Author: Mark

Yesterday I posted that Cinescape had finally set a release date for the Indian film “Airlift” which is based on a true story from the 1990 Iraq invasion of Kuwait. Soon after I linked to the film’s coming soon page, Cinescape took the page down and removed the movie from their website. This morning I finally got confirmation from Cinescape that the film Airlift has now been banned in Kuwait and so they had to remove it from their website. I’m trying to find out why it was banned and once I do I’ll update this post.

InfoConnect takes place at the end of January every year and its usually the best time to renew your internet subscription since all the internet providers and mobile phone operators have the best deals. InfoConnect was supposed to take place from January 24th to the 30th of this month but a couple of weeks ago a small messaged popped up on their website stating:

INFOCONNECT/INFOBIZ exhibitions have been postponed. New Dates will be advised in due course.

Yesterday I heard from a friend that InfoConnect has now been canceled for this year. Supposedly the internet providers came together and decided they would rather not pay the exhibition fees and instead offer their discounted prices directly to consumers. The three big players, Qualitynet, Fast Telco and KEMS have already started teasing their offers on their instagram accounts. That actually sucks since we don’t have that many interesting expos that take place at the fair grounds, and InfoConnect was one that a lot of people went to. In any case once all the ISP’s have their offers up I’ll post a comparison chart like I do every year.

Does anyone know if there is any place in Kuwait that offers stem cell therapy for the knees? My mum has an issue with her kneed and I took her to a doctor at Seef Hospital who recommended operating on it. But, from information I’ve gathered, stem cell therapy seems to be a better alternative. From what I understood they inject healthy stem cells into the knee and it starts repairing itself, does that sound accurate? Biggest advantage though is you can walk right after getting the stem cell injection while with a knee surgery you’re going to have to be off your feet for some time. If anyone has any information on this I’d really appreciate it.

The Indian film “Airlift” which is based on a true story from the 1990 Iraq invasion of Kuwait just got a local release date. According to the Cinescape website, the film will be released locally on January 28th. Some readers had emailed me concerned that the film was being banned because KNCC had removed it from the coming soon list but its now back up there along with a release date. I’ve shared the official trailer above although it doesn’t have English subtitles (I couldn’t find one with). [YouTube]

Update: Here is the link to the trailer in low-res but with English subtitles [Link]

Update2: Airlift has now been banned in Kuwait. [Link]

Back in 2012, 965 Flowers launched as a local online flower delivery website and I ended up posting about them after I needed to use them one day. Over time though they started adding other items that also fit with the different occasions people gifted flowers, items like chocolates, baked goods and other kinds of small gifts. They also started expanding to other parts of the GCC so their name 965 Flowers became an issue for them. They were no longer just based in Kuwait and they no longer just had flowers so they decided to rebrand and starting today they’re going by Bleems.

They chose the word Bleems because it doesn’t mean anything and works in Arabic and English. They chose a word that had no meaning because they didn’t want to end up with a name that would limit their ability to expand their business later on down the line. Personally Bleems reminds me of the old PlayStation emulator for the PC called Bleem! while a quick search on Urban Dictionary pops up some interesting other definitions. In any case, it’s still a much better name than 965 Flowers (or 965 anything).

Their official re-launch is today and the owners sent me the video above which basically explains everything I just wrote. Here is a link to their [Website]

There are a bunch of interesting things taking place this weekend. Tonight theres the NANTA Korean Cultural Performance which is also free to watch. Then there is the Auto Moto 16 car show which I have yet to pass by but I’m hoping to do so today. I’m also a sucker for car boot sales and there is one this Saturday at The English School. Check out the full list of events below:

Thursday
The Honey Bee Exhibition
Auto Moto 16
Art Exhibition: Complicity
NANTA – Korean Cultural Performance
Rooftop Movie: The Purple Rose of Cairo
The Avenues Food Market

Friday
The Honey Bee Exhibition
Auto Moto 16
The Avenues Food Market

Saturday
The Honey Bee Exhibition
Auto Moto 16
Qout Market
Yoga at the Park
Car Boot Sale at The English School
Madeenah Tour: Sulaibikhat Coast
K’S PATH Shelter Open Day
Protein Sheikhas: Bootcamp
Rooftop Movie: A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night
The Avenues Food Market

If you’d like to share an event on the blog [Email Me]
For a full list of upcoming events click [Here]

Sometimes events get canceled, postponed or have details changed. Always double check info with organizers.

