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I’ve had my Toyota FJ Cruiser for more than 3 years now and after just completing my 80,000KM service I think I’m in a good position to write a review about my experience with the dealer. My biggest concern when originally getting the FJ was the local dealers success. They sell a ton of cars everyday and I was worried I wouldn’t get any attention or be given any importance as a customer after the sale was completed. I was also concerned because of the amount of cars they sell, a simple oil change might be a very time consuming process. I got those concerns and more answered and they’re in my review below which I’ve divided into 4 parts; the buying experience, the quick service experience, the spare parts/service prices and finally the customer service.

The Buying Experience
This is by the far their weakest aspect. I purchased my FJ from their large showroom in Al-Rai, it’s not a pretty showroom and the cars are just lined up side by side like a supermarket shelf. They seem to have very few salesman and too many customers. I don’t think there is any other dealership in Kuwait that gets as crowded as the Toyota dealership. Not a good starting experience, but everything actually gets a lot better once you do buy a car.

Quick Service
If the buying experience was the weakest aspect, their quick service garages are their strongest. After buying my FJ I was given a list of quick service locations around Kuwait which I could go to to service my car. I found my preferred quick service location and started to pass by over the weekends to get my oil changed and the experience wasn’t that great since there would always be a long line. Then I found out that my quick service garage would actually stay open till 9PM and that’s when things became so much better. I just started passing by in the middle of the week during the evenings and the quick service garage would be completely empty. Actually, even if you pass by during the day in the middle of the week there would probably be just one car ahead of you, super convenient.

Spare Parts / Service Prices
I just performed my 80,000KM service which according to the service employee is the most expensive service for my car. I paid KD200 and that price included changing front and rear brake pads. A regular oil change also costs me I think like KD11 (my FJ takes 7 liters of oil). I had also purchased a discounted service package right after buying the car which lasted me till 60,000KM. Basically if the total amount of services was going to cost me say KD450 over the years, they offered me to pay around KD250 in advance and all my services would be covered till 60,000. They even offered me another discounted package when that had expired but I decided not to take it since I wasn’t sure if I was going to keep my FJ for another 3 years.

Customer Service
I love the customer service at Toyota from small things like getting a phone call to remind me about my car services to more complicated things like customer treatment. I actually had a really good experience with one of their employees just last week which is what actually led me to wanting to write this whole review. I won’t go into details because it’s a bit complicated to explain the whole scenario, but basically the service advisor called me and told me my car would be ready at 1PM the following day. I tried to push for the car to be done by 12PM since I had a meeting at 2PM and the service advisor said he would try his best. Next day I headed to Avenues which is near my service center to kill some time. 12:45PM the service advisor calls me to tell me my car is done but I would have to pass by after 2PM to pick it up because they have to wash it and the service center closes between 1 and 2PM for lunch. I got super pissed and told him how he had promised me to have the car done at 1PM even though I was pushing for 12. I also told him he should have told me they had a lunch break from 1 to 2PM since I could have been at the service center before 1PM to wait for my car to be ready. I told him I was at the Avenues now and would need more than 15 minutes to get to my car and then to get to the service center. He told me not to worry and that he wouldn’t go on his lunch break and I could come by between 1 and 2PM to pick up the car but that it wouldn’t be washed (which wasn’t an issue at all for me). So I got there around 1:15PM and the employee was extremely professional with me. Even though everyone else was on a lunch break, he got all my paperwork signed and walked me himself to the cashier and the collection point and then even brought up my car from the garages basement himself. I told him I was really impressed at how professional he was and loved how he managed to keep his composure while I was blowing up on him on the phone (I can be a dick when I’m pissed). I was really impressed and I don’t get impressed.

At first I thought I would email the dealer my feedback on my experience but then I was like you know what, it’s been three years of great service and people generally tend to write about stuff when things go wrong (like me with my bank last week). So I figured I would take the time and write up a review about my positive experience with a company in Kuwait. If you’re considering getting a car from Toyota, you should know you’re also probably getting the best after sales service as well.

