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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

Does anyone have any info on a skateboarding and graffiti competition thats supposedly taking place this weekend at Marina Mall?

Since I will be driving the Wrangler from now on due to my speeding tickets I’ve decided to upgrade the sound system. Marzouq recently upgraded his cars sound system and it made me realize how easy a process it could be to buy everything online.

I don’t have a really huge budget to start with so I decided to take it step by step and order the different components one at a time. The first thing I ordered was my head unit. There are only two brands I was considering, Blaupunkt and Alpine and after a bit of research I decided on the Alpine iDA-X001 (pictured above) which I’ve had my eyes on since before it was released. Its a digital media player that connects to the iPod and allows you to control it using a full color ipod like display. The only downside in the unit is it doesn’t have a CD player but since my music is all ripped onto my iPod anyways its really not a big problem. I found it on Crutchfield for $336 and that includes all the cabling, adapters and harnesses needed to install the unit into the Wrangler.

Next step is replacing the speakers followed by getting an amp and finally some kind of subwoofer enclosure that doesn’t eat up too much space from my tiny trunk. I am looking at JL Audio for the speakers and either Rockford Fosgate or JL Audio for the amps. The subwoofer enclosure will probably be from some generic brand but the sub itself will be either Rockford Fosgate or JL Audio.

If you are thinking on upgrading your car sound system, Crutchfield is a great place to start. You just tell them what car you have and they will tell you what fits. [Link]

I used to like the old Kuwait Airport since I grew up with it but like everything else in Kuwait its being modernized and not in a good way. The new airport is generic looking and doesn’t have the character of the original airport which was designed by one of the most significant architects of the 20th century, Kenzo Tange.

I was at the airport on Friday and noticed they’ve taken out the old retro looking arrival sign and replaced it with this colorful ugly LED panel. I used to really like the retro one and I wonder where it is at the moment, did they just trash it in the junk yard? Anyway if you want to check out old pictures of the Airport when it first opened like the first one in this post click [Here]

If you want to see pictures of other great architecture projects from the 70’s and 80’s check [Here]

Recently it came to my attention that my MacBook hard drive (a 60GB Seagate) contains a fatal defect. Its not only me, a lot of other MacBook owners also have the same defect so I decided not to risk it failing on me and went to Bin Khaldoun street to get a new drive.

I wanted to upgrade my drive to a 7200rpm and the only place I found that carried them was Soft Island (tel 2633666). I got a Seagate 100GB 7200 RPM for KD25 which is pretty cheap (costs KD30 on newegg). Here are other prices I found keep in mind these are 2.5inch laptop drives.

Western Digital 250GB 5400 RPM: KD54
Hitatchi 160GB 5400 RPM: KD30
Samsung 120GB 5400 RPM: KD27
Seagate 100GB 7200 RPM: KD25
Seagate 100GB 5400 RPM: KD20

If you have a MacBook you need to check and see if your drive is defected or not by going to “About this Mac” from the menu, then click on “More info…” and select “Serial-ATA”. If it says Revision 7.0.1 your drive has the defect. [More info]

24. Dredge thinly sliced chicken breasts in flour or cornmeal; cook about two minutes a side in hot olive oil. Place on bread with lettuce, tomato and mayonnaise.

101 simple and quick recipes like that. They all seem very easy to do. [Link]

Red Bull sent us the results of the Flugtag and we weren’t last we actually came in 17th place! Pretty cool.

1 THE FLYING STARS
2 OPTICAL BOYS
3 BLACK PEARL
4 MISHAAL AL NAJADI
5 AMZN
6 THE PHOENIX
7 eL ¼
8 THE RED CARPET TEAM
9 THE FLYING PIRATES
10 NISSAN ZEPPELINS
11 DRAGON FLY
12 CIRQUE DU SULTAN
13 HUNGER 7
14 BLIZZARD
15 BUTTER FLY
16 THE FLYING MUMMY
17 IMPERIAL 27
18 HKM 3
19 DIET CENTER
20 B-TUNES
21 FLYING ANGELS
22 DREAM TEAM
23 BENQEEZ
24 FLYING LOGISTICS
25 DIVAS TEAM
26 4TH RING
27 PIRATES OF THE ARABIAN
28 AUTO TECH

Budour emailed me telling me about her home-based bakery specializing in desserts. According to her, what makes her different from other dessert places that have popped up is that she takes pride in making simple straightforward good desserts without the fuss. I haven’t tried her desserts so I can’t vouch for her but the pictures on her site do look appetizing.

