2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003

A guy “upgraded” his computer from Windows Vista to Windows XP and then wrote a review. I found it pretty funny. [Link]

I am assuming the cops use a similar software to this with victims of attacks. The picture on the left is me trying to draw myself and the picture on the right is of Holla (my friend) trying to draw himself. Its pretty easy to use and the results are pretty neat. I am going to get back to working on my face trying to make it resemble me. [Link]

Tips: You can move the location of face features by clicking on them in the picture on the right and moving it about. You can increase and decrease the width and height of the features by using the axis thingy on the left. You can also save your face for other people to see. If you click on load and then search for a face called 248am you should find the one I am working on.

Fanta commercial from China. [YouTube]

How far can you go after the gas light in your car comes on? My BMW and Wrangler both last around 62km, how long does your car last for? [Link]

This is the trailer to the new Batman movie, his bike looks wicked! [YouTube]

The other day I posted about the great offer that the SONY dealer had where you can buy a 60GB Sony PS3 plus a get a game of your choice and an extra controller for KD139 and a PS3 by itself for KD135. Well it turns out the salesman was an idiot. For KD139 you get a 40GB PS3 with one joypad and the movie Spiderman and here is the best part, for KD135 you get a 60GB PS3 by itself BUT it doesn’t come with warranty! I spoke to a salesman over the phone after I heard about this just to confirm and it turned out to be true.

Even stores in Rihab who are selling grey market PS3’s give customers at least 3 months warranty, how come the official SONY dealer doesn’t provide warranty on the PS3’s they’re selling? This is just wrong in so many ways, its really a bad business decision. There is a lot of piracy in Kuwait and if the SONY dealer wants people to purchase proper Middle East versions of the PS3’s and not the grey market USA and Japanese version this is really the wrong way to go about it. Why should I buy from the official dealer if the grey market versions have warranty and theirs don’t?

Thank you MYK!

As usual, was looking for something else when I found this. [YouTube]

Also check out the video below, also pretty funny. [YouTube]

After reading the post below by Nibaq on The Local Egg Crisis I am suddenly very disgusted by Sultan Center. I just recently noticed that we have an egg problem, I had heard something about an egg crisis from a friend but only when I was at Carrefour this past weekend and noticed their eggs section was completely empty that I realized how severe the crisis was.

I do all my shopping at Sultan Center and awhile back I noticed they were suddenly getting eggs made in India. I decided to get a pack and later in the evening while making dinner I cracked open a few eggs only to find some strange black stuff inside some of them. It was really disgusting and I ended up throwing away the whole pack. I now don’t buy eggs from India and instead buy the more expensive locally produced organic eggs.

After reading Nibaqs post below I just found out that the fresh eggs Sultan are selling are NOT fresh and instead are over a month old! Thats really gross and no wonder the eggs I got were rotten. I usually don’t keep anything in my fridge for long and to find out that the eggs from Sultan are a month old is just shocking specially when eggs last only 5 weeks. Sultan Center should do what Carrefour is doing and not bring in Indian eggs at all! I would rather see the shelves empty instead of buying eggs only to find them rotten.

The egg crisis in Kuwait is a mix of market forces, bird flu, production issues, feed prices and inaction from government forces. The Kuwait egg market is pretty huge; we consume over a billion eggs a year and we just produce around 40% of that. The rest we have to import from Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and India.

Production in the gulf has dropped dramatically this year due to the bird flu epidemic. Kuwait was hit first which led to 6 out of the 8 farms to stop production, cutting our production levels to 15%. These farms have just recently started production and will take another 12 months to reach their full levels.

Saudi Arabia has recently been hit by the bird flu virus which has cut their production. This has also led to Kuwait placing an import ban on Saudi eggs in order to protect our local farms and people.

Due to the high demand from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf countries our other exporters like Jordan and Syria have placed an export ban to keep the remaining eggs in their own country to avoid their own crisis.

The only remaining eggs that we can import are Indian. Indian eggs are considered the cheapest and lowest quality eggs that you can find in the market. They take over a month to arrive from India to Kuwait via container and sometimes not qualified for human consumption. Sadly main supermarkets are marketing them as “fresh eggs”. Fresh eggs are considered by USDA and GCC law as eggs are maximum 3 days old from the farm. Indian eggs are over 30 days old from the farm.

The other factor in the egg crisis is due to feed supply. Since under Kuwaiti law chickens must be fed 100% organic feed without any chemicals, feed additives or meal. This adds up to 70% of the cost of the egg and this year has been a huge increase in feed prices leading the Kuwaiti egg producers to also increase their prices.

