Search: “mis”

A couple of weeks ago I posted about the fact that I was thinking of building a gaming PC for my sim racing needs. After a lot of flip flopping on the idea because of the high cost involved, I finally pulled the trigger.

I was put off by the idea of spending so much on a PC since it was just going to be used for gaming, and my Mac mini which I use to earn a living cost me way less. But after going back and forth in my head and reading about how prices were just going to go up, I decided if I could build a PC for 1,250 I’d get it. So I headed to Hawally to see what the prices were like since up till that point I was just checking local stores that had websites.

99% of the shops were selling everything for the exact same price as the ones online, so that wasn’t helpful. But then on my way to PCkuwait which up to that point had the best prices, I decided to pass by Limra Computers.

I posted about Limra all the way back in 2012, they’ve always been my go to place mostly for hard drives and other computer accessories. But for some reason I forgot that they carry everything in that tiny shop. So I passed by and gave him the full list of items I wanted and he quoted me a 1,300 KD. I still needed a way to drop it down to 1,250 so I decided to swap the motherboard from the Asus TUF B870E to the TUF B850Plus since it wasn’t going to make a difference for my use. That reduced the price considerably and I left to sleep on it and then came back the next day to buy it.

This was my final build:

CPU
AMD Ryzen 7 9850X3D – 180 KD

Motherboard
ASUS TUF Gaming B850-Plus WiFi7 – 82 KD

RAM
Kingston Fury Beast RGB 32GB DDR5 6000MHz CL30 – 145 KD

SSD
Samsung 9100 Pro 2TB PCIe 5.0 – 135 KD

GPU
ASUS TUF Gaming GeForce RTX 5080 OC 16GB – 570 KD

Cooler
ASUS TUF Gaming LC III 360 ARGB LCD – 58 KD

PSU
ASUS TUF Gaming 1000W Gold ATX 3.1 – 58 KD

Case
ASUS TUF Gaming GT302 ARGB – 40 KD

Total
1,268 KD including a Windows 11 Pro license

I compared my total price to NewEgg.com and surprisingly it was exactly the same. The different items varied in cost, like some things are cheaper in Kuwait, some cheaper on NewEgg, but the total still came out to be the same thing. That made me feel a bit better. So far though my experience has been a bit of a mess… on the software side.

I built the PC myself which was easy and the fun part. It’s been 25 years since I put a PC together and surprisingly nothing has changed, it’s still the exact same process. I’m glad I stuck to the Asus TUF ecosystem for everything since visually everything just looks good together.

But when it came to software, thats where things got mess.

I ran into issues installing Windows 11 since the installer couldn’t see my hard drive. Online I read that because its a new Gen 5 drive that some motherboards had trouble reading it, and after hours of trying different workarounds in the BIOS to get Windows to read my drive, it turned out the issue was with the Windows 11 boot drive I had made.

The first Windows 11 boot drive I made was using the Mac software called balenaEtcher.
The second one I did I used another software called Win Disk Writer. This worked. Hours wasted for nothing.

After installing Windows I then had to spend a couple of hours downloading and installing all the drivers. I didn’t know you guys still had to do this in 2026. Windows 11 couldn’t even read my built in wifi without installing a driver, wtf?

Currently, my computer looks like a Christmas tree with all these colorful LED’s. I have 8 fans, 7 of which have brights LEDs that are cycling through the rainbow. I have an LCD screen on my cooler for some reason that is playing an animation but can actually play videos as well. Even when the computer is in sleep I have some part of the motherboard glowing rainbow colors from the back. And why RAM sticks need brights LEDs?

This whole obsession with lights and screens INSIDE the PC is really bizarre, but whats weirder is I’m kinda liking it. I wouldn’t be surprised if in a few months I didn’t end up getting more screens and LEDs to put inside the case.

I also have a bunch of technical issues I’m trying to solve at the moment. My TV is 120hz but when I set the PC to 120hz the screen starts to flicker every few seconds, so I’m forced to keep it at 60hz for now. The ASUS software that controls the LED’s also doesn’t recognize the case or the cooler so I can’t control those LEDs yet. My first experience running Assetto Corsa Rally and Dirt Rally 2.0 didn’t result in graphics that much better than my Xbox. But I guess I knew that would be the case already, Dirt Rally 2.0 isn’t a new game and runs in ultra settings on a lot weaker GPUs perfectly fine. But it’s all about the mods, and I think once I get all the technical stuff out of the way I can focus on gaming and downloading ultra realistic graphics mods to really get the GPU working.

