Search: “mis”

If you are going to copy paste articles from blogs and put them on your website at least have the courtesy to link the original blog properly. Gulfnews had no problem copying and pasting my Faloda post onto their website but when it came to copying and pasting my blogs website address they misspelled it and it ended up as 248.am.com!

Its cool they are into blogs and actually publishing them on their website BUT I would do things differently. For one thing I would make the url’s for the blogs at the very least clickable. That way their readers could just click on the links and be taken to our sites helping us get more traffic.

The second thing is I wouldn’t copy and paste blog posts word for word and publish them like that on the site. Instead I would actually get one of the writers to summarize the articles (like we bloggers do) and then provide links to the original posts in case their readers want to read more. That way they would be supporting bloggers again by sending traffic their way.

The way Gulfnews has things set up now they aren’t sending any traffic to the blogs and instead are just using blogs to add more content to their own website. Thats basically stealing since they are taking articles without permission and then not giving anything back in return.

As I said its cool that they are into blogs but I would take things a step further and actually try to support bloggers by sending traffic to them.

Make sure you check their blogs section at gu.lf.news.com

I am in Lebanon shooting a TV commercial for MTC-Vodafone and today is going to be the first day of a three day shoot. I am going to get permission from MTC to allow me to post pictures I shoot on the set at the end of every day. We are shooting two locations today, one in the afternoon and one in the evening. The evening shoot will start once the sun goes down and end before the sun comes back up. Its going to be a really long day but hopefully once I get back to the hotel I will post some pictures.

The reason I am not posting much is because the hotel DOUBLED their Internet rate. Its $5 per hour now which sucks. As you can expect I sent them an email complaining but of course since this is Lebanon, no one cares what the customer thinks.

I was showing my partner at work the blog uncrate.com when we got to the post on the Obelisk chairs (pictured above and right below). I was telling him about how cool the design was when he told me his cousin has them in her store. So during our lunch break we both headed to his cousins store called Home House which is located adjacent to the Amiri Hospital on the Gulf Road.

Right as we walked into the store which was actually an old Kuwaiti house we spotted the Obelisk right in front of us. It was exactly like the one we saw on uncrate except we didn’t expect it to be this big. We were given a tour of the place and it turns out they have some really really nice stuff. I really don’t know where to start since I literally fell in love with their brands.

I guess I will start with my favorite brand they carry which is Vange. They have some of the most beautiful industrial designs. Just flipping through their website now while writing this is giving me goose bumps. Most of the Vange stuff is by order but they had the K-Baby, the K-Bench and the MAUI console on display. I loved the K-Bench and the MAUI series of shelving is just so hot!

After the Vange we were shown some stuff by Gandia Blasco. Their stuff are mostly for patios, chalets and beaches, they reminded me a lot of the stuff I see on CSI: Miami. Their style is the very modern outdoor furniture which comes all in white, very straight edged with white drapes and they are very very sexy stuff.

Finally we were shown some lighting systems by Tobias Grau. It was another brand I hadn’t heard of before but again they have some really really slick looking lamps. So minimal and so cleanly designed. If Apple were to make lamps this is how they would come out.

I am probably going to go back there and see how much the MAUI console and the K-Bench cost since I would love to have them in my place. I didn’t ask their prices while I was there for some reason so I don’t know how much they cost. The Obelisk costs around KD1,600 which although isn’t cheap, its still cheaper then in the US where they sell for $8,500.

If you want to pass by the place its very easy to find. If you take the right after the Amiri hospital you will find that the first house on the left is called Bait Al Cedra. They are located right inside Bait Al Cedra. Its right next to the Karizma gallery. You can call them on 253 0358 in case you get lost or visit their website www.homehouse.be

Here are the websites to the brands:
Vange
Gandia Blasco
Tobias Grau

update: I made a mistake. The store is called Home House not Bait Al Cedra. Bait Al Cedra is the name of the old house where Home House is located. I just edited the post above to reflect this.

