2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003

So I’ve been pushing DHL EasyShop a lot recently as a replacement to Aramex’s Shop&Ship but now it looks like I am going to start pushing Aramex again.

I received an email earlier today from a reader telling me about how DHL has new calculations for the weight. So I called them up and spent 20 minutes trying to understand how to calculate my shipping weight and honestly I still don’t know exactly how it works. The DHL employee told me its simple mathematics, I told him the last thing I want to do with my life is start plugging in formulas and make calculations to try and figure out how much my shipping cost will be. Here is what I understood:

If you get a package that weighs 2KG but it comes in a big box that gives you a volumetric weight of 8KG then you do the following:

8 – 2 = 6
6 > 5 = charged based on volumetric weight

So the formula looks something like

v: volumetric weight
w: actual weight

v – w = x
if x > 5 then you will be charged based on volumetric wieght
if x < 5 then you will be charged on actual weight Lets try it again. I have a shipment that is 6KG but the volumetric weight is 10kG the answer is? 10 - 6 = 4 4 < 5 so I pay based on actual weight The biggest problem is you can't figure out what the volumetric weight (v) of your package is until it arrives to your DHL mailbox which means you can't estimate the shipping cost. Seriously who at DHL came up with this smart idea? They had a chance here to gain customers that were pissed off with Aramex and now with this new change I think other customers like me will move back to Aramex. Update: I just passed by the Kuwait City DHL branch to pick up my package. What can I say, its hard not to like them. They’ve increased the amount of staff at that branch to 2 which is a good move since 1 guy wasn’t enough and I paid the regular shipping fee for my package which was based on actual weight since it was 2.5KG. I guess I will keep using DHL for everything under 5KG. I will use Aramex for items that are over 5KG but under 13KG and I will use MyUS for items 13KG and up. Life is complicated like that.

[YouTube]

Before I left on vacation I got an email telling me about how beautifully lit Ahmadi is at night because of the KOC 75th anniversary. I didn’t have time to pass by and now that I am back I still haven’t been able to pass by (I’m too lazy and Ahmadi is far) but I found some videos on YouTube that show some of the light decorations. According to a friend the lights are still up so if you want to pass by you probably should hurry up before they taken them down.

[YouTube]

And here is one more [YouTube]

That’s a side by side comparison of the new Zain MiFi next to my BlackBerry. It’s pretty tiny.

Update: The Zain MiFi is a portable wireless internet router that runs on battery. The price is KD30 with a 1 year internet subscription.

For the first time ever the Concours d’Elegance is going to be held in Kuwait this month. I honestly never heard about Concours d’Elegance before today but after doing some research it turns out to be a pretty important and prestigious event. Here is some information which I took from the official event website:

What is the Concours d’Elegance?
Concours is a French word meaning competition. The concept of Concours originates in 17th C. France when aristocrats used to choose their best horse carriages to parade around parks of Paris during the summer week ends and holidays. Later these traditions changed to automobiles from the 20th C. Concours today have strict regulations and cars are inspected by qualified judges. Trophy winners are carefully chosen.

Kuwait Concours d’Elegance Highlight
The first Kuwait Concours d’Elegance set to take place on January 2010 will highlight the great passion for automobiles that the country has had ever since the 1910’s decade when the first car, a Belgium-made Minerva, arrived on its shores. In fact, the year 2010 marks the 100th anniversary since the first car entered Kuwait thanks to Sheik Mubarak bin Sabah Al Sabah (1896-1915).

Date
January 20th to 23rd 2010
10:00AM – 10:00PM

Location
Marina Mall interior, Marina Crescent and Marina Lawn.

It should be a very cool event and its taking place right next to my house so I will definitely be passing by. The designer of the Nissan GTR will also be at this event, Shirō Nakamura who is the Senior VP of Nissan and Infiniti.

For more information here are some links:
Concours d’Elegance – Kuwait
Concours d’Elegance on Wikipedia

Thanks Rita!

