Category: Personal

I have been shopping around like crazy for a new car but nothing had turned me on. Actually, every car dealer I went into I found a car I wanted. I wanted everything, a Toyota Prado, a Nissan 350Z, a Infiniti G35, an Armada, a BMW Z4, even a Citroen C2 (only KD3,850!!). Every car I looked at I wanted, thats when I realized I didn’t really want a new car, I just wanted to change my car. Its hard to explain but somehow somewhere I put it in my head that I needed to get a new car, so the past two weeks of shopping I wasn’t really looking for “The Car”, I was looking for “Any Car”.

So realizing that I decided to think about which car do I “really” want, which car would be “The Car” for me. With that I came out with 2 cars, the new Range Rovers, and the Hummer H2 SUT. The problem is both cars are out of my budget with the cheapest Ranger Rover I saw was KD14,000 and the cheapest H2 SUT I saw was for KD13,000. So since I couldn’t afford any of these cars at the moment I decided to just stick with my car until I could. So as simple as that, my quest for a new car is over. Now I just need to break the news to the guy who is supposed to be buying my car this week…

I am thinking of asking management for a raise since recently my responsibilities and workload have increased considerably but I don’t know how to. There is no time that seems like a right time and even if the right time came along I am not sure how I would start the conversation. Any tips?

I was checking to see if Jeremy Clarkson (the guy from the show Top Gear) had reviewed the Nissan 350z when I noticed he had recently reviewed the Murano. So, I decided to read his Murnao review since I couldn’t find a 350z one. I was a surprised to see he gave the Murano a full 5 star rating since the last car he gave a 5 to was the Aston Martin DB9. Now I am considering if I should get the Murano instead of the 350z. I know they are 2 totally different cars but I have been enjoying Nats Jeep lately and wouldn’t mind getting an SUV for myself also. It looks a bit like a chick car though no? [Link]

I just got back from watching Star Wars at Fanar. I went with Nat, Fadibou, Missundaztoood, Tivo Guy and Calmness. Fanar is definitely a much better movie theater then Marina. The sound was great and the theater much larger, the whole experience was much better then my marina one. The company I was with was also great, we booked the tickets from KNCC.com earlier in the day so we were able to get excellent seats next to each other. Even if we hadn’t booked beforehand I dont think we would have had a problem getting decent seats, the theater was basically empty, not a lot of Star Wars fans in Kuwait it seems. Thinking about the movie now, I think it was actually pretty good, specially if you look at it from episode 1 all the way to 6. Lucas managed to merge them all together very smoothly.

I can’t wait till they come out with the Star Wars Sixology DVD set, that would be amazing..

Remember when you were kids in school and if you did something good the teacher would give you a star? Well I am starting this trend at the agency. I am giving out pink and blue stars of various sizes to designers who work hard. The harder you work the bigger the star you get. Really funny stuff.. I think this should be applied to all of our offices worldwide. I also think I am gonna get fired when management comes back from their trip!

I am selling my car because I want to get a new one.
Here are the car specs:

Year: 2001
Brand: BMW
Model: 330ci
Color: Topaz Blue
Interior: Individual

Extras:
-Rear Shade -Sport Package -Seat Warmers -Xennon Lights -17″ rims -Business CD -Chrome Trim Exterior -Alluminium Trim Interior -Clear Signal Lights -Motorolla V3690 GSM phone ready

It has 69,000KM on the dial, if interested leave a comment and I will contact you.

More information and pictures of the car available here.

Update: I think someone from the office is going to buy it off me…

Just came back from a blogger meetup. It wasn’t planned as one but it turned into one. I had lunch with Tivo-Guy, Missundaztoood and Fadibou at Starbucks in Salhiya. The meetup was very cool, we mostly sat and talked about the PSP and Halo2, and Fadi was telling us about how Microsoft Longhorn will kick ass when it comes out in 2015. Compared to the planned “official” meetups, I think our unplanned one faired out evenly even-though we didn’t have an invisible celebrity guest!

As you know the other day I was contacted by Kuwait Cinema regarding my terrible movie experience. Well after the last phonecall where a guy from Kuwait Cinema wanted me to call him before I went to the movies so he could get me the free tickets, I sent another email to the general manager explaining how this wasn’t very convenient for me and he replied. Below I posted the email I sent to the GM and the email he sent back:

Mark to Alan

hi thank you Alan for your email and phone call. Its good to know that KNCC does care about their customers even though they have a monopoly on the market.

I do have 1 more minor issue though. Santhosh called me and told me about my 2 free tickets. He was very nice and all and told me to call before I go to the movies next time so that he can get me the tickets. I was wondering would you be able to credit the 2 tickets into my account instead of me having to call santhosh the next time I go. The reason for this is I would like to choose the seats myself and calling santhosh for the tickets and hoping he answers just before i go to the movies is a bit of a hassel.

If its not possible its ok.

thanks

And this is the email I just received from the general manager today:

Alan to Me

Mark

I have arranged for this to be done. We do care, very much, as to what our customers feel and experience.

Please let me know what your next movie is like.

Alan

As you can see he was very proffesional. I am now 100% satisfied with their actions regarding the incident.

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.

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

Don’t get it?

Ok, so there is a new PS3, there is the Xbox360, the Nintendo Revolution and the Game Boy Micro. They are all amazing systems and as I told Nibaq, I will need to start saving up so I can buy them all. I just watched the PS3 duck technical presentation and it was good except I wanted to watch the Motor Storm video (check this: 1 and 2). I am also downloading the Dead or Alive 4 video, its 470MB but here are some screenshots for those of you with slow connections. Some cool games are coming out on the DS, Castlevania is one and its in 2D thank god. Sonic is the other game, the cool thing about sonic is the way it uses the 2 screens, click here to see what I mean. Finally I was hoping to see screenshots of GTA for the PSP but all I was able to find was this write up.

I think the next generation of systems is going to be really kick ass. I don’t have a favorite yet, each has its own advantage and thats why I will probably get them all.

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

Today was unbelievable, I had more work then I could handle and thats never happened to me before! I had to be at a full day photoshoot which started at 10AM, at the same time I had to be at the office at 11AM to meet a calligrapher. At 1PM I had to be at another location with another account handler to plan another shoot for tomorrow then I also had to be at the office to work on a logo that is due today and also an ad for one of our clients which is also due today. Luckily other team members offered to help me out and I was able to accomplish most of my jobs. Crazy stuff, I didn’t have lunch yet even. Now I got to finish up a quick job here and head out to another photoshoot at 6. No time for anything today.

The reason I did’nt post all yesterday (except for 1 post) was because I had a scratched cornea. Now I am back at work and everything is cool. Did you know the cornea is the fastest healing tissue in the human body?