Sumayyah Meehan wrote the following article on online shopping for a local magazine but since the article advertises websites that don’t have ad accounts with the magazine, the story wasn’t published. Since its a good article I asked her if I could publish it here and she was fine with it. Here it is:

‘Cyber Shopping in Kuwait’

As anyone who has tried to order merchandise from online ‘cyber stores’ knows it can be a harrowing experience. It can be a total waste of time in that you surf for a couple of hours tracking down that gorgeous shirt or that must have DVD only to find out that they don’t ship to Kuwait. Or else you find someone who does ship to Kuwait and when your package arrives it is either not what you expected or damaged. No more. Just because you want to buy something online does not mean that you have to cross into another country’s cyber ‘border’ to get it. There are plenty of digital pioneers right here in Kuwait and they are armed with the most cutting edge and interactive online stores around. Are you ready to take shopping in Kuwait to a higher level? Get out your charge card, or even your Knet card, and get ready to do some delectable damage at some of these cyber stores based in Kuwait:

Click N Buy – It takes a team of 9 people to keep up with the orders at Kuwait’s online IT store ‘Click N Buy’ (www.clicknbuy.com.kw). According to Manager Rajesh Chander Singh, “Having an online business is easier in terms of running, but it requires a lot of work in the backend.” Click N Buy is almost exclusively an IT company. They sell different brands of desktop computers, laptops, printers, scanners, iPods and accessories. They have additional items that are not IT based which include contact lenses, mobile phones and water purifier systems. “We have been open for a year and are still a new company,” offers Singh, “we sell exclusively to people living in Kuwait and average about 10,000 hits a month.” In an attempt to keep customers interested Click N Buy plans to offer several more items in the future such as watches, perfumes and handbags. They also plan to extend their ‘cyber-dom’ to include other GCC States. In addition to the cyber store they are taking on a new venture which is a website that will help users create their own sleek website in 10 minutes flat! So, keep an eye out for www.w3monster.com. Click N Buy accepts major credit cards as well as Knet. And they boast the lowest prices for IT products and services anywhere in Kuwait. Delivery is free for orders with a minimum balance of 10KD. And you can expect to receive your purchase within 24 hours of ordering! They also accept trade-ins for old laptops and offer IT rentals. And as if it could get any better there is even a discussion forum for customers!

Ever since I saw the ad for KFC’s Fish Zinger sandwich I thought to myself, why?? It didn’t make any sense, who would want to have a fish burger at KFC? Now since I needed content for my blog I figured what the heck, I would try it for lunch. Luckily for me it wasn’t that bad.

It tastes like chicken. No really it does, I think its because the spicy zinger overpowers the taste of the fish… which is a good thing because who wants to taste KFC’s version of the fish anyway. The sandwich is presented in its own customized over sized packaging which misleads you into thinking the Fish Zinger is huge, only once you open it you realize its not that big. The bun they use is pretty good (not the regular KFC bun) but its not as good as McDonalds fillet-o-fish bun which I rank as one of the prettiest looking buns ever.

The price of a Fish Zinger sandwich is KD1.000 and if you order it as a combo its KD1.500. I personally wouldn’t order it again but its really not as bad as I imagined it to be. I don’t know why they would suddenly introduce a fish burger to their menu, maybe they are thinking of launching a Kentucky Fried Fish in the future and they are just testing the waters? Whatever their reason might be I hope they stick to chicken. Final score is a 3 out of 5.

I was at Virgin here in Lebanon checking out the Ingmar Bergman special edition DVD collection when I noticed the box looked like it was missing a DVD. I then noticed a warning label on top which said:

This box set is missing item(s) that were confiscated by the general security for censorship reasons.

So it happens even in Lebanon although DVD censorship here is not as common as in Kuwait and is usually left to really controversial stuff.

[YouTube]

And in case you missed it, the Hungry Bunny commercial. [Link]

Thanks Feras!

note: If you didn’t live in Kuwait pre-1990 you will not get this

Here are two layouts from the Young Lions competition. For those who missed my previous post, we needed to promote the WFP “Food for Education” program with our ads.