So far I’m obviously regretting this purchase. It was 100% stupid and knowing me I’ll end up installing Duke 3D, Red Alert Aftermath or the original Theme Park and end up just playing those. But in the long run, at least I’ll have a good PC to run GTA6 if it comes out this year. Also maybe down the line I can get a second screen and set it up for flight simulation. I don’t know, I’m just trying to convince myself I didn’t make an expensive mistake.

Last week I posted about a very cool initiative called Al-Arfaj where they created a badge of gratitude and recognition for those on the frontlines. The initiative quickly took off beyond their expectations, and demand for the badge exceeded production by a huge margin.

Since that post, I’ve been getting messages and comments asking where to get a badge, so I decided to compile the places into a list. There are now a lot of people producing these badges to help meet demand, but the list below is of the companies who first adopted the initiative, so these come from the initial batches produced by @alarfajflower. All available for free and include the information card.

% Arabica
Available at almost all branches to customers who make a purchase, though they go fast, so if they’re out just check back another day.

Crown Dental
Available to their patients for now until they get more stock.

Dabdoub
Included with every purchase.

Elevation Burger
They are available at different branches which change daily. They announce the locations on their Instagram and no purchase is necessary.

Jibla Dental Center
Available to anyone who wants one, not only patients.

Pret A Manger
Available at their branches in Hamra, Sabah Al salem, Assima, and Messilah. No purchase necessary.

Rainforest Park Spa
Available to their customers for now until they get more stock.

Stock Room Coffee
Due to limited quantities they’re only giving them to their loyalty program customers at the moment.

Vol.1
Limited quantity available to customers at their branches in Downtown, Mishref, Salmiya, and Shuwaikh.

There are a couple more spots as well, I’m just waiting to hear back from them before adding them to the list.

Update: If you want to print it out yourself with a 3D printer, you can download the file from MakerWorld.

Back in the 90s I used to really love PC gaming and was constantly upgrading my computer to be able to run different games. When Doom came out my 33mhz PC couldn’t run it (pictured above) but our “family computer”, a Pentium 60 could so I used to get permission from my dad to play on it. Eventually I took over that computer since nobody at home really knew how to use it except me (pictured below).

When I moved to uni in 96 I used to spend all my money on CDs and upgrading my computer. I remember the first legit gaming card I got was the Matrox Mystique. But then a new brand launched called Nvidia and I got their Riva 128 card which was great until 3DFX came out with their Voodoo cards. Games that were optimized for 3DFX looked so much better so got that but I remember I used to have a lot of compatibility issues so got the Nvidia TNT and then later got the TNT 2 Ultra. I think the last decent card I got was the original Geforce 256 before I stopped PC gaming.

Recently I’ve gotten into sim racing and was considering building a gaming PC for it. My Xbox Series X is great but some games like Assetto Corsa Evo, Assetto Corsa Rally and iRacing aren’t available on the Xbox while other games like Dirty Rally 2.0 have ultra realism graphic mods that the Xbox version doesn’t have. It was pretty hard to get a grasp on whats considered good or not good nowadays since I haven’t had a Windows PC in over 20 years, but with the help of Ai I think I kinda started understanding things and managed to build a really good gaming PC, but wtf is up with these crazy prices??

This is the build I managed to put together based on parts currently available locally, I think memory is the hardest thing to get right now:

CPU
AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D Gaming Processor — 179 KD

Motherboard
Asus TUF GAMING X870E-PLUS Motherboard — 129 KD

RAM
Kingston Fury Beast RGB 32GB (2x16GB) DDR5 6000MHz CL30 — 145 KD

Graphics
ASUS TUF GAMING GeForce RTX 5080 16GB GDDR7 OC — 580 KD

Storage
Samsung 2TB 9100 Pro NVMe M.2 SSD PCIe 5.0 — 117 KD

Cooling
Asus TUF Gaming LC III 360 Liquid CPU Cooler — 62 KD

PSU
Asus TUF Gaming 1000W Gold ATX 3.1 Power Supply — 58 KD

Case
Asus TUF Gaming GT502 — 54 KD

Total: 1,324 KD

That seems really insane, I thought I was going to end up paying like 500-600KD for a high end gaming PC but this is more than double that. I thought this might just be the usual Kuwait over inflated prices but seems to be pretty much the same even in the US. Crazy! How are you guys doing this?

