Search: “ur”

Ok so he got the Uruguay vs Germany game wrong but even psychic goats make mistakes (blame it on the humidity). For the final game he’s predicting Spain will win over Netherlands. [YouTube]

I was at Sultan Center and spotted two new Ferrero Chocolates, the Hanuta and the Giotto. Both looked and sounded good but of course I can’t have any. The Hanuta was around 350fils while the Giotto 750fils.

In case you weren’t aware of this, Ferrero are the people behind Nutella.

I thought this was odd yet interesting. Found the picture above embedded in an article on Gizmodo about Hitatchi’s new LifeStudio hard drive. The picture above was used to show the Cooliris media browser. [Link]

A reader sent me this article that appeared in The Guardian a few days ago about the state of Football in Kuwait and the UAE. The article talks about Kuwait’s football achievements in the 80s and the demise of it today.

While middle-aged Kuwaiti men are genuinely proud of the football team their country produced in the 1980s – champions of Asia in 1980, World Cup qualifiers in 1982 and Gulf Cup winners in 1982 and 1986 – the same cannot be said of the current crop of players. Dubbed the “gel team”, these shebab (young men) have been branded prima donnas by the older generation, more concerned with applying gel to their intricately styled coiffures and handing out their phone numbers to doe-eyed female admirers than with training and winning.

The article starts off with the question, “Is it because family riches spoil potential players that these countries’ sporting glories lie in the past?”. Personally I have no idea why football in Kuwait today is not as good as it was in the 80’s and early 90’s, but maybe someone else can answer that question. [Article]

Thanks Pureorama

This picture was taken today at around 4:30PM. Must be a malfunction since no way it hit 55 today. Maybe it’s still stuck at 55 degrees from the last heat wave we got 2 weeks ago.

Pic by Shabzy

My advertising agency (JWT) is currently looking to hire an Arabic Copywriter. If you’re interested, send an email to [email protected]

My favorite mountain bike brand is Cannondale and I’ve posted about the local Cannondale dealer a few times including on my Miskan blog 5 years ago. Thing is since I first got my bike in the winter of 2004 until now the dealer really hasn’t expanded, improved or changed in any way. It’s very sad and not sure why specially since more people bike today than they did 5 years ago. Maybe the dealer doesn’t care about the brand anymore but it’s very disappointing. I passed by yesterday to get my bike and Nat’s serviced and they didn’t even have transmission cables available. Luckily GoSport has a good collection of Shimano bike parts and so was able to pick up some cables from there and dropped them off to the dealer. The dealer doesn’t have many Cannondale bikes for sale as well, they had only 2 models available. I guess thats a good thing since if I did see a bike I liked I might have ended up buying it.

On the bright side I’m glad that GoSport carry a good collection of bike accessories and parts. Nothing hard core like Fox shocks or disc brakes upgrade kits but still a lot better than nothing. For everything else there is Amazon.

The list of the hottest emerging markets for retail just got released and for the first time ever Kuwait made it onto the list but not only that, Kuwait somehow managed to rank the second hottest market place in the world for retail! China is in first place as expected, India in third and Kuwait squeezed in between the two. This probably has to do with Alshaya being based in Kuwait and bringing in and opening all these foreign brands. I’m still waiting for some kind of news on Shake Shack..

“Kuwait is an attractive opportunity,” said Deepa Neary, a retail industry consultant at A.T. Kearney. She cited the country’s location in the Middle East, which is quickly becoming an exciting region for retailers, and its highly concentrated urban population, which helps make the market more accessible for retailers.

According to Neary, Kuwait can serve as an entry point into the Middle East.

Here is the top 10 list:
1- China
2- Kuwait
3- India
4- Saudi Arabia
5- Brazil
6- Chile
7- United Arab Emirates
8- Uruguay
9- Peru
10- Russia

You can read the article by following this [Link]

Thanks Zoogi

Two weeks ago I posted about a guy trying to sell three royal family domain names for $21,000,000. Well the guy heard our complaints on how expensive and ridiculous the price was so he’s now gone ahead and dropped it down to $11,000,000. So if you thought they were expensive before you don’t have an excuse now! [Link]

For those of you who aren’t aware of this there is, a section in the 248AM Forum called “What People are Selling”. It’s a section in the forum I created a few years ago where people who have items they want to sell can do so in that section. Since then the section has become very active and you can find a ton of good deals there. I’ve purchased a lot of items in the forum and sold a lot of items as well. My latest purchase was a like new condition Nikon 50mm f1.4 lens (pictured above next to my 50mm f1.8) with local warranty for KD70. You can find a ton of stuff for sale there from iPhones and iPads, to home furniture and high end sound systems. If you haven’t checked it out yet then do so. Here is the link to the forum. [Link]

Note: The pictures below are for people searching the web for side by side size comparison between the Nikon 50mm f1.8 and the 50mm f1.4. I couldn’t find a proper picture when I was searching so hopefully this will help someone in the future. The 50mm f1.4 is just slightly heavier and just very slightly taller than the f1.8. The build quality of the f1.4 lens is very similar to my 28mm f2.8 lens and 85mm f1.8 lens although the casing doesn’t seem to contain any metal parts.