The body copy for the “I am hungary” one says:

Help educate children while providing them with nutritional meals. Find out how you can make a difference by donating towards our Food for Education program by logging onto www.wfp.org

The second layout the body copy and the headline wasn’t finalized because we killed the idea in the end. Supposedly the gold winner at the competition had a similar idea with the bitten pencil but I haven’t seen that layout yet to know exactly how close we were to winning gold.

I passed by the jewelery exhibit tonight at the Mishref fair ground to check it out since my cousin who recently came in from Thailand had a display there (ZoRaB). On the way in to the exhibit I found a huge shawerma stand outside so I went up to a guy there and ordered myself two shawermas. The guy turns to me and tells me these shawermas are not for sale, they are for management upstairs! I found that strange, actually not really that strange since this is Kuwait but still, a fancy jewelery exhibition and the management upstairs have their own shawerma stand right outside?

So I walked in to the exhibit hall and right at the entrance the Kuwait Customs had a display. Again this felt out of place but I figured I would get closer and check it out. I have to say, its one really strange display. The backdrop of the display had a collage of pictures from their most famous drug busts I think. There were also a couple of pictures of alcohol busts, you know the very cliche 200 bottles of red label on the floor and 3 Bangladeshis posing behind them. Now the cool part was the magic section. They had a display of magical items they had caught, its seriously the silliest stuff. There was a horse shoe, some rings, a few rocks and a lot of handwritten notes. I think those were curses or something. On the far left they also had some pharmaceutical items (they looked like adrenalin shots) and three fake DVDs. I still don’t understand why they had a display set up at a jewelery exhibition, maybe for comical relief.

The jewelery exhibit itself was kind of dull but I am also not really a jewelery person. The exhibition ends today (Monday) so if it is your kind of thing maybe you should check it out, the customs stand itself is worth the trip.

I am at the airport now waiting for a flight to Dubai. Originally we were supposed to leave on the Sri Lanken airlines flight at 7:10 but that got delayed till around 9:30. Problem is there is a soccer match tonight and me and my partner are supposed to watch it at the Double Decker pub in Dubai. We tried getting on the Emirates airline flight which takes off at 6 but it was fully booked and in the end there was only 1 seat left and they gave it to this guy who had like a gold skywards card or something.

I am now sitting in Starbucks just waiting for our late flight. We are going to miss the soccer match which I was looking forward to watching…

On my way to Marzouq’s place tonight I ran over a beautiful white fluffy cat. It was horrendous but there was nothing I could do to stop it. I was exiting the the Fahaheel expressway going around 80km/hour when suddenly out of no where this white fluffy cat jumped out of the bushes and right in front of my Wrangler. I slammed the brakes but it was useless the cat was too close, I quickly centered the car to pass over the cat but the cat still hit the bottom of my car. I pass over it and look in the rear view mirror, I saw a cloud of smoke from my brakes and then noticed the cat bouncing madly in the middle of the road. I couldn’t stop since there were a lot of cars behind me but I was hoping one of them would run over the cat and put it out of its misery. I felt awful and the thing is for the brief second I did see the cat it didn’t look like a street cat but more like someones pet. Sucks!

So I passed by the BMW dealer today and they tell me that I have a leak in the car which is causing it to overheat. They then give me the list of parts required to fix the leak, here are the items:

SP: KD30
Mount. plate: KD13.850
Exp. Tank: KD18.950
Thermostat: KD14.200
Radiator Cap: KD4.650
Switch: KD4.400
Housing: KD24.600
Fan Clutch: KD45.850
RMFD. Pump: KD21.950
Hose: KD9.050
Hose: KD7.700
Hose: KD7.500

Parts = KD202.700
Labor = KD98.750
Mis. = KD20.000
———————-
Total = KD321.450

Is it me or does that seem like overkill just to fix a leak? I am not a mechanic but why would I have to replace the radiator cap to fix a leak? Why change the thermostat, a switch and fan clutch also?? Wouldn’t the leak be from just one place? So why not just replace that one item why do I have to replace everything else also? I had my car towed out of the dealers garage and its now going to get fixed elsewhere. Once I find out how much its going to cost me to fix it outside I am going to post it here.

