Category: Information

Virgin Megastore is open again and I think this time around they are taking censorship to the extreme. I think thats what I would do if I was them, I would want to show people how ridiculous censorship can be. The CD cover above is of the Buddha-bar CD, they’ve censored the Buddha’s face!

update: I have been told censoring the Buddha is not something new.

I got back from Dubai last night and since I averaged around 5 hours sleep a night I was really exhausted when I got back. Here are s

The Flight
We took the Sri Lanken airlines to Dubai for two reasons, the first was because it was an early flight (before the 2 hour delay) and the second because I was told the Sri Lanken airlines is owned by Emirates they are the same. Well they aren’t. I think all the old Emirates planes get handed down to the Sri Laken airlines. The two planes were old and setup very similarly to the Kuwait Airways ones meaning no entertainment jukebox of the Emirates with over 300 things to watch. If you want to drink water on the plane its not bottled but out of a jug, even Jazeera Airways gives passengers bottled water and for free.

The Hotel
We stayed at the Sapphire Hotel which was located very close to Dubai Media City where the Young Lions Competition was being held and it was also close to the Mall of the Emirates. The hotel felt more like a furnished apartment because I had a small kitchen, large fridge and even a washing machine. The staff weren’t good communicators and they all felt untrained. They have Internet access in all the rooms via Wifi and it costs 15 Dhms per hour. Problem was that even with my very sensitive MacBook I was only able to get a decent signal from inside the closet located near the rooms main entrance. Finally, no cab driver had heard of the hotel so every time we took a cab we had to give the driver directions.

Lina’s Cafe
Had the Turkey Fillet with cheese sandwich on Wednesday for lunch. It was so good we actually went back Thursday to have the exact same thing for lunch again.

The Butcher
Wednesday night we had dinner at The Butcher in the Mall of the Emirates. I had the steak fillet which was above average but nothing special. The restaurants name is cooler then the food.

Chicago
Virgin Megastore in Dubai don’t sell the Arabic book Chicago, which was the book that supposedly shutdown Virgin in Kuwait. Borders on the other hand which was located a few stores away did sell the book. I should have gotten a bunch and sold them here in Kuwait on the black market.

Cabs
We took a lot of cabs in Dubai since it was our only mean of getting around. Cab drivers were mostly friendly and easy to converse with except for one driver who turned out had been in Dubai for just a month and reminded us a lot of Borat. One tip, if you are leaving Mall of the Emirates at 10pm and notice there is a long long long line of people waiting for a cab in a very orderly fashion… don’t wait with them. Just walk 20 meters to the main road and grab a passing cab from there, it will save you at least 30 minutes of waiting. Seriously the line was as long as those at six flags or Disney. I should really have taken a picture! Vallet parking at the mall is 50 Dhms (KD4).

Aï Zone
Found a really cool pair of Prada sneakers at Aï Zone, there was no price tag on them so I figured if I have to ask then I probably can’t afford them.

Passport Covers
One quick question. At the Dubai airport they had a large stand selling passport covers. Now my question is this, can I use a passport cover of a different country on my passport? For example can I buy the Russian passport cover and then use it to cover my Canadian passport?

American University of Kuwait which is located in Salmiya is having a carnival/open-day this Thursday from 10am till 5pm.

Someone emailed me a video today showing a really freaky looking baby. You can check the video [Here] but its not for the faint of heart.

It turns out the baby had a severe skin disease and that these babies are usually called Harlequin Babies. I found a lot of information about these babies online and its really sad. If you are interested in finding out more here are some links. Again they are pretty graphic so you might not want to check them.

Video from HalaQ8
Video from Google
Pictures and information
More pictures
Wikipedia entry

I started watching this documentary/movie called The Last Flight to Kuwait which talks about the British Airways flight 149 that landed in Kuwait just as Iraq was invading back in 1990. I don’t know how accurate it is but it looks like its based on facts.

There always was a conspiracy surrounding the reason the BA flight landed in Kuwait. According to Wikipedia the flight landed after the invasion had begun but according to the documentary it landed just before. In any case, the documentary talks about the reason the plane landed in Kuwait which was because there were eight MI6 (the British secret intelligence service) agents that the British government wanted to position in Kuwait. It sounds very plausible especially since there is no other reason why BA didn’t cancel the flight like every other airline that night.

If you can manage to get a hold of the movie its definitely worth watching. The movie is a combination of real footage from the war, reenacted scenes and interviews with some of the passengers and crew of that flight.

Q80Boy sent me an email telling me that last night at 9:30PM, Virgin in Marina Mall was shutdown because they were caught selling inappropriate movies. Can anyone confirm this? It’s confirmed!

update: I just got back from Marina Mall and Virgin is closed. There are red stickers all around the place and two A4 photocopies of the closing order which you can view [Here] and [Here]

I passed by the MV Agusta dealer today for the first time. My friend is looking to buy a naked bike and he wanted to check out the MV Agusta Brutale. The dealership is pretty cool and like TriStar very friendly and passionate about bikes. They have a limited edition Brutale, number 222 out of 300 called the Brutale America. They also had a limited edition F4-1000 Senna on display, again limited to just 300 pieces worldwide. The coolest bike there though was the pearl white and black F4 R312. The 312 is the max speed the bike can hit and it just looks amazing and its not to expensive either at around KD7,600. The Brutale 750s (not the limited edition one) costs around KD4,950 before discount. Pretty cool prices for such beautiful bikes.

I think I spent around 2 hours there with my friend, even Marzouq ended up joining near the end and I think he will end up posting a bunch of pictures since he had his camera with him. The picture above is of the pearl white and black F4 R312 which I took off the MV Agusta website.

