When I first started writing in my blog, almost five years ago, choosing the language to write it wasn’t an issue. Most of the blogs out there were in English, expressing yourself in Arabish wasn’t frowned upon or considered annoying, plus the language of the internet whether you like it or not is English and so are all your settings and blogs you read. Personally, I chose my laptops without an Arabic keyboard just because I find Arabic and technology a bit exhausting. Read more »
If you find yourself in a situation where you are home on your own, ready to have some precious me quality time, only a pest in the name of brai39i -dessert lizard- decides to intrude and crash your party of one. The slimy, greyish pest with round probing eyes will zoom on the wall where your favourite couch is perched, hissing soundlessly, his tail flailing about, and you will find yourself screaming your lungs out while your legs jump to the furtherest corner of the room away from him. Read more »
One day you are sitting on your computer browsing through your data and then BAM something happens and your hard disk is busted. You take the device to a data recovery specialist, you pay money to have your data back, and most of it is indeed back. Now you plug your recovered data into the computer, from the file viewer you can Read more »
I was exausted after a long day, hungry and on a diet, and my teeth hurt from wearing my retainers. All I wanted to do was to be home, change into my pjs and fall a sleep. I did reach home, however as I was getting out of the car my iPhone slipped and fell out, through the water drain to the sewers below!!!
In my panic I tried everything to get the iPhone out. My precious iPhone, the portal to my social media life! Only the iPhone was no where to be seen and after an hour of trying I gave up. I went inside, changed all my passwords and disabled my SIM. I cried all night long and I couldn’t sleep, knowing that I will be buying a replacement in the morning for my iPhone laying deep in the sewers two meters away from me.
This morning however a friend of my husband tells him that his brother’s iPhone fell through the storm drain too and he called the Ministry of Public Work’s hotline and they came and fetched it for him. Skeptic, he called the hot number 112 and he was transfered to a guy called Sameer. Within one hour of his call this morning workers from the ministry came to the drain, opened it up, fetched for the iphone and took it out! Its now sleeping safely at home waiting to be reunited with me once more. Big fat PHEW!
I am lucky my iPhone was retrieved. I feel so relieved and I think it will still be working since I kept calling it all night and it was connecting. However, I don’t think I’ll be able to use it again after submerging it in Clorex. In my case, one of my nightmares of losing my iPhone became a reality last night and in my panic I kept searching online on what to do. My worst nightmare would be if my phone wasn’t lost in the sewers, it would be if it was stolen by some thief. In anycase, here are the steps I found on the net -and I followed- to react in case your iPhone was lost or stolen:
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1- Before you disable your SIM, you can go to iCloud.com or to any of your other Mac devices and try to locate your iPhone. In order to do so of course you should have enabled the Find My Phone feature and iCloud on the iPhone itself. If you haven’t, do so NOW. You never know what might happen in the next 5 minutes. I mean it, NOW.
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2- If you locate your iPhone in a familiar place and you can retrieve it, fine, do so then. If you can’t or if it was stolen. Use the Wipe iPhone using the Use my iPhone app which will wipe all the apps and data from your iPhone and no one can use them otherwise. You can retrieve your data from your iCloud and your backups.
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3- Now call your telecommunication company and have them disable your SIM. After you’ve tried to locate it and wiping your iPhone clean. May I also suggest that you act swiftly and quickly in case you thought the iPhone was stolen? Panic will make you go lightning bolt fast.
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4- Change all your applications passwords, starting with the iTunes one. Its a big drag but if you are serious about identity theft and don’t want anyone tweeting/instagramming/facebooking on your behalf, you should. Some applications like email allow you to revoke access you’ve given to the iPhone, do revoke all accesses when the option is given.
And basically that’s it, that’s what I’ve done myself yesterday. If you have anymore steps to add to the list please do share. May you never experience the loss of losing your prized iPhone or its peers. Big thanks to the Ministry of Public Works and to Mr. Sameer for their unbelievable swift service, I’m very grateful and deeply impressed.
Yesterday in Zain’s social media event I noticed that many of my fellow bloggers were socializing and exchanging business cards with social media people. I was asked several times about my business card and I shrugged, apologizing for not having one. Then I thought to myself, am I a little backwards here? Don’t I need one?
I’m wondering if its a faux pas not to have a business card if you are a blogger now adays? Now why would I need them exactly? Yesterday, it was a social media event that happens once every once in a while. Its not like we do it every day. Do I need to go through the agony of designing a BC, printing it, carrying it with me, and handing it out for people? I need to google this and see what others worldwide think.