Most people know Shaab Park from the late 90s, but back in the 80s it looked completely different. I’ve been looking for photos of what Shaab Park used to look like in the early days what seems like forever, but I’ve never been able to find any… other than my own personal family photos.

Since I used to (and still do) live in Salmiya, my mum would take me and my siblings to Shaab Park to meet up with our friends since it was close by. Back then the park wasn’t fenced up, and it was a large green field and looked pretty vast in the photos. There was a sandy area with some slides, swings and toys, and there was also an area with a small rollercoaster, bumper cars and other rides.

Some of the residential buildings in the background I think are still there today. You can also see the Al-Muzaini Mosque in one of the photos and the Abdullah Al-Salem School. The Abdullah Al-Salem School is where the Abdullah Al-Salem Cultural Center is today. When the school was demolished in 2014, it wasn’t operational but Al-Maidan Cultural Centre was located there. Al-Maidan was part of Dar al Athar al Islamiyyah and used to hold various performances and musical events.

Based on how old I look in the photos, the fact that my younger brother isn’t in any of them (he was born in 1985) and the different outfits I’m wearing, my best guess is these photos were taken between 1983 and 1985. Check out all the photos here.

I’m trying to ease myself back into posting, and while thinking of a subject, I remembered some photos and research I’d gathered last year on the Kuwait Fire Force. Most of it was kindly provided by Colin Tomlinson and Ali Asad, whose fathers Len Tomlinson and Husain Asad both served as Chief Fire Officers.

Before 1946, fires in Kuwait were fought by the residents themselves using water carried by donkeys and mules. Then in 1947, a Ford tanker truck equipped with a pump and hose was brought in to help extinguish fires and in 1949, a second truck was added to meet growing demand. By 1950, the fire brigade had added four new tanker trucks and personnel had grown to 30. Development continued from there, and the photos in this post are of the Ahmadi Fire Department, taken mostly in the late 50s and operated by the Kuwait Oil Company (KOC).

KOC had originally established two fire stations, one in Ahmadi and one in Mina Al Ahmadi. In the mid 60s, the government established another fire station in Ahmadi. Then in the early 70s, KOC handed over all the firefighting activities to the State fire force and one rule was established which is still active today, any fire involving KOC assets in Ahmadi is led by a KOC fire officer.

To check out all the photos, click here.

I just published a post on Instagram about how I’m not going to post about the war over there. But, I will be posting about it here, at least for archival purposes.

When I initially launched the instagram account I gave it a different set of guidelines to follow vs the main blog, and one of those was that I wouldn’t post negative content. It’s why you’ll sometimes see a post here complaining or criticizing something, but you wouldn’t find it on my instagram account.

The blog on the other hand serves as a personal diary of a sorts, a memory timeline for myself where I come to and search for places, events, things and whatever else that happened during the past 20+ years of blogging. It would feel weird if in the future I wanted to find articles about this period we’re going through and not find anything. Especially since war blogging was how I first started in 2003.

Yesterday the airport getting damaged was pretty shocking and unexpected. I think the last time our airport got hit or damaged because of a missile was during the Iraq invasion in 2003, but I can’t seem to find any info on that especially now since all the news popping up relates to yesterday.

I’ve been using twitter to find most of my content like videos and stuff relating to different incidents happening around the region, but there is also so much fake stuff to sift through. So much fake content or inaccurate content that even when I come across a real incident it’s hard to tell if it’s actually real. A good example is how there is lots of content about Burj Khalifa being hit in Dubai which isn’t true, but then when I came across content about Burj Al Arab being hit I couldn’t tell if it was also fabricated.

On the other hand there are also a lot of funny memes on twitter which has been lightening up the mood.

Anyway, stay safe everyone, hopefully all this will be over soon.

I’ve been publishing my annual Ramadan buffet list since 2013, which means I’ve built a pretty solid and interesting archive of pricing data over the years. Below is the list of Ramadan buffets, updated for 2026. The list divided into two parts, hotels and restaurants. If I missed a place let me know in the comments, especially really cheap/affordable buffets.

If there has been an increase or decrease in price compared to the previous year then I’ve also highlighted that.

