is it me or does that seem like overkill just to fix a leak? I am not a mechanic but why would I have to replace the radiator cap to fix a leak? Why change the thermostat, a switch and fan clutch also?? Wouldn’t the leak be from just one place? So why not just replace that one item why do I have to replace everything else also? I had my car towed out of the dealers garage and its now going to get fixed elsewhere. Once I find out how much its going to cost me to fix it outside I am going to post it here.

…nothing beats Badar Al Badoor.

You won’t believe what happened to me today! Yesterday I picked up my BMW from the dealer and as I mentioned before, the car overheated just before I reached my home. Today morning I was supposed to pass by the dealer to give them a piece of my mind when on the way while driving on the Gulf Road my car overheats again! I parked the car in the Green Island parking lot and called a friend who got a tow truck to come pick up my car. We took my car to the BMW dealer and I go up to the guy who had taken care of my car and told him that after I left the dealership yesterday the car over heated and today on my way over it also over heated. He was very cold and didn’t apologize or anything, he took my car keys and told me to wait and then left.

Fifteen minutes later the guy comes back and tells me your car needs to stay here you can leave now. I was like what do you mean I can leave?? What about my car, how long does it need, whats wrong with it? He was like they are checking on that now. I was like ok but I need another car, I have work and things to do. He was like you can talk to the manager so I do.

I explain my situation to the manager, I tell him I brought my car in because of some strange vibrations and after paying a shit load of money I take the car back and suddenly its over heating. I tell him its a fault from their side and they should give me a car to use until they fix their mistake. He tells me its not their mistake and its not their responsibility. He tells me its very normal for a car to over heat and it can happen to any car at any time. I stood there in shock, other then the fact that no one apologized to me but now the guy is telling me that the problem is my fault no theirs! What car built in this century still over heats?!? Maybe if it was 1985 and I was stuck in traffic I could imagine a car over heating but this is a 2001 BMW and its over heating without any traffic!

I end up leaving the place thinking about how much I hate BMW and the dealership. When I was thinking of selling my car I was thinking of maybe getting a BMW Z4 or a Land Rover LR3 but now I am thinking about how I never want to buy a BMW ever again yet alone anything from this dealership.

A few minutes ago I get a phone call from BMW, they tell me they found some leak and it will cost KD320 to fix. I was like excuse me? No thank you, please don’t touch my car I will pick it up tomorrow and go fix it somewhere else.

So I haven’t had anything to eat all day because during my lunch break I had to pick up my BMW from the dealer. Then when I am finally on my way home the car overheats and that pisses me off. I finally get home and I am starving so I place an order from Hardees. Usually it takes them 15 minutes to deliver the food to my place but its been over an hour now and the food isn’t here yet! I had to call them up and cancel my order and now I am trying to figure out what to do. Its clearly not my day!

So I finally pick up my car today from the dealer and I am on my home and guess what? The car overheats! I had to park the car, wait till the engine cooled and then had to fill it up with at least 2 liters of water! I mean what the hell! I just paid a load of cash to have my car fixed and I get it without water in the radiator?!!? I am sooo pissed I am going back to the dealer tomorrow morning to give them a piece of my mind!!!