2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003
I hope I’m not too late posting about this but I just found out from Kuwaitiful’s blog that not only is Kuwait competing at the Paralympics but that since 1980 they’ve won 49 medals including 10 gold. Why did I just hear about this!
At the current Paralympics that’s taking place in London Kuwait has a total of six athletes competing. For more details check out Kuwaitiful’s post [Here]
Pei Wei the fast food Asian Diner owned by PF Changs opened last night at the Avenues food court. I passed by earlier today for lunch and tried them out and as a first experience it wasn’t bad. They serve 5 different kind of Asian cuisines: Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Korean and Vietnamese. It’s half self service so when you first walk in you need to go to the cash register to place your order and pay. But, once you place your order you can wait at your table and they’ll bring the dishes to you and pick up the plates once you’re done. For the soft drinks they hand you empty plastic cups and you fill them up yourself from their soda station.
I ordered the Chicken Thai Dynamite (pictured above) and thought it was good but needed more sauce while the rice should have been stickier since I had trouble picking it up with my chopsticks (then again I’m really terrible with chopsticks). Price wise I think it’s on the high side for a fast food joint. My dish cost KD3.750 but the portion was pretty decent so that make things a bit better.
I’ve scanned their menu and uploaded onto the blog so if you want to check it out you can do so by downloading it from [Here]
Grand Cinemas will no longer be launching during Eid. I didn’t get an exact reason why nor did I get a new launch date just that it’s been postponed till after Eid.
According to Gulf Business, the follow are the top ten salaries in Kuwait:
1. Construction
2. Banking
3. Sales/ Marketing
4. Human Resources
5. Information Technology
6. Advertising
7. Public Relations
8. Hospitality
9. Real Estate
10. Publishing
For more details with salary figures you can check their article [Here]
Avenues Phase I and II combined have around 400 stores in total. When Avenues Phase III is completed before the end of the year it will double the total stores to around 800. So Phase III is going to be another Avenues stuck to the current Avenues which will make it pretty huge.
In comparison, Dubai Mall has over 1,200 stores.
A few weeks back I was having a quick bite at Hashtag when Dari the owner sat down with me and started telling me about PlusOne. It’s a fairly simple concept, anytime you order a burger just tell the cashier to PlusOne and they will add one Dinar to your total bill. The one Dinar you add will be matched by the restaurant and then a meal similar to the one you just had would be given to a low income worker. He invited me to pass by again when they were preparing the meals so I could volunteer and see how the system works for myself. So I did.
It was a pretty dusty day when I met up with Dari at Hashtag but that wasn’t changing their plans. I arrived just as they were starting to make the burgers. There were three other volunteers including the super nice Ms. Bibi Al-Ayoub from “Draw a Smile,” a charitable campaign that inspired PlusOne. Once all the burgers were ready we headed out to a location where street workers were coming together before being taken by a large bus to their compounds. As we arrived to the location so did a car from Chocolateness who were also participating that day.
The workers right away got in a very organized line as the volunteers started handing out the food one at a time along with a drink. Sadly that day there were more workers than there was food to give but hopefully as more people are aware about PlusOne that won’t happen again.
Right now the following restaurants are participating in this year long campaign:
If you’re interested in helping, just PlusOne to your bill when ordering from one of the restaurants above. If you’re a restaurant owner and want to participate, you can do so by clicking [Here]
[YouTube]
Our friend TJCfilms shot a short documentary about PlusOne which you can also watch above.
Finally, for more information on the campaign and to find out how you could also volunteer, visit their website [Here]
Social Slave put together a short list of restaurants serving Iftar buffets along with their prices. The list needs more hotels but it’s a good start. [Link]
I just found out from Jacqui that OSN have released an iPad App for their OSN Play service. OSN Play allows you to stream movies and tv shows on the go and now with the iPad App you’ll be able to stream the content onto your iPad wherever you are in the Middle East. It’s perfect timing with the olympics currently taking place.
But I can’t get the App to work for some odd reason. I logged into my account but whenever I try to stream anything I get the error “You’ve now registered the maximum number of devices for this account.” I have no idea what that means but I’m hoping its a technical issue from their side that will be worked out soon.
If you’re an OSN subscriber you automatically have free access to OSN Play and you can download the App from [Here]
Update: Turns out every time you log in to OSN Play from a different computer it adds that computer as a device. You can have maximum two devices which I already have which is why I couldn’t get OSN Play to work on the iPad. There is a workaround without having to remove an already added device. OSN Play allows you to have other members in the house create sub accounts so I just created a second account for myself and this should solve the problem.
