2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003

Tonight at 10PM local time Amazon had a special deal on the Xbox 360. The were offering it for only $100, the catch.. only 1000 pieces. I knew I didn’t have a chance when I saw that deal plastered all over the web including places like Digg and Gizmodo. Still, I decided to give it a shot and see if I could be one of the lucky 1000.

At around 9:45PM I started refreshing the offer page every 20 seconds. By 9:58 Amazon’s servers got overloaded and the page stopped loading. So using two computers I started opening the same page in like 20 tabs on each computer. Finally two of my tabs loaded and I saw the Get this deal button. I quickly pressed it but my other tabs started loading and I noticed the same page now was saying Sold Out. I was hoping that since I clicked the button already I would be counted as one of the first 1000. Around a minute later one of the tabs where I had clicked the Get this deal button loaded and Amazon was asking me what 11+16 was. I quickly loaded up the calculater (yes I suck) and calculated their question and entered it and pressed Get this deal for a second time.

Sadly, by the time the third page loaded around 10:13PM I got a message telling me the product didn’t exist. The 1000 Xbox 360’s got sold out in under 15 seconds. With our lousy internet connection here in Kuwait I didn’t stand a chance. But, at least it was a fun experience.

Here are some screen grabs of the two pages aftr I clicked the first Get this deal button.

Second page message
Third page message

I passed by IKEA earlier tonight, the new one which is located at the Avenues Mall. It IS huge, very huge. I really liked the new place, the whole mall although still closed looks massive. The most noticable update at IKEA has to be the restaurant, its now around 4 or 5 times larger then it was before. Actually what am I saying, the whole place is like 4 times larger. Its now a really long walk from the beginning till the end.

I had dinner at the IKEA restaurant, Chicken Masala with Rice. It was pretty good but to help paint a picture on how big the new IKEA is, by the time I got to the exit I was hungry again and ended up ordering food from the snack stand near the exit. The new snack stand by the way is a huge improvement over the old one. Other then corn, ice cream, and hotdogs they now have shawerma. I decided to order one just to try it, I would probably give it a 3 out of 5, still need to pass by and try it one more time before I can give my final score though.

The biggest change in the new IKEA is that you now have to pick up your packages yourself just before you get to the cashier. You enter this huge warehouse like room and its just shelves and shelves of packed goods. Someone told me IKEA did this to bring down the prices of the products by 10%. Whatever their reason I know many people will not like the fact that they now have to do manual labor. I took a picture of one of the shelves which you can view by clicking [Here]

Overall I think its a really great improvement. Although I really liked the old IKEA I think the new one is better in every way.

Yeah I know I just posted that I wouldn’t post today but then I remembered I needed to post this. LG have a 71inch plasma TV with home theater setup thats gold plated. Its currently displayed at their Salmiya branch adjacent to Alghanim Electronics. Its a really ugly setup as you can see and in person it also looks pretty cheap.

Can you guess how much it costs?

The LG setup you see in the picture above costs KD25,000! Its just ridiculous, not only that but its a display model. If I was the store manager I wouldn’t have a KD25,000 TV on display where everyone can come in and touch it, that would depreciate its value. If I a buyer on the other hand and was planning on splashing out KD25,000 I wouldn’t want a display model.. I wouldn’t want an LG either!

Just too tired, exhausted, extremely busy and not very focused.

But, I will share a nice quote I recently heard and liked:

“If you can’t convince them, confuse them.”

A while ago I found out that Pierre Gemayel, an Anti-Syrian Lebanese Minister was assassinated in Lebanon. He was in his car when a man walked up with a gun equipped with a silencer and shot him at point blank range. He was the youngest minister and he was extremely loved by everyone. I hope a civil war doesn’t break out because of this.

I have some work I need to finish up but its hard to get back to work now after hearing this news, I think I am going to go home. [Link]

update: More info is coming in. Seems he was driving his car (it was a KIA) and two cars blocked his path, one from the front one from the back. One guy came out with a machine gun equipped with a silencer and fired at the car. They then took off.

Late last month I posted about how Showtime were still taking money from me every month even though I canceled my account. Well I finally spoke to a guy at Showtime who told me he would solve my problem by making sure they cancel my subscription and then refund me two months worth of subscription fees by the next day. I was like fine, great.

A few days later I call the guy up again telling him that I still hadn’t received the refund. He told me he had deposited the money into my account and it should be there. After further investigation it turns out the guy deposited my refund in the wrong account! He told me that its too late now and he couldn’t take it back and that I should contact the other person and try to get my money off of him. I told him I wouldn’t do that and that he should solve the problem. He then sarcastically told me fine, he would pay me the refund from his salary. I was like whatever you want to do, do it. I just want my refund.