And if so, what on earth would I say on it? Danderma, blogger? Madry I don’t feel inah my “job describtion” is fit for a business card. But maybe I’m wrong? I can’t make up my mind on this one.
Now dear fellow bloggers, do you have business cards? If yes, let me know why. If not, why not? Do share please 
Yesterday evening I was trying to shoot a video with my iPhone so I was trying to balance it on a narrow table when it fell, face down, on the ceramic floor. I picked up only to gasp when I saw the screen was shattered! Read more »
My favorite external hard drive, one that had taken many abuse from me over the past year, fell down yesterday. It was a tiny fall, nothing major, like 30 cm from the desk to the carpeted floor. But now it won’t work. Read more »
Since before I was born Kuwait’s streets were infested with scores of stray cats. Everywhere you went, there must be a group of cats sitting around the garbage can tearing it apart to have that Zbaidi leftovers from lunch, a couple of
This question is for my friends or followers who carry both a DSLR and a bag at the same time. How do you do it?
You should have seen me in the latest expo I’ve been to, with the clutch, iphone, and my camera. I wanted to take a picture, the iPhone tedarba7 o went to fall in the middle of the floor and in the way of passers by. You’d think someone would help Read more »
Now that the move to my new apartment is finally complete and there are no more heavy duty purchases involved, my poor car is in severe need of some TLC. The thing is it has never been cleaned properly and professionally from the inside where they scrub every morsel of surface and vacuum every thread of fabric.
I think now its the time to give my car a long long bath. But quite frankly I cannot find time to eat or sleep properly let alone take my car somewhere to be cleaned for hours on end while I twiddle my thumbs. I remember reading somewhere a long time ago about car cleaning services who would come to your house and take care of everything while you are at home.
Have you tried any of these services before? If you do would you recommend them? Much obliged
I love my old video, I really do. I have no intention of letting it go anytime soon. However I have several contents on old VHS video tapes that I want to convert into computer friendly format: mp3, mp4, burn on dvd, or maybe upload to youtube and share with others.
There was a store in Jabriya that helped me out last year but they took like 3 KD and one week to convert the one tape I wanted and this year they have closed down. My husband claims we have some sort of device he can connect between the video and the computer which helps in the transformation but he has to “unearth it” and given that I know for sure that such device doesn’t exist in his possessions I am not willing to wait.
Do you have any idea how or where I can get those VHS tapes on my pc ASAP? Help please!
Last week as I was trying to fall asleep because I had work the other day, the clock showed that it was 2 AM in the morning and all I could think of is a Read more »
Ever since I’ve crossed to the iPhone territory earlier this year I have been very happy! My iPhone is dazzling! I keep wondering why it took me so long to purchase one (it was the touch screen thing). The iPhone is like the super device that is not supposed to do anything wrong.
HOWEVER! There is one small minor problem which is unbeliveable! The mail client on the iPhone is crazy! BIG Time!
First I noticed that it didn’t retrieve my emails unless I prompt it to update and do so. Then I played around with the settings and push notifications trying to make it recieve an email the moment it is delivered to my inbox. No such luck. I would update the bloody thing and nothing will come up while my inbox does indeed have many emails waiting to be read.
I made my peace with that. So the BB would receive my emails a second before it would appear on the computer, the iPhone won’t. Emails are not everything on earth right?
Until one day it started.
I received an email that I’ve read quickly on the go. I remember being happy about it. I decided to get back to it later and read it thoroughly. Later on the day I’ve searched all the folders on my email, on the iPhone and on my pc, but I couldn’t find it. Not even in the Trash or the Spam.
It simply vanished. I couldn’t believe it, iPhone wouldn’t do that to my emails for sure right? I must have imagined I recieved it, there is no record of it coming into my inbox whatsover.
Then it happened again! And again! And again and again and again and again! To this date within 2 months of usage I’ve lost nearly 20 emails! I can’t have imagined all those emails arriving to my inbox! I am very careful when I open and close them because I am aware they might “vanish” into thin air! I searched for them carefully! To no Luck!!!
Is this normal? Is it only my iPhone? Is it every iPhone? I can live with the delayed mail delivery, but why on earth is it hiding my emails from me? This is a major catastrophic fail in an email client provided by a leading company like Apple! Do you have any solution for that? Help?
Have you ever seen a poor broken Asian worker standing by the traffic light in this cold or the dust and thought to yourself that there must be a way you can help them out that extends beyond giving them the spare change in your purse?
A charity under the name of operation HOPE whose objective is to purely serve the domestics within the country -does NOT represent any political or religious agenda- has launched a second hand store project under the name of Esther’s Attic.
