Search: “mis”

I passed in front of the Jeep dealer yesterday and noticed they had the new redesigned Wranglers on display. Since they were closed due to the holiday I called them up first thing today morning. I spoke to a salesman and he told me they had just received the Wranglers and they didn’t have any prices yet. He took my number down and promised he would call me as soon as they did. Later in the day I got a call back and this is what I found out.

Wrangler Sport – 2 doors
Price: KD7,399

Wrangler Sahara – 4 doors
Price: KD8,799

I find these prices too high but Jeep ALWAYS overprices their new cars.

Hungry Bunny is a local creation that opened up in the early 80s in Kuwait. It was inspired by a Australian franchise called Hungry Jack which was what Burger King was called in Australia back then.

In 1997 Al Homaizi Foodstuff Co. who owned Hungry Bunny got the rights to Burger King. Since they couldn’t have two competing franchises they decided to close down all the Hungry Bunnys and open up Burger Kings in the same locations.

Since then there have been copycats the most popular being “Hungry Bunny World” and “Super Bunny” which was named after the famous Hungry Bunny burger. Hungry Bunny World actually opened up a branch on the 4th Ring Road back in 2005 and called it just “Hungry Bunny”. This led to a lot of speculation and rumors that Hungry Bunny was relaunching but they weren’t true. Al Homaizi sued (or threatened to sue) so they added the word “World” on their signage.

I heard awhile back from a friend that Al Homaizi was actually thinking of relaunching Hungry Bunny but I don’t know if thats true or not. For now the only way you can enjoy Hungry Bunny is to drive down to Saudi Arabia where the franchise still exists there. Here is the link to their website: www.hungry-bunny.com

note: the above information is based on my knowledge. If there are any mistakes in dates or events I will fix them but as far as I know the above is accurate.

update: A reader by the name of HaMooR wrote the following:

Dear Mark,

Al Homaizi has the BK franchize since the first hungry bunny openned in Kuwait. and I believe it was Kaifan branch, in order for Al Homaizi to sake BK prudects at that time in kuwait. they have to change the name of BK, because BK was consider in the taboo list (boycott Isreal).

There was a big sign in kaifan branch that says all the meat prudects are BK. So when BK was removed from the list back in 97 .. and there is no reason to for them to hide the name, they switched to BK.

Best Motion Picture of the Year
Winner: THE DEPARTED

Best Achievement in Directing
Winner: Martin Scorsese for THE DEPARTED

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role
Winner: Forest Whitaker for THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role
Winner: Helen Mirren for THE QUEEN

Best Achievement in Editing
Winner: THE DEPARTED

Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Song
Winner: AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH

Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen
Winner: LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE

Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Score
Winner: BABEL

Best Documentary, Feature
Winner: AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH

Best Documentary, Short Subject
Winner: THE BLOOD OF YINGZHOU DISTRICT

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role
Winner: Jennifer Hudson for DREAMGIRLS

Best Foreign Film
Winner: LEBEN DER ANDEREN, DAS

Best Achievement in Visual Effects
Winner: THE PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN

Best Achievement in Cinematography
Winner: LABERINTO DEL FAUNO, EL

Best Achievement in Costume Design
Winner: MARIE ANTOINETTE

Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published
Winner: THE DEPARTED

Best Animated Feature Film of the Year
Winner: HAPPY FEET

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role
Winner: Alan Arkin for LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE

Best Achievement in Sound
Winner: DREAMGIRLS

Best Achievement in Sound Editing
Winner: LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA

Best Short Film, Live Action
Winner: WEST BANK STORY

Best Short Film, Animated
Winner: THE DANISH POET

Best Achievement in Makeup
Winner: LABERINTO DEL FAUNO, EL

Best Achievement in Art Direction
Winner: LABERINTO DEL FAUNO, EL

More details

Here are some movies I watched the past few days, I didn’t like any of them.

Blood Diamond
This was a movie I had been looking forward to see for some time now. When I finally got to watch it, I didn’t like it and it was mostly because of the story. The movie is trying to be real and emotional by showing the truth behind the illegal diamond industry in Africa and while all I wanted to watch was a no brainer action movie.