Since that day I haven’t been able to get a hold of the guy again. He won’t return my calls and I have been leaving messages on his voice mail and still no reply. I don’t think my troubles with Showtime will ever finish.

update: I just got off the phone with the COO of Global Direct. He told me I will get my refund within the next 2 days. I told him that it wasn’t about the money but the actual process I had to go through to get my account canceled. He assured me that Showtime was going through a major restructuring of the customer service department and all the problems I faced will be fixed.

I found out last minute I had to go down to Dubai for work and since Gitex had just started, finding a room was practically impossible. Finally though the travel agent came through and found me an empty room and booked it. I have to say it was the crappiest hotel I had ever been to. The whole place looked like a bathroom and smelled like one that had just been cleaned. They had these air fresheners that spray perfume automatically located all over the hotel but they just reminded me too much of bathrooms.

If the look of the hotel wasn’t enough to put me off, before we got the room key they made us sign a paper which said if any of our stuff goes missing in the rooms that they wouldn’t be responsible for it. Not only that but inside the room there was a framed photocopy of a similar paper stating the same thing and another A4 sheet located on the table also saying the same thing. As you can imagine I didn’t want to leave anything in the room and I didn’t, I kept my backpack with me the whole time.

Traffic in Dubai because of Gitex was just a disaster. It was always at a complete standstill, a real mess. One cab driver told me things get even worse in February during the shopping festival.

The weather in Dubai was also a lot hotter then Kuwait. Its currently freezing here. Froze my ass off tonight while leaving Maki at Marina, even had a jacket on and it wasn’t enough!

I wanted to visit Gitex but I finished my work around 8PM and Gitex closes at 7. Why can’t they stay open till like 10 or something like exhibitions that are held in Kuwait? Its like people need to take a day off work to pass by them.

I went to Ibn Battuta mall. Its not as big as Mall of the Emirates but its still a lot bigger then Marina Mall and the whole thing felt very Las Vegasishy.

I still can’t believe I was in Dubai and didn’t get to pass by Gitex!

I found this at the Dubai Duty Free. If beer was legal in Kuwait I would definitely setup a draught beer system at home. This one cost only $250.

I think everyone in the Dubai Duty Free figured I lived in Kuwait because I was walking around taking pictures of the bottles of alcohol. Moskovskaya is my favorite brand of vodka. Its the only one I can drink straight up without mixing it with anything.

Anyone who has watched CSI Miami will know what Caruso one liners are, they are the lines he says just before the CSI theme song starts. The majority of them are sooooo lame which makes them really funny. Anyway some guy got a hold of a ton of Caruso one liners and just put them all back to back in one long video clip on YouTube. Check it out. [Video]

I just read the funniest comments in a forum regarding Wii accidents. The Wii is the new gaming system by Nintendo and its biggest feature is the fact that the controllers are motion sensitive and in some games you swing them around and stuff. Like for example if you are playing a tennis game on the Wii you would hit the ball as if you were playing it in real life. So, it turns out people are having Wii accidents. One guy while playing a bowling game had the controller slip from his hand and hit the TV and crack while another guy while playing tennis ended up accidentally swinging a drink off a table and half way across the room. There are still some other really funny stores too, seems like people are having a lot of fun with the Wii. Here is the link to the forum where this discussion is taking place plus pictures of the damaged TV. [Link]

A friend just told me that Al-Zayani has 3 Bugatti’s for sale in Kuwait. Can’t wait to see one out on the streets. It would be pretty cool if the Gulf Road gets flooded with Bugatti’s the same way Lamborghini’s are currently seen everywhere.

Note: Picture taken by bo9agr

So I am about to board the plane when the guy who checks the boarding pass takes mine and scribbles over my seat number which was 6F and starts writing another seat number somewhere back in the 20s. So I was like hey how come you are changing my seat? He replied telling me they were trying to balance the plane. While doing that he shook his hand side to side as if representing the plane thats wobbling. I was like o….k….. that can’t be good. So I told the guy listen its not fair if you change my seat now, I don’t want to , he was like fine and scribbled back 6F on my pass. I found this incident very strange.

Someone posted this comment under a Jazeera Airways post of mine:

dear sir,
i m an indian i like to go back to india for 45 days i m in kuwait now. is there booking open 4 dec 2006 2nd and third week & what are the fare rates two way or a single way coming from india back can i book it online. pls give me a complete detail and easy way to check the online fare rates to india from destination and from kuwait to uae that is ras al khaimah. thanking u. waiting 4 ur reply.

and this is an email someone sent me regarding the new Symphony Mall opening in Salmiya:

Savio wrote:
could you send us some information on the space available at the symphony mall along with area and prices.

Just finished checking in to my flight. Airport security today is just overboard. Jazeera Airways and British Airways check in stations are located in the same area and it seems because of British Airways security was extremely tough… not the usual laid back chatting with friends while ignoring the metal detector beeps. I had to actually take off my belt while some other guys were told to remove their shoes. Had to wait over 30 minutes in the security check line. Usually the lack of decent security at the Kuwait Airport pisses me off, but after seeing what good security involves, I am glad we lack security “most of the time”.