I got back from dinner awhile ago from the soon to open B+F Open Flame Kitchen and I think I over ate… like big time. Open Flame Kitchen is the new restaurant from the guy who brought us Burger Boutique and Slider Station. It’s his third restaurant in Kuwait and I believe fifth over all (he has b+f in Saudi and Roadside Diner in Oman).

I am not going to review the food since they’re not even open yet but even though they’re still in the testing stage the food I had was great. What did I get to try tonight? Fried calamari, shrimp tempura, fried mozzarella, two types of salad, a sushi dish, a cheese burger, chicken liver, BBQ ribs, rib eye steak, lobster with shrimps and scallops, french fries, and three types of dessert, chocolate pancakes, fried banana with toffee and the chocolate brownie pudding (the sequel to the chocolate pudding from Slider Station). I don’t know any of the actual names of the dishes so I just listed the stuff based on ingredients. I also might have left stuff out since there was really a lot of food. I basically won’t be stepping on the scale anytime this week.

The interior design and ambiance of OFK is just amazing. I passed by right after the gym, my best friend and favorite food buddy Essa from Choowy Goowy and his wife were there waiting for me. The place was packed and there was music playing and it really didn’t feel like I was in Kuwait. Then Nat and another friend joined us and we started meeting other friends who were having dinner there which we hadn’t seen for ages, it just felt like a very social and cool place specially with the good music and dark interior. There really aren’t that many places like that in Kuwait.

B+F Open Flame Kitchen is located in 360 Mall right under The Meat Co. and right in front of Life with Cacao. They’re not open yet, they’re currently in the training stage. In the beginning of July they start the food tasting/sampling with the soft launch happening sometime mid July.

The update for the Kuwait Blogs App is now available in the store. If it isn’t there yet give it a few hours while all the App stores world wide sync. Anyway it fixes the incompatibility issues with iOS4 and I’ve also added the Some Contrast blog back. Now someone this morning made me aware of the fact that the Some Contrast blog was actually loading the feeds of Tidbit Du Jour in the updated App. That’s my mistake, I was in such a rush to get out the update I didn’t test the App and this mix up slipped by. So, I just submitted update 1.21 which fixes their feed. That should be available sometime end of this week. [Link to App Store]

I take it back, there IS a big difference. When I first started using the iPhone 4 I didn’t notice much difference in the screen until I put it side by side next to my old iPhone and I loaded up a website. The text on my iPhone 3Gs screen looked blurry and gray compared to the very sharp and black text on the iPhone 4 screen. I was very surprised and just like that my iPhone 3Gs screen started looking out dated.

One downside to this sharp high resolution screen is that it makes icons and apps seem low res. That should go away once everyone starts making their apps iOS4 compatible.

The screen on the iPhone I got doesn’t have the yellow spots that have been talked about in the media recently but even if it did it’s not really a big deal. Both Gizmodo and Endgadet have reported that the yellow spots are just screen adhesive that disappears after a few days.

Just had the new iPhone 4 delivered to me to try out by X-Cite. First thing I noticed is how bulky and ugly my “old” iPhone 3Gs looks next to the new iPhone 4. Second thing I noticed is how the new screen doesn’t look too different from the older screen. From the way everyone has been talking about it online I was expecting a much bigger difference but my first impression is they look the same. I will play with the phone all day until I have to give it back to X-Cite and then later in the day post a more detailed impression on it.

If you want to check out the iPhone 4 yourself you can pass by X-Cite at the Avenues this afternoon. They will be taking pre-orders as well starting at 5PM. The price of the 16GB iPhone4 is KD299 while the 32GB is for KD359. These are officially unlocked iPhones. First shipment of iPhones will arrive to Kuwait in 1 to 2 weeks.

Update: I am guessing I currently have one of the first iPhone 4’s in the Middle East (and probably Asia) since I couldn’t find a post by anyone else about this. That’s pretty cool.

Although the project sounds cool there is no way I think I could switch my phone off or ignore it while I am out having a meal. During lunch and dinner I actually enjoy catching up on emails on my iPhone and the messages and pictures from our diwaniya BBM group on my Blackberry. [Link]