HOTELS

Al Jahra Copthorne Hotel & Resort – Taima’a Restaurant
Buffet Price: KD9.5
Telephone: 24590000

Arabella Hotel – Icon Rooftop Lounge
Buffet Price: KD18
Telephone: 22277744

Arabella Hotel – Envy Restaurant
Buffet Price: KD16
Telephone: 22277744

Courtyard by Marriott – Atrium
Buffet Price: KD17 (+2.000)
Telephone: 22997000

Crowne Plaza – Al Ahmadi Restaurant
Buffet Price: KD17
Telephone: 1848111

Four Seasons – Jawaher Tent
Buffet Price: KD28 (+1.000)
Telephone: 22006000

Four Seasons – Li Beirut
Buffet Price: KD27 (-1.000)
Telephone: 22006000

Grand Hyatt – Miral
Buffet Price: KD22 (+2.000)
Telephone: 22007698

Grand Majestic Hotel
Buffet Price: KD7.950 (-0.050)
Telephone: 22254700

Hilton Garden Inn – The Avenues
Buffet Price: KD22 (+2.000)
Telephone: 22262000

Jumeirah Messilah Beach – Majliss Tent
Buffet Price: KD28 (+4.000)
Telephone: 22269600

JW Marriott – Terrace Grill
Buffet Price: KD27
Telephone: 22063636

Kuwait Continental Hotel
Buffet Price: KD9.5 (+1.550)
Telephone: 22527300

Marina Hotel
Buffet Price: KD20 (+3.000)
Telephone: 22230030

Millennium Hotel – Lamar International Restaurant
Buffet Price: KD15
Telephone: 22050505

Montrose – Free Zone – Bays Restaurant
Buffet Price: KD14 (-1.000)
Telephone: 22055700

Movenpick – Al Bida’a – Breeze Restaurant
Buffet Price: KD18 (+3.000)
Telephone: 22253100

Park Inn by Radisson
Buffet Price: KD18
Telephone: 22068540

Radisson Blu – Al Bustan Restaurant
Buffet Price: KD19.5 (+1.000)
Telephone: 25673000

Safir Hotel – Fintas
Buffet Price: KD16 (+4.100)
Telephone: 25455555

St Regis – Diamond Ballroom Tent
Buffet Price: KD30
Telephone: 22422055

Symphony Style Hotel
Buffet Price: KD15 (+1.000)
Telephone: 25770000

SVN
Buffet Price: KD19
Telephone: 1876777

The Regency Kuwait – Silk Road Restaurant
Buffet Price: KD24
Telephone: 25766666

Waldorf Astoria – Oxio
Buffet Price: KD29 (+1.000)
Telephone: 24774414

RESTAURANTS

Almayass
Buffet Price: KD12 (+0.500)
Telephone: 25761001

Assaha Lebanese Restaurant
Buffet Price: KD14 (+1.250)
Telephone: 22533377

Babel
Set Menu Price: KD14.950
Telephone: 22081111

Dar Hamad
Buffet Price: KD16
Telephone: 22275555

IKEA
Set Menu Price: KD2.95
Telephone: 1840408

Jihan Khanah
Buffet Price: KD10
Telephone: 1819991

Kuwait Towers
Buffet Price: KD13
Telephone: 24965500

Leila Min Lebnen
Set Menu Price: KD12 (-3.000)
Telephone: 22996414

Mughal Mahal – Hawally
Buffet Price: KD6.45 (-1.000)
Telephone: 22626782

Naranj
Buffet Price: KD12
Telephone: 22268666

Paul
Set Menu Price: KD12.5
Telephone: 22208204

Saraya Palace
Buffet Price: KD8
Telephone: 25712998

Vapiano
Set Menu Price: KD7.950
Telephone: 22597171

Villa Fayrouz
Buffet Price: KD12
Telephone: 22650052

I was in Mishref yesterday when I drove by this sign near the Korean embassy and thought it was too funny not to turn around and take a photo of it.

Happy Ramadan everyone. Here are the Ramadan timings you’ll probably need, if I missed any other important ones, let me know in the comments.

