Search: “kuwait”

The reason I am asking is because two days ago he posted a video on YouTube of his car arriving to Kuwait… its a Bugatti Veyron!
[Video Part 1] [Video Part 2]

Nibaq just emailed me this which really cracked me up:

Hear about the tiger that escaped the San Fransisco zoo and killed 1 guy and injured 2?

In Kuwait a lion escapes in a neighborhood and no one gets injured.

Kuwait 1 – San Fransisco 0

Badar Al Badoor increased the price of their Kebab and shawerma sandwiches to 300fils.

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.

I will be going down to Lebanon tomorrow for 2 nights. While I am away Nibaq, K.thekuwaiti and zDistrict have access to post here as usual.

On a side note, traffic this holiday was the worst I had ever seen. Every year it just keeps getting more and more packed. And where did this freezing weather suddenly come from??

We were at work yesterday when someone came in and told us there were firemen downstairs trying to rescue a cat that was stuck on the second floor of a building. So I took my camera and headed downstairs even though I thought it might be a dumb prank but surprisingly it turned out to be true.

There was one large fire truck and two small ones parked in the middle of the street and wen I got closer I spotted the everyday street cat trapped on a small ledge on the second floor of the building. It was pretty weird seeing the firefighters there planing out the rescue of a regular street cat. I never imagined the firefighters in Kuwait would care about saving pets yet alone a street cat.

Everything was going smoothly and the firefighters on the ground looked like they had figured out a way to bring the cat down safely when suddenly this other firefighter popped his head outside the second floor window and with a large stick started pushing the cat off the side of the ledge. This idiot was trying to push the cat off the ledge and the other firefighters below were yelling at him to stop but he kept on pushing the cat off the ledge.

Finally once the cat got to the far end of the ledge it tried to escape the stick by stretching out and down towards the window below. Then suddenly the firefighter pushed the cat off and the cat landed hard on the windows ledge and fell into the building. The cat was lucky. Once the firefighter came back down he got a yelling at from his superior below for disobeying him and nearly getting the cat killed.

Even though the dumb firefighter ruined what could have been the perfect rescue it was still great to see them answer a call to come rescue a cat. I thought that only happened in movies.

After reading the post below by Nibaq on The Local Egg Crisis I am suddenly very disgusted by Sultan Center. I just recently noticed that we have an egg problem, I had heard something about an egg crisis from a friend but only when I was at Carrefour this past weekend and noticed their eggs section was completely empty that I realized how severe the crisis was.

I do all my shopping at Sultan Center and awhile back I noticed they were suddenly getting eggs made in India. I decided to get a pack and later in the evening while making dinner I cracked open a few eggs only to find some strange black stuff inside some of them. It was really disgusting and I ended up throwing away the whole pack. I now don’t buy eggs from India and instead buy the more expensive locally produced organic eggs.

After reading Nibaqs post below I just found out that the fresh eggs Sultan are selling are NOT fresh and instead are over a month old! Thats really gross and no wonder the eggs I got were rotten. I usually don’t keep anything in my fridge for long and to find out that the eggs from Sultan are a month old is just shocking specially when eggs last only 5 weeks. Sultan Center should do what Carrefour is doing and not bring in Indian eggs at all! I would rather see the shelves empty instead of buying eggs only to find them rotten.

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.

The Sony dealer is selling the 60GB PS3 for only KD135. According to the salesman at the Souk Sharq branch they also have an offer where you can get a 60GB PS3 with an extra controller and a game of your choice for KD139. Thats a pretty good deal.

I am at the airport now waiting for my pane back to Kuwait. I just had lunch at Cafe Matik which I think is probably the most boring airport cafe in the world. Its always been this bad at the Beirut airport, for as long as I can remember there has always been a monopoly when it came to food at the airport here. The old restaurant at the old Kuwait airport is like 100 times better than this one. Anyway I am just sitting here watching people going by wishing there was a McDonalds for me to pig out at. (Posted from my Nokia e61i)

I think this will become a regular thing from now on. Everytime I am out of the country, Nibaq, Marzouq and K.thekuwaiti will have access to post on this blog.

I am traveling tomorrow to Beirut for 3 nights so I was just checking moi.gov.kw to see if I have a travel ban and while I was there decided to check on my speeding tickets. I was hoping they had miraculously disappeared but instead I was greeted with a new amount, KD680. Since the last time I checked another ticket got added to the system and its dated October 31st. This is a good sign because in October and November my average speed was higher than the rest of the year so 1 ticket for October is good and now I am hoping November isn’t going to be bad. I’ve been looking for wasta to solve my tickets issue since I heard without wasta I will most likely serve jail time and although that sounds really fun I currently can’t fit it into my schedule.

While at the MOI website I decided to check out other things like my car insurance. Turns out I have two cars and a bike registered under my name that have expired insurance. My car I found out about last week but the other car and my bike I didn’t know about. I don’t even know what the other car is actually, the Wrangler is in Nat’s name. Weird.

Anyway I still can’t figure out how to check if I have a travel ban. I guess I will find out tomorrow.

Why do companies bother getting rights for a brand if they are not going to bother getting the merchandise? Last night I passed by iCity who are the dealers of Wacom tablets in Kuwait and they didn’t have any tablets available in stock just one which was the display model. The salesman told me they get Wacom tablets only by order and that it takes 4-6 weeks to arrive. What the hell?? I could order the tablet myself from Amazon and have it delivered to me in a week AND it would cost me nearly half the price iCity is charging.

Under normal circumstances I would order from Amazon but I need the tablet in the next few days for a friend and ordering from Amazon is not an option. Does anyone know who else sells them in Kuwait (grey market)? I tried Virgin, Jarir and Hawalli and no one has it.

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.