Social Slave

Last night I came across this website called The Ramen Rater who has tried out and reviewed about 450 kinds of instant ramen noodles. He doesn’t just have them out of the packet, but he likes to spruce them up with eggs, green onions and a lot of other stuff.

Looking at all those images on the website and me being a big egg lover, I kind of got tempted to try it out. So since it’s a lazy Friday I got all the stuff and made my own bowl of noodles with egg, a bit of soy sauce and black pepper. At first I was wondering if it would taste funny looking at the egg floating in the soup but it actually turned out pretty tasty.

Check out all his different interesting recipes and reviews [Here].

A friend of mine shared this website on Facebook called Kuwait Evidence that has about 1,200 high resolution photos of the destruction left behind from the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. The website is created by Adel Al-Yousifi and all the photos are his eyewitness account of the devastation he found when he returned home.

After checking on family and friends, he took his camera and began recording the devastation. Starting in the South, he made expeditions into the desert and then worked his way up the Coast, to the City, the Suburbs, and finally the North. Al-Yousifi took pictures every day from March till the last fire was put out in November.

The quality of the photographs is really amazing and the gallery is divided into the different types of damage suffered by each part of Kuwait during and after the invasion.

[Website]

Ramadan is right around the corner and here is a list of the Ramadan exhibitions going on in Kuwait to help you stock up on food, fashion, gifts and all the other frills of the season. I will be adding more to the list as I find them so keep checking back!

Those who would like to participate can call the contact numbers for more information on reserving a booth.

[JULY 2011]

Ramadan Food and Kitchenware Exhibition
July 17th-29th
Mishref Fair Grounds – Hall 4
[Website]

Ramadan Exhibit at 52 Degrees
July 19th-26th
52 Degrees, Tilal Complex
[Website]

Krazy Kollection Exhibition
July 23rd-29th from 12-9 pm
West Mishref, Mubarak Al Abdullah Al Jaber Area, Block 3, Street 316, Villa 2, Basement
Contact: 99788018

TirTir Designs Exhibition of Dara’as
July 26th from 11 am – 10 pm
Sheraton Hotel – Golden Ballroom
[Website]

Azza Fahmy & Chiswa Kaftans at Octium
July 27th-29th from 10 am – 10 pm
Octium Boutique, 360 Mall
Contact: 2530 9888
[Facebook]

Graish Expo
July 28th-30th
Safir International Hotel, Bneid Al Qar
Contact: 66221132
[Facebook]

Kuwait 3zna
July 28th-30th from 5-10 pm
The Regency Kuwait Hotel & Resort, Al Bida’a
Contact: 66899600
[Facebook] | [Website]

[AUGUST 2011]

BUZZART Summer Festival
July 5th-August 30th
FA Gallery – Sharq, Gulf Road, Next to Al Amiri Hospital
Contact: 22498999
[Webite]

Girgean Exhibition for Special Needs * new
August 4th – 9th
Discovery mall
Contact: 66220778 / 55240452

Al-3essa Ramadan 2011 Event
August 5th-6th from 9.30 pm – 12.30 am
Dar Al-Essa, Kaifan, Block 5, St. 59, House 9
[Facebook]

White Expo * new
August 7th, 8th and 9th from 8.30 pm – 12.30 am
360 Mall

Villa Mini Boutiques Girgean Exhibition * new
August 7th – 10th
Adailiya
Contact: 96655523
[Facebook]

WE Ramadan Expo
August 11th-13th from 7.30pm – 12.30am
Movenpick Hotel & Convention Centre, Free Trade Zone
Contact: 60603333
[Facebook] | [Website]

Qahwat Kuwaitiyat Exhibition
August 19th-22nd from 8-11.30 pm
The Regency Kuwait Hotel & Resort, Al Bida’a
Contact: 97232591 / 96622658
[Facebook] | [Website]

I just found out about a new flash sale site in Kuwait called La7eq. The idea behind this site is just like Sheeel and Deals.

I am sure most of you know about all these sites already, just in case you don’t then you should check them out regularly. These websites offer pretty good daily deals at discounted prices. At times they have hot offers on electronics like laptops, cell phones, mp3 players and a lot more.

