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Right on the heels of Whopper Virgin comes Whopper Sacrifice, another super smart campaign by Burger King. Whopper Sacrifice is a Facebook application and unlike anything else on Facebook it isn’t trying to make you join a group, make more friends or spread the word, instead it asks you to delete 10 friends from your list and in return you get a free Whopper. Usually when you de-friend someone on Facebook its quiet and your friends might not even notice, not the case with Whopper Sacrifice. It will make sure your 10 friends know you ditched them for a whopper. Now it doesn’t work in Kuwait as in you won’t get a free Whopper here but its still fun to do. [Link]

I’ve been checking out pictures of various easyHotel rooms taken by people on flickr and I honestly don’t know if I should be laughing or getting worried that I am going to spend 4 nights at an easyHotel end of the month in London. The rooms are so tiny most people could only take a picture of it while standing outside the room. But judging by peoples reactions in the photos, it looks like fun.. I hope. [Pictures]

Picture above by norbera

A few years ago I got an Audrey from eBay. It’s an “internet appliance” that was originally launched back in 2000 by 3com. It has a 7.8inch touch screen, a wireless keyboard and basic internet functions like web browsing and email. I lost interest in it awhile back until I found use for it yesterday night. It’s now officially become my kitchen computer. Basically I will be using it for finding recipes online and browsing the web while I wait for my food to be done. I think the keyboard is even waterproof so I am not too worried about it getting dirty. If anyone wants one there is a guy selling an Audrey on eBay, bidding is currently at KD8 but I doubt it would go for more than KD15. [Link]

Brands for Less is a store located in Salmiya opposite Eureka and NBK. Although they’ve been open for around 2 years now yesterday was the first time I passed by. Nat wanted a kitchen scale and she had heard there was a good one at Brands for Less so we went to check it out. The place although not very big was surprisingly interesting. They had a clothes and shoes section but I stayed downstairs where they had on display various electronics, stuff for the house and just really random stuff. I am trying to name some of the random items I saw but they’re just too many to list out. I mean they even have a unicycle!

The prices are very cheap, the cheapest I’ve seen in the market for what I was looking for and everything or at least the majority of the items were a German brand called Tchibo. All the product descriptions on the packages were also in German so its recommended you take a German speaking friend along. I ended up leaving with a few items my favorite being an Ethernet-Over-Power setup. The package came with three wall adapters and it cost me only KD13! Thats very cheap and although all the instructions were in German I didn’t need to set them up, they worked perfectly out of the box. There was only one more left so if you interested you need to hurry up.

I highly recommend anyone who loves places that carry random stuff to pass by. They’re located in Salmiya and their number is 25752456.

Back in 2006 I posted about a blog called IKEA Hacker that had just launched. The blog displayed different IKEA hacks done by other people, people who took regular IKEA stuff and using their creativity turned them into unique pieces. Well two of those people are a couple living in Kuwait, Pinot and Dita. They took IKEA fabrics, cut them up and then created fantastic wall art with them. Its really cool stuff and whats even more cool is the fact they taped the whole thing and created a video presentation which you can watch below. Currently they’re voting for the IKEA hack of 2008 and they are nominated so vote for them by clicking [Here]

Now watch the video below of the making of and check out the post about them on IKEA hacker. [Link]

[YouTube]

’11’ by Moza Al-Roumi at The Exhibition
On January 11 & 12 from 5PM to 10PM

Moza Al-Roumi is a talented Kuwaiti painter who is fresh out of college. On those two days, she will be displaying her abstract art paintings at The Exhibition. All of her artwork are for sale.

A little info about The Exhibition:
It is located next to Slider Station on ‘The Strip’ across from Alseef Palace in Jibla. It’s a place where artists, entrepreneurs, designers and others can show Kuwait their products and works of art. Whatever they want to exhibit.

Check out the-exhibition.com.kw or call 94066226 for more details.

Upcoming exhibition at The Sultan Gallery:

Beginning in 2005 Aziz + Cucher embarked on an exploration of how to expand their concept of art in order to create all encompassing environments where their dazzling imagery could be translated to a variety of surfaces and mediums. Aziz + Cucher offer now the possibility of not just ‘Living with Art” but of “Living inside Art”.

Aziz + Cucher have developed a highly visual language derived from patterns in the natural world , and with their constant interest in new developments in imaging and rendering technologies, are able to translate their vision to a multitude of materials that include limited edition photographic prints, hand-printed clay coated wallpaper, servo-digital routed and carved polymer panels, digitally printed glass and film for back- lit murals, hand –knotted carpets made of the finest silk and wool, and multi-channel video installations. Each one of these elements carry the distinctive style of Aziz + Cucher, and can be combined and customized in innumerable ways.

Event Info
Name: Aziz + Cucher Studio
Tagline: “Living Insider Art”
Host: Haitham Al-Ghunaim – The Sultan Gallery
Type:Art Exhibit

Time and Place
Start Time: Sunday, January 11th, 2009 at 6:00pm
End Time: Wednesday, January 14th, 2009 at 2:00pm
(Exhibition open from 11am-2pm & 6pm-9pm)
Location: The Sultan Gallery

Here is a map to The Sultan Gallery [Link]
More about Aziz + Cutcher [Link]

Posted by K.

This product by Zippo is perfect for the current cold weather since its made to keep your hands warm. I think two of these would be perfect since you could shove each one in a pocket and then put your hands in and wrap them around the warmers. I don’t know if they sell them in Kuwait but on Amazon it goes for around KD5 without the lighter fluid which makes it Shop&Ship friendly.