They have requested from the government to offer them a subsidy on the feed to reduce their cost, yet the government has not been helpful. Instead the Ministry of Commerce and Kuwait Coop Supermarket Union has been demanding from them to reduce their prices to pre-bird flu and feed increase prices or face being shut out of the supermarkets.

This is of course a guise of “protecting the consumer”, since they are still selling Indian which are over a month old as “fresh” eggs around 1KD when the real cost of Indian eggs is around 400fils. The Coops are making over 250%. Compare this to real fresh Kuwaiti eggs which are just above that price. This is so they can increase their profit margin by cheating the local consumer and leverage the Kuwaiti egg producers to submit to their control.

Other Gulf countries are facing the same shortage in Kuwait, but instead of fighting the local producers they have been offering them support by giving them bigger subsidies and allowing market forces to choose the egg prices.

So support your local egg producer by buying from their official stores in Shuwaik area near the vegetable market. They are offering real fresh eggs and at reasonable prices, and demand for the Coops to bring Kuwaiti eggs back.

– Post by Nibaq
– Picture by Kamal

If I was a billionaire I guess KD4400 would seem fair for a haircut… [Link]

Eggs in liquid form, you buy them and they come in milk like cartons. All you need to do is open the carton and pour the egg out onto the pan and voilà! Problem is it costs around KD2.500 at Sultan meaning you might as well pay that much and get the healthier organic eggs.

Today morning I got a surprise delivery, my stereo which had shipped from the US 3 days ago with U Shop We Ship had already arrived to Kuwait and cleared customs. It was my first time ordering from Crutchfield and I have to say they really are the best for purchasing car audio equipment from. With my Alpine iDA-X001 head unit they also provided me with everything I needed to install it into my Wrangler by myself including a face plate, wiring harness, antenna adapter and a step by step installation guide with pictures of my Jeep.

I took both the Alpine wiring harness and the one that Crutchfield sent to connect it to my Jeep to a store in Hawalli to have them solder it together. Its a pretty easy job of just connecting wires of the same color together but I didn’t have a soldering iron so I let them do it for me. After having them solder the wiring harnesses together I went back home and took apart my Jeep’s dashboard and installed the head unit myself. It took me less than 30 minutes to have it up and running. This is what I love about the Wrangler, its such a simple car, I seriously think I could take it all apart using just a philips screwdriver.

The Alpine unit doesn’t play CD’s or tapes, it just connects to the iPod and from what I have seen so far it does an amazing job of it. I will post a full review after I try it out for a while but so far it looks like its going to be a positive one.

If anyone is planning on buying something from Crutchfield use the coupon code: p9w3q-2y6hc-2dssw
It will give you a $20 discount and I get a $20 credit.

Note to Wrangler owners: If you want the factory sub to work then you need to connect the Blue/White cable (Remote Turn-On) to the Blue cable instead of Blue to Blue. The Blue cable is for Power Antenna and so powers the sub only when you are tuned into the radio. The Blue/White cable sends power constantly so the factory sub will be powered when tuned into the radio AND when connected to the iPod or listening to a CD or whatever. This applies when installing any head unit not just the Alpine.

I woke up early today morning to take Nat to the Villa Moda sale. She had seen this purse two weeks ago which she liked and she figured with the 50% off it would be a much better deal. After not facing any major morning traffic, we arrived to Villa Moda early at 9:40AM to find a large crowd waiting outside the closed doors. We didn’t wait for too long though before the doors opened at 9:55 and the large crowd started rushing into the building. There wasn’t any running or shoving but everyone was moving pretty fast.

The most popular stores inside were Gucci, Prada and D&G in that order. The guys store was empty since there were practically no guys there, they were probably all still asleep like I should have been.

The most surprising thing was that woman weren’t buying an item or two, they were mostly buying in bulk. Its just crazy, I saw one woman with 8 Gucci bags, a few belts and small boxes probably filled with wallets and scarfs. I saw one woman buy the same bag in 3 different colors. It was unreal, everyone was just walking around with a handful of bags and shoes as if they were buying CDs from the discount bin.

It was an interesting experience and although some of you might disagree, 50% off is a lot and makes everything much more approachable. Of course there are exceptions, a 1000KD leather Prada jacket is still expensive even after a 50% discount but a 170KD Prada nylon jacket is now much more affordable at only 85KD. There were a ton of good deals and it does make sense getting there early. The sale is going to last till Monday so it might be worth passing by although I doubt there is much left.

Villa Moda will have a 50% sale starting today (Saturday) at 10AM. I don’t know how long the sale will last for but based on previous sales all the good stuff is usually gone on the first day.

Its a short 35 second trailer not really showing much or hinting to anything. Season 4 starts in February. If you haven’t watched season 3 this might contain a spoiler. [YouTube]