Search: “mis”

Let me know if this has happened to you. Whenever I order anything from Amazon straight to Kuwait, I either get the packages shipped via FedEx, or Aramex.

When the package gets shipped by FedEx, I don’t run into any issues, the packages get delivered straight to me without delays.

On the other hand, if the package ships with Aramex, it’s a completely different story.

The package doesn’t go out for delivery, instead Aramex starts blaming me for the delay either by stating they attempted to deliver the package and I wasn’t there, or that the delivery information is missing. This happens basically all the time.

Amazon sends me a message daily saying my package is on hold because Aramex is saying there is missing delivery info. Aramex doesn’t attempt to call me to get the “missing” info. I also can’t called Aramex to ask them what info is missing since there isn’t a way to talk to a human being and their automated system doesn’t have an option for updating delivery or whatever. They also have an automated WhatsApp system that you could in theory try and get a hold of a real person through, but I haven’t been able to get someone myself to verify that actually works. Yesterday I tried that and I’ve been on hold for more than 24 hours now and haven’t gotten a hold of anyone.

So the package usually stays in limbo for a few days, Aramex telling Amazon they can’t deliver cuz of missing info, and I can’t call Aramex to give them whatever missing info they want. Then, a few days later magically Aramex somehow manages to get the missing info and send my package out for delivery.

I have a theory to why they do this, I believe it’s so that they don’t look slow in front of Amazon. They blame the customer so that it’s not their fault for being late. End of the year when Amazon audits there delivery speed it won’t show any delays in delivery that way.

So let me know if you’ve run into this problem before because I’m sure it can’t be happening just to me.

Update: This is hilarious but I have another package that was meant to be delivered today and they couldn’t because “We’ve attempted to deliver the shipment, but the office was closed. Not to worry, the delivery has been rescheduled”

They tried to deliver at 11:39AM so obviously they are lying because the office was open at that time. This summarizes my issue with them, they keep coming off as liars. If they were just honest and were like “Sorry we couldn’t deliver the package today because it’s the holidays and we have too many shipments to deliver” I would have understood and be ok with it. But saying the office is closed when it isn’t, come on….

Frank’s, the go-to spot for authentic Philly Cheesesteaks, has just raised the bar with an exciting new menu item, the Frank’s Philly Burger. Known for their bold flavors and quality ingredients, they’ve managed to combine two all-time favorites into one irresistible creation. Imagine their iconic Cheesesteak, loaded with tender beef and melty cheese, now paired with a juicy Angus beef patty.

This game-changing combo delivers the best of both worlds in every bite. Whether you’re a Cheesesteak purist or a burger enthusiast, the Frank’s Philly Burger promises to satisfy your cravings and leave you coming back for more.

If you want to try it out, Frank’s is available on all major delivery platforms. Check them out @tryfranks

Since food posts are back on the menu, here is a cool new spot that opened.

Bread Street is a new micro bakery and deli concept by the same team behind Upper Street and Table Otto. They just opened at JACC, and when I saw photos of the place I thought it looked great with its cool retro vibe, which is why I decided to stop by and check it out in person.

I got there at 8 AM this morning to take photos thinking it would be empty, but even though they had just opened the place was already busy with people. I ended up borrowing the photos for this post from Bread Street and @expensive.appetite, who kindly gave me permission to use his photos as well.

They’re an all-day concept, but I’ve always been a fan of Street’s and Table Otto’s breakfast, which is why I’m excited to try Bread Street’s this weekend. The team really excel at breakfast items, and with JACC already being my favorite Friday morning spot thanks to Cocoa Room, it feels like the perfect fit. They have both outdoor and indoor seating, but the indoor only has around four tables so it’s a fairly small space.

Click here if you want to check out their breakfast and brunch menu.

They currently open from 8AM to 11PM and if you want to check them out head over to @breadstreet.eats

It’s been two years since I launched my Instagram account, and what a year this one has been. Since we are at the end of the year I wanted to do a year in review kinda post so that I have a record of it somewhere.

It was a pretty stressful year trying to find content that would be suitable and engaging enough for Instagram. If a post won’t generate more than 1,500 likes, then I wouldn’t consider publishing it. It’s a difficult ask, and a lot of pressure, especially since I only have around 55K followers, but it’s one of these policies I created for myself so I could keep the quality of my posts high. Plus, I work better when pressured so this helps.

There are exceptions of course, sometimes I like to post things I care for, like I posted about British Film week recently, and another post about a local creative winning an award for a book design. Both posts I wasn’t expecting much engagement on, but I didn’t care really. Other times I post stuff not expecting much engagement, like my Primark post, but then it turns out to be my 2nd most reached and engaged post, and the most shared of the year. I haven’t figured out yet what post will blow up or not, don’t think I ever will. The biggest surprise was probably my post on the new IKEA store in Shuwaikh. I published it and went to walk my dog. I didn’t even check my account again for over an hour because I didn’t want to feel the disappointment of publishing an un-engaging post. To my surprise the post had blown up and it’s now my 3rd most reached and engaged post of the year, I think it has over 6,000 likes. No idea why, but I think the whole comparison to a movie set must have caught people’s attention.