According to this list Kuwait has a extremely low unemployment figure of 2.2% which is one of lowest unemployment rates in the world. The issue is the figure was last updated in 2004. UAE has an unemployment rate of 12.7% but I think that’s actually low. Thing is I don’t think these numbers for the GCC are accurate because if you don’t have a job here you can’t stay if I am not mistaken. Other interesting numbers, Zimbabwe has the highest unemployment rate which is 90%. Iraq has an unemployment rate of 18% but 83% of the woman in Iraq are unemployed. Thats probably related to the security situation there. Qatar has the third lowest unemployment rate with just 0.6% and in Andorra everyone is employed because they have a 0% unemployment rate. Here is the full list [Link]

[YouTube]

I was at Avenues two nights back and spotted a girl wearing a Free Kuwait sweatshirt and since then I’ve had the Nabil Sheal song stuck in my head. So I thought I would look for it on YouTube when I accidenty found the videos above and below. I don’t remember ever hearing them before and the one below has a guy that looks like Borat singing. Very weird. Anyway here is the link to the Nabil Sheal version of the song. [Link]

[YouTube]

Fereej took the time and effort to round up the top blogs in Kuwait based on Alexa’s rankings. I decided to take his list and one by one get all the actual rankings of the blogs and put together a Top 20 blog rank list. Now there are actually two lists that differ slightly. The first list is the Top 20 Kuwait Blogs in Kuwait. The second list is the Top 20 Kuwait Blogs in the World. Whats popular in Kuwait doesn’t necessarily make it popular outside of Kuwait and its interesting to see the differences. Here are the lists:

Top 20 Kuwait Blogs in Kuwait
1- mark248am1.wpenginepowered.com 260
2- ilSul6ana.com 1,000
3- KuwaitStay.com 1,126
4- Frankom.com 1,379
5- ma6goog.com 1,403
6- Buzberry.com 1,799
7- 360Dewan.com 1,804
8- freejsaud.blogspot.com 1,894
9- SomeContrast.com 2,042
10- 4thRingRoad.com 2,926
11- P0ach.com 3,752
12- 3grbgr.blogspot.com 3,760
13- BlushBerry.net 4,035
14- kuwaitpaperdump.com 4,011
15- confashionsfromkuwait.com 4,878
16- Q8BlackMarket.com 5,764
17- blog3amty.blogspot.com 6,349
18- loft965.com 6,670
19- HiKuwait.com 6,751
20- couchavenue.com 7,574
21- catism.org 7,814
22- Qortuba.org 8,029
23- YearOfTeddy.com 8,859

Top 20 Kuwait Blogs in the World
1- mark248am1.wpenginepowered.com 68,092
2- loft965.com 212,939
3- zDistrict.com 247,540
4- Frankom.com 351,00
5- ilSul6ana.com 373,252
6- SomeContrast.com 569,120
7- 4thRingRoad.com 588,836
8- kuwaitpaperdump.com 596,987
9- Buzberry.com 606,637
10- ansam518.wordpress.com 636,523
11- 360Dewan.com 656,446
12- ma6goog.com 689,286
13- BlushBerry.net 765,799
14- Uptill1.com 874,165
15- freejsaud.blogspot.com 956,647
16- P0ach.com 1,109,988
17- MeBlogging.com 1,224,863
18- catism.org 1,394,504
19- Rayboy.org 1,494,994
20- couchavenue.com 1,505,123
21- Blog37.net 1,512,128
22- 3grbgr.blogspot.com 1,569,294

Update: I updated the list with a blog called Catism that wasn’t there before. The previous #20’s got pushed off the list and are now crossed out. Every time a new blog gets added a blog will get pushed off the list.

Note: If your blog is not listed above, check your blogs rating in Alexa and if it turns out your blog should be in the top 20 email me or comment below so I can update the list. [Alexa]

The title of the video says Sean Connery’s comments were racist but I didn’t hear anything offensive. What grabbed my attention though was the quality of the footage. This is the best copy I’ve seen, I wonder if the whole match can be found and downloaded in that quality? [YouTube]

I really like the old buildings in Kuwait and its very sad to see them crumble. So when I found out about this exhibition by Architect Deema Abdullah Al-Ghunaim I thought it was really interesting since it involved two things I liked, photography and old buildings:

|Tæ’boõq| طابوق
This exhibition is a starting study to trace architectural conceptions in Kuwait through series of screens photographed around Qebla, Merqab, Dasman, Hawalli and Jeleeb Shyoukh. The buildings studied are standing from 1960s as time sensors of placement, displacement and improvisation.