A few years ago I posted about Abdullah Al-Moussawi (Sayed in Europe), an 11 year old Kuwaiti boy with incredible football skills. Someone had uploaded a video of him on YouTube playing football and the video ended up catching the eye of a football scout in Holland who later tried to get Sayed to move and train in Holland. Sayed became a sensation in Holland and was given the nickname “the Pearl of Arabia”. But, there was a bit of controversy and the move never happened. You could read my old post for the full story [Here]

I just wanted to post an update on Sayed. Even though he didn’t end up moving to Holland he was flying there every now and then to train with the top Dutch club SBV Excelsior. But last Wednesday, the director of TT (TrainingTrips.eu), an organization affiliated with professional players and football clubs (among them FC Feyenoord, Ajax, Manchester City, Liverpool, Club Brugge and FC Barcelona), welcomed Sayed into the organization and will now be taking care of his football career.

According to Jeroen Gösgens the director;

“Sayed has the potential to make it as a professional player. That’s why we’re convinced that it’s vital to make the next step right now. We work exclusive with top- talents and academies throughout Europe and it’s in our strong believe that any delay at this stage of the process won’t be in the best interest of Sayed’s development.

Since the first time that we saw him play 5 years ago, we’ve followed him carefully and now he’s ready to make the next step. Therefor his attendance at a pro-academy is an absolute requirement for his career.

We’re confident about Sayed’s motivation and capacity. Our expectations of Sayed are high. We only work with our own selected players and make no concessions whatsoever in this regard.

That Sayed comes from Kuwait is special in the way that we never had a player from the Gulf Region before. However, we want to convey him because of his exceptional- talent, determination and passion for the game. Considering that Sayed has reached his current level basically on his own strength with just help from his father, family and friends is already an amazing accomplishment by itself. We’re happy to welcome Sayed in our ‘family’ and will support him in every way to become what he really wants to achieve; being a valuable, creative player in a major league in Europe.”

It’s a pretty cool outcome and an incredible story considering all this started because of his low res YouTube video and with no support locally.

Those white decorative stones that have started appearing around various streets in Kuwait… yeah they’re not the best idea in the world.

I spotted the flyer above stuck on a wall near Sultan Center Shaab and thought it was pretty thoughtful. A quick check of the instagram account @santanimals reveals its an account with the goal to help stray animals in Kuwait as well as creating awareness on animals in general. A great initiative.

Not sure when this took place but according to the guy in the video, the bus lost control and slammed into a parked red car before coming to a stop just outside the Centro Electronics store in Kuwait City. [YouTube]

The Playstation 4 was released in North America on the 15th of November and sold a million units in 24 hours. We’ve had to wait until earlier this week to see the PS4 officially released in Kuwait and the Gulf and as of this post, it’s pretty much sold out with supposedly no new shipments arriving until early January. So what’s the noise all about? Do you need to own the PS4 now? Are the launch games worth it? These are some of the questions I’m going to be answering in this post.

The PS4 itself is designed nicely, it’s as small as the slim Playstation 3 (maybe even a bit smaller) and it’s pretty light. Complete opposite of the first iteration of the Playstation 3 which was huge, bulky and ugly.

The second thing I’m going to talk about is the new controller, the Dualshock 4. I wasn’t a big fan of the Dualshock 3 and preferred the 360 and Wii U controllers over it. The Dualshock 3 felt light, cheap and didn’t fit well in my hands. I also wasn’t a big fan of the design as it was difficult to clean due to the dirt getting caught on all the edges. The Dualshock 4 changes all of that – the design is nice, sleek and clean, it fits comfortably in my hands and it doesn’t feel cheap. The small touchpad on the face of the controller works well and isn’t overly sensitive to touch (unlike the Sony Vita’s rear touchpad). The controller also features a mono speaker that plays some sounds as you’re playing games. It takes a few minutes to get used to the fact that the controller doesn’t feature a “START” and “SELECT” button like the majority of controllers have had throughout the years, those buttons have been merged into one “Options” button. One of the new additions that’s been making some headlines is the “SHARE” button. When you press it, the PS4 will create a screenshot of the moment and a video clip of the last 15 minutes of gameplay. You then decide where you want to upload them to Facebook or Twitter. If you also feel like broadcasting what you’re playing to the rest of the world, you can also do that through the services of Twitch or USTREAM. All this is done seamlessly and I was surprised to see how Sony have simplified the process.