Here is a link to the local dealers website. [Link]

Here is also a video of an MV Agusta owner in Kuwait trying to reach the max speed of his bike but only managed to hit 295KM. He had a tank mounted camera which is pretty cool.

[YouTube]

I have one of these in my office and I always assumed the whole inside was filled with liquid and that a bunch of little pyramid shaped objects had the words of wisdom on them. Turns out I was way wrong. [Link]

via digg

A friend of mine just made me aware of this event. It seems next week the Kuwait Boat Show will start and its organized by Knotika, that same people that set up the Dubai Boat Show. The event will take place at the Al Kout mall’s marina and it will be running from April 21st to April 25th from 3:30PM till 10 in the evening. Entrance tickets are KD3. I will probably be going Saturday and I will try to take pictures, I am assuming the whole place is going to be lit up well. For more information you can check out the Kuwait Boat Show website which surprisingly is pretty decent. [Link]

Someone posted a link to a website the other day when I was looking to rent a car and I thought it was spam. Why? Because the comment said I could rent a Hummer for KD10 and then sent me to a website which looked like a second hand car dealership called Gallardo.

Fast forward to today, I am flipping through an Al-Waseet clone when I found an advert for a car rental agency called Gallardo where you can rent an H3 or a Mini convertible for only KD10. Not only that but I could rent a Ferrari F430 or a Lamborghini Gallardo for KD150 a day which is less then half the price of competitors.

So I called them up to see if there were any strings attached and so far it seems there aren’t any. The cars are fully insured and you can rent them for 1 day if you want there is no minimum. Currently they only had a Bentley, Gallardo and 6-series BMW available but the guy said to call back at 7PM because thats when some of the other cars will be back in. It still sounds too good to be true so something must be up. How is it possible to rent an H3 for KD10 a day when a Corolla is for KD7?

Here is a scan of their advert with prices [Link]
Here is a link to their website [Link]

The movie “Promises” which was scheduled to be screened last Wednesday at Bait Lothan was postponed due to bad weather. The movie will now be screened tomorrow at the same time. For more details click [here]

A friend told me about this earlier (Rand) and I wasn’t interested but as it turns out there is an actual video of the robbery which suddenly made it a lot more interesting. Turns out 2 cars drove into Wafi Mall and the occupents got out, robbed a jewellery store and then escaped in the 2 vehicles.

You can watch the video [here]

Thanks LE!

Today morning I returned the Lumina to Europcar. I had found a better deal on another car with another rental agency so I no longer wanted the Lumina. The employee at Europcar was extremely friendly and even though I had rented the car for only 1 day she still gave me the same rate as the weekly one which is KD10 a day.

After that I walked over to Al Sayer rental which was very close by. I had passed by yesterday evening to check out a Toyota Echo he had and I was planning on renting it. The car wasn’t in great condition with hub caps missing and some weird stains on the seat. I figured I could haggle the price down a bit but the guy refused. He wanted KD5.750 per day if I wanted the car for a week but if I brought the car earlier he would charge me KD7 a day. I told him Automax was renting a Corolla for KD6 a day and I was sure it was in better condition. He refused to lower the price and I left the place.

Once I got to work I called Automax and asked for a Corolla. Guy told me if I have the car for less then a week its KD7 a day but if its more then a week its KD6. I asked if they could drop the car off to me and they said it wouldn’t be a problem and it would be at no extra charge.

So now I am driving a 2006 black Corolla. Its not in the best condition either and I have no clue where the car papers are because I couldn’t find them in the car but it’s cheap. I just paid them KD30 deposit and thats it, they didn’t take my Visa card number or anything. I actually don’t think I would have trusted them with my credit card details anyway, the whole thing feels fishy to me. This is why I would rather deal with international franchises but of course those cost more.

I really have to say though renting from Europcar was really great and the service very friendly. If anyone needs to rent a car from them you can call Lisa on +965 6540248. She was very helpful and probably the best person I have ever rented a car from.

This is the strangest, weirdest and funniest thing I have ever seen. I still don’t believe it. There are goats in trees, this is not a hoax!

The tree the goats are in is an evergreen argan tree. It is found mostly only in Morocco. The tree reaches heights of 25-30 feet, and has a knobby, twisted trunk that allows for goat climbers. The goats climb the tree because they like to eat the fruit of the tree, which is similar to an olive.

Check out the pictures on Flickr [Link]
Here is information on them [Link]

Picture above taken from here

Cinemagic is having a weekly screening event called “Short & Sweet”. The events will take place at the Cinemagic Courtyard in Bait Lothan, Salmiya, and will run every Wednesday between 7:00 – 9:00PM. The screenings bring together a collection of short films from all over the world including Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy, Poland, Brazil, Jordan, Lebanon and Kuwait. Each week they will screen a different selection of films of varying genre, nationality, and style.

For its part, Cinemagic Kuwait, is organizing these events as part of its efforts to contribute to the development of an internationally competitive Kuwaiti audio-visual production industry, partly by bringing the filmmakers and audiences together and by increasing the public’s interest in and appreciation for the art of filmmaking.

This week, they will screen “Promises” a 2001 Academy Award-nominated and Emmy-winning documentary film that looks at the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from the perspectives of seven children living in the Palestinian communities in the West Bank and Israeli neighborhoods of Jerusalem.

The film follows the journey of Israeli-American filmmaker B.Z. Goldberg as he meets with seven Palestinian and Israeli children between the ages of nine and thirteen, seeing the Middle East conflict through their eyes. Rather than focus on specific political events, the film gives voice to these children, who, although they live only 20 minutes apart, live in completely separate worlds.

Attendance is always free of charge, but seating is limited, so make sure you arrive early. Snacks and refreshments will be served.