One thing I’ve been trying to tackle is copycats. I used to have that issue back when there were so many bloggers, I’d post about something and then they’d post the same thing. With Instagram I’ve had to deal with people using my photos without permission, or copying content ideas or formats and always without crediting the source. It’s very frustrating obviously because it’s not easy coming up with new ideas or topics, and then people just copy it. But people aren’t just copying me, there is so much copying of each other it’s ridiculous. Someone flies a drone over a new project, posts about it, within hours you have a dozen other vloggers flying their drones to capture the exact same thing and post about it. Someone posts about some hole in the wall fatayer place, suddenly everyone is discovering hole in the wall fatayer places. Mostly, I just find other peoples content so uninteresting and so hard to watch. Why do most vloggers sound like car salesman on a TV commercial?

Financially, this year been really good to me, like a life saver since I got married and had a ton of things to spend on. I generated 0% of my blog income through the website, 100% through my Instagram account. That’s just crazy.

I compared the performance of this year to the past 10 years and 2024 was the highest performing. It’s not higher than 2012/2013 which was the blogs financial peek, but I’m getting pretty close.

Initially I was worried about labeling my ads as ads since I wasn’t sure advertisers would want that, but thankfully, they’ve all been fine with it. I think I only had one or two brands that refused to advertise with me unless I hid the fact it was an ad. Since I’m not in this for the money I obviously didn’t care. I’m also not accepting ads from brands that are being boycotted.

I’ve limited myself to 3 promoted posts a week which is a lot considering I post on average like 5 or 6 posts a week. But it’s good money and I don’t want to turn it away. So instead, I’m just more active trying to find more content to post. It’s a win win for everyone, readers get more content, I get financially rewarded.

Back to the subject of labeling ads as ads, I think my readers appreciate it which is why they’re actually more willing to engage with my promoted content. I still don’t understand how I’m one of the very few people who labels ads as ads. If it’s an ad just tell your followers its an ad, it’s not a big deal.

Now the plan for next year is to try and just keep things the same.

I don’t need more ads, at the current rate I’m more than good. I also don’t need more followers.

I think 55K is basically all my target audience in Kuwait. Anymore and I think I’ll be getting followers who shouldn’t be following me. I’ve had to block so many people this year, I just checked and as of this post I’ve restricted 371 people and blocked 584. I have zero chill. You get two strikes, first strike I restrict you, second strike I block you. The ability to restrict and block people are my favorite Instagram features.

Anyway, until next year.

The ice skating rink used to be one of my favorite landmarks in Kuwait. As a kid in the 80s, I took ice skating lessons there, and by the early 90s, it became a popular hangout spot for me as a teenager. We’d listen to great music (there was a DJ), play arcade games, grab dinner, and, of course, skate. I always loved the building’s design—it was truly iconic. When I created the Kuwait Blogs app back in 2010, I chose the ice skating rink as the image to represent Kuwait. It felt less cliché than the Kuwait Towers, and its unique shape made for a perfect app icon.

The rink was designed by French architect Dominique Beau, whose firm won the contract in November 1977. It officially opened in March 1980, making it the first ice skating complex of its kind in the Middle East. Beau thoughtfully incorporated local culture into the design—the iconic structure was inspired by Bedouin tents, while the terracotta tiles on the interior and exterior walls were influenced by traditional Sadu weavings.

Sadly, the rink was demolished in 2020 to make way for a new ice skating rink as part of the Al Shaheed Park Phase III project. When I got a sneak peek of the new rink last year, I noticed a tribute area dedicated to the old one. It’s a mini museum showcasing parts from the original rink, including terracotta tile wall patterns, ceiling beams, original seats, and other artifacts. Interestingly, the minaret of the Phase III mosque was built using beams from the old rink. Still, I wish they had preserved the original rink instead of replacing it.

I’m usually pretty good at digging things up, but I’ve never managed to find photos of the rink during its construction. Thankfully, Laila Al Hamed from @zericrafts and Huda Abdulmughni from @studio.khemiae spent over a year working to get their hands on some very rare photos. These came from the French architect, Dominique, and an engineer who worked with the Al Kharafi Group during its construction. I’ve shared some of the photos before but I’ve now uploaded them to my Flickr account in their original size and unedited. You can check them here.

Gamzland is a new indoor amusement park that is opening at HOMZ Mall in Dhajeej next month. This is going to be the largest indoor amusement park in Kuwait and will have entertainment experiences for families and adventure lovers of all ages.

