Search: “sti”

Marble Slab just sent over a ton of ice cream to my office with a note saying they’ve opened up at the new 360 Mall. I posted about their Kout branch before but that location was really too far and out of my way.

Now the question is should I share the ice cream with my coworkers or keep it all for me *evil grin*.

I got an email from a reader telling me that last night while he was at Marina Crescent there was a Whale Shark around 3 meters in length and 2 meters wide stranded on the beach. There were 4 scuba divers with the shark and they tried to push him out to sea but the shark kept coming back. I am trying to get a hold of some pictures and once I do I will post them here.

I’ve previously posted about a whale shark that was caught in Kuwait. Hopefully this one will end up getting saved.

Update: Al Rai has a lot of pictures like the one above which you can see [Here]

Update2: Al Watan daily has an English article which you can read [Here]

So I ordered the new iPhone the other day and I just ordered a cover for it. For my original iPhone I had the Incase protective cover but the problem with it was that it was too grippy. I couldn’t slide it in and out of my pocket because the cover was made from non slip rubber material. So, I just ordered the Incase slider case which is made of hardshell plastic which in theory should slip in and out of my pocket without any issues. They come in a variety of colors and for some reason I ended up ordering the florescent yellow one. Here is the link to the Incase website. [Link]

Found KitKat Cookies & Cream at Sultan Center. I tried one but it wasn’t that great. Still prefer KitKat Senses.

Just ordered a pair of these sneakers. I first saw them in Amsterdam but they were out of stock from my size. Luckily I found two stores online that still had them. [Link]

Someone emailed me this liquor permit dating back to 1964 when alcohol was still legal in Kuwait. This permit was set to expire on August 31st 1965 but alcohol ended up getting banned completely at the end of 1964. Here is the full version of the image above. [Picture]

If you’ve missed my previous post from TIME magazine dating back to 1965 talking about how alcohol was banned in Kuwait click [Here]

Thanks Alban

Update: The permit was scanned and posted originally by Rwatan.

There was article on CNN.com today about a family in Saudi Arabia that is taking a genie to court on harassment charges. My question is this, if the family wins, how does the genie pay them? [Link]

I passed by 360 today and this is what I thought:

The Good
– The interior of the mall is probably the nicest in Kuwait. Looks very fancy with a mixture of wood, marble and carpet.
– Finally there is a proper Nike and Puma store
– Geant Hypermarket is huge
– Toys R Us!
– A lot of new brands launching at the 360
– Food court looks pretty

The Bad
– I would say only 20-30% of the shops and restaurants are open, everything else is still closed
– I was expecting a larger Toys R Us
– I compared one item at Geant which turned out to be more expensive than Carrefour. The WD HD TV player costs KD35 at Geant and KD31 at Carrefour. This of course isn’t an accurate assessment but it still gave me the impression that Carrefour is cheaper.

The Ugly
– Parking or should I say the complete lack of any parking. I was there during the day, the mall wasn’t packed and I couldn’t find parking. Its bad enough the parking isn’t shaded but the fact that there wasn’t enough parking during the middle of the week at 1PM is just ridiculous. I had to park illegally like a lot of people and I was lucky I even found an illegal spot. A friend passed by last night and told me he had to wait in a car jam for 20 minutes around a kilometer away from the mall and in the end he left because the line into 360 wasn’t moving.
– There were nice looking fountains outside but when I got closer they stank of sewage and were murky green and dirty.

After posting last night asking if anyone had a PowerMac or Mac Pro for sale I got a reply from someone and managed to pick up a Dual G5 2.3ghz PowerMac today for a really good deal (just slightly more expensive than on eBay). I just formatted the Mac and am getting ready to install all my applications. I love it!

This is too funny. A husband and wife were traveling from Malaysia to Saudi Arabia after their honeymoon. While at the Malaysian airport the wife went into the bathroom and it seemed she took too long because the husband got tired of waiting and boarded the plane without her.

The woman in question, a teacher, had gone to use the facilities at the airport before boarding a flight back to Saudi Arabia.

Quite how long she stayed in the toilet remains unclear. What is certain is she emerged to discover her husband had vanished without trace. The woman, who had paid for the holiday, began a desperate search of the airport and grew increasingly concerned that something terrible had happened to him.

When he arrived at his destination, he calmly told relatives his new wife was still in Malaysia. His bride was not so calm about his behavior. She has demanded an immediate divorce.

Here is the link to the article. [Link]

Some good news, back in 2006 I posted about how Kuwait had the most corrupt diplomats in New York averaging 246.2 parking tickets per diplomat. Well the new 2009 results are out and Kuwait is no longer first, instead they’re second! The Egyptian diplomats now lead the way with the most unpaid parking tickets while Kuwait is following closely behind owing nearly $1.3 million in unpaid fines. Here is the link to the article. [Link]

On a similar note Marzouq posted about the Kuwaiti embassy thats based in the Ritz Carlton in Singapore. Looks like the best place to be if you want to be a Kuwaiti diplomat. [Link]

Note: Stop emailing me hate mail. I wasn’t the person who wrote the article or call the diplomats corrupt. Since those of you who emailed me are too lazy to click the link here is a quotation from the link that explains how not paying your tickets means you are corrupt:

“In a great paper for the National Bureau for Economic Research, two researchers have found that the number of parking tickets that legally-immune foreign diplomats accumulate in NYC and refuse to pay is a great measure of how corrupt their home countries are.”

Direct all hate mail to the New York Daily News, the National Bureau for Economic Research or your diplomats.

It seems some old pictures I scanned of my mum back when she was a flight attendant with Kuwait Airways in the 70s are being forwarded around by email as Kuwait Airways in the 70s with no credit to their original source (me!). Sucks but hey that’s the Internet. Here is the link to my original post with more information and pictures. [Link]

I just got an email from Q80 Boy telling me that 360 Mall will be opening this Thursday. Should be interesting, here is a link to their website. [Link]

Update: The stores that will most likely be open on Thursday are Geant, Toys R Us, Lush, Nike, Intersport, Marks & Spencer, A Pea in the Pod, Bebe and a handful of others. (Thanks AndyQ8)

Update2: 360 Mall just contacted me, they are no longer opening tomorrow it’s changed to the 5th of July.

Update2: Kuwait Black Market has pictures of the inside of the mall which you can check [Here]

I found a video online of photos of Kuwait taken right after the Gulf War so I emailed the owner of the video asking him if he could send me the pictures to post and he did. This is the description that was attached to the video:

We were sent to Kuwait in May 1991 to rebuild the Kuwait International Hotel for an upcoming conference. The project was canceled soon after we got to Kuwait due to security concerns. Kuwait City at this time, just a few months after the first gulf war, was in shambles. Almost nothing worked and there were vast amounts of arms still lying around. The fires were still going strong. So much so that flying into Kuwait was like entering an outer circle of hell.

All 74 photos below are credited to B. Dietrich, AIA

[flashvideo file=”video/fire.flv” /]

Nat shot this video earlier today on her way to the gym. She arrived to the scene just as the fire trucks did so she managed to capture some pretty decent footage. The car flipped over and caught fire just opposite the Flex gym on the Istiqlal Highway. According to a cop on the scene, the driver made it out before the car caught fire.