Esther’s Attic is the charity resale project of Operation HOPE. Esther’s which started operations this January, functions like a thrift store where all sale proceeds are used to fund the operation HOPE’s community initiatives and endeavors.
For example this week has Elizabeth Taylor visiting in the form of a beautiful charcoal sketch portrait at an unbelievable price. Sitting next to it is an original copy of “ The taming of the Shrew” selling at Kd 1 only!
Post our national day sales, the boutique has donned several treasures from clothing items, household material, baby wear and other knick knacks. With clothing ranges showcasing some vintage mix and match items to some dated silk and satin blouses, designer jeans and an array of geometric patterns.
Esther’s Attic is located at the Operation HOPE premises ( Rumaithiya Block 9. street 92, house 23) and are open every Saturday from 10 am – 1pm. If you want to help out by visiting or donating you can always contact operation HOPE via their website -just wait a bit for the flash to load- (link) or by emailing them volunteer@ohkuwait.org
When you attend an event with your fellow bloggers, spend the night clicking away with your expensive state of the art camera, spend the rest of the night trying to choose and lighten or edit the bunch of pictures you managed to shoot and arrange them in a post, then realize that your post has the ugliest most boring pictures ever, you know there is something fundementally wrong with your pictures.
Then you look at your instagram account and flikr account and realize the pictures you have over there are even more boring than the ones you have on your blog, that other fellow instagrammers can do more with the simple iPhone lens than what you can do with your special canon lens. That you do not own one special picture that stands out and sets you as “special”, you know its time to go back to the beginnings and take a photography course.
Help please, where can I find a decent photography course in Kuwait with suitable hours? I know beit lothab must have photography courses but is there any place elae that might offer them too? If you know any please let me know. Much obliged!
I am looking for a place in Kuwait that sells modern tea sets (estekanas and ma6arat) and tableware. I want something really really modern and funky, uber modern, reasonably priced and doesn’t cost 300 KD per cup.
Do you have any idea where I can find such a store? Ever since I moved I realized I don’t have proper dining supplies at all apart from my bodum collection of cups and tea and coffee pots. Help please?
Lets say that there is a movie that you’ve been waiting forever to see. Its finally released, you finally get tickets, You make it to the movie just in time for it to begin. The theater is booked full. You are equipped with your favorite snack and drink. The show begins.
Suddenly… there is something tingling around your nostrils. An odor so bad it fills your eyes with tears as you suffocated trying to gulp for air. Its from the person sitting right next to you. They smell horrible, they must have just cooked their lunch and come. Something garlicy and spicy and very smelly indeed.
Then the odor intensifies. There is a newer odor. Something temporarily but lethal coming from the same person. You rue the day you came to sit in this chair watching this damn movie for one and a half hours. You want to leave but then you have to convince people to leave with you. You will lose your tickets. You might not have a chance to come back and watch this movie you really want to watch. Yet at the same time you are dying slowly and you no longer follow the plot of the movie because you are busy trying to breathe for your life.
So what did I do? Cursing, I wrapped my entire face except my eyes with my 7ejab which is scented with dehen oud. Even though I was fully wrapped my neighbour’s “temporarily” odors kept creeping back into my nostrils. Bloody hell!
What would you do if you were in the same situation and if leaving the movie was not an option? Tell her off? Ask the management to kick her out? Bring a mask just in case? Even nachos do suffocate people sometimes… good grief!
The other night I was exceptionally tired so I went to bed early. As I was warmly snuggling underneath my covers I remembered I still had my daily contact lenses on so I took them out and discarded them on the night stand reminding my self as I fell asleep to clean them up tomorrow morning.
In the morning the two lenses had shriveled into a hard plastic mess that stuck to the night stand and simply wouldn’t get off easily. For a moment there I imagined them getting all plasticy dry and sticking to my eye balls. The image wasn’t pretty.
The realization that I am putting something this harmful in my eyes saddened me. Yet I find no alternative. Me & glasses do not mix, looks wise and practicality wise. Plus I am too chicken to go get myself a lasik operation. I’ve seen my brother’s eyes after the operation and he was simply in agony. What if the operation goes wrong and I go blind? It happens! What if I do the surgery, ruin perfectly fine eye tissue -that’s how it works by the way- and in a year or two my eye sigh deteriorates again, as it happened to one of my friends?
Do you think its worth it to go through with the Lasik surgery? If you’ve done it or know someone who has please share your experience.
As my Bu Tootee is now officially a “7aji” and as customary for 7ejaj I wanted to throw him a big reception with dinner for his family and friends. However he hates being the center of attention so he refused point blank but said I can get him 7ajj themed chocolate to distribute. Now I’ve never done this before and usually I only trust my own taste but I have no time.