The official opening is on December 15, 2024 and will include special giveaways. So mark your calendars from now if you don’t want to miss this celebration.

If you want to stay posted on the opening event, follow @gamzlandkw

The AIU Kuwait Film Festival 2024 kicks off next week for its third consecutive year. This year, the festival received an impressive 3,155 film submissions from talented filmmakers around the world. After a rigorous selection process, 106 outstanding films were chosen, promising an inspiring lineup of stories spanning diverse genres and regions.

There are various activities to enjoy during the film festival, including screenings, lectures, workshops, and discussion panels, all free to attend. Whether you’re there to watch films or you’re an aspiring filmmaker hoping to catch a workshop or lecture, this is an event you won’t want to miss.

The film festival will be held at the AIU campus from Sunday, November 10, to Saturday, November 16. Cinescape is their strategic partner again this year, and as a result, film screenings, and discussions with film personalities will take place both on the AIU campus and at the Cinescape theaters in 360 Mall.

All events during the film festival are open to the public, and are free to attend.

If you want to find out more about the festival, head over to aiu.edu.kw/film-festival or check out the AIU Instagram account, @aiu_kw

This week I started watching the series Disclaimer. I’m three episodes in and it’s ok so far. One thing I liked without spoiling anything is the fact if you have surround speakers, the series takes advantage of them with one of the main characters inside voice. The first time the voice came on I thought Alexa came on by mistake.

Other than that I started watching the movie Trap last night. I’m more than half way in and it’s entertaining but some of the acting is soooo cringe. But I’m still looking forward to finishing the film later today. I also tried watching Love is Blind Habibi, but I couldn’t make it past the halfway point of the first episode.

Yesterday I also picked up the SVS PB-2000 Pro subwoofer from Xcite to use in my living room. Their website was showing it was out of stock but they actually had a brand new one at their Avenues branch. The past couple of weeks I’ve just been splurging on myself upgrading various tech around the house that I use a lot. Last week I got the 65″ TV, the Marantz Cinema 60 AV receiver, and now this week added the subwoofer to my home theater system. The PB-2000 Pro is definitely overkill for my small living room, and I had a bit of buyers remorse after getting it because I really didn’t want to spend that much on a subwoofer, but I tend to live with my sound systems for a very very long time. I still have my Jamo X870 speakers I bought after moving to Kuwait from uni back in like 2001-2002. So they’ve been with me for over 20 years, and although I’ve now replaced them as my home theater speakers with the KEF R7‘s, I still use the Jamo’s in my gym room. Xcite had other cheaper subwoofers, but I have the SVS SB-2000 Pro connected to my iMac and KEF LSX speakers, and I ] really really love it, so I wanted to get the PB version for my home theater. Both SVS subwoofers will probably stay with me for the rest of my life so not a bad deal when I look at it like that.

The last thing I’m upgrading is my iMac. I’m replacing my M1 iMac with 1TB drive and 16GB ram with the just released Mac Mini. I got the regular M4, not M4 Pro but with 24GB of ram and a 2TB drive. I ordered it from the US Apple Store, but I ended up buying the Apple Studio Display from Xcite since they had (might still have) a sale on them. The Xcite price was pretty much the same price as if I bought it online and shipped it to Kuwait, might be a bit cheaper even. If you’re looking to get a used iMac, I’ll be listing mine on the classifieds page end of this month.

Let me know in the comments what you recently watched or planning to watch.

Movies at the Cinemas
The movies below are now showing at the local cinemas:

New This Week:
A Streetcar Named Desire (classic) (7.9)
Canary Black (5.3)
Cricket & Antoinette (6.2)
Monster Summer (6.1)
Piece by Piece (7.0)
Rebellious (6.8)
Red One (6.7)

Other Movies Showing:
Aftermath (6.1)
Cellar Door (N/A)
Elli and her Monster Team (4.9)
Panda Plan (6.1)
Smile 2 (7.1)
Take Cover (5.0)
Terrifier 3 (6.7)
The Silent Hour (6.0)
The Wild Robot (8.2)
Venom: The Last Dance (6.3)

The numbers in brackets refer to the IMDB rating at the time of publishing.

The Kuwait Pavilion at last year’s International Architecture Exhibition at the Venice Architecture Biennale was titled Rethinking Rethinking Kuwait (pictured above). The project was an ongoing investigation aimed at rectifying the effects of modernist urban planning, which led to the erasure of much of Kuwait’s historic built fabric.

That same pavilion has now been moved and reinstalled here in Kuwait. This is the first time this has happened; usually, if you miss the pavilion in Venice, you’re out of luck. But this year, they decided to pack up the exhibition and bring it to Kuwait, where it’s currently on display at the Yarmouk Cultural Center – Dar Al-Athar Al-Islamiyyah.

