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Yesterday I had lunch at the newly opened Johnny Rockets branch right across the street from Al-Oustoura and Salhiya Complex in Kuwait City. I have to say its the best designed branch so far.. they actually have movable tables and chairs! Finally you can visit Johnny Rockets if you are a group larger then 4. When you go there though make sure you visit the bathroom beforehand since they don’t have a bathroom in the restaurant and you need to walk over to one of the neighboring malls if you want to use one. If you want to know how to find the place, go to the Sheraton roundabout in Kuwait City, then take the exit towards JW Marriott Hotel which would put Sheraton and KFC on your left hand side. Then take your first right which would take you to the front entrance of Salhiya Complex. You should see Valet Parking guys waiting there plus Al-Oustoura and Chopard on your left hand side. This would put Johnny Rockets on your right hand side but you won’t be able to see it but its there. Park your car (preferably in the underground parking over there). Then, if you are standing right in-front of Al-Oustoura start walking away from it and you should hit Johnny Rockets after like 25 meters or something. Here is the area on google maps. [Map]

There is a 50 meter running race thats been organized by a few of us here at my agency. I don’t know who’s idea it was but its a silly idea that everyone went a long with for the fuck of it. We will be 6 guys of various sizes and fitness competing in this race. I think I am the most unfit one between them all but I am the tallest between them. Back in elementary and middle school I used to be the fastest 50 meter runner (I have the cups and medals to prove it!) so I have experience or something. The location of the race is unknown but the timing is sometime today. I still think I am fast like I was when I was a kid so I believe I should kick everyones ass… or at-least try my best not to come out last. It should be fun.

Update: At the start of our lunch break we all headed down to the underground parking across the street. We decided we would race from one walk to the other wall on the opposite side. I fucking came last two times out of two races! I guess its a good thing, I used to think I was still as fast as I used to be and now I know I am not. It was an awakening.

Sultan Center are selling AstroBoy toy robots. The one in the picture above has a hand scanner that reads these special trading cards and in return they change the lights and noise he makes. And its cheap for only KD5!

Lift your car up with new springs and then add 26inch rims and you will end up with a “Hi Riser”. [Link]

Every 108 minutes, the button must be pushed. From the moment the alarm sounds, you will have four minutes to enter the code into the microcomputer processor. [Link]

(you won’t get this unless you watch the tv show Lost)

We usually hear a lot of fire engine sirens outside my office since there is a fire-station 3 buildings away. Today though the sirens sounded really close so I looked outside the window and there were 3 fire trucks outside our office building and a little white smoke coming out of the building across the street. Everyone in my office gathered around the windows excited that they were going to watch the firemen put out the fire live in front of us. 15 minutes later (no bullshit) the firefighters were still downstairs not doing anything. Actually thats not true, there were 2 guys putting on their firemen overalls and boots.. shouldn’t they do that before they get to the fire?

Finally a larger ladder truck arrives and parks in front of the building. 10 minutes later the firemen are still running hoses and setting things up, the little white smoke coming out of the window by now had turned into thick black smoke coming out of many windows and the roof. Many of the employees who had gathered around the windows hoping to see some firefighting action had left out of boredom, it had been 25 minutes since the firemen arrived and not one drop of water had been sprayed onto the fire. 30 minutes after they arrived two firefighters got on the ladder and started spraying through the window. 10 minutes later the fire was put out and they left.

I don’t know if this is normal or what they did was right or wrong but I just find the fact that it took them 30 minutes to start spraying water on a fire that is 2 buildings away from their fire-station a bit too long. Yeah the fire was put out very quickly but after how much damage was done?

Celebrating 8 years of Duke Nukem Forever as ‘vaporware’ [Link]

[source digg]

Thanks to Arabesque for pointing it out in the Forum, Marina FM have just relaunched their online website and you can now listen to them online and also check out whats going on in their studio using their live webcam. There is also a section on the site called “Blog” which should turn out to be interesting once they start posting. [Link]

[original source of info grafika]

I am trying to figure out what this Disney poster reminds me of, can someone help me out?

A couple of days ago I was contacted by Bazaar magazine and was offered a chance to have my own “B-Sides” page in the magazine every month where I could post mini reviews on anything related to Kuwait. At first the idea sounded really interesting, combining blog with print sounded like an excellent opportunity. But the more I thought about it the more I realized.. excellent opportunity for what? What could I gain with this?

Increased Readership
Bazaar prints around 25,000 copies a month while 248AM gets more then 3 times that amount of visitors every month and we are still growing. Bazaar readers would only read around 4 mini reviews by me every month while my blog readers would read at least 4 mini posts by me a day. My sites url would be advertised in that Bazaar page but from those 25,000 readers how many would actually think about checking out my site? When was the last time anyone saw a url in a magazine and then checked it out online.. it happens but just not that often.

Digital to Print
At first this sounded interesting, but then I realized isn’t that a step backward? Isn’t print trying to get online? Shouldn’t Bazaar start thinking about getting online instead? WIRED magazine have a small 2 page section where they print interesting posts from the web but I never liked that section but thats besides the point, WIRED can do whatever they want since their whole Magazine is published for free online anyway.

