2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003

Can you identify a current generation videogame console by their fan & disc read noises? Here is your chance to find out! I was able to get it all right from the first try. [Link]

Maps.Google.com recently got updated with new high resolution images and Kuwait gained from it. For example Salmiya no longer is a blur on the map, the images are pretty good quality. Also I found a military base which was previously also blurred out. Check it out.

Marina Mall
Fanar Complex
American University of Kuwait (still being built in this picture)
Shaab Park
American International School
American School of Kuwait
Military base with planes

I was just looking for an image on Photodisc.com when I came across an image that looked very familiar. I think I found the image that was used as a starting point for one of THE One’s adverts. Its common for agencies to use a stock image during presentation and then go shoot the advert once approved but this ad I believe won some sort of recognition which I now think they shouldn’t have received since its basically a copy of a stock photo.

THE One granny advert
The original stock photo

Thanks for everyone who participated in the H3 Ride & Drive contest. Over 60 people participated but sadly we only had 10 tickets to give away. I just sent out an email to the 10 winners, 8 were chosen by random and 2 were handpicked. I gave a ticket to the first person who sent in a picture of an H3 and I gave a ticket to one user who looked like he walked around the Marina Mall Alghanim parking lot looking for H3s because he found and shot 9 different ones. Anyway I hope to be seeing you guys at the event.

The other day I posted about bluetooth advertising and how if you are shopping in Sultan Center you can now receive ads on your phone. I like many of you had some concerns regarding this service and how easily it can turn into spam. Well someone from the company responsible for this bluetooth advertising commented the following:

Hi, I’ve been following your conversations regarding bluetooth. My company is actually implementing these bluetooth services in Kuwait and I’m always interested to hear what people have to say about it. I agree with everyone that spam is a major problem which is why when we put our network together we were sure to set non-spam parameters. If you reject the message once, you shouldn’t receive another request for at least a week. Also, no matter which location you go into, you shouldn’t receive more than 3 messages in a week. If this is not the case in any particular location it’s probably because we are doing testing and optimization. Within the next few months we hope to bring a number of services that you would actually find useful, so bear with us. I think you’ll be impressed.

I think the fact that its limited to 3 messages a week per person is a good thing. But the big problem is that I don’t think its possible for us to opt out of this service. This means anyone with a bluetooth phone is forced to receive 3 adverts a week. Sucks.

Update: Nibaq pointed out something very important regarding this bluetooth service. Read below:

Very interesting. So it registers your MAC address of your phone. Even though you aren’t accepting messages when the machine does a search it will regonize your phone and store it.

Spread these machines around town not sending anything but just registering phones and what do you have? A wonder tracking device.

Sultan can see how many times you visit the store in a month, and which stores. You can even track how long a customer is at the store.

Just another reason to have my bluetooh on Non Discoverable mode or simply off.

2.16 Intel Core Duo Processor
667 MHz front-side bus
Up to 2GB of RAM (667 MHz DDR@ SDRAM)
iSight Camera
MagSafe Power Adapter
ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 PCI Express graphics 256MB
Firewire 800, Firewire 400
Bluetooth, Airport Extreme
$2799

Apple.com/macbookpro

Still waiting for the new ibooks..

This is just a final reminder, if you are interested in winning tickets to the Ride & Drive event then you must email me a picture of an H3 you have taken in Kuwait by the end of today. The winners will randomly be chosen and sent an email tomorrow with details on how to collect the tickets. Send your H3 shots to EMAIL REMOVED

Earlier in the month I posted about the interesting Universal Store I found in Muthana Complex and yesterday night the owner of the store commented on the post clearing up some details. Here is his comment:

Hi everyone

Firstly, thanks for all comments that I have seen here from you guys, I was really shocked when I found out that someone posted the store on their website, I got the site address from a note which I found in the store when I was there to check up on some work.

I wanted to clear up a fact, we are not connected to Universal Studio which is located in the states (The famous movie maker), our name is diffrent but the logo is similar with some changes, so we are far away from the courts 🙂 we chose this name and logo because our work and products are related to the movies and everyone knows UNIVERSAL STUDIO = movies so we wanted to have an emotional link with the customers first, and maybe you will not believe me if I tell you that even with this emotional link we chose there are still some people which don’t know if these products or figures are for movies characters!

Besides that we have a direct connection and we are an authorized distributor for Sideshow Collectibles & Sideshow Weta, the company which made all Lord Of The Ring movies items and costumes (we still not fake! 🙂 ) www.sideshowtoy.com

About the prices, we dont find ourselves expensive when it comes to most of our items. Our prices are somewhat similar to the main company prices, add on that they are COLLECTIBLES! which means they have limited quantity worldwide and whenever they are out of stock you will find the items triple the price on eBay!

The store is small I agree because we found that we cannot go for a bigger one because this kind of store are only for movies fans and thats means a small market. We also cant import all items which we decided to import before at this time because we are waiting for our one year work result and the right time to improve all our products lines, and soon we will offer a free catalog on DVD disk which is made by the original company SIDESHOW TOYS.

Finally, sorry for my long post, its only to give some information about the original post and to correct some ideas, and thanks for you all guys again.

Best Regards
Universal Store Company

This site is amazing! It has videos and audios of our favorite cartoons from when we were kids including shows like Efta7 Ya Simsim, Alshanakel, Zaina wa Na7oul, Bashar, Flona and Heidi. Listening to them makes me wish I was a kid again on a Friday morning. [Link]

[source Fadibou]

Just saw this accident on the Gulf Road opposite Shaab Park. Looked like a really nasty crash.

Picture 1
Picture 2

Someone told me that Krispy Kreme Doughnuts is opening up in Kuwait. This story was supposingly published in a newspaper that Khorafi got the rights to it. Anyone got more info?

Update: An anonymous reader has replied with the the following:

khorafi owns 6.7% of Krispy Kreme.The franchisee contracts have been signed and americana is in the process of setting up operations in Kuwait and Dubai simultaneously. hopefully by Sept – october Kuwait will have its first Krispy kreme Store.The quality will be the same as everything is imported,even the machines direct, from the US.The flagship restaurant wil have the trademark “doughnut showcase” window!

A friend of mine just emailed me a 2006 World Cup schedule. It has all the dates and times of all the matches which is cool BUT its also an excel file with some cool features. Once a match finishes you can enter the scores of the two teams in the excel file and it will then calculate how many points each team is awarded and mark it down on the group chart.

Its very nifty especially if you want to see what would happen if a team loses or wins a match before the game actually takes place. You can download the file and enter random scores now to see how it works. [Link]

This is just a reminder for the H3 Ride & Drive contest. Majority of people are still sending pictures taken from the Internet, those pictures don’t count. You need to take a picture of an H3 yourself here in Kuwait using your cameraphone or regular camera to win the tickets. Anyway for more details on the event and contest you can check my old post [Here]

Last year I posted about a pimped out Mercedes SLK in Dubai that had an SLR engine installed. Well today someone passed me a video of the same SLK racing against an Enzo and kicking the Enzo’s ass big time. You need to watch it to believe it. [Link]

No one could come up with such an idea as pimping a snack unless they were stoned out of their heads. Seriously how else could you think of this? [Link]

[source boingboing]