Search: “mis”

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.

Yesterday I posted about the Missing Speed Camera on the Gulf Road. Well Ratlab have a picture of the camera on its death bed, turned out it was killed by a black Trail Blazer. Check it out. [Link]

Here are the statistics for 2006 but I am telling you from now, 2007 is going to be a lot more fun thats for sure. I already have a couple of cool things lined up including new sponsors and new stuff for the blog, one which I am hoping works out soon because it will involve me and a couple of super cars. Thank you everyone for being part of this blog either by contributing with the comments or even just by visiting. Thank you!

Total amount of unique visitors for 2006: 901,989
Total amount of page impressions for 2006: 7,863,277
Highest amount of unique visitors per month: December – 117,943
Highest amount of page impressions per month: November – 1,224,453

If you haven’t checked the Forum yet then you are missing out on a lot. With over 21,000 articles and 635 users its really an informative place. There is even a section for buying and selling stuff where people have sold things ranging from mobile phones and Nintendo Wii’s to laptops and cars. So pass by and check it out. [Forum]

I am sitting at Dunkin Donuts surfing the web trying to kill time while Nat finishes her shopping spree. Its raining outside which means its snowing in the mountains. We still don’t have plans for tonight, we have a couple of options ranging from clubs to gatherings but for some reason we still haven’t decided what to do.

We come back to Kuwait tomorrow afternoon. I miss Geo.

I spent all day today getting some paperwork done. First I went in the morning to get my motorbike driving license. I passed the test like 2 weeks ago but I never got around to exchanging my learners permit for the actual license. When I got to the place in Jabriya it turned out I had a lot of papers missing, so I had to go back home, get the papers and drive back to Jabriya. The whole process took over 2 hours but I now have my motorbike license.

One thing I found strange is I now have to separate driving licenses, one for riding and one for driving. The new redesigned license has icons in the back for riding, truck driving, car driving etc.. and they mark under each what you are qualified to operate. I figured they would print me out a new card stating I can drive a car and ride a motorbike but instead they printed me a card that says that I can ride a motorbike. Now I have two licenses which are exactly the same except for the little marking in the back. It would have been more practical to just combine the two in one card.. weird why they don’t do that.

Later in the afternoon I had to go to this other place in Shuwaikh to transfer my car into my name. I just finished paying the installments for it and I had to meet a mandoob (the person who does the paperwork) there to transfer the car in my name. That operation also took 2 hours. It would have finished a lot sooner if the employees actually came to work on time. My mandoob had to wait 45 minutes in line waiting for the employee to come in. When the employee finally arrived the line was super long but he didn’t seem to care, he sat down, ordered his tea, spoke to his friend on the phone and THEN started signing the papers. Mandoobs have a lot of patience.

So now I am home, my flight to Lebanon leaves early tomorrow morning so I am packing my bag. We are going for 6 days but Nat is taking practically all her winter and summer clothes. Whenever I say anything about it she yells at me telling me girls are not like guys and she can’t just take just 2 t-shirts and a jeans. “She has to be prepared for any scenario”.

Anyway, I am checking the site statistics and I might hit 100,000 unique users for this month by tonight. Thats 5 days ahead of schedule, pretty cool.

note: thats not my real date of birth in the picture, its their own creation.

Saw a picture of poster on Hanan’s blog taken in Kaifan today. Basically the poster tells Muslims not to wish Christians a Merry Christmas. Now while checking Digg I also found an article by the Herald Tribune on this issue, about how some Muslim extremist are telling people not to wish Christians a Merry Christmas. I found this all very depressing. If Muslims are being advised not to wish us a Merry Christmas then I doubt they will be legalizing alcohol anytime soon…

Here is a link to Hana’s blog with the poster
Here is a link to the Herald Tribune’s article