Search: “ace”

Last month Al Nasr, a Basketball team in Kuwait signed up American center John Francis Smith to play for their team. Well John is in Kuwait now and he’s made a video of the apartment the team has given him. It looks really nasty and very old, I don’t think I could even spend a night there yet alone live there. Its a really shitty place and he’s really really pissed. [YouTube]

I woke up today morning at 8:30 with a phone call from Stallion. He was on his way to come pick me up so we could go to the junkyard. I needed a seat riser for my Wrangler but not any seat riser, it had to be off a pre-2000 model because the one I had was one of the new ones which allows my driver seat to tilt forward. The pre-2000 models didn’t have that option and so had more empty space under the seat which would allow me to install my car’s amplifier in that space.

I was expecting the junkyard to be just one large unorganized place but it turned out to be this huge area made up of little small junkyards that were split up by car make or type. We drove around looking for junkyards that had Wrangler parts but there weren’t many. We found around 6 to 8 places that had Jeep vehicles but only 3 had Wranglers. After driving around from place to place we found what I was looking for BUT the guy would refuse to sell the seat risers without the actual seat.

Stallion using his great haggling skills tried to convince the guy to sell us the seat riser by itself but instead of convincing the guy to sell us the riser he nearly initiated a riot and the guy ended up refusing to sell us anything. I was sure we were going to get attacked by the Afghani workers there, I don’t know what happened because it all happened fast but it was a really short conversation that ended with Stallion and the Afghani worker shouting at each other and us walking out quickly.

We finally gave up on finding the seat riser without the seat so we took off back home. On our way we passed by Dunkin Donuts in Al-Rai since I had been craving Dunkin Donuts for a week now. It had be a long time since I had Dunkin and I had forgotten how good their donuts were. I took a lot of pictures of the junk yards which you can find by clicking continue below. It was a pretty productive morning.

I’ve always wondered what was the logic behind the name of some items at IKEA. They always have Scandinavian names but what do they mean? According to Wikipedia it turns out there is a format IKEA follows. Firstly most of the names are usually either Swedish, Danish, Finnish or Norwegian in origin. Secondly most of the names are based on a special naming system which IKEA has put in place and is as follows:

Upholstered furniture, coffee tables, rattan furniture, bookshelves, media storage, doorknobs: Swedish placenames

Beds, wardrobes, hall furniture: Norwegian place names

Dining tables and chairs: Finnish place names

Bookcase ranges: Occupations

Bathroom articles: Scandinavian lakes, rivers and bays

Kitchens: grammatical terms, sometimes also other names

Chairs, desks: men’s names

Materials, curtains: women’s names

Garden furniture: Swedish islands

Carpets: Danish place names

Lighting: terms from music, chemistry, meteorology, measures, weights, seasons, months, days, boats, nautical terms

Bedlinen, bed covers, pillows/cushions: flowers, plants, precious stones; words related to sleep, comfort, and cuddling

Children’s items: mammals, birds, adjectives

Curtain accessories: mathematical and geometrical terms

Kitchen utensils: foreign words, spices, herbs, fish, mushrooms, fruits or berries, functional descriptions

Boxes, wall decoration, pictures and frames, clocks: colloquial expressions, also Swedish placenames

via

New York Times must have been on something when they came out with this list of “53 Places to go in 2008” because they’ve placed Kuwait in position number 32! We beat places like Las Vegas, New York and London, thats just insane! [Link]

Thanks S!

On Friday the 25th of January, Animal Friends League in Kuwait will be hosting a paint ball tournament on their farm in Wafra. The tournament will be comprised of five teams of five players each.

The entry fee is 20KD per player which includes:
Gun, face mask, body armor, CO2 canister, 200 paint balls and food.
Each additional 200 paintballs can be purchased for 5KD.
Each additional CO2 canisters can be purchased for 4KD.
Spectators are encouraged to attend for 3KD which includes food.

Teams need to register by January 20th by e-mail with a list of team players and a team name. Players must be over the age of 18.

For more information visit their website. [Link]

Yesterday my friend asked me if I wanted to try out a new burger place called Marrybrown. I hadn’t heard of the place before but he told me it was an American franchise. That turned out not to be true because according to Wikipedia “Marrybrown Family Restaurant is a Malaysia based fast food chain”. Malaysia, America.. they both end with the letter “a” so I can see how he could have gotten confused.

We drove to the restaurant which is located at the beginning of Canada Dry street next to a car wash. It’s a really crappy location for a new franchise and the place isn’t even well designed from the inside. I checked out their menu and there wasn’t a single burger on the menu! Turns out Marrybrown is more like KFC and not McDonalds. I ordered a chicken fillet combo, swapped the fries with onion rings and also ordered a chicken ceaser wrap.