Little Children
Another movie I had been looking forward to see for a very long time. Sadly the trailer painted a different picture from the actual movie. Not that the movie was bad because it wasn’t. The trailer made me expect a thriller but the movie turned out to be more drama mixed in with romance.

Lonely Hearts
I watched this movie because of James Gandolfini. Since the new season of Sopranos still hasn’t started I figured I could get my dose of mob stories from Lonely Hearts. Turns out this movie had nothing to do with mobs and James Gandolfini was actually a good guy. I still gave the movie a chance but it was just boring. The whole movie is about this serial killer which might have been something dramatic back in the 1940s where the movie is based but today with shows like CSI and Dexter, serial killers is something of the norm.

Babel
Finally Babel. This movie has to be the worst of the bunch. Its trying to follow the same style as last years big hit Crash where stories come together but this time there are 4 different stories located across 3 different countries. The stories alone are nothing exciting and even in the end when they all come together it didn’t do anything for me. Crash was a whole lot better.

Now I have one more movie I want to watch today and thats Little Miss Sunshine. Hopefully it won’t be disappointing.

Pan’s Labyrinth (Movie)
I didn’t like it, it bored me and was uneventful.

Harsh Times (Movie)
I hated Christian Bale in this movie a lot and thats why I loved this movie. He is such an amazing actor, so real that the whole movie I thought he was such a dickhead.

Casino Royale (Movie)
He barely had a cool car for 3 seconds, there was no car chase, no secret gadgets tucked up his sleeves, he still drinks martini and there was no nudity. Yawn.

What Dreams May Come (Movie)
Super boring.

Heroes (TV Show)
Really amazing, lots of characters and things happening. My second favorite show at the moment.

Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares (TV Show)
Not to be mistaken with Ramsay’s Hells Kitchen, Kitchen Nightmares is a much more exciting show. I really love it, its my favorite show at the moment although I think I have watched all the episodes available.

Lost Season 3 (TV Show)
Extremely boring. The shows viewership in the US has also dropped by half. Hopefully they take this as a sign and kill the show.

Grey’s Anatomy Season 3 (TV Show)
Still fun to watch, things are actually happening on the show unlike Lost.

Prison Break Season 2 (TV Show)
Biggest surprise of the year. I thought once they escaped show would get boring but its one of the most exciting shows this year, they really did a good job with the story.

24 Season 6 (TV Show)
Un-Fucking-Believable.

Here is another classic football song called Al Azraq. [MP3 4.5MB]
Thanks to Holla for sending me this song.

And if you previously missed it, Haydoo.

I have posted about Campaign ME numerous times before since its my favorite regional advertising publication. Last week the Campaign ME advertising awards got canceled and no explanation was given which sucked since my agency was tipped as being “Creative Agency of the Year”. Rumors then started flying around that the publication was going to close down and it seems the rumors are true.

I just read an article on mediaME which shed more light into this story. It seems Haymarket, a UK based firm that holds the license for Campaign ME, has pulled the license from IITP the current publishing house of Campaign ME.

It really sucks that they did that. Campaign ME, you will be missed.

Why can’t places in Kuwait have decent websites? Speed Zone is a used car dealership located on the Gulf Road opposite Showbiz. They always have interesting cars parked out in front of it and so when I found out they had a website I was excited. I don’t pass by Speed Zone often so I figured I could keep track of all the cool cars they get via their website.

Turns out I was wrong, their website is a mess and contains practically no information whatsoever. I even checked the Arabic version of the site figuring it might be more complete and still ended up with nothing. It would be cool if they had a live webcam over looking their cars but thats asking to much when they don’t even have a photo gallery.

Also whats with the weird spelling and grammar. They have an animated flash saying “Speed Zone which you can’t catch up”. What does that mean?

Check this out also taken from their site:

prief about Speed Zone
This is Speed zone company on Kuwait which care about speed & luxury vehicles. we will provide the new cars, motorcycle and their spare parts which will give you the optimal performance and speed, so don’t miss our site it would be up to date with the new stuff so catch it up or you will miss it with speed zone.