So help me please, where do I buy him a good quality good wrapping very elegant modernish not khabba chocolates for distribution that would take my order for next Monday without complaint? and not obscenely priced with bya3 el ward wrapping?
Help?
When the bloggers went last Monday to the Kids Cancer Party at the NBK hospital (post) and (post) each had a different view on their experience to share. All of them however agreed that the most touching story was the story of the young Abdul Kareem. This brave smiling boy has cancer in his leg that is spreading around. In order to save his life he is faced with two options: Get a knee replacement surgery or have his leg cut off.
So why can’t he get a knee replacement? Because they say its not available in Kuwait. However, he can have it replaced in Jordan where the operation is available there. What is the problem then? Well Abdul Kareem is not Kuwaiti and the operation will cost him 30,000 KD which his family doesn’t have.
How is this possible? The medical services in Kuwait doesn’t include a knee replacement operation! Why is it available in Jordan and not in Kuwait?
We thought about having a charity run for Abdul Kareem to help gather the 30,000 KD for him. There are two problems though: 1- The money has to come from one place and not from multiple people, god knows why! I think maybe money laundering rules apply here? and 2- Abdul Kareem has no time. His leg amputation operation is scheduled for next week 
By next week, Abdul Kareem will lose his leg because a knee replacement surgery cannot be performed in Kuwait. By next week, Abdul Kareem whose family doesn’t have 30,000 KD will be able to live but with one leg only. He is just a little boy with a big smile whose already endured chemo until he is stick thin. But he will have to suffer for the rest of his life because an artificial knee cannot be spared to save his leg.
We can’t gather up donations for him, we would have tried. But we can do is spread the word. Maybe there is someone out there who is willing to help out. Companies maybe? Rich people with big hearts and 30,000 KD to spare? You can help Abdul Kareem by spreading his story, tweeting or posting about it until it reaches someone who can help before its too late. Its the least we can do for this brave little boy with a big smile despite his pain and misery.
The first toys donation I knew about was from Dhari Al-Huwail, the guy behind Nuttella Darrio Pizza in Read more »
When I was London this year I saw big wall mounted clear acrylic frames in MUJI. Stupid me thought that if I buy them and try to ship them to Kuwait they will be broken. Now I am looking everywhere in Kuwait and I cannot find similar ones for big pictures of mine.
Do you have any idea where I can find similar ones? Also, do you know if anyone in Kuwait does printing on Acrylic slabs directly that can be hanged on the wall? In London they print the pictures directly on Acrylic slabs but they take some time and I am afraid if I ship them they will break. Help please.
Every single person with email on earth must have received a scam email at least once where a person with an internet and email access is posing as poor and in need for money. Usually those spammers are pretty easy to point out and ignored at once.
However I had received this very weird email from someone who didn’t email it to me directly. They went to the contact form on my blog, filled out their information, and asked me for $1500 so she could finish her last year in college to become an architect because she is an orphan and can’t work anymore to put herself through college because she is too tired and school is so demanding and she sold out all her jewelry!
Did anyone else get the same on their contact form? This is no generalized email sent by some auto bot sitting somewhere. This is an actual person who went to my blog, looked around for the contact form, and decided that I have $1500 to give out. It scares me a little. Also it angers me. Yet it also produced some guilt in my chest: what if its real? She is a real person in need and here I am accusing her of being a thief?
What do you think?
2003 was the golden year for internet shopping in Kuwait. The days where I was in Aramex’s office daily picking up huge shipments with competitive prices from all over the world, going home and enjoying the contents. Every thing was smooth and easy. I even subscribed to Vogue and Marie Claire magazines and I got them monthly, promptly using Aramex.
They raised their prices, over and over again. They suddenly discovered the Kuwaiti customs and made a big point of having shipments stalled there. All the while I stuck by them, made excuses for them, even stopped buying stuff online just because I didn’t want to go through the hassle of the Aramex frustration.
I am sad to say that this shipment that would be arriving sometime in the next millennia would be my last with Aramex. Not that it would matter to them seeing that many depend on them still, but in my case I have had enough.
I order stuff and have it delivered via FedEx or DHL, it arrives in 2 days WITH CUSTOMS! The last time I ordered with Aramex it took the shipment FOREVER to arrive because it was continuously taken off the plane in New York.
I ordered my birthday gift for my self, a ton of cooking books to prepare for Ramadan and my new diet (post). It arrived to my Aramex mailbox on the 15th of July, Shipped out of New York on the 17th of July, arrived to Dubai on 18 July and has been stuck there ever since!