Time
From January 5th to January 7th 2010
January 5th from 7pm till 9pm
January 6th from 9am till 4pm and from 7pm till 9pm
January 7th from 9am till 4pm only

Place
The Sultan Gallery
Sabhan, southern entrance, Sadeer Co., block 8, street 105, building no 168
Telephone: 24714325/26 ext 110
Here is a map [Link]

You can find out more by visiting Deema’s blog where she also has scans of the invitation [Link]

via ProjektCyan

I woke up today hungry and after checking a few blogs I found Ansam’s post on The Noodle House. The food looked and sounded good so I decided I would pass by them for lunch.

I got there around 2:30 expecting the place to be packed but surprisingly there was just one table occupied. Thats a good thing since I don’t like places that get too packed. I quickly knew what I wanted to order since I was having everything Ansam had recommended, chicken satay for appetizers, fried honey & sesame chicken for the main course and I ordered plain steamed rice on the side. Nat ordered spinach and vegetables dim sum for her lunch.

The chicken satay arrived and the first thing I notice is how huge the quantity is. I grabbed a stick and dunked it in the accompanying peanut dip and took a bite. It wasn’t that great. It was fine enough to eat right then but I wouldn’t order it again. The chicken was over cooked, it was hard and tough while I could barely taste the flavor of the sauce. Then when the fried honey & sesame chicken arrived I noticed it looked different than the one Ansam had. I actually pulled up her blog on my phone to compare with the picture she took. Her chicken had a nice color and looked soft while mine looked overcooked. I took a bite and again the chicken was very dry and tough.

Before I get to the positives there was one more thing that I didn’t like and that was the way the different types of noodles were presented. Those of you who’ve been to a steak house like Gaucho will know how before you order a steak they bring out all the cuts to show you what is what. Well they brought out a little plate with different types of noodles on it. In theory it sounds like a good idea but their execution was horrible. First the plate was white and so were the noodles which made them invisible. A second reason why you barely see them is because they display only a tiny piece from every type of noodle. Not a little pile of noodles, just a single 2cm long piece. They looked taped to the plate with their names stuck on top and then the whole thing covered in a clear plastic wrap. It looked horrible and not appetizing whatsoever.

Now the positives. Nat enjoyed her dim sum but I wasn’t interested in trying it. The service was really good and it was a beautiful day so the view was nice. It’s too bad I didn’t enjoy my food, maybe it was a bad day or maybe I ordered the wrong things. The next time I think I am going to try their Sweet & Sour Chicken and maybe a prawns dim sum.

Prices
Chicken satay with peanut dipping sauce: KD2.500
Spinach and vegetable dumplings: KD1.600
Wok fried honey and sesame chicken: KD3.250

Since I have a long weekend I decided to pass by Extreme Hobby and pick up a small indoor helicopter. I played with it in their store a while back and since then it’s always been on my mind. Unlike the crappy toy helicopters you find at regular toy stores, this is a proper tiny hobby grade helicopter. It comes with a 4-channel 2.4Ghz digital transmitter with four AA batteries for it, the actual micro helicopter and a 1-cell LiPo battery.

The helicopter is very tiny which makes it perfect for flying around in the living room. Helicopters in general are difficult to fly and so this micro helicopter for me is a good way to get into them. As a beginner its a bit mind numbing still trying to fly this thing around. The left stick on the transmitter controls the throttle and the direction the helicopter is facing. The right stick controls the flight direction, front back left and right. You charge the helicopters battery in the actual receiver, there is a slot in the back where you can insert the LiPo battery and it takes around 5 minutes to fully charge it. You can then fly the helicopter for around 8 minutes. Because its a hobby grade helicopter Extreme Hobby carry all the spare parts for it so if you need another battery or if you break something you can get a replacement part.