As promised, here is the video I spoke about yesterday morning on Kuwait’s vision for 2035. The video is pretty long at 23 minutes so if you want to skip to the interesting parts forward to minute 13:48. Just to give you an idea of how large Bubiyan Island is, Manhattan New York is 87 square kilometres while Bubiyan is 863 square kilometres. It’s literally ten times larger so you can imagine how wasted the space is right now.

Watching the video gives me the impression that fixing Kuwait is going to be such a difficult task that they decided it might be easier to just build a new Kuwait from scratch on Bubiyan. I’m curious to know if alcohol be legal on the islands? My guess it would have to be if they’re hoping to attract tourism. [YouTube]

If you haven’t taken the survey yet I’d really appreciate it if you do. I’m hoping to close the survey tomorrow so I can spend the weekend going through all the feedback and comments so I can start planning for 2016. It short, it takes two minutes and every feedback counts. Here is the [Link]

Last week Netflix announced it was going to start blocking users who are accessing their content via services like VPN, DNS and proxies. Now that Netflix is available all over the world they’re trying to geo-lock the users in the countries they’re based in. But, for those of you who’ve tried accessing Netflix Kuwait you might have noticed it’s missing content the US version has (like House of Cards).

I’m personally still accessing Netflix using my US based DNS because I don’t like being limited with what to watch. I was a bit concerned that once Netflix starts blocking these services I’d be stuck with local Netflix content but from what I’ve been reading online, it doesn’t look like thats going to happen. According to various news articles I read it seems what Netflix wants to do isn’t technically possible or at least not foolproof so we’re safe for now. Check out this article with more details on this [Here]

Yesterday the Amir was presented a video showing a proposed project for developing the Kuwaiti islands Boubyan, Failaka, Awha, Warba and Miskan. I watched the video late last night and I’m in complete awe. The video presentation is around 20 minutes long and showcases ideas on what could be done to our islands. It was pretty inspirational and really made me realize how lucky we are to have all these islands around us. But, it also made me realize how we are under utilizing the islands even though there is so much potential.

I don’t have permission to share the video just yet, I was told it should be launching officially sometime today so for now I’ll just share some screenshots below. I’ve already uploaded the video online so once I get the green light I’ll share it right away.

Kuwait Up To Date uploaded a video a couple of hours ago showing the kitchen at the restaurant Tick-it inside the Kuwait Airport on fire. Based on the video it looks like security personal were trying to contain the fire with extinguishers but were having difficulty since the fire was still burning by the end of the video. If anyone has any more info on this share it below. [YouTube]

The intro is hilarious! No idea who this guy is but he’s actually a pretty entertaining host. FYI it’s in Arabic. [YouTube]

Since around 2007 and up until last year I had basically been loyal to one earphone brand and thats Ultimate Ears. They were so good that I ended up going through three pairs, I started with the Ultimate Ears SuperFi 5 Pro in 2007 and then upgraded to the TripleFi 10 until they stopped working so I bought a second pair of the same ones. I just couldn’t find anything better for the price and decided to stick to them even though they had failed me. Then last year my second pair started failing as well so I decided to look for an alternative.

After a lot of research I ended up getting the Sennheiser IE80. There were a number of factors that played into my decision with the main ones being the sound signature, the price, the comfort and the brand. Trying to buy a pair of earphones without being able to try them on and listening to them is extremely difficult. Why would you choose a pair of $150 earphones over a pair of $100 ones or how much better do a pair of $500 or even $1,000 pair of earphones sound over a $300 pair? Theres an earphone at every price point and I had to go through tons of reviews and read hundreds of different comments by people in various forums before I could finally decide on a pair. What made things more complicated with me was that I didn’t really have a budget. I didn’t mind paying $70 and I wouldn’t have minded paying $500 since music is important for me and so I really need to have great sounding earphones. I think I might have even been willing to pay a $1,000 if it meant I’d be getting ear euphoria followed by a happy ending from an Eastern European model.