Here is a link to the Zippo Hand Warmer product page [Link]
Here it is on Amazon [Link]

Does anyone know what they’re building next to the airport. It looks like a large dome.

Picture by MacaholiQ8

If you have an iPhone I highly recommend you get the Amazon app. Along with a fast and easy to use search feature, Amazon have included an amazing service called Amazon Remembers. Say while over at your friends place or while out shopping you found something you’re interested in, maybe its a CD, or a TV or as in my case a book, all you need to do is snap a picture of the item with the iPhone and the Amazon app uploads it online where a community of people research your photo and try to find the same product on Amazon.com. I just tried it now with a book I was interested and by the time I got home I had already received an email with a link to the product on Amazon.

Update: Just for the fun of it I took a picture of my dog eating his bone with the app and it got sent to Amazon. A few minutes later I got an email back pointing me towards a dog bone on Amazon! Amazing stuff, they’ve got a great sense of humor!!

Cool earrings made out of Lego flowers. [Link]

I just got the following in my email from a passenger on a Kuwait Airways flight who’s currently stuck at the Cairo Airport. This incident just happened awhile ago:

Hey Mark –

I wanted to contact you for a [potentially] new post you might want to write. First off, what I’m gonna write about isn’t in the news yet but it will almost definitely be in the morning, so you get the insights before they do.

I was on Kuwait Airways flight 542 from Cairo to Kuwait today with my family. Basically, after the plane left the gates and was on the runway, we stopped and the crews opened up the doors claiming there was an apparently major technical problem with one of the engines. About a half hour later, they said it was fine and we could be on our way. Plane taxis once again, but I noticed that the ride was strangely bumpy.

We took off, and about 20 seconds after take off with the plane going up rapidly, the right engine exploded. The plane shook hard, another explosion went off with another hard shake, and then one final boom and the plane dipped. Passengers in the back started screaming that fire was coming out of the engine and the plane began to lose altitude freakishly quickly. People were screaming, panicking, praying and getting out of their seats. I was flying first, but even from there, I managed to see flames and smoke billowing out of the engine. Mix all that together, and voilà, a scene from Hell. I thought it was all over, and clearly, so did the 200+ others on that nightmare flight.

Lucky for us, after thirty minutes or so spinning around in the air, the pilot managed to stabilize the plane and we made an emergency landing at Cairo International again, complete with fire trucks and ambulances. The plane stops just off the runway, they offload everyone and the airline offered to set us up in a hotel. Things got a bit messy on the ground when a passenger blacked out and collapsed on the runway, but I hope he’ll be fine.

Definitely adds to Kuwait Airways’ stellar reputation lately, don’t you think?

I’m on the next Kuwait Airways flight out of Cairo in an hour or so. Wish me luck.

I hope to hear back from you.

– Khaled

Thats really freaky, I am never going to fly Kuwait Airways again. I just checked the Kuwait Airport website and it’s showing the plane as currently being delayed. This is crazy!

Update: I couldn’t find a mention of this incident in the Arab Times but the Kuwait Times have written about it. [Link]

Its the time of year again when AUK hold their annual car boot sale in their parking lot. If you’re interested in selling items out of the trunk of your car, one parking space is for KD10 while two is for KD15. The car boot sale will be held on January 10th, 2009. [Link]

Kuwait ranked 31st in the world in computer ownership. Doesn’t sound that bad until you realize Estonia, Slovania Slovenia, Slovakia, Czech Republic and Latvia scored higher than Kuwait. Not that I have anything against those countries mind you! [Link]

Update: I just purchased the ebook version of The Pocket World in Figures 2008 and here are some interesting facts I found related to Kuwait…

– Kuwait ranks second in lowest death rate per capita. UAE is first, Qatar is third.

– Kuwait ranks 20th in most deaths in road accidents, I used to think we were first?

– Kuwait ranks 2nd in most injured in road accidents, Qatar is first with more than 3 times the amount!

– Kuwait ranks 3rd in death by diabetes, UAE is first, Saudi is second.

– Kuwait ranks 2nd in largest amount of carbon dioxide emissions per person. UAE is first.

– Kuwait ranks 4th in “Proportion of a country’s population residing in a single city”. That city being Kuwait City which doesn’t make sense since not many people live in Kuwait City.

– Kuwait ranks 3rd in Least economically dependent on agriculture. I don’t know if thats a good thing, I doubt.

– Kuwait ranks 1st in Largest consumption of energy per head (oil). UAE is second, the US is 5th.

– Finally, Kuwait ranks 5th in most crowded road networks. Qatar is first, Hong Kong second and Germany third.

So last week I bought two tickets to London since I am going to be there from the 27th of January till the 31st. Well today I wake up and check my email and it tells me I can now check in. I look at the email closely and it turns out I booked the tickets for December 27th and not January 27th! I now can’t fucking change my booking online for some reason, British Airways is currently closed and the flight is 8:55AM tomorrow! What is there I can do?? I have no clue how I booked December instead of January, no clue whatsoever!

Update: I couldn’t cancel or change my online booking because the departure time was less than 24 hours. I couldn’t get a hold of BA in Kuwait or UAE. I tried calling the UK office but it kept giving me errors since the number I found only works if you call from within the UK. Finally I tried with Skype and I got through somehow. The BA agent on the other end of the line was extremely nice and helpful. He fixed my booking and saved my ass basically. I think this is the last time Nat is going to make me handle anything related to traveling especially after my last fuck up in Paris!