We sat down and the food quickly followed. After a few bites it became obvious that although the place looked shady the food seemed to be fresh and everything seemed to taste fine. Thats where the problem is with Marrybrown, its just too normal. There really wasn’t anything I ordered that would make me want to come back again. If I feel like a chicken fillet I would think McChicken from McDonalds or Zinger from KFC. The location and the interior doesn’t help their situation either. Maybe if I ever wash my car at the car wash next door and I feel like grabbing a bite I wouldn’t mind Marrybrown but I don’t think I would ever go out of my way just for them. The final score is 2.5 out of 5.

Tonight I passed by Sultan Center and noticed they no longer had Indian eggs and instead have replaced them with fresh locally produced eggs by KUPCO selling for a very reasonable KD1 for a tray of 30 eggs. I guess the local egg crisis is nearly over?

If I post something negative about a place in Kuwait, some people get the impression that I am out to hurt that place. If I post something positive about a place in Kuwait, some people get the impression that I was paid to do so. It’s pretty fucked up really.

Last week I posted two negative posts about Sultan Center, one regarding their eggs, the other about how they stole the Kellogg’s mascot. One reader told me if I hated Sultan that much I should just stop shopping there. What kind of mentality is that? Its kinda like how if I post something negative about Kuwait people come and tell me to get the fuck out if I don’t like it.

I only shop at Sultan Center and I have been a customer ever since they opened up their Salmiya branch back in the 80’s. When I encounter a problem at Sultan Center I complain, I have the right to as a customer. If I complain it doesn’t mean I hate the place, it means I want the place to improve.

Same with my Bazaar posts, some people get the impression I hate Bazaar. I don’t.

One reader asked why I don’t contact customer service when I have a complaint instead of posting it on the blog? Well three reasons. First the obvious which is I need content for the blog. Second is the fact that I am used to sending emails to customer service only to have them ignored and the third and final reason is that problems get fixed quickly after I post about them on the blog.

So from now on if I say good things or bad things about a place or product I hope there will be no misconception.

The good: The Girl Next Door
Extremely shocking and stomach turning. Not for the squeamish. Based on the true story of Sylvia Likens whom you can get more info about from the Crime Library.

The bad: Bee Movie
Not near as funny as the least funniest Seinfeld episode. I watched it at The Avenues movie theater which I think is just a fantastic looking place. By far the best theater I have ever been to anywhere.

The ugly: Shoot ‘Em Up
What a b-rated piece of trash this movie turned out to be. Definitely one of the worst movies I have seen this year. No plot, fake cheesy action and terrible acting by everyone except for Monica Bellucci, but thats because she had major cleavage through out the movie. I also just found out she is married to the french guy who stared with her in the movie Irréversible which you should watch instead of this crap.

And because the former dictator had reason to be paranoid, the boat has bulletproof glass, closed-circuit television, storage space for a large cache of weapons, including heavy machine guns and surface-to-air missiles, and a secret passage that runs the length of the boat for easy access to a fast patrol boat and a mini-submarine pod for emergency exits.

Maybe we could all pitch in and buy the yacht and then take it out to Kubbar where we spend the whole day partying on it. At the end of the night we burn the yacht to symbolize our hatred to Saddam but we keep the mini-submarine since thats just too cool. [Link]

via

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

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.

When you save up enough money, open up a magazine stand in the airport AFTER the immigration in the location pictured above. And unlike the magazine place outside in the main airport, you will accept Knet as a means of payment. (Posted from my Nokia e61i)

Burgan Bank today launched a new logo and personally I think it can’t get any more generic than this. I think they should have just given their old logo a face lift by simplifying the sun rays and maybe going with two tones of blue instead of the Gradient. For their typeface I would have killed the serif and gone with san serif which they actually did in the new logo. Actually the only positive thing in the new logo is their logo type but their icon on the other hand is very boring and forgettable. Not only that but where is Kuwait in the logo? Gulf Bank have the dhow, NBK have the camel, CBK have the arabesque star and now Burgan Bank have a… ribbon? Where is the locality? Where is the strength and trust? They’ve recently redone their branches into a very clean modern looking environment so why did they go with a logo that was already outdated in style before it even launched. This logo should never have left the design studio yet let alone presented to the client and gotten accepted.

What other bloggers have to say
Tatabotata: “This is the most disgusting redesign I have seen in a while.”
Patrick: “Why? But why?!”

Elsewhere
AMEINFO: “The design of the new corporate identity draws inspiration from a ring, which has been used cross-culturally for thousands of years as a symbol of partnership and commitment.”

Further Information
The logo was done by an agency in Bahrain and not LOM | FDP who were responsible for their branch redesigns

Update: The agency in Bahrain behind the redesign is Vision Communications.

Not so sure I am liking the look of the new SL, kinda reminds me of the SL from the 90s. [Link]

via autoblog