You won’t believe what happened to me today! Yesterday I picked up my BMW from the dealer and as I mentioned before, the car overheated just before I reached my home. Today morning I was supposed to pass by the dealer to give them a piece of my mind when on the way while driving on the Gulf Road my car overheats again! I parked the car in the Green Island parking lot and called a friend who got a tow truck to come pick up my car. We took my car to the BMW dealer and I go up to the guy who had taken care of my car and told him that after I left the dealership yesterday the car over heated and today on my way over it also over heated. He was very cold and didn’t apologize or anything, he took my car keys and told me to wait and then left.

Fifteen minutes later the guy comes back and tells me your car needs to stay here you can leave now. I was like what do you mean I can leave?? What about my car, how long does it need, whats wrong with it? He was like they are checking on that now. I was like ok but I need another car, I have work and things to do. He was like you can talk to the manager so I do.

I explain my situation to the manager, I tell him I brought my car in because of some strange vibrations and after paying a shit load of money I take the car back and suddenly its over heating. I tell him its a fault from their side and they should give me a car to use until they fix their mistake. He tells me its not their mistake and its not their responsibility. He tells me its very normal for a car to over heat and it can happen to any car at any time. I stood there in shock, other then the fact that no one apologized to me but now the guy is telling me that the problem is my fault no theirs! What car built in this century still over heats?!? Maybe if it was 1985 and I was stuck in traffic I could imagine a car over heating but this is a 2001 BMW and its over heating without any traffic!

I end up leaving the place thinking about how much I hate BMW and the dealership. When I was thinking of selling my car I was thinking of maybe getting a BMW Z4 or a Land Rover LR3 but now I am thinking about how I never want to buy a BMW ever again yet alone anything from this dealership.

A few minutes ago I get a phone call from BMW, they tell me they found some leak and it will cost KD320 to fix. I was like excuse me? No thank you, please don’t touch my car I will pick it up tomorrow and go fix it somewhere else.

Just found out how much my car will cost to repair…

Labor: KD496.300
Parts: KD1004.450
Misc: KD30
————-
Total: KD1530.750

note: this is to repair some things in my BMW not Wrangler. Also on a positive note, the service is extremely friendly.

Today morning I returned the Lumina to Europcar. I had found a better deal on another car with another rental agency so I no longer wanted the Lumina. The employee at Europcar was extremely friendly and even though I had rented the car for only 1 day she still gave me the same rate as the weekly one which is KD10 a day.

After that I walked over to Al Sayer rental which was very close by. I had passed by yesterday evening to check out a Toyota Echo he had and I was planning on renting it. The car wasn’t in great condition with hub caps missing and some weird stains on the seat. I figured I could haggle the price down a bit but the guy refused. He wanted KD5.750 per day if I wanted the car for a week but if I brought the car earlier he would charge me KD7 a day. I told him Automax was renting a Corolla for KD6 a day and I was sure it was in better condition. He refused to lower the price and I left the place.

Once I got to work I called Automax and asked for a Corolla. Guy told me if I have the car for less then a week its KD7 a day but if its more then a week its KD6. I asked if they could drop the car off to me and they said it wouldn’t be a problem and it would be at no extra charge.

So now I am driving a 2006 black Corolla. Its not in the best condition either and I have no clue where the car papers are because I couldn’t find them in the car but it’s cheap. I just paid them KD30 deposit and thats it, they didn’t take my Visa card number or anything. I actually don’t think I would have trusted them with my credit card details anyway, the whole thing feels fishy to me. This is why I would rather deal with international franchises but of course those cost more.

I really have to say though renting from Europcar was really great and the service very friendly. If anyone needs to rent a car from them you can call Lisa on +965 6540248. She was very helpful and probably the best person I have ever rented a car from.