I’ve been calling, over and over, every day they tell me the shipment is supposed to arrive this morning to Kuwait, then its just customs. Yet the shipment is still in Dubai. On Tuesday 19 July I saw the Activity Update “Shipment forwarded to Ardia, Kuwait” so I was happy. I called Aramex’s office at 6 PM to make sure it was in Ardia so I can go pick it up only to get the answering machine that they are closed.
Weird, I call over and over, I know they close at 8 PM not 5 as the answering machine said. I drove all the way to Ardiya and reached there at 8:30 PM to find them open saying they close at 9. I ask to pick up my shipment and they say its just being forwarded to Ardiya from Dubai, it is still in Dubai and didn’t make it here. Well excuse me, you could have explained that on the PHONE had you picked it up.
They also told me it was arriving on the plane tomorrow, Wednesday the 20th.
I called yesterday morning they told me it had arrived in Kuwait, but it didn’t go to customs yet. OK fare enough.
I call today, and GUESS WHAT! Apparently the plane was overstocked with passengers luggage, which has priority, and my shipment was taken OFF THE PLANE! Since there was no other plane coming out of Dubai that day, the shipment is STILL IN DUBAI SINCE 18 JULY!
Are you kidding me? The same fiasco again? When is it getting on a plane insha2 Allah?! So you are charging me 42 KD which I’ve already paid online for a shipment when you don’t even have your own plane and have to rely on commerial planes?
What do I need to do to get the bloody shipment out of Dubai? Go there my self? Take it out and get it home with me? Seriously?
By the way I asked your operator on the phone today when it was supposed to be rescheduled, and she kept me on the phone for a long time, too long a time, very long in fact that a user came to my office, I showed him something, and he went away while I was on hold. I hung up the phone later on not knowing what would become of my package. Knowing you Aramex, I am not surprised with your delayed services. It will not arrive before Ramadan. It was a Birthday gift, but its my really for I should have ordered it a month in advance because your shipping means hitchhiking for luggage space availability on airplanes in the summer time when all the planes are logically full to the brim with passengers. Yes, its my fault, not yours.
Good buy Aramex. I am so sad to say this, but truly good buy. Just deliver this shipment and that’s it, I promise you one more user will be lost so less shipments will come your way. Maybe then you can provide a better service for your exaggerated prices.
Oh and please don’t ask me to email you, I already did. Unless you can have my shipment out of Dubai and at my door tonight, then don’t bother.
Did you think that the gluten free campaign was done with and forgotten? Far from the truth! Bloggers, Tweeps, and readers have been letting me know of gluten free options they stumble upon whenever they see it! You, the reader, could also help out in any means possible as well. Lets see what’s new in the Kuwait’s gluten free world…
First Froobie emailed me confirming that they had contacted their factory and they can confirm that their frozen yogurt is not only fat free and sugar free, its gluten free as well! That applies to the frozen yogurt only. Thank you froobie!
First my dear Um 3azooz made up an entire post about the Gluten Free items she found in TSC (post)! I never before knew there was a Betty Crockers cake and brownie mix that is gluten free! Sweet! Check it out here
Dear Ansam had breakfast at prime and toast the other day and there you go… the gluten free menu Chef Ahmad Al-Bader promised (post). I was so happy to see that picture! I wish I wasn’t on a diet so I would go have breakfast there and choose items from that glorious menu. Thanks again Chef Ahmad Al-Bader and thank you Ansam for snapping that picture for me 😀
My dear Beebz98 on twitter also tweeted this picture of the gluten free bread section she found in Lulu Hyper Market. It is HUGE! Thank you hon 😀
Also a dear reader of my blog recently emailed me to tell me that on The Kitchen’s Facebook Page (link) someone had asked about the gluten free replied that only those items on their menu contain gluten otherwise every thing else is gluten free. So if you are on 6alabat and you wish to order a quick bite that is gluten free you can order anything from the Kitchen’s menu EXCEPT those items because they CONTAIN GLUTEN
- – In Appetizers – Gnocchi & Quesadillas
- – In Salads – Corn fritters
- – All the sandwiches contain gluten
- – In Braising and Stew – Beef Bourguignon
- – In Grills – All Sandwiches & Burgers. ( Lemon & Rosemary grilled breast and Grilled portabello mushroom are Gluten free)
- – In Homemade pies – Chicken pot pie and Vegetable pie
- – In Side dishes – Potato rosti and Couscous
- – In Desserts – all contain gluten
Before I had that two months trial of gluten free diet I had absolutely no idea that there were gluten free products and I never noticed them any where before. Now that you are reading this please keep your eyes open for anything gluten free you can find here -or abroad that can be imported- so I can share it on my blog please.
Much obliged 😀