One thing I dislike about the controller is the light bar which is located on the back of the controller. The light bar displays different colors to alert you on things like low health (it’ll glow red), but it’s kind of a useless feature unless you’re looking at your controller as you’re playing. If you sit directly in front of your television as you’re playing, the controller creates an annoying reflection on your TV when the games you play feature dark levels or segments – it just breaks the immersion. Hopefully there’ll be an update in the future that’ll allow us to choose whether we want to keep the light on or not.

The next thing I want to bring up is the Playstation 4’s user interface. This is another feature that I think could be improved. I’ve never been a huge fan of Sony’s user interfaces, whether it’s the Playstation 3’s menu or the Vita’s terrible use of bubble icons. The Playstation 4’s user interface has three sections. The first is the main menu; icons for your games, the browser, music, video, etc are all accessed from there. The second section (when you press down on your D-pad) is specific to the application or game you’ve selected. So for example, if you press down when Killzone: Shadow Fall is selected, a menu will appear that shows your recent activity, a shortcut to the community, multiplayer modes, and the game manual. If you press up on the main menu, the third section of the menu system appears and this is where you can access the Playstation Store, Friends List, Trophies, Settings and a few other options. I just don’t find this system to be intuitive at all. Why is the Playstation Store icon not located in the main menu and instead hidden in the upper section? Why aren’t the menus customizable? Nintendo and Microsoft both offer menus that are somewhat customizable, so why can’t Sony?

Moving on to launch games. I was given two games to try out by Sony that were launched exclusively for the Playstation 4, Knack (a 3D platformer adventure game) and Killzone: Shadow Fall (a first person shooter). Knack was developed and designed by SCE Japan Studio and Mark Cerny, both have an impressive repertoire of games and so I was surprised to see the below average reviews for this game. An hour into the game and you could see why it’s been getting poor review scores. First off, all the characters (especially Knack) are bland. Think of all the great characters in 3D platformers that we’ve seen in the past; Super Mario, Sonic the Hedgehog, Crash Bandicoot, Banjo-Kazooie, Ratchet & Clank, Jak and Daxter, These games featured a whole cast of colorful, interesting characters and most importantly, the main characters were memorable. Knack’s design is forgetful and pretty ugly. He’s made up of all these tiny pieces and shapes and as you progress through the levels you start to grow as you gain more of these pieces until you’re huge and you’re able to do massive amounts of damage. The combat in this game is just “X, X, X” repeated, until you fill up your special power gauge and then you can perform a special move. The level designs are incredibly linear and lack any sort of inspiration. How linear are they? Well, there’s only one path through the level – no little deviations, no hidden paths, no shortcuts. There are “secrets” behind walls that have very large cracks to visually tell you that the wall can be smashed. Those are placed along the paths so they’re not even really hidden. There’s literally no sense of exploration and the platforming segments aren’t even challenging. Very young kids (younger than 10) might enjoy it, but I recommend most of you to skip this game if possible.

Onto Killzone: Shadow Fall. Before playing this game I had only ever played and beaten Killzone 2 which I thought was fun with very intense firefight, but also had a forgettable story with forgettable characters. The characters were beautiful and had fluid animation but the level layouts (which were well designed) were visually boring to look at. Everything seemed to be just a variation of grey with some brown tacked on. Shadow Fall seems to continue the trend of having forgettable characters and horrid writing but has much more beautiful and varied level layouts. The first level you play is vivid and colorful (there’s a bit too much lens flare for my taste though), the second level is the opposite, it’s dark, gloomy and kind of freaky. The shooting and firefights are really fun. Graphics? Not a massive leap from the PS3 but for a launch game it looks really good. You’ll enjoy this game if you go in expecting a straight up first-person shooter with a fun single player experience and multiplayer modes. But, you’ll be disappointed if you’re looking for a FPS that has an interesting plot with memorable characters.