The Money
The first offer I got was KD20 (yes two and one zero) a month. I calculated the amount of time and effort I would have to put extra every month to have at least 4 mini reviews of something interesting to do with Kuwait and I realized KD20 wouldn’t be worth my trouble at all. Bazaar were nice to say they would consider another amount I had in mind but if they had KD20 in their mind to begin with I doubt they would go that much higher.

The Magazine
Do I even like Bazaar? Not really. I do think its the best locally published magazine but thats because their competition is really crap. I pick up Bazaar once a month so I can skim through it quickly and see if there is anything interesting. I mostly don’t find anything worth reading and the magazine ends up in the trash or left on a food court table. I enjoy reading local blogs a lot more then I enjoy reading Bazaar thats for sure.

Who’s the boss?
When someone suggested to Zaydoun that he should hook up with one of the newspapers as a syndicated writer, Zaydoun replied saying “I am my own editor… I can’t imagine being subjected to deadlines and editorial controls!”.

So taking everything above into consideration, I sent an email back to Bazaar today morning thanking them for their kind offer but that I wasn’t interested. I think I made the right decision.

Just saw some spy shots of the upcoming Mercedes CL. I think it looks weird from the back while the front end looks like shit. Mercedes is really playing it safe when it comes to their car designs. [Link]

[source autoblog]

Aramex have a new customer service manager because they want to fix all their problems. If you are having any problems or if you have any feedback or comments about their service then let them know about it so they can fix it. I know I had a lot so I sent them like 2 pages worth of problems with their solutions.

Send all your Shop & Ship feedback and comments directly to the customer service manager, her email is: [email protected]

Thanks

update: just replaced the hotmail email with her aramex email

I got a phone call yesterday from the owner of Choowy Goowy cookies, he wanted to reply to my post titled “Choowy Goowy Waiting List“. Basically it turns out the reason why I was told it would need two days for the cookies to get delivered was because the Choowy Goowy bakery was being renovated and they had stopped all orders for 1 week. The day I called asking for cookies they had just started delivery again and they had a long list of backorders they needed to complete. Part of the reason for the renovation is so they could accept customers who want to pick up the cookies themselves.

I then asked him about the fact that the person who I spoke to on the phone told me that I couldn’t order just 1 jar. He replied telling me that VIP customers could order 1 jar if they wanted to but new customers would have to order more. He told me they currently have only 1 delivery car and its difficult and time consuming to go deliver 1 jar in Fahaheel for example and another 1 jar in Kuwait City. He told me they are still a small bakery and they are growing slowly but steadily and they would get another car in the near future but for now they only have just one.

On another note I will soon be trying their Sorbet icecream, the owners of Choowy Goowy also have Boozah Boozah and they are working on some new receipes at the moment but once they are done they will send me a batch of their icecream to try out. Cookies in the winter, Icecream in the summer.. I can’t wait.

If you would like to place an order for cookies call 2626559

Nat’s been using Skype to call and talk to her family and friends back in Lebanon and it works pretty cool and its also fairly cheap. The problem is that talking to your family using headphones and the Apple Powerbooks built in mic is a pretty dorky experience. So I decided to look around for a phone handset that would plug-in and work with the Mac. There are many handsets available but 99% of them only work with PCs. Even some handsets that were compatible with the Mac ended up lacking features the same phone would have if connected to the PC. The coolest Skype phone I found was a cordless Linksys and at $105 it wasn’t too expensive, the downside ofcourse was that it wasn’t Mac compatible. Finally I stumbled upon the IPEVO phone which is pictured above. It looked really cool, it was fully compatible with the Mac and it only cost $29. So I ordered a white one for myself and a black one for my sister. The phone also works with PC’s so thats a bonus. Once the handsets arrive next week I will take some pictures and post my feedback on them but so far it looks like a really great device.

Buy the white IPEVO phone from Amazon
Buy the black IPEVO phone from Amazon
Visit the IPEVO website

I was just reading Zaydoun’s post on how he has been blogging for three years and it really brought back some good memories. You see, before it was just Zaydoun’s “Kuwait Unplugged” blog and qHate which was made up of me, Rampurple and Nibaq. qHate originally was Nibaqs idea and it started off as a blog about life in Kuwait but when the US decided to invade Iraq, qHate quickly turned into a war blog. We were posting on things that were going on in Kuwait like the sirens, the panics and the gas masks we even got the chance to stalk meet Wolf Blitzer and John Vause. It was a lot of interesting little things that showed people how everyone in Kuwait was living during this uncertain time. Checking my first post (2-2-03) now though I realized it was actually related to the war.. so now I am wondering if war blogging was part of the original plan… It was cool how me, Rampurple and Nibaq used to blog together in one blog and now we all have our own separate blogs. I keep telling Nibaq we were like a rock band that split up and all the members went solo.

In the end the site ended after we hit our peak, the war was over, there was barely anything to post about and only Rampurple was left posting and she finally also said goodbye. Maybe one day we will all be back together again, like a reunion..