Banks: 10AM to 1:30PM (not including airport and malls)
Government: 8:30AM ~ 10:30AM to 1PM ~ 3PM
Car Registration Renewal: 10AM to 3PM
PACI: 10AM to 1:30PM (Kuwaitis) 2PM to 4:30PM (Expats)

360 Mall: 10AM to 4PM and 8:30PM to 1:30AM
Al Khiran Mall: 10AM to 4PM and 8:30PM to 1AM
Al Kout Mall: 10AM to 4PM and 8:30PM to 1:30AM
Assima Mall: 10AM to 4PM and 8PM to 1AM
Avenues Mall: 10AM to 4PM and 7:30PM to 1:30AM
Boulevard: 10AM to 3PM and 6PM to 1AM
Marina Mall: 10AM to 4PM and 7:30PM to 1:30AM
Salhia Complex: 10AM to 3PM and 8:30PM to 1AM
The Warehouse: 10AM to 4PM and 8:30PM to 1:30AM

Cinescape: From 8:30PM
GrandCinemas: From 8PM
Sky Cinemas: From 8PM
VOX: From 7PM

Al Shaheed Park: 5AM to 2AM
Abdullah AlSalem Cultural Centre: 8PM to 12:30AM (ex. Sundays)

Co-ops: Most open 24 hours
Lulu Hypermarket: 8AM to 3AM
Sultan Center: Standalone stores open 24 hours

Ace Hardware: 10:00AM to 11:30PM
Bin Nisf: 8:30AM to 2:30PM and 8PM to 10:30PM (ex. Friday)
IKEA: 10AM to 4PM and 8PM to 2AM
Jarir: 10AM (Friday 2PM) to 5PM and 8:30PM to 1:30AM
True Value: Open 24 hours in Salmiya, 10AM to 1AM in Al Rai
Xcite: Open 24 hours in Al Rai, Fahaheel, Hawally, Salmiya

Illustration by @windowsofuae

As a pet owner myself, I think this is a pretty cool idea.

Bubbles & Paws is a local pet furniture concept started by three pet lovers who ran into the same issue a lot of pet owners have faced before, they couldn’t find pet furniture that worked with their living spaces. Most of what was available was either too plain, too bulky, or looked like it belonged in a storage room. On top of that, a lot of the options they came across weren’t very comfortable or didn’t feel safe enough for their pets.

So instead of settling, they decided to create what they couldn’t find.

The goal wasn’t to make flashy designer pieces, instead, it was to design furniture pets would actually enjoy using, while still fitting naturally into a home. Furniture that felt cozy and looked good, not something you felt like hiding when people came over.

What started as a personal frustration quickly turned into a business idea. One built around the idea that pet furniture shouldn’t feel like a compromise, either for your pet or your living space. They currently have around a dozen different designs, each in its own color, so it shouldn’t be too hard to find something that fits your space. Their Minty Heaven bed for example might work for my dog, while the Frosty Ears bed could be a better fit for your cat.

They have options that work for most living spaces, so if you want to see the full collection, head over to their website bubblesandpawscompany.com

City Hypermarket, Kuwait’s fastest-growing locally owned supermarket chain, officially opened its newest location in Aswaq Al Qurain on February 4th. The new store was launched by the Founder Mr. Adel Alghanim, Deputy CEO Mr. Nasser Alghanim and Mr. Marzouq Alghanim, delivering on the brand promise of “Value, all the time” with a spacious, redesigned store and competitive Ramadan promotions for families across Kuwait. The opening was also attended by members of the press, the mall owners and landlord, amidst a festive celebration with the general public.

The new Qurain store features refreshed and redesigned layouts that deliver a more elevated and spacious shopping environment for customers. To celebrate the opening, City Hypermarket launched competitive deals across fresh produce, supermarket food items, and household essentials — all designed to make Ramadan shopping more cost-effective and convenient for families across Kuwait. The opening celebrations also featured a cultural Kuwaiti performance, family activities, and free giveaways for all to enjoy.

Deputy CEO Mr. Nasser Adel Alghanim expressed pride in the opening, stating:

“We are proud to open our first store in Mubarak Al Kabeer Governorate to serve the Al Qurain community at such an important shopping period. As a Kuwaiti company, this opening reflects our commitment to bringing our ‘Value, all the time’ promise closer to more families across Kuwait, helping them prepare for Ramadan with stronger value and greater convenience.”

In addition, City Hypermarket highlighted its specially curated household range for the season, developed with locally inspired designs that reflect Kuwaiti and Arabic culture and heritage. The range features three dedicated collections: Alanoud, Andalous, and Fajer from its exclusive Into Home Arabesque brand, as well as the beautifully designed WABA range. It also provides everything needed to prepare for the season, including kitchen essentials, serving and dining sets, glassware, cookware, and more.

