Author: Mark

Just a heads up in case issues with the blog start popping up this weekend. I’m currently migrating my blog from Rackspace to WP Engine.

I’ve been with Rackspace for over 9 7 years now and they’ve been super great, probably the best customer service I’ve ever deal with but, my server (basically the computer that my blog is running on) is also over 9 7 years old. When was the last time you kept a computer or laptop for that long? Never of course but in my case to upgrade the server was going to end up tripling the price of my already super expensive hosting. It just wasn’t feasible financially so I just left it. Last year my traffic increased considerably and this year it’s also been increasing steadily and my server can just no longer keep up and it was either being very slow or just completely unresponsive.

Then, around a month ago I got approached by the WP Engine local agent. Wavai. They offered to host my blog with them while also helping me manage all the maintenance work. The “WP” in WP Engine stands for WordPress which is the blogging software I use for 248AM. So as you can imagine, since they’re very focused on one software, they’re experts when it comes to hosting blogs like mine. We already started the migration process yesterday (Thursday) and all my sections have been moved already. We are now about to migrate the main 248AM blog which is why I’m posting this. The website might go down for awhile and somethings might not work the way they should. In case that happens you’ll now know why.

Once everything is up and running things should be a lot faster. Already without any optimization my subsections all load up more than twice as they previously did. I’ll post a more detailed and geeky update on what we’re doing/did exactly once everything is up and running normally again.

Update (Sat/10:00AM): The process is 90% complete. Nearly everything has been moved including the main 248AM blog. If you left a comment anytime between this post and now then it might have been lost since until last night depending on where you lived you were either accessing the old server or the new one.

Update (Sat/12:00PM): Shifting my domain control from Rackspace to Namecheap. Site might not be accessible for a short while and my email doesn’t seem to be working right now.

Update (Sat/2:00PM): My email is working again. Some of the blog sections (like classifieds) are currently not working depending where you live and what ISP you’re using.

Update (Sat/11:00PM): Everything seems to be working fine now.

The movies below are now showing at Cinescape and Grand Cinemas:

New This Week:
Cell (4.4) ♦
Manhattan Night (6.2) ♦
Nerve (7.2)
Riot (5.2)
The BFG (6.8)
The Fall of the Krays (4.1)
The Neon Demon (7.0) ♦

Other Movies Showing:
Alice Through The Looking Glass (6.4)
Finding Dory (7.8)
Jason Bourne (8.3)
Suicide Squad (8.2) ♦
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out Of The Shadows (6.3)
The Conjuring 2 (7.8)
The Legend Of Tarzan (6.7) ♦

Numbers in brackets refer to the IMDB rating at time of publishing.
★ is for movies I’m interested in. ♦ implies movie might contain censorship.

Yesterday, Kuwaiti athlete Fehaid Al Deehani won gold at the Olympics coming first in the men’s double trap shooting event. Sadly since Kuwait is banned from the Olympics, Fehaid won the medal as an independent athlete competing under International Olympic Committee flag, an achievement by itself since no other independent athlete has ever won gold before. No Kuwaiti flag was raised and the Kuwaiti anthem wasn’t played during the medal ceremony.

Kuwait has competed in 12 Olympics since Mexico City in 1968, winning 3 medals in total, 2 bronze and 1 gold with all 3 won by Fehaid.

Yesterday I finally got to pass by and check out the Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmad Cultural Center. Those of you who’ve been following the blog for awhile will remember I was the first to break the story on the cultural centre back in May 2014 after my visit to Al Salam Palace. Yesterday was the first time back since then and damn what a difference two years makes.

Firstly the project is basically done. I mean it was done a couple of months ago but they pushed the launch till Q4 of this year so they’re now using the extra time to make sure everything is close to perfect once it’s finally open. I visited all four of the buildings and I’m now even more excited about the cultural centre than I ever was. The whole project is so beautifully designed with each building having a different style interior than the other. I am not sharing a lot of photos in this post because most of the rooms were getting a final coat of paint so everything was covered in plastic and there was lots of scaffolding everywhere. That includes all the theaters but I already shared some great shots last week so you’re not missing out on anything.