Now the important question, is it worth buying the Playstation 4 now, or should you wait? The controller has been improved, the console is designed nicely, it isn’t heavy, it isn’t bulky and it has a promising line-up of upcoming new games. There’s no doubting the potential of the console, just one look at Killzone: Shadow Fall will tell you that. 2014 will be a good year for gaming with titles like Tom Clancy’s The Division, Witcher 3 and Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes coming out. My issues with the PS4 are minor. The light bar on the controller, the menu system and the lack of a media server wont affect my enjoyment that I’ll get from playing games on the machine. Still though, I’ll wait a few months before purchasing one. None of the exclusive launch games interest me and the ones that aren’t exclusive I’ve already played on my 360/PS3/Wii U. If you can’t wait and want to pick one up now, the games I recommend are Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, Killzone: Shadow Fall, FIFA 14, Battlefield 4, and Lego Marvel Superheroes.

Posted by Patrick

[YouTube]

Here’s a cool new music video and it’s not a rap video! Amin Farid Abdal is a Kuwaiti-Puerto Rican with a background in music performance and production. His latest music video is for a track called ‘WebCam Girl’ and it’s off his upcoming album ‘Neon Darkness’. Check out the video above and then check out his SoundCloud page for the rest of the tracks [Here]

Caliburger, the burger chain from South California will be opening five locations in the Middle East next year, the first in Bahrain in February followed by Kuwait in April and then Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Erbil (Iraq). From all the locations Erbil is probably the best idea while Kuwait is the worst. Unless it’s a huge name like In-N-Out or Wendy’s, we have too many burger franchises here as it is already. [Source]

The fight took place over the weekend. [YouTube]

Update: From Arab Times

A Kuwaiti citizen and an Iranian expatriate sustained injuries when they were beaten by three youths during a quarrel in a popular commercial complex in Al-Rai area. According to security sources, the citizen was shopping inside the commercial complex with his wife and his friend of Iranian nationality when three youths made a derogatory comment about his wife.

He immediately confronted them and it resulted in a fight between the two groups during which the citizen and his Iranian friend sustained injuries. Securitymen and paramedics rushed to the location when they received information about the quarrel. Paramedics referred the two injured victims to the nearest hospital while securitymen referred the three youths to Andalous Police Station where a case of sexual harassment was filed against them.

Supposedly, this took place a few days ago in Kuwait. I’m surprised the bakala has a security camera. [YouTube]

I would have thought they would have fixed this by now. All I’m trying to do is submit a request to renew my Civil ID online and the Public Authority website doesn’t work until after 2PM. Unless there is someone that comes in at 2PM and sits inside the computer answering queries, this should not happen. The internet doesn’t take a coffee break.

A beautifully produced flip-book of memories from the 2013 Nuqat Conference that was held in Kuwait last month. [YouTube]

If you’re interested in the tech behind the film, it was shot by Tarek Jammal with a Canon 5D Mark III using the 24-70mm f/2.8 Sigma lens. The film was composed of around 9,000 photos and they were color corrected in Alien Exposure before compiling them in a Mac app called Time-Lapse and then edited in iMovie.

There is going to be bungee jumping at Souq Sharq later this month. The jump height will be 100 meters which I understood is the highest it’s ever been done in Kuwait before and it will be held over the water. Here are the details:

Date: December 19th to December 21st, 2013
Time: 10AM to 10PM
Location: Souq Sharq Mall
Price: KD25

If you’re interested, the last day for booking is this Thursday December 12th. To book send a whatsapp to 94004335. For more details follow them on instagram @bungeekw

Save Sea Life is an awareness campaign for a healthy sea life and this Saturday they’re having a beach clean-up in coordination with the Kuwait University finance club. If you’re interested in participating here are the details:

Date: Saturday, December 14th 2013
Time: 10AM to 12PM
Location: Kuwait Towers beach

The 248AM iPhone app is finally updated and available in the Apple Store to download. There are two main fixes, the first is the fact the app now works with iOS7. The second fix is that the app now runs in full screen. I also submitted the updated Kuwait Blogs app into the store and that should be come available to download in the next few days.

To download the app just search for 248am in the Apple Store or click [Here]