I really hope they fix things because they do get some really cool cars all the time and their site isn’t doing them any justice. [Link]

Placed order with Papa Johns at 8:30. Promised would be delivered within 45 minutes. Called back at 9:20 telling them pizza hadn’t arrived yet, they told me within 10 minutes. Called back at 9:35 telling them pizza hadn’t arrived yet, they told me they will check on it and get back to me. Called back at 9:45 telling them pizza hasn’t arrived yet even though I called twice. They transfered me to manager who told me he will call back in 2 minutes. Its been 5 minutes and no call back yet and I need to leave the house.

update: called back at 9:55, spoke to manager again told him he had told me he would call me back in 2 minutes and he hadn’t. He told me he spoke to Salmiya branch manager and he is probably trying to call me now and he is getting a busy tone. I told him no I have call waiting if he was trying to call me I would know. I told him I need to know when my pizza will get here because I need to leave. He was like if you have to leave I can’t do anything about it. So I was like then cancel my order, he was like fine. What the hell, what lame customer service is that.

Then a few minutes later I get a phone call from the Salmiya branch manager telling me my pizza will be late. I told him why didn’t you call me half an hour ago when the call center manager told me you would call me. He was like I had to call the driver. I was like you need 30 minutes to do that? I was like anyway I canceled my order. He was like ok and I closed the phone.

I would never order from them again. Why?
– They should have been apologetic instead of blaming it on traffic
– Its Thursday night and they know there is traffic so why tell me 45 minutes in the first place
– After my first call they should have called the driver and found out how long he needed
– After they told me they would call me back they should have called me back
– At the very least they should have offered me the pizza for free, its been over an hour and a half and the pizza is going to be cold anyway
– The two managers I spoke to were not friendly enough

I just got back from the Mercedes SUV experience awhile ago. The event is being held near the ice skating rink parking lot.

So I am parking my car and I spot a Mercedes G-Class doing a climb decent. I was thinking wow they actually have the G-Class here. For those of you who don’t know, my favorite SUV is the G-Class and my favorite SUV list actually goes something like this (notice they are all boxy):

1- Mercedes G-Class
2- Land Rover Defender
3- Land Rover LR3
4- Jeep Wrangler

So I get into the main tent and sign up for a ride in the G-Class and then head over to the car. Once I got close I realized this wasn’t the regular G-Class, this was the freakin 500HP AMG version! This was like the motherload. Sadly I wasn’t able to drive the car today because they had professional drivers taking the guests around the track BUT, I was promised by my Mercedes contact that once the event was over and the car cleaned up I would be able to have it for a test drive. When that happens be sure I will post about it here.

Just got back from the Kuwait Advertising Arab Awards, it was better then last years event but it was still extremely poor. The way the categories were divided and the way the ads were nominated didn’t make any sense. Our agency submitted work to some categories for example but during tonights event those categories didn’t exist. I heard the same feedback from other agencies who participated, everyone was just confused to what the hell was going on. The actual presentation of the awards was also a mess, they couldn’t get the TV commercials playing right (how hard is it to press play and pause) and the woman announcer had the most cheesiest one liners. The event was also supposed to start at 7PM according to our tickets (which had a major mistake btw), but according to their website the event was supposed to start at 7:30PM but in reality the event actually started at 8. There were also less agencies participating this year probably because after last years fiasco no one wanted to be involved with the KAAA.

On a positive note the stage looked good, BUT it was a near copy of the KREA awards. Compare the picture above to the picture [Here]. Notice the starry backdrop?

Anyway my agency ended up collecting the most awards (I think), with a total of 12 bronze, silver and gold trophy’s but it really doesn’t mean much since the KAAA doesn’t have any credibility internationally. One of my favorite TV commercials ever which was created by our Beirut office won a Gold in the food category. The version of the ad they played wasn’t the one I liked though, it has a different soundtrack and editing so I figured I would share with everyone the version I like which I uploaded to YouTube a while back. The commercial was for the product Zwan, if you haven’t checked it out you can by clicking [Here]. And thats it basically, I got to see a lot of old friends and I got to wear a suit so everything else didn’t matter much. Hopefully next year I won’t go.

update: here is another review of the event [Link]

update2: Just found out that they canceled one of our categories because we were the only ones who entered it. So according to the KAAA logic if you are successful and have no competition you can’t win. Now lets play along with that for a moment, how about you call us and tell us that you canceled that category, at least then we could have told the client not to come to the event. No professionalism whatsoever.