One of the most important factors in choosing an earphone would be the amount and quality of bass they had. I listen to a lot of electronic music and really need deep bass to thoroughly enjoy the music. But I didn’t want boomy bass and I also didn’t want the rest of the sound spectrum to be muddled. Based on what I read the Sennheiser IE80’s fit into what I was looking for. They also cost around $280 which wasn’t too bad and from all the reviews I read they seemed to be very comfortable as well so I went a head and ordered a pair last July while I was in LA.

When I first got the IE80’s I was actually disappointed with the sound since I found them too bright and lacking deep bass. Even when I tried all the different earphone tips provided with the earphones I couldn’t get the bass to the level I needed it to be. After going back to some forums and reading up I noticed a lot of people were recommending to combine the IE80’s with a pair of Comply T-500 Foam Tips. So I ordered a pair of those tips and I’m so glad I did. They completely changed how the earphones sounded by providing better isolation which resulted in much deeper bass. Since then I’ve been using the IE80’s frequently including on 5 plane trips that were over 10 hours long. They’re very comfortable and they sound insanely good, better than any pair of earphones I’ve previously used. The only down side I have with them is their carrying case which I find a bit too big and bulky to carry and also not that practical to use. Other than that minor issue I’d highly recommend these earphones. If when you do get a pair and the bass seems a bit weak even after burning them in then do what I did and order the Comply tips as well.

I bought my pair of IE80’s from Amazon for KD86 [Link] but they’re available locally at aDawliah for KD117. The Comply T-500 tips cost me another KD5 and I bought those from Amazon as well [Link].

Boulevard is a project that seems like it’s been under construction for an eternity. The first time I posted about the project it was back in 2010 and the project was already well under way by then. Boulevard is located in Salmiya right off the 5th Ring Road and opposite Souk Salmiya. It’s a large project that contains a bunch of things including a mall, a restaurant complex, parks and even a cricket field. I passed by it last April and was impressed with the size of the whole thing but the project still didn’t have any water back then so there was no greenery or lakes. But, a reader just emailed me recent photos of the place and looks pretty nice. According to the reader, Boulevard is expected to open in 3 months time but no official date has been set yet. Check out all the photos below.

A user sent me a link to a proposal by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation on drones and other unmanned aircrafts. I’ve been going through the proposal now and here are some points I think are worth highlighting:

For Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Under 5KG (Private Use)
– The UAS shall not be operated within 300 Meters of any person, vessel, vehicle or structure not under the control of the UAS operator; and additionally, during take-off or landing the UAS shall not be flown within 200 Meters of any person, unless that person is under the control of the aircraft operator;

– UAV shall not be operated over a congested areas, except with the permission of the DGCA; it shall not fly over public or private properties, or within 5km of Kuwait’s airport outer fence, Heliports, Helicopter landing Sites, and airfields and shall remain clear of control zones.

– DGCA UAV Registration required for UAV which have a total mass including batteries and equipment greater than 1/2kg. Registration shall be done through proper entity.

For Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Under 5KG (Commercial Use)
– DGCAA UAV Registration. Registration shall be done through proper entity.

– DGCA UAS Operating Approval.

– DGCA Security Approval when equipped with camera or other scanning or surveillance equipment.

For Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Over 5KG and Under 25KG (Private Use)
– DGCA approval shall be obtained if operating outside flying clubs air space or the DGCA allocated defined zones.

– UAV shall not be operated near public and private properties;

– Use of video or image capturing device shall be prohibited;

– The applicant shall fill DGCA form to purchase this category.The form can be obtained from proper entity.

So basically if you own a drone or any other unmanned air vheicle you’re going to have to register it. If you’re shooting video and selling the footage then you’re going need to also get approval to operate the drone and approval from the air aviation security department. Finally if you’ve got one of the larger aircraft (over 5KG) like the hobby planes, then you’re going to be very limited on where you could use the aircraft plus you need fill out a form to be able to purchase one.

One thing I found odd is how sometimes they say UAS and sometimes UAV. So I started googling some of the points from the document and turns out they’ve just copied pasted a bunch of stuff from different proposals around the world including from the British CAA and the Emirati GCAA.

If you’d like to download the proposal and check it out, here is the [Link]

Image is a screenshot of drone footage from film Inspiring Kuwait
Thanks Abdulwahab