Behind the 4 buildings is a super super long and large corridor that stretches from one corner of the project to the other. One side of the corridor is connected to the indoor parking while the other side connects to the buildings. This means in the summer you can go from your car to the theaters or library without having to walk much under the sun or in the heat. The whole exterior structure is extremely photogenic and I’m very interested to see what photographers will manage to do with the place. Inside the ceilings are very high with lots of large spaces and hallways. I can already visualize large crowds of people gathered waiting to enter a theater or after a show is done, just socializing in these large spaces.

The fact that this project was completed in just two years is insane. I have no idea how they did it, probably by throwing lots of money at it but whatever their formula was, they need to apply it to the new airport. Below are the photos I’m sharing for now, once most of the work is done I’ll pass by again and reshoot. If you have any questions you could ask me and I’ll try to answer it with the best of my knowledge.

When I originally purchase my Datsun 240z, it had an old cassette player and just two crappy speakers in the rear, one of which didn’t work. I was happy with the cassette player since I still had some tapes but because one of the speakers wasn’t working, I went and bought a pair of cheap ones. A week or two after that my cassette player stop working, and I think the speakers I got had something to do with that. I tried finding another cassette player on eBay but either they weren’t old enough (to match the car’s era) or they were just ridiculously overpriced. So I decided to just do a complete overhaul of the car stereo since I was spending so much time driving the car anyway.

I had two objectives, the first was that whatever I decided to do, it shouldn’t mess with the look of the car. The second objective was that I didn’t want to spend an exuberant amount since I already did that with my FJ. So I limited my budget but still tried to get a decent sound. So after a bit of research I went with the following:

• Pioneer MVHX560BT Digital Media Receiver KD30
• 240z Front Speaker Panels (the 240z only had speakers in rear) KD28
• Rockford P1650 6.5-Inch 2-Way Full Range Speaker KD16
• Rockford Fosgate Punch P152 5-Inch Full Range Coaxial Speakers KD17
• Alpine KTP-445U 4-channel Power Pack Amplifier KD35
• Kenwood KSC-SW11 Compact Powered Enclosed Subwoofer KD42

The Pioneer head unit was perfect since it wasn’t very expensive, had bluetooth and was around half the size of regular units which meant I could hide it in my glove box. That way I could keep the old cassette player visible keeping with the car’s era, but behind the scenes I would have a much newer system running the show. Now when I turn the car on, the head unit automatically connects to my phone via bluetooth and I then can control the music and volume all from my phone without ever needing to open my glove box.

For the speakers I went with Rockford Fosgate because they were affordable and had gotten a lot of praise, plus there was a bit of nostalgia involved since I installed Rockford Fosgate components in my car back in university. For the amp I went with the Alpine model because it was small enough to hide under and behind the dashboard while still being powerful enough to run the speakers. Finally I got a tiny Kenwood subwoofer that fit perfectly behind the passenger seat and away from sight.

The result? The music sounds so much better now obviously but the interior still looks the same so you can’t really tell there is a powerful sound system in the car. I didn’t install the stuff myself, instead I went to my favorite car audio guys Zaharat Al Naseem. It took maybe an hour for the whole install and they did a great job of hiding all the wiring.

For those of you interested I’m starting a build page for my 240z where I will document everything I’ve done and will be doing to it. You can access that [Here]. Also again for those interested, I have a build page for my FJ, its around 4 pages long and I’ve been updating it since 2010, you can find that [Here]

At the prospect of swimming under the Olympic flag, he balked: “The thing is, I made the Olympics because of Kuwait and because of the [swimming] federation, and all the funds came from the federation, so I’m very thankful for that.” Yet by May, that seemed moot anyway. He figured he would need three months of training to resume utmost shape. Stresses mounted. The end of his swimming would mean the end of his government-allowed “sports leave” in Dubai.

