Search: “sti”

Today morning I found out from Confashions that Villa Moda was having a one day 50% sale at their Fanar and Mubarikiya branches. So during lunch I went with some friends to the Mubarikiya branch which is extremely close to my office. It was my first time there and was pretty impressed at the size of the branch but kinda shocked at the location since its in a pretty old and beat up neighborhood.

The choice of clothing in the mens section was pretty poor. The stuff on display I would never wear and I can’t imagine anyone else wearing. Now take what I say with a grain of salt since I wouldn’t call myself stylish being that all I wear throughout the summer are Zoo York and Hurley t-shirts with Hurley jeans on the bottom. I did find a pair of Prada sneakers though that were pretty OK but after discount they were KD60 which I would rather put on a pair of Camper’s.

The womens section had a lot more items but the cool stuff (like Juicy Couture) were not on sale and their collection of accessories was pretty weak. Anyway if you have nothing else better to do it might be worth the trip to check it out. The Mubarikiya branch is larger then the Fanar one plus the interior is a lot more interesting.

update: I caved in and got the shoes after work.

One of my favorite shows has ended and although the last episode wasn’t as dramatic as the Six Feet Under finale, it was still great. The last episode had a lot of memorable songs including the final one at the diner which I can’t seem to get out of my head. For a full list of songs that played during the last episode check out this post on Stereogum. [Link]

note: please don’t leave any spoilers in the comments below.

Today was the second day of the three day shoot. I was on set at 6:30AM and we were done awhile ago around 8PM. It wasn’t as exhausting as the first shoot but since I’ve only had a total of eight hours of sleep in the past two days I was extremely tired. I was still better off then some of the guys in the production team who had slept only two hours in two days.

While in the middle of the shoot we got word that there was an explosion a few kilometers away. We later found out a politician was assassinated. Another explosion, another day. Things are just a total mess over here.

To check out more pictures from todays shoot click on the link below.

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.

The majority I had seen before but they were some interesting ones I hadn’t like the woman and the girl falling down the fire escape. [Link]

via Kottke

I am going down to Lebanon to shoot a commercial on Wednesday Thursday and will be back on the 15th. I will have better internet access this time so I shouldn’t have problems posting while I am down there.

A commenter posted a link to a Kuwait Times article entitled “What not to do in Kuwait”. K.thekuwaiti replied back to the commenter telling him the article was retarded because every piece of advice ends with a warning that you would be raped if you don’t do this.

I decided to check out the article myself and its true what K.thekuwaiti said. The article is giving the worst impression on Kuwait and a lot of things are really taken to the extreme. Here are some examples from the article:

Avoid starting friendly conversations with taxi drivers. This would give him the impression that you want him to have sex with you and of course, he would ask you if you are married and if your husband is with you. Never admit to be single and alone or even to confess that you are a runaway maid or employee. Many of them would not hesitate to rape you and leave you empty handed and get you pregnant.

So tip #1, don’t talk to taxi drivers or they will rape you.

Avoid accepting gifts or laughing over sexual jokes with your boss unless it is really okay with you and this is what you want .If you came from an environment where you are very open with the opposite gender, then you might think that such jokes are okay but here, it is not. This would give men a hint that you are ready to have sex with him and you could find yourself a rape victim. Besides, accepting someone’s gifts means approval.

So tip #2, don’t be friendly with your boss or he will rape you.

Avoid trying to look sexy by showing the sexiest parts of your body. You may think that you have a sexy body and want the world to see that because it is okay for you, but do not do that here. Lots of men here would think of you as a prostitute and may try to reach or touch you by any means. You may not mean it but this would be hard to convince them because they came from a different culture. The culture here associates clothes with manners. The more you cover yourself, the more respected you will be.

Tip #3, if you are hot people will think you are a prostitute and you will get raped.

Avoid fighting with a Kuwaiti. He simply wouldn’t hesitate to use any wasta to make you the wrong person of the dispute and make you take the blame. You might end up begging to him just to let you go!!!!

Tip #4, don’t fight with a Kuwaiti or he will rape you.

You can check out the full article on the Kuwait Times website but in case they decide to remove it you can grab a copy from [here]. The writer of the article is Muna Al-Fuzai. [Link]

Villa Moda started their summer sale on Saturday and it ends tomorrow (not sure about this). They have 35% off on most brands except for Gucci. Since they haven’t advertised their sale the place isn’t that packed. For more details on the sale you can call them up on 4827004. I tried calling them now to find out if the sale ended tomorrow but its 9AM and they are still closed.

Thanks Dana

I went to Biella at Marina crescent today for lunch when to my surprise I found it had closed. According to a Krispy Kreme employee, Biella closed down and will open up again in two months time under new management. I didn’t think there were any problems with the place while it was open. I was frequenting it on a weekly basis and its one of my favorite restaurants in Kuwait, their seafood dishes are extremely good and they aren’t stingy with their portions at all. Anyone know what went wrong?