[YouTube]

As I mentioned above I’m a beginner so I am pretty crap at flying it still. But if you want to see the helicopter in action there are a ton of videos on YouTube. The one above is my favorite since the guy is pretty good. The cost of the helicopter is KD26 and it comes with everything you need to get it up and running. It costs KD29 on Amazon so its cheaper in Kuwait. They only had around 4 more helicopters left so if you’re interested you can pass by them in Dajij. Their phone number is 24348123.

Welcome to the new and improved site. I know it still looks the same and some of you might not even have noticed a difference but that’s because I wasn’t interested in a complete revamp. The blog has become very recognizable with the bright magenta on top and black background, changing it would be like Coca-Cola suddenly going blue. What I did with this redesign is improve on the old design and fix things that needed to be fixed.

Firstly the biggest change is that the site now looks exactly the same on any browser on any OS. Previously it looked slightly different depending on what browser on what OS you were using. The only difference now is for some reason on FireFox on a Mac the titles on the tabs under the header are in bold. But that’s it everything else looks the same. I’ve widened the site but not by a lot so that if you’re viewing the blog from a netbook you don’t need to scroll left or right to see the whole width of the page. It fits perfectly.

Secondly the ads. The most important change is that there is no longer an ad on top of the posts. I’ve decided not to put an ad there and have instead kept all the ads on the far right. This way I’ve created a clear and distinct line between what is an ad and what isn’t. Everything on the left is me, it’s my space and I say what I want. Everything on the right is paid for. I’ve changed the shape of the ads and made them slightly smaller so they look a lot neater now. I’ve also had all the advertisers reduce the physical size of the ads by half so that the site loads even faster now then it previously did.

I’ve also changed the color of the header slightly and made it a 100% magenta which is slightly brighter than the previous header. I then changed all the other magenta on the blog to match, so all the links and buttons etc.. are now slightly brighter. Oh and when you hover over the tabs under the header, the button now turns white instead of black. Looks cleaner this way.

I’ve really done a ton of minor changes here and there. For example the titles of the posts are now 100% black instead of dark gray, the comments under the posts look A LOT neater now and I’ve also removed the number next to peoples comments. There was a bad habit previously in which people replied to each other by post number. For example “I have to agree with post 23, Britney Spears is hot”. Now people will have to refer to each other by name or nickname. Another issue with the comment numbers was that if there was a comment in moderation before post 23 and I approved it after someone responded to post 23 then post 23 would suddenly become post 24 and the person who commented in reply to post 23 would look stupid.

Oh another important change, I’ve removed the tab on top called “Archive” which used to contain all my post categories and have instead listed all my categories on the side. Those of you who’ve been visiting my blog for a few years now will realize that’s how it used to be before my previous redesign. I find it a lot more useful having it in the sidebar and I am hoping it will encourage more people to dig into my blog and engage with my older posts. I’ve posted soo many things over the years and a lot of them are still interesting to this day so its worth making them available. I’ve also shifted the “Site Tools” up because I feel my twitter and facebook group are worth visiting and so need to be highlighted more. I’ve moved the other bloggers list to the bottom of the side bar so that way the more interesting blogs I find the more I will be able to fit. The side bar used to also have a gray background which I removed, makes things a lot more airy and less suffocating.

So in conclusion, the blog loads faster, looks neater and is just an improved version of the previous design.

The local IKEA website got hacked again, just a day after I posted about the previous hack this time by a guy calling himself “This Turkish HaCKeR | For PALESTİNE”. He seems to really not like Americans… [Link]

Thanks Nabil!

We’ve all gotten emails from people offering us money either because their uncle who owns a diamond mine passed away or maybe they inherited the money from their father who was king of Samboliadoodoo before he got killed in a coup d’état. Well what if one of these emails turned out to be true? Mother, an ad agency in London sent out an email to hundreds of people telling them they would give them $10,000 risk free money and all they had to do was reply back with their full name and bank account details. Well one guy did reply, and guess what happened? Watch the video. [YouTube]

It seems someone hacked the local IKEA website. There is nothing there except for a message saying “Red Eye ownz you! – by Z4i0n”. [Link]

Thanks gunsmoke!