The big switch as happened. You’d think there be more fan fare and excitement around. Maybe even some crazy 10 million KD Tarsheed like marketing campaign reminding everyone that we switched.

Though I would gladly pay someone 10million KD if they can organize the work schedule in Kuwait in for private companies, cause lately it has been a state of confusion going around.

Most companies have gladly made the switch to Fri/Sat while others are still clinging to their Sat-Thur with Thursday being a half day. Then you have the ones that have adjusted their hours to be a full working day, while some are still doing the dual shifts. A few have even gone to make make Saturday a half day.

This is all based on individual companies working situations and policies, but it really makes it mystifying for companies to do business in Kuwait when we are all schizophrenic on hour working hours. The Fri/Sat switch was suppose to make it easier to do business outside Kuwait yet I think it will cause a loss of business in Kuwait due to the hours we lose with our working schedule.

The solution to this? The quick one would be an edict by the Labor Services declaring standard working hours, but most companies will hate it and consider it government over stepping their bounds. The other longer one is the market regulating itself over time. Companies will slowly tweak and adjust their work schedule to be more efficient and cost effective.

At Saturday 8pm Kuwait State Police abducted 2 Kuwaiti bloggers Bashar Al-Sayegh from Al-Ohmmah.org and Jassem Al-Qamis without the due protection of the Kuwait Constitution while leaving work. The reason being that an anonymous commenter wrote something criticizing the Emir yet even though it was removed immediately by Al-Sayegh they are still holding him responsible.

Jasem Al-Qamis was released yesterday after spending over a day in jail being violently interrogated and forced to sign papers using his fingerprint while being blind folded.

Bashar Al-Sayegh sadly is still being held in jail and no updates on his status have been released.

This is a sad day for Kuwait. We have prided ourselves as a country that respects freedom of speech and the protection of our constitution. To see both taken away with one swift move should not be tolerated or accepted in any means.

Al-Jarida article translated to English on the abduction

Lately there been lots of speculation on the change from Thursday/Friday to a Friday/Saturday weekend. Well I just received an email with a letter from the Kuwait Civil Service Commission declaring that starting Sept 1st 2007 that Saturday will replace Thursday as an official day of rest.

ABNE & Co is proud to announce its first Red Bull-flugtag flying endeavor, Team Imperial27, in remembrance of Imperial Airways’ first Kuwaiti in 1927. The team will be composed of lead pilot and magician Nibaq (pilot), accompanied by conspiring engineering extraordinaries Marzouq, Mark and K.

The original Imperial:

Summer Solstice at 15:06 in Kuwait.

Saw this on Time: What the World Eats showing what people around the world eat around a week. Compared to other countries in the series we actually dont eat that much, just not much in terms of greens. Thou seems we eat more fish and feed more people.

The Truth About Cars has a great article on the AstonMartin deal. Giving details on why they separated from Ford and the other share holders and the future of the company.

Looks like AstonMartin is going to be a supercar powerhouse now.

I also like to mention that The Truth About Cars is one of the best car websites on the net. I really enjoy their editorials and car reviews. It has been a great filler for Top Gear in car reviews and also news insights on the auto industry.

My friend Aziz sent me this message on MSN and here is my reply:

Aziz: wain il 7ekoma
nibaq: the 7ekoma is playing hide and seek
nibaq: sheik sabah is counting to a 100
nibaq: the first person he finds becomes the minister of information

As some have already mentioned I was part of a interview for KTV1 that should be shown sometime in April. I apologize for not telling people about it before hand since I didn’t want to jinx it and decided to keep it under wraps until the show was taped.

The interview can be easily summed up as intro to Kuwait Blogging and the blogging scene in general. We were mostly asked one by one on blogging, how we started, what we wrote and then it dove more into the political/social aspect of it in Kuwait and the world.

The show took over an hour to tape, but it will be cut down to around an hour. So we will see what happens with the editing and everything.

It really didn’t give us a chance to get going and really discuss a lot of the stuff that we could have. That was occurred later during dinner. We had a really lively discussion then about everything it was a great experience having such wonderful, inspirational people around talking openly about what they see in the world in terms of problems and solutions.

I really wanted to have the cameras around for that talk for I am sure it would inspire a lot of people. (Could be a good idea for a show, “Dinner Talk” having people talk during a meal).

So what to expect from this? Well nothing much really in terms of a huge jump or rise in the blogging scene in the short term. It will be a great catalyst for long term things in the future. Just like any blog’s first post. It usually is never read and missed, but the later ones are read by more and more people.

Finally uploaded the pics I took of the Sharq movie when they were filming at Marina Sharq - Set.