This is a cool feature. It seems you can now make Google Images search for pictures of just faces. There isn’t a command available yet in the user interface but if you append &imgtype=face to the end of your search result url, it will filter the images and just display the ones that are of faces.

For example try these two links:

A search for images of Kuwait
https://images.google.com/images?q=kuwait

Same search for images of Kuwait but with the faces filter
https://images.google.com/images?q=kuwait&imgtype=face

Its slightly geeky but still cool. Check out this site for more details. [Link]

An interesting article detailing the way The Pentagon (US Department of Defence) building became a pentagon. [Link]

Slider Station is a new restaurant that opened up around a month ago. Its a local creation by the same guys behind Burger Boutique. I passed by yesterday night with Nat and a friend for dinner and I left the place extremely impressed and I will tell you from now that I gave the place a full 5 out of 5 rating without the slightest hesitation.

Since the place is pretty small you need to call ahead to reserve a spot. We called on Friday to reserve 3 places at the bar for Sunday night. I had seen the actual location before it was built, I saw sketches on how it would end up looking like and I even so pictures of the interior taken by various other bloggers after Slider Station was launched but even though, when I got to the place I was astonished. Pictures really don’t do the place any justice. I think its currently one of the nicely designed places in Kuwait, everything about it from the walls, to the chairs to the food conveyor belt, everything was paid attention to.

The food conveyor belt, thats the reason we asked for the bar seats. One of the coolest things at Slider Station is the large u-shaped bar taking up the majority of the space on the ground floor. Its surrounded by very comfortable seating and the bar has a built in conveyor belt. Each group at the bar is assigned a number and they serve your food by rolling it out on the conveyor belt. For example our number was 1 so all the dishes that came out on the conveyor belt with the number 1 in front of it was ours. Its a nice gimmick that is both practical and fun. The music that was being played was really cool and their choice of plates, cutlery and glasses were just spot on.

I could talk more and more about the actual look of the place but it would all mean nothing if the food wasn’t any good. The most popular burgers at Burger Boutique are the sliders. Sliders are mini burgers simply put and what Slider Station did was take them to a different level. I don’t know exactly how many different sliders they have but I think they were over 15 variations ranging from beef, to chicken to fish. Unlike in Burger Boutique where sliders come in groups of 4, at Slider Station, each slider order is just a single slider. This makes things A LOT more fun since you could mix and match sliders as you wish. I personally ordered the Roast Beef slider, the Wagyu slider with mature english cheese, the Caribbean crab slider which is a crab burger with a delicious mango sauce, and finally a Hammour slider. For appetizer we had two types of fries, the regular and the extra thin and crispy one. We also had buffalo wings and duck quesadillas. Everything was just really good, the presentation, the flavor, the buns, it was just perfect. There wasn’t anything I could find wrong with the place but I hadn’t ordered the dessert yet so before I could give it a final score I had to try their chocolate pudding. As you could already guess, I must have liked the dessert or else I wouldn’t have given the place a full five out of five. Yes, the chocolate pudding rocked!

So, good food, good atmosphere, good variety and good prices. I don’t know of any other restaurant in Kuwait that deserves a better rating. Final score five out of five. To get reservations call 2465047. They are open from 7PM to 11PM. You can also check out their blog by going to www.sliderstation.com

Pictures taken from SliderStation.com

note: I forgot to mention, they are located on the Gulf Road between Seef Palace and the House of Parliament.

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!

I hadn’t been to the Avenues for awhile so this is just an update for people haven’t been there recently also.

Carrefour is now open. I was expecting to find stuff there that wasn’t available at Sultan Center but surprisingly they either had the same stuff or less. The cornflakes section for example is a joke at Carrefour filled mostly with their Carrefour branded cornflakes. Their fish section was larger and their bakery seems better but didn’t get a chance to try it. The coolest thing about Carrefour is their electronics section. They have a ton of stuff and its all good brands like Sony, Samsung etc.. plus they have a ton of accessories and gadgets. Problem is you can find the stuff cheaper elsewhere.

Gap is now open. I was never a fan of Gap so I can’t say much about it. Kuwaiti Cosmopolitan has a detailed post on Gap so you can check that out. [Link]

GoSport is now open. The place is huge, much larger then I was expecting it to be. They have a lot of sports gear all laid out very nicely. I think its my favorite sports store at the moment not that they had strong competition.

Other notable mentions: Lucky Brand Jeans opened up. Ben Sherman is opening soon. Banana Republic still closed. I was supposed to have lunch at the Noodles place upstairs but there was an hour and a half waiting list. Parking wasn’t a problem at 2PM on Friday.