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If you ever wanted to customize the horn of your car like you customize your phones ringtone you can now do so with the HornTone. Its a $300 device that allows you to replace your generic car horn with an MP3 song of your choice. [Link]

via

Every now and then a local company revamps their identity and the end result turns out to be great but that doesn’t happen too often. Most of the time the new identity turns out to be crap and it pisses me off. Salhia released a new identity last month and I have to say, I love it! Ever since I saw it I’ve been compelled to write about it but only just now did I manage to find the website with the new logo. When I first saw the logo I didn’t think it matched the atmosphere of the “Salhia Complex” but after reading their press release I realized the new logo replaces the Salhia Real Estate Company logo not the Salhia Complex logo. That makes a lot more sense since Salhia Complex is a lot warmer in reality while the new logo is colder and more corporate. Anyone know the agency behind this rebranding? [Link]

This year it barely rained and although I was hoping for a flood like Hurricane Laila, that didn’t happen. Nevertheless I just got back from my parents home where they experienced their on “indoor” flood. Some filter connected to their washing machine blew and within 15 minutes the 2 floors of the apartment were completely flooded. I rushed over quickly to help out with the mopping and drying but I think most of the damage was already done. Electronics wise one TV got burned and an unused dvd player got soaked which is no biggie but the ground floor of the apartment has wooden floors and I think thats going to show the most damage tomorrow once it expands from all the water it absorbed.

Kinda makes me paranoid about my apartment now, my computer room is littered with cables and power plugs all lying on the floor and even my computer is there too. My living room is the same thing with cables, routers, xbox and amp all on the floor under the cabinet. If my apartment had gotten flooded I think I would have gotten pretty fucked. So just a heads up, home flooding can happen and you don’t need a hurricane.

I had seen pictures of this before but never actual footage. [YouTube]

Last night I was thinking that the biggest hurdle with my Wrangler lift will be getting the right tires at the right price. When I posted about my plan to lift the Wrangler last week I also posted the prices of the tires and the availability, simply put I had only 3 options with one of the options costing just too much. I had to choose between either Maxxis or Hankook tires so after doing some research I decided to go with the Hankook Dynapro MT RT03. They are no where near as popular at the BF Goodrich tires in the Jeep Forums but the few people who do own the tires have said they were really great. Two users actually who owned BFG MT tires posted that the Hankooks were nearly as good as the BFG’s offroad but were a lot quieter on the road and cost a lot less too. The thing is there is not BFG dealer in Kuwait, the closest one is in Bahrain and although its tempting to drive all the way there to pick up the tires and come back, thats not really practical.

Anyway I passed by the Hankook dealer (Tel: 884737) today and its a good thing I did. They only had 5 tires left in all of Kuwait and I needed 5 tires so I bought them all on the spot. Even though I haven’t ordered my lift yet and even though I don’t even have rims to mount the tires on it didn’t matter, I needed the tires sooner or later and with only 5 tires in stock I had to get them now. They cost me KD37.500 per tire which isn’t bad at all, cheap even when compared to my BMW tires. Now I need to pass by on Wednesday with a pickup truck and pick up the tires since they didn’t fit inside my Wrangler, the tires are huge!

Last week we wrote about the issue Fasttelco users were having with their private information being publicly available online. Cnet/News.com have published an article covering this subject and this is the result of the user (36o/Abdulaziz), who reported the issue on the forum and then passed on the details of the glitch to Google. Apparently, Google have contacted Fasttelco and offered their services to help resolve the issue.

Hopefully some good can come from this and Fasttelco will reevaluate their users security (a price cut and promised speeds would be do wonders too).

Cnet / News.com article [here]
Our original post [here]

Posted by K.

Thanks Abdulaziz

Even though I find the above video extremely disturbing, I have to say, the guy is pretty good. More videos [Here]

I just found out everyone is getting a salary increase, Kuwaitis will get KD120 while everyone else gets KD50. I guess now we can all afford to drink KDD milk again.

Update: everyone else = expats

update2: Here is more info from KUNA

The cabinet approved Thursday a monthly bonus of KD 120 for Kuwaitis employed in the public and private sectors, retirees and those receiving social assistance as of March 1, and KD 50 for expatriates working in the public sector, said Finance Minister Mustafa Al-Shimali.

Speaking to reporters following the extraordinary cabinet meeting, he said a monthly bonus of KD 120 will be paid as of March 1, 2008 for Kuwaitis employed in both the public and private sectors. He explained that retired citizens would also be receiving this bonus, as well as all those receiving social assistance from the state. Moreover, Al-Shimali said expatriates employed in the public sector would also be getting KD 50 on a monthly basis.

The collection is made up of 3 million records and 300,000 CDs containing more than 6 million song titles. Currently the collection is up for sale on eBay for US $3,000,000.00! [Link]

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Someone had told me before that the Chili’s in Kuwait was the largest in the world and a lot of people told me that wasn’t true. Well I emailed Chili’s last week asking them if the Kuwait branch was the largest and this is what they replied back:

Dear Mark:

Thank you for your email and interest in Chili’s.
Our Kuwait location is our largest Chili’s restaurant.
Again, thank you for your email.

Sincerely,
Pharisa Smith-King
Guest Relations

I guess that settles it!

A lighted sajjadah or prayer rug comes from a Turkish designer, Soner Özenç. The Britain-based designer uses light as an integral element in his imaginative creations. This modern piece that he calls Sajjadah 1426 (1426 is the year 2005 in the Islamic calendar), combines technology and the Muslim culture.

Sajjadah 1426 is a piece of art and a great example of the electroluminescent phosphor printing technology. It is also quite practical. It assists the person who performs the divine service of prayers, called namaz, not just by creating an amazing atmosphere, but by actually finding the right direction to pray towards.

With the help of an embedded compass module, the lighted motifs of the rug turn brighter the closer the rug is turned toward the direction of Mecca.

I wonder if it uses rechargeable batteries or if it needs a power source. Also does it roll up? [Link]

Once again, the view from my office looks as if I am staring into an hourglass. I tried to take a picture of the weather outside but every picture ended up looking like this:

Nibaq explained it best:

Desert: A dry, often sandy region of little rainfall, extreme temperatures, and sparse vegetation.
Fubuki: Japanese for snow storm

Link [here]

-Posted by K.

A large chunk of the old Salmiya souk is going to get demolished soon, its now official since signs are now located all over the building saying this. For the people who said that the building is going to be refurbished and expanded, thats not true, the whole building is going down. I wonder how much traffic will decrease after the building which houses a large chunk of the shops in the souk gets brought down.

I’ve posted previously about XBMC which is currently the best media center available on the market. The only problem is it runs on the old original xbox and it doesn’t support 720p or 1080p. Recently though a Mac version of the software got released and its turning out to be exactly like the Xbox version (which is a good thing) except that it plays 720p/1080p movies flawlessly. I’ve been playing around with it for two weeks now and the progress thats being made in such a short time is ridiculous. The fact that they manage to make XBMC even more responsive then the already fast xbox version is unbelievable and the specs needed to run it are very low. I am running it on my 1.8ghz core duo MacBook for example and streaming 720p movies over Wifi without a hitch.

If you have an Intel Mac download the software and try it. You just drag and drop the app onto your desktop and run it. Here is a link to the website. [Link]

Its cool how the two air marshals remained calm and collected during the whole ordeal. [YouTube]

Thanks Erzulie