With all these small businesses popping up I should probably go ahead also and open up my own shawerma place. It would be cool to have my own shawerma place and I can have a large pink magenta sign outside and my place would have some weird cheesy name that doesn’t make sense like “Rose of the Shawerma” or “iShawerma”. Anyway, you can check out the deserts Budour has to offer by visiting her website bdesserts.com

I think Kuwait should replace the dangerous lamp posts on the Gulf Road with these flexible and much more safer ones. I posted about this 2 years ago but I didn’t have a video to accompany my post but I just found it now on YouTube so I thought I would share it with everyone. The safer lamp posts cost more but its not like Kuwait is going broke anytime soon. [YouTube]

Here is a link to my original post. [Link]

When I posted about the Nokia N810 the other day Cajie made me aware of a better alternative, the Asus Eee PC. I hadn’t heard of it up till then and I don’t know how since its probably the perfect portable laptop. Its tiny with a screen measuring 7inches, it has a fully QWERTY keyboard, built in wifi, built in digital camera and it boots in under 10 seconds. The laptop comes pre-installed with a version of Linux that contains firefox, open office and a bunch of other softwares although you can install Windows XP if you really want although I see no reason to. The best part? It costs only $399! I placed an order for one on Amazon but it seems like there is a waiting list. Oh and for those of you interested, my Knight Rider is in Kuwait just stuck in customs. Anyway here is the link to the Asus Eee product page on Amazon.
[Amazon Link]

Picture by dalelane

I got an email today from a reader informing me of a new burger place that opened up called Cheeburger Cheeburger. Its an American chain that opened up their first international branch here in Kuwait last month and according to their website, their burger was voted the best burger in 28 cities. The problem was where they opened up their location, Souk Salmiya. I hate that place, its probably one of the worst designed malls in Kuwait containing some of the crappiest stores and its always over crowded and parking is always nearly impossible to find. Still, I decided it might be worth the visit and so after work I headed straight to Cheeburger Cheeburger.

The place is located on the top floor in the food court and their location is surprisingly pretty big. The interior is themed like Johnny Rockets which is the 1940’s-50’s style although I doubt they copied Johnny since both restaurants launched around the same time back in 1986. When I got the menu I noticed they had a limited time special offer going on where 1/3 lb burger with fries and coke was priced at KD2.250 while everything else on the menu had 25% off. I decided to go with their combo and I ordered a side order of onion rings with dipping sauce. The way you order the burger at Cheeburger is you choose the thickness of the burger, you then choose the type of cheese you want on it (they have 8 kinds) and then you choose what toppings you want and if you want any certain sauce. I didn’t get too creative with mine since it was my first time, I just went with swiss cheese, ketchup, tomato and lettuce.

A few minutes after placing my order my coke arrived and it was in a jar! I thought that was pretty creative since I don’t recall ever getting my softdrink in anything but a cup. While waiting for my appetizers I noticed a bunch of Trivial Pursuit cards on the table near the salt and pepper shakers. At first I assumed that some kid had left them behind but then I noticed every table had a bunch of cards. Turns out they have them there for the customers to entertain themselves with while they wait for their food to arrive.

The first thing the waitress brought me were my onion rings and fries followed shortly after with my burger. The onion rings were skinny but delicious, the dipping sauce had a lot to do with it. Anyone who’s had the awesome blossom at Chili’s will recognize the sauce immediately, I love it. The fries were good but nothing to set it apart from the competition. My burger, well I can’t imagine it being voted the best burger in 28 cities. It wasn’t bad, on the contrary it was good, it just wasn’t special. Thats probably my fault though since I went pretty safe with the toppings. The bread was good, the meat was good, it was everything else in the burger that didn’t stand out. Maybe next time I could try their one pound burger, according to their website if you can finish it they would put your picture up on the wall and I can’t imagine it being that difficult to finish.

The place in general wasn’t disappointing, they had a lot of little things that made it special and thats what I liked about the place. For example nyone who’s eaten at Johnny Rockets knows how crap their paper napkins are, they are too tiny and too thin. Well at Cheeburger Cheeburger their paper napkins are kitchen paper rolls which is fantastic. I know napkins aren’t usually important in a restaurant review but I just wanted to use it as an example of the little things I am talking about. My biggest disappointment in the place is the location and location is everything. I hate Souk Salmiya and I know I am not the only one. If Cheeburger Cheeburger was open at say Marina Mall or in Jahra then I would go back again over and over but sadly I doubt I would go back to Souk Salmiya unless I really had to. If it was located anywhere else it would most probably get a 4 out of 5 but because its in Souk Salmiya I am giving it a 3. My bill came out to be KD3.150 which I think is a steal. You can check out their menu by clicking [Here]

I just got the following email which I found strange since not only is the event in a few hours but its also being held nearly at the same time as the premier of the movie Sharq.

Dear Lovers of cinema,

The Embassy of the Republic of Poland, in cooperation with the Kuwait Cine Club, has the pleasure to invite You to the screening of the film “In the name of” directed by Beata Hughes.

The event will take place at the premises of the Kuwait Cine Club (map enclosed) on Sunday, November 18th at 7 p.m.

The film tells a story of three women and their struggles on the path to fulfillment and happiness. Its aim is to indicate that every human being has a potential that can develop into a passion, individual’s fight against the odds and standing up to mediocrity. One can also give up one’s dreams and follow the crowd’s expectations.

The film could be described as minimalist, with hidden meanings, surreal and open for interpretation.

During the event a discussion with film’s director and cameraman are planned.

Hope to see You on Sunday evening,

Best regards,

Watch the trailer [Here]