On my way to work yesterday I saw some blue banners and something like a stage outside the House of Parliament. Thanks to a reader in the forum (RJV) I found out there was a demonstration yesterday asking for football reform in Kuwait. The full article is available on Kuwait Times if anyone wants to read it. [Article]

I personally haven’t watched that many soccer matches after 1990. Most of the games I watched were all pre-1990 and my favorites then were whenever Kuwait played against Saudi Arabia. Since I play the goal keeper position my favorite player then was Samir Saeed which is why I am now a big fan of Mr Baker (he owns it). I feel like playing football now.

Anyway in case you missed it, here is my post on
Haydoo, Kuwait’s lovely camel. [Link]

Just got back from my ride today morning. I first cruised around Salmiya for a little bit and then headed off to Marina Crescent to see if their were any bikers there I knew. I ended up finding Marzouq who earlier in the morning had been out biking with Nat. We decided we would ride to Green Island where a bunch of Ducati and BMW bikers were gathering up for a ride out to the desert which was organized by TriStar.

As we were approaching the gathering area I spotted the new Ducati 1098s from far. There was no way to miss it, it was parked away from the rest of the bikers and it was sparkling under the sun. We parked our bikes, said hi to some friends and then me and Marzouq went over to the 1098. Its a really tiny and light bike weighing around 170KG and producing around 160HP! Thats nearly one horse power for every kilogram.

Anyway we hung out for a little while and then headed out for a ride. One thing I did today was go back to the intersection I had my first crash in and take the same route I took that day. Might not sound like much but after I had my accident I went through the whole incident in my head over and over and then I kept visiting that route with my car just to go over the spot and try to figure out how I messed up. So today I decided I couldn’t avoid that intersection for ever and I took it with my bike. I think going through the turn gave me a boost of confidence which is what I needed.

One issue I realized I had today was accelerating from a traffic light while I am with Marzouq. I usually know how much throttle to give and how much clutch to let go of using the sound of my bikes engine. But the problem is Marzouqs bike is bigger and much louder and so when I am with him I can’t hear my bikes engine anymore. I swear I think I messed up at like 6 traffic lights today, it made me feel like such a newbie. This is why I decided I am going to either upgrade the mufflers with some really cool louder ones by Termignoni or, try and convince Nat I “need” a Ducati 749.

Wow, Billy Corgan has a Live Journal?! For those of you who don’t know who he is, he was the lead singer for Smashing Pumpkins. For those of you who don’t know who they are, too bad, you are missing out, they are one of my favorite bands ever. [Link]

A reader called Steven emailed me his review on the newly added United Airlines direct route, Kuwait to Washington DC. Its kinda long but it might be interesting for people who are considering this route (or airlines even). Here is his take on the flight:

—————————-

Hi Mark, I am a frequent traveler from Kuwait and have gold status in the frequent flyer programs of Kuwait Airways, Emirates and British Airways. I decided to try United Airlines new direct flight from Kuwait to Washington DC (14 hours) this weekend and I have to say that the flights there and back on United Airlines were some of the worst I have flown.

The flight UA981 on January 20th from Kuwait was one and a half hours late to fly because of computer problems on the aircraft. They did serve welcoming drinks – water. Once the aircraft flew, the inflight entertainment system was partly bad and the airmap which I like to use to track progress was not working. The business class seats have a very uncomfortable headrest in which the lower part presses onto your shoulders and forces you to sit in an uncomfortable position. The food aboard was very poor and service staff was not very attentive. To make matters worse, the lavatory drainage in business class backed up causing their sinks and floors to fill with foul smelling brown goo. I am sure there was some serious health hazards there.