The Washington Post have published a thought provoking article highlighting the affect of Kuwait’s ban at the Olympics on Kuwaiti athletes (or at least one Kuwaiti athlete). The situation is pretty sad but hopefully things will get sorted out by the next Olympics. [Link]

Last week I posted a video of a classic Nissan Skyline doing a burnout in front of Big Ben. Since that video I’ve been trying to track down the guys and I think I finally found them. Well kinda, I think I found three different groups of guys doing this Europe trip. I combined some of their videos below which includes two more of the Big Ben burnout but from different angles. The picture above was taken from one of the touring groups and I thought it was strange since it looks like they did a river crossing? How did they even end up in there…

Anyway you can check out a lot more photos in the accounts below:
@kuw_sd
@fawzi_77
@kuw_ta
@ashtrackya
@__92_q8
@a__k4
@v_190
@910_q
@__51172__
@ajmy_q8
@q8.j1

You can check the hashtag #اشتراكيه_2016 as well since they all seem to be using it.

Also, you’ll notice some cars have Saudi plates. I believe thats because you can’t import and register the cars with Kuwaiti plates since they’re not old enough to be considered a classic car. I think a car must be 30+ years to be considered a classic and be allowed to be imported and registered. So as a loop hole, they keep them with Saudi plates.

According to a news article that has been floating around today, authorities in Kuwait arrested the popular Lebanese American porn star Mia Khalifa. According to the article, Mia came to Kuwait with the intent to have sex with men who had gotten in touch with her over the internet. Although the news article has been published on various news sites, none of them I believe are that reliable of a source and all seem to originate from the same source, a magazine called Al Hasnaa. In addition to that fact, based on her twitter account she’s not in Kuwait. Still, where there is smoke there is usually a fire and I wouldn’t be surprised if someone had previously actually brought her to Kuwait. [Link]

Looks like the local Ford dealership battle is over. According to a news article in the Arab Times,”Ford Motor Company has terminated its dealership agreement with Arabian Motors Group WLL for the Ford and Lincoln brands in Kuwait effective July 27.”

Alghanim Auto also recently opened their new Ford showroom in Shuwaikh although I have yet to pass by it. If anyone from Ford is reading this, I call shotgun on the Ford Focus RS test drive!

Whoever they put in charge of the Jazeera Airways lounge design should have been put in charge of the Pearl Lounge revamp. The new lounge is located next to gate B3 and I’m trying to find out if you can get access to it using certain credit cards but I doubt it.

Even though the MOI website looks like it was designed by a high school student back in 1998, it still gets updated every so often with new features. The latest feature added to the website is the ability for tourists visiting Kuwait to apply for a visa online (eVisa). There is a very short list on the website of nationalities that can use this service, but those nationalities should find this service useful since it will speed up the entry process. Here is the direct link to the eVisa page [Link]

City Group (the company behind CityBus) have introduced a new service called CityVan which is a carpool service. CityVan allows you to select your pick up and drop off locations and then find a carpool option that is available. If there isn’t one available, then you could propose a trip and when enough people want a similar journey then you’ve got yourself a carpool. All the vehicles and drivers belong to City Group so it’s basically a door to door mini-bus service.

Prices vary depending on pick up and drop off locations but just to give you an idea:

Pick up point: Salmiya
Drop off point: Kuwait City

Single Trip: KD1
Return Trip: KD1.5
Weekly Package: KD7
Monthly Package: KD20
Quarterly Package: KD57

So if you go with a quarterly package your return trip will cost you just 650 fils. The service is priced somewhere in the middle between a regular bus ride and a cab service. CityVan just launched so there are not much pools available at the moment but once people start proposing times then pools will start coming together. I love what City Group have been doing recently, first with their airport express busses and now this. If you’re interested to find out more about this service check out the CityVan website [Here]

Thanks Muntasar

Looks pretty incredible, can’t wait to check it out myself.

Thanks Love_my_kuwait

Back in April I posted that the popular coffee place ARABICA was opening a second location in Shuwaikh, this past weekend I found out that they’re opening another location as well. ARABICA are opening a new third location in the Arraya Plaza, the open air shaded space between Arraya Mall and the parking lot, the same spot where the first Qout Market took place.

The new ARABICA will be called ARABICA Gardenia and was designed by a Japanese architect based in Tokyo. Both ARABICA Gardenia as well as the ARABICA location in Shuwaikh are both expected to open in October.

Update: Due to an issue with the original design, the opening of the Arraya location has now been pushed back to November/December.

Not sure when they started but iHop in Jabriya is now open 24 hours a day. Previously they were just open from 7AM to midnight. I’ve updated the Breakfast Places in Kuwait list accordingly.