Renowned for its large-format stores and one-stop-shop convenience, City Hypermarket has built its reputation as one of the best locally owned hypermarkets in Kuwait. The brand’s commitment to value-driven pricing and customer-centric service has driven consistent growth and increasing market share across the country in recent years.

The Qurain opening marked another milestone in the company’s growth trajectory, with another store planned to open in 2026 in Eqaila as the brand continues to expand its footprint across Kuwait.

The Qurain location welcomed its first customers on February 4th and is now serving the community 24 hours a day with the same commitment to value and service that has made City Hypermarket a trusted name across the country.

About City Hypermarket

Founded in 1999 by Mr. Adel Alghanim, City Hypermarket is Kuwait’s fastest-growing locally owned supermarket chain, committed to delivering exceptional value to Kuwaiti families and the wider community through competitive pricing and continuous promotions, including its signature 900 fils offers and ½-1-2-3 KD deals. Guided by its brand promise of “Value, all the time,” City Hypermarket has proudly served Kuwait for 26 years, with ambitious plans for continued expansion.

On Friday, I woke up to a notice from Instagram saying they had removed one of my posts for violating community standards. Apparently, their AI misread my post about Ozempic prices in Kuwait versus other countries and thought I was “selling prescription weight-loss injections.”

I was given the option to appeal the decision, which I did. A couple of minutes later, I received a message saying my appeal was rejected. I’m guessing the appeal was also reviewed by AI, because I was then given the option to submit the post to an “Oversight Board” for review. I did that, and I’m now waiting for a response.

The issue is that my account now has some restrictions. Most of them don’t really affect me, except for one important one, I can no longer mark my ads on Instagram as a “Paid Partnership.”

I always mark paid posts as paid partnerships and also add my own “Promoted” badge so there’s no confusion to what content is paid for and what isn’t. Yesterday, while posting an ad, I found out about this new limitation, so I ended up added the hashtag #paidpartnership at the bottom. I think that’s a fair compromise for now until Instagram sorts this out.

It’s pretty scary knowing that Instagram’s AI can misinterpret a post and automatically limit your account, or even shut it down. I understand using AI to flag content for a human to review, but I didn’t realize it had this much power. A lot of people rely on Instagram for their livelihood, me included. In this case I was lucky AI didn’t suspend my account or something and just restricted some features. In my previous job Instagram suspended one of our restaurants accounts because AI thought we were pretending to be a pharmacy which went by the same name. Took us forever to get it back online.

It’s one of the reasons I prefer my blog here, I’m in control and if something happens my hosting provider Wavai are a WhatsApp message away. And it’s happened before where the blog went down or I messed something up, I’d just contact them and they sort out the issue for me. When I contacted Instagram support and spoke to a real person about my issue, they couldn’t do anything about this since they told me they didn’t have the authority and I needed to wait for the Oversight Board’s decision.

Hopefully the Oversight Board are real people who will see the mistake and get my account restrictions removed.

Yesterday I shared a video called Kuwait Nights 1984 created by Faisal Alrajhi and instantly fell in love with it. He created the video using AI, so after sharing his post on my story I got in touch with him to see if he could share his process with my readers.

Due to the length of his project he couldn’t share the full breakdown, so instead we decided to focus on one of my favorite scenes, the Green Island sequence.

Step 1 – Creating the visuals

The first thing Faisal did was create a custom prompt on Google Gemini:

“Create an 8-bit pixel-art scene of Kuwaiti people relaxing, sitting on benches, and walking inside Green Island. Show the iconic tower in the background, kids running in the distance, and palm trees lining the walkways. Use retro warm tones and subtle pixel shading.”

For the pixel-art images, he used the Google Gemini app along with Freepik’s Nano Banana feature. Freepik gave him higher-resolution results, which made a big difference when putting everything together into a video. He also added reference photos he found on Google, like shots of Green Island, to help the AI recreate the scenes more accurately.

Once he had all the images generated, he did some light touch-ups in Photoshop to clean things up, fix small details, and remove anything the AI added that didn’t belong.

Step 2 – Converting stills to animation

Once he had a scene he liked, Faisal then animated the images using an image-to-video AI tool from Freepik.

