Author: Mark

An interesting feature from 1992 on the propaganda that helped gain American public support for the Gulf War. It’s around 30 minutes long but worth watching. [YouTube]

The locally created The 99 comics has been banned in Saudi Arabia for religious reasons and the creator Dr Naif Al Mutawa is also being sued locally.

However, Al Mutawa, the CEO of Teshkeel Media Group has vehemently defended his work, saying that it had won universal praise, including from the Emir of Kuwait and President Barack Obama.

“Those who are attacking men are claiming that I am using the 99 Holy Names of God for my characters,” he said. “However, I never thought they would go as far as accusing me of blasphemy and atheism. I am surprised that this is happening in Kuwait, a country of law that respects the Constitution and freedoms,” he said.
Al Mutawa said that his work was under an Islamic company and funded by an Islamic bank.

“We have succeeded in presenting a positive image about the Islamic culture at international events. We had a role in dissipating the negative images of terrorism and killing that people had of Arabs. The series is being shown in 70 countries across the world,” he said. [Article]

The 99 is a comic book featuring a team of superheroes based on Islamic culture and religion that became a worldwide sensation. Dr Naif was featured on the front page of CNN previously as well as being mentioned by Barrak Obama in one of his speeches.

Al-Babtain are currently the car dealers for Infiniti, Nissan and Renault among others and I managed to get my hands on some old photos of the dealership. There are three photos, one if their first showroom in Kuwait, the other photo is of their first spare parts shop and the final one is of the interior of their showroom in 1980.

If you have any old photos of Kuwait [Let me know]

Thanks Abdulrahman

I found a store the other day that sold a variety of different sized kites. Since the weather is still bearable I thought some of you might be interested in flying them on the weekends. The store had a variety of kites ranging from small cheap ones that cost just KD5 to more proper and expensive ones that start at KD26 and go all the way up to KD170. I took a few photos of the kites they had for sale which you can check out below.

The store is called Wind Rider and it’s located on the Mezzanine floor of Al Muthana Complex in the back near the praying area. They’re open from 10AM to 1PM and 5PM to 9:30PM except on Fridays when they’re open only in the evenings. Their phone number is 2474788 or 6707010.

As part of GREAT British Week, British chef Gary Rhodes will be coming to Veranda restaurant at the Avenues. There are two different events that will be taking place:

Gary Rhodes Afternoon Tea
Venue: Veranda Restaurant
Date: 26 March 2014
Time: 14:00
Price: KD12

Gary Rhodes VIP Dinner
Venue: Veranda Restaurant
Date: 27 March 2014
Time: 19:00
Price: KD22

If you’re interested you need to call Veranda to book tickets on 22283141

Thanks jhonybravo

Because of the Arab Summit, some roads are going to be closed or diverted tomorrow and Wednesday (March 25 and 26). Kuwait Times created a map of the different roads closed and you can check it out by clicking [Here]

Thanks Abeer

I know it’s wrong but damn I wish I had the skill to do that with my car. [YouTube]

It’s the only mall I can get lost in and now it’s going to get even bigger since they just approved expanding it by adding a new fashion avenue. I previously heard that when phase 4 of the Avenues gets completed, it would end up being larger than Dubai Mall. I doubt that’s true. [Link]

Rainy Morning at Anjefa from Moayad Hassan on Vimeo.

Moayad Hassan is back with another beautiful short film, this one was shot a few days ago on a rainy morning at Anjefa beach in Kuwait. [Vimeo]

Mohammed Taher is a Kuwaiti music director, producer, writer and the guy behind the music label Brave Wave. I posted about him last year after the popular gaming blog Joystiq posted about his then upcoming album, World 1-2 which featured 21 video game composers. Recently though he was invited to give a talk at Bit Summit, an indie game festival held annually in Kyoto, Japan. My brother managed to score an interview with him and just posted a feature story on him in the gaming section [Here]

This is probably the last new section I’m adding to the blog right now, it’s a gaming section that will be run by my brother. He was running his own blog called Sixteenbit Dreams and I thought his posts were all very interesting so I moved him into my blog. He’s contributed on 248AM before with gaming posts but now he’s going to have his own dedicated section. So check it out either by clicking on Gaming in the navigation strip at the top or by clicking [Here]

Q8books found a bunch of vintage Arabic comic books in a pile of donated books and are trying to figure out their value. The conditions of the books range from around a 5/10 to maybe an 8 or 9/10. Does anyone know how to go about finding how much they’re worth? The books are:

Superman 6 (1984 reprint)
Superman 58 (1981)
Superman 63 (1982)
Superman 64 (1983)
Batman 13 (1977)
Batman 15 (1979)
Flash 4 (1973)
Lulu 16 (1980)

Just a minor change, I renamed the Market section to Classifieds. I figured Classifieds is easier to understand plus is more google friendly. All the old Market links you have should automatically take you to the new location. [Classifieds]

Fourteen suspects have been arrested in connection with an attack on a police patrol during a wedding party in western Kuwait City, the Interior Ministry said Friday.
…
The policemen had gone to the wedding party to demand that guests refrain from firing guns into the air during celebrations.
[Source]

I got the video on top a few days ago but didn’t really know what the story was until I read the article above. Pretty messed up.

As you probably are aware, Kuwait will be introducing new banknotes this summer. I did some digging around and with the help of a very reliable source managed to get you guys a sneak peek of the new KD20 bank note which you can see above. I will post the rest of the bank notes as soon as I get them.