2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003
The new redesigned CNN.com is up and I absolutely love it. I think this is the first time I actually like their redesign. The last two times they redesigned I sent them hate mail but this time I am going to to email them and tell them what a great job they’ve done. Its so pretty! Make sure you check out their video page to, its way better then before. [Link]
update: Wooowww, I just saw their breaking news banner, I love it!
I wasn’t planning on posting about the iPhone but I found this video funny.
[YouTube]
This news is a few days old now but I just found this video which shows the actual crash. For those of you who haven’t heard about this, Hayfa Wehbe was shooting a new music video which involved a scene where she was driving a convertible and a plane flies over her. While shooting the scene, the pilot misjudged his distance and the wing of the plane hit Hayfa’s head and the car’s windscreen. Looking at the video of the crash I would say she is one extremely lucky person. [YouTube]
Here is another video where she is interviewed at the hospital. [YouTube]
The best pictures I have seen of the new Land Cruiser so far. Interior looks pretty cool, exterior still looks like crap. They also have pictures of the new LX570. [Link]
Yesterday I went to the movies with a bunch of friends including Marzouq, Nibaq and K.theKuwaiti. We went to the Al Fanar movie theater to watch Die Hard 4.0. After watching the movie I’ve realized that people will either love it or hate it, I am the later.
The movie is high budget so no where in it does it ever end up looking cheap or fake… except when it comes to the story. You can’t get a more 1990’s cliché styled plot then this one which is the main reason I think people will love it or not. If the movie was released in 1998 it might have been cool but today with great TV shows like 24 which are similar in idea (1 hero kills 2 million bad guys) the movie didn’t it cut it for me.
In fact I found the movie long and boring. It was over 2 hours long which is great if you’re watching an epic but an action movie? It should have easily been under an hour and a half thats for sure. Bruce Willis was great in the movie though. For some reason I’ve always wanted to see him in a movie matched up against Sylvester Stallone, the same way Al Pacino and Robert Deniro were matched up against each other in the movie Heat. Maybe they should have made Bruce Willis the bad guy in the upcoming Rambo 4. My favorite scenes in the movie were the ones that involved Kevin Smith since. they were funny and a change of pace from the rest of the movie, mind you it was Bruce Willis that made me laugh here more then Kevin Smith. Bruce Willis is like Will Smith when it comes to humor in the middle of an action movie. Since both were comedians before its easy for them to be serious through out the film playing a tough guy and then suddenly be funny without looking out of place. They are naturals and now that I think of it, maybe if Die Hard 4 wasn’t made to be taken seriously, and was more of an action/comedy it might have been more fun. Kinda like how Feast is a horror/comedy combo.
I personally didn’t like Die Hard 4.0 and don’t its worth going to the movies for. But, if you really want to go and watch something then just wait a few more days till Transformers gets released. I give this movie a 3 out of 5.
Just found a blog called q8istuff.blogspot.com that has some cool vintage pictures related to Kuwait. I found two posts so far, one of the Free Kuwait demonstrations and meetings in London taken after the Iraqi invasion in 1990, and the second set of pictures are of the Kuwait football team from the late 70’s and early 80’s. The Kuwaiti football ones are extremely fascinating.
Here is the link to the Free Kuwait Pictures. [Link]
Here is the link to the Kuwaiti football team pictures. [Link]
For lunch I passed by Shatea Al Watyia, a small Kuwaiti restaurant located behind Casper & Gambini in Kuwait city. The restaurant is in an old Kuwaiti style home which goes well with the menu which is based on traditional Kuwaiti food.
The inside of the restaurant is divided by regions, since we were a large group we sat in Fintas which was a private room with enough seating for 8 people. Flipping through the menu there are a lot of dishes to choose from ranging from machboos to grills. I decided to go with the Mourabian which is a rice and shrimps dish.
We first got the starters which were made up of a variety of dishes including sambousak, yerish and a lentil soup. The sambousak was so so, but the yerish was pretty cool. It was my first time trying it and I honestly forgot whats it made from but to me it tasted like a chilidog’s chili which is pretty cool. The lentil soup was also really great.
The main course arrived soon after that and the quantity was huge. Last week I was in Ta’al and ordered the shrimp curry which disappointingly came with 8 pieces of tiny shrimps. In comparison at Oum Habib the Mourabian had at least two dozen tiny shrimps and the rice portion was gigantic!
The general atmosphere of the place was quiet and the staff friendly and fast. I don’t know how packed the place gets in the evening but I imagine its even cooler when filled with a lot more people. The prices are also really cheap. The soup was KD1, the appetizers around KD1.500 and my main dish was just KD3.500. Thats a really good deal for what you are getting in return. The shrimp curry at Ta’al for example was KD5.500 without rice. Good food, great prices and good service, final score is a 4.5 out of 5. I would definitely go back there again.
update: Erzulie decided to edit my review since my vocabulary is limited to three words “good” “cool” and “amazing”. If you want to check out her interpretation of my review [click here]
A reader sent me the following email:
Dear Mark,
I am personally aware of a very sad story about an American teacher in Kuwait. The teacher, Katherine Phillips, is an Al-Bayan Bilingual School Middle School Deputy Principal. She is the victim of an influential parent who has effectively detained her in Kuwait. Her only crime was to suspend the influential parent’s son for fighting! This is a normal procedure but the parent threatened her and is carrying out his threat. Her full story can be found in International Schools Review site.She is crying for help. It would be great if you mentioned it.
Regards,
bu ziyad
You can read her story by clicking [Here]
During lunch I went with a bunch of coworkers to the ice skating rink. I was expecting the place to be packed with kids since school is out and the weather is extremely hot but instead the place was deserted! I am such a bad skater but I love the place since its freezing cold and in this heat I can’t think of any place I would rather be except for the frozen isle section at Sultan Center but thats about it.
For people who haven’t been there before the entrance is KD1.500 and that includes entrance and rental of the skates. Its also easy to find, look for a yellow building in Kuwait City.
If you are going to copy paste articles from blogs and put them on your website at least have the courtesy to link the original blog properly. Gulfnews had no problem copying and pasting my Faloda post onto their website but when it came to copying and pasting my blogs website address they misspelled it and it ended up as 248.am.com!
Its cool they are into blogs and actually publishing them on their website BUT I would do things differently. For one thing I would make the url’s for the blogs at the very least clickable. That way their readers could just click on the links and be taken to our sites helping us get more traffic.
The second thing is I wouldn’t copy and paste blog posts word for word and publish them like that on the site. Instead I would actually get one of the writers to summarize the articles (like we bloggers do) and then provide links to the original posts in case their readers want to read more. That way they would be supporting bloggers again by sending traffic their way.
The way Gulfnews has things set up now they aren’t sending any traffic to the blogs and instead are just using blogs to add more content to their own website. Thats basically stealing since they are taking articles without permission and then not giving anything back in return.
As I said its cool that they are into blogs but I would take things a step further and actually try to support bloggers by sending traffic to them.
Make sure you check their blogs section at gu.lf.news.com
As a Nutella freak I found this recipe on how to make Nutella ice cream interesting. Although I was expecting the process to be easier, like just shoving a Nutella jar into the freezer but it urns out its more complicated then that. Still if someone has the time this might be a worth while project. Step by step instructions plus a full list of items needed are listed. [Link]
Over 80 intros to cartoons from the 80’s including Gummi Bears, My Little Pony, Rainbow Brite, Snorks, Bionic Six (my fav), Care Bears and more. [Link]
15 different ways to set up your shoe laces. My favorite is the one above called the N Lattice. If you are into sneakers you should probably also bookmark the site. [Link ]