The pavilion examines Kuwait on a national scale, with a focus on Kuwait City as a prototype features over 30 Kuwaiti exhibitors.

If you’re interested in checking it out, it’s open daily from 10 AM to 7:30 PM, except on Fridays and Saturdays when it’s closed. For more information and photos head over to @rethinking.kuwait

Yesterday I downloaded the new COD on the Xbox Game Pass and started playing it. I really wouldn’t have been as interested in the game if it wasn’t for the fact it was banned in Kuwait due to some of the action taking place during the 1991 Gulf War.

You don’t even have to play through the game to get to the hot stuff, the first mission of the game places you right in the middle of the Kuwaiti desert, I love it. I didn’t get beyond the first mission yet since I had to stop playing to watch UFC, but can’t way to keep at it later today so I can see what part of story exactly caused the ban, because it couldn’t have been banned just because it took place during the Gulf War.

The Kuwait Int Outdoor Expo is taking place at the Mishref Fairgrounds. I passed by yesterday to check it out and didn’t really see or find anything interesting. I wanted to possibly pickup a Solo Stove but nobody had it for sale. Most of the shops were selling fishing gear which I didn’t care for.

I couldn’t take a decent photo mostly cuz it was pretty busy but also because it’s mostly just tight aisles of stores so you wouldn’t be able to see much in a single shot.

If you want to pass by and check it out yourself, it’s taking place until October 26 and it’s open from 10AM to 10PM. They’re located in hall 4A.

The expo’s instagram account is @kuwaitoutdoorexpo

Years ago I found photos of Kuwait from 1980. I didn’t share all of them back then, but I just found the folder on my computer this morning and picked a bunch taken by The Architects Collaborative while they were in Kuwait back then.

When we look at old photos of Kuwait, we often see only beautiful shots which gives the inaccurate impression that everything was perfect back then. Which is why I like these unpolished photos of Kuwait which shows the beautiful old buildings starting to fall apart.

It feels like the architects captured a period when Kuwait was transitioning from old to new once again. Check them all out in hi-res here.

Yesterday, True Value declared bankruptcy in the US. For the time being their stores will stay open, but I’m curious to what will happen to the Kuwait store if they do end up closing down. Although I prefer Ace Hardware since they carry more of the things I need day to day, I’m still a big fan of True Value and like having them as an option. I especially like that they have a location in Salmiya since it’s very convenient for me. Actually, I feel lucky that I have 2 Ace Hardwares and a True Value near my place, only thing missing really is Binnisf and I’ll be set. Anyway, hopefully the bankruptcy doesn’t affect us here in Kuwait.

Auto World Show is a car show that’s more than just a car show. Last year was their first year and they had a bunch of different things happening during the week including talks, sim and RC racing, stunt shows, a 4×4 proving ground and more. This year they’re back again for the second year running and the show starts from today and will last till September 28th.

All the major car brands will be there including the major European ones as well as most of the Chinese brands. I went to it last year and I didn’t find it interesting at all since there wasn’t any car I hadn’t seen before, but I’ll be going to it again this year just for fun.

The show is being held at the Mishref Fair Grounds and is from 10AM to 10PM. For more info, here is a link to their website.

This week I started tapering off House of Cards since I’ve kinda gotten over it. Instead I’ve started watching Mad Men since it’s another great series my wife hadn’t watched before. It kinda makes me miss the days I used to work in an advertising agency, it’s such a good show and stills holds up really well since it’s based in the 60s anyway.

I also just watch the trailer for the new Hugh Grant horror, Heretic. It’s by studio A24 who are behind a lot of great films so going by that and this trailer, I feel this is going to be a really good movie. It’s been a really long time since I’ve cared for any horror, maybe not since Blair Witch Project or SAW.

Let me know in the comments what you recently watched or planning to watch.

Movies at the Cinemas
The movies below are now showing at the local cinemas:

New This Week:
Lee (6.5)
Speak No Evil (6.6)
Subservience (4.6)
The Cleanup Crew (4.3)
Unit 234 (6.9)

Other Movies Showing:
AfrAId (6.3)
Alien: Romulus (7.5)
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (7.3)
Blink Twice (6.9)
Deadpool & Wolverine (8.3)
Despicable Me 4 (6.4)
Gracie and Pedro: Pets to the Rescue (6.3)
Harold and the Purple Crayon (5.7)
Hounds of War (6.1)
Inside Out 2 (7.9)
It Ends with Us (7.2)
Ozi: Voice of the Forest (4.4)
The World Is Not Enough (classic) (6.4)
Trap (7.2)
Wake Up (6.0)

The numbers in brackets refer to the IMDB rating at the time of publishing.