Step 3 – Creating the soundtrack

For the music Faisal used the AI music generator Suno. He gave Suno 30 seconds of the original song he wanted to use then used the following prompt to convert it into an 8-bit video-game style soundtrack:

“A playful 8-bit track opens with bright, pulsating chiptune synths and a bouncy, syncopated square wave melody. Driving 8-bit percussion interlocks with rapid arpeggios, playful sound effects, and simple bass, keeping the energy high. Short bridge introduces quirky glitch textures.”

Step 4 – Combining the scenes

The final step was putting everything together, he used Final Cut Pro.

So in case you want to replicate this video style, just follow steps 1 and 2 over and over for the different scenes and then combine them using a video editor.

When I posted this on Instagram, someone people left comments hating on the fact AI was used to create this. I think there is a huge misconception or naivety on how difficult and even impossible it would be to create a video like this without AI. One follower left a comment saying that Faisal should have instead “learn how to do pixel art and write music” as if it’s something someone can do by watching a YouTube video and not requiring any talent. I think that comment is actually more insulting to artists than him using AI to create this video. But even if Faisal was a pixel artists, it wouldn’t necessarily also mean he would know how to animate or compose music. Even if he did, the process of creating something like this would have taken months. Hiring a team to create a video like this especially when it’s something just for fun is also not realistic or feasible. AI has its issues, but in this instance it’s allowed someone to create something that wouldn’t be possible without the use of AI.

Make sure to check out Faisal’s Instagram account, he posts a lot of cool tech videos and they’re always informative. @f_alrajhii

I’m planning to go camping next week and need to pick up some new gear to add to what I already have. Even though next week’s trip is in the desert, I’m also hoping to camp in Saudi this year and maybe Failaka, where the image on top was taken by @diam89. There isn’t much time to order anything from Amazon for next week, but thankfully we do have a lot of local options.

Most of the brands sold in Kuwait lean more toward the budget end, but my favorite outdoor brand is Nemo Equipment and we luckily have a local dealer for it, although their selection is a bit limited. I bought a NEMO tent 13 years ago and still use it today so always try and buy their stuff when I can.

If you’re looking for camping or outdoor gear, I’ve listed the places I know that have a good selection along with some of the brands they carry. If I missed a place let me know in the comments.

AAW
Campingaz, Coleman, Magma, Snow Peak

Ace Hardware
Bestway, Coghlan’s, Coleman, Mr. Heater, Pavillo, Wenzel

Al Azame
Barebones, Leatherman, Nitecore, Teton, Thaw, Victorinox

All Degrees
Biotite, Black Diamond, Osprey, UCO

Alyash
Sells mostly Alyash brand

Camouflage
Sells mostly Camouflage brand

Camp N Sea
Bestway, Coleman, Dometic, KingCamp, Naturehike, Nemo, Outwell, Teton, Thaw

Decathlon
Sells only Quechua brand

DreamTeam
Gerber, Leatherman, Nebo, Nitecore, Olight, Pelican, SOL

Naturehike
Sells only Naturehike brand

ORP
ARB, Biolite, NEMO Equipment

Outdoor Kuwait
Camelbak, Campingmoon, GSI Outdoor, Jera, Solo Stove

I’m sure you’ve heard of UPayments by now. If you’re starting a business or already running one, their name has probably come up more than once.

What makes UPayments interesting is how much they’ve transformed over the years. They started off as a simple payment solution, but today they’ve become a full ecosystem that a lot of businesses rely on. And now, as a subsidiary of NBK, they’ve grown into one of the most trusted and regulated payment providers in Kuwait. That alone gives a lot of confidence to anyone trying to build a serious business.

When you’re choosing a payments partner, there are plenty of options out there. But reliability, security, and long-term stability are things you can’t compromise on. That’s where UPayments really stands out. They’ve gone from being “another payment solution” to becoming a solid growth partner for businesses of all sizes.

Only after that transformation does it make sense to look at what they actually offer today. Their services cover pretty much everything a business might need:

• Online invoicing and payment links for instant collection

• A full e-commerce platform to help you launch and run an online store

• Payment gateway APIs and plugins for easy website and app integration

• Smart point-of-sale devices for in-store payments

• A property management and rent collection system for landlords

If you’re running a small business or planning to start one soon, UPayments is definitely worth checking out. You can find more information on their website upayments.com