Flash sale websites is a new and popular e-commerce trend that popped up worldwide couple of years ago as a result of the slumping economy to promote limited-time sales at bargain prices. It all started as a way for brands and retailers to unload their inventory but now it’s more of a form of advertisement to find new customers. The basic idea is to create exclusivity and demand by limiting what you sell and for how long.

I think the first flash sale of its kind in Kuwait was by Jazeera Airways when they had the Happy Hour promotions. I remember how most of my colleagues and friends would wait for the ‘happy hour’ and then the online frenzy would begin with swift bookings and site crashes.

Now it has spread out to dedicated flash sale sites that offer daily deals at discounted prices.

[Website]

[Website]

Glitzy Goodies has added new gift items to the Ramadan and Girgean collection. You can also personalize the gifts to include name cards or print kids’ names. Take a look at the album and whoever is interested in placing orders for Girgean should do so as soon as possible since items are available in limited quantity while stocks last. Delivery service available.

[Link]

I saw on Danderma that Crumbs is having a Harry Potter Trivia Competition to celebrate the release of the last movie which will be on July 12th at 12am in Kuwait (3 days before the worldwide release).

To enter the competition, all you need to do is answer some Crumbs and Harry Potter trivia by going to this [Link]. When you have answered all the questions correctly, your name will enter the draw once for a chance to win 3 VIP tickets to attend Crumbs Movie Night at the 360 Mall VIP Cinema to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 on Wednesday, July 13th. There will be more than one winner by the way.

Last date to enter is July 9th. Winners will be announced on July 10th and each winner will be called to be informed.

Glitzy Goodies has a new colorful collection of gifts for Ramadan and Girgean this year. Check out the album for more information and stay tuned on the Facebook page for new additions.

[Link]

Dubizzle.com is a Dubai-based online classifieds and community website that was launched this year where you can buy, sell or find stuff online. They have a separate website for Kuwait and other Gulf countries.

Apparently, the site has become quite popular in Kuwait with a 60% increase in traffic and 400,000 monthly page views so they are planning to launch a mobile version and a smart phone app for the Kuwaiti consumers.

I found a few interesting things:

• Brand new Canon EOS 600D 18MP DSLR – KD 250
• iPad 2 32GB – KD 249
• New PS3 Slim 320GB with PS Move Bundle  – KD 1 (no idea if that’s for real or mistake?)
• Plus there are like 1788 listings for automotives

[Link]

J.K. Rowling just revealed that Pottermore is a free website that builds an online experience around the reading of Harry Potter books where fans will be able to follow Harry to Hogwarts, get sorted into one of the school’s rival houses and become student wizards themselves.

The website has been developed in partnership with Sony and it’s a mix of social networking forum and an online game where fans will be able to access deleted material from the original books and read Rowling’s extra background details on the characters and places.

The site goes live in October but fans can register today for a challenge on July 31st and one million people who successfully beat the challenge will get invited to join Pottermore early.

Check out the sneak peak into Pottermore and Rowling’s YouTube announcement [Here].

WPP’s Brandz released their sixth annual report on the Top 100 global brands for 2011. Guess who made it to the top? Apple with its 84% increase in value over the past year, and it pushed down Google that had been on the top spot from the last four years.

The BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands study conducted by Millward Brown Optimor identifies and ranks the world’s most valuable 100 brands by their dollar value based on financial data combined with consumer measures of brand equity. The raw data for the BrandZ study is collected annually by interviewing consumers and professionals and asking them to evaluate brands in a competitive context from a category they actually shop in.

Here are the top 10 Most Valuable Global Brands for 2011:

These are some of the top brands of different sectors:

• Apparel – Nike
• Beer – Budweiser
• Car – Toyota
• Fast Food – McDonald’s
• Luxury – Louis Vuitton
• Personal Care – Gillette
• Retail – Amazon
• Soft Drink – Coca-Cola
• Technology – Apple
• Telecom – at&t

Their flash-based interactive eReport is pretty neat. Check out the full report for the top brands based on regions and sectors [Here]