According to a post on Mental Floss, Kuwait is among 21 countries with only one Olympic medal. I don’t think that is bad considering how tiny Kuwait is and how there is very little interest in track and field or most other Olympic sports. [Link]
Kuwait’s only Olympic medal was won by Fehaid Aldeehani in the men’s double trap shooting event at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. Fehaid is competing again in this years London Olympics and was the flag bearer during the opening ceromony (pictured above).
Thanks Ds
Grand Cinemas, the new theater company in Kuwait will be opening in Al Hamra Tower during Eid. The theater once open will have a total of 9 screens with one of them being a VIP theater which I’ve been told will rival those of Dubai.
Update: The launch has been postponed [Link]
The Olympics is going to start tomorrow and most of us will be at work or away from our TVs during the various sporting events. Luckily with the BBC app for the iPhone, Android and Blackberry’s, you will be able to watch the events from wherever you are.
There is one minor hurdle and that is the fact that streaming is only allowed if you live in the UK. But, there’s an easy fix. All you need is a VPN server based in the UK. This is similar to using a VPN to sign up to Spotify or Pandora except in this case we want BBC to think we live in the UK not US. So here is what you need:
UK Based VPN Server
I use StrongVPN and their $55 a year package includes both US and UK servers. I currently have mine set to the UK server so I can watch the Olympics on my phone. Here is a link to their [Website]
When you get to their website, click on packages, then on the bottom of that page click on “click here to see all our packages” and then choose their cheapest $55 a year package.
Once you’re done move over to the next step
Download the BBC Mobile Apps
Android
Apple iOS
BlackBerry
or
Watch Online
To watch online you need visit the BBC website [Here]
I’m currently on a 20Mbps connection and have a ping rate of around 124ms with the UK server and on my desktop I find the video a bit pixelated but this might improve once the Olympics officially starts tomorrow. On the phone it’s not noticeable. One thing to note with the iPhone app is you need to get it from the UK store so if you don’t have a UK Apple Store account you need to create one.
NBC Olympics Live Extra
US based NBC have an iPhone, iPad and Android application and will be offering live streaming for US residents. BUT, other than a US based VPN you would also need to have a cable, satellite or telco TV service package that includes CNBC and MSNBC.
Batman the Dark Knight Rises releases 26 days later in MENA after International release
It seems the reason Batman: The Dark Knight Rises isn’t out yet in the region is because Joseph Chacra & Sons, the Warner Bros licensee of the region decided to postpone the release. The reasons they’re claiming behind this delay is the fact Ramadan is a slow season for them with 45% drop in sales and that watching movies in Ramadan is haram.
Blogger Moey started an online campaign to try and get them to release the movie on time but they wouldn’t change their minds and even started deleting users comments and negative posts from their Facebook page. Watch Moeys video above and then check out the following links to his blog posts:
Update on The Dark Knight Rises
The Crime That Warner Bros Lebanon Committed Online
So if there is anyone to blame for us not watching The Dark Knight Rises this Ramadan it’s not Cinescape but Warner Bros Middle East.
Heard about this service ages ago but never bothered to find out how to subscribe to it. The MOI SMS service when signed up to it will notify you when you commit traffic violations. The sign up fee is KD1 and then it’s 40fils per SMS notification. Here are the sign up instructions:
To subscribe, send the following SMS:
E(space)Civil ID
Example:
E 1111111111
Send the SMS to one of the following numbers:
Zain Subscribers 992
Viva Subscribers 55250
Wataniya Subscribers 1750
via PeachBox
The popular Kuwait guide iPhone app Urban Moon just got a major update yesterday. The biggest difference I’ve noticed is the speed of the app. My biggest complaint with their previous version is that once you launched the app you had to wait a few seconds for it to download the latest phone numbers. Now the downloads take place in the background so you can start using the app as soon as you launch it.
Another new feature is that the app will now contain reviews. Currently restaurants in the app have a generic description but they’ve already started writing reviews and soon they’ll be swapping out the generic descriptions with honest reviews of the restaurants. That I think could be interesting and maybe even more so if they allow people to submit their own reviews similar to the Yelp app.
You can check out the full list of improvements and features in the Apple Store [Here]
The Fixtures just posted a short interview with Nasser Al Sayegh who is Kuwait’s first nuclear engineer. He seems like a smart guy (obviously) and if people like him ran the plant Kuwait would be in safe hands so it’s too bad Kuwait scrapped all their nuclear ambitions. You can read the interview with Nasser on The Fixture’s blog [Here]
In case you missed it, here is a previous video interview with Nasser taken from AlRai TV. [YouTube]
Update: Some readers have pointed out in the comments that Nasser is not the first Kuwaiti to get a degree in Nuclear engineering. But, it’s possible he might be the only Kuwaiti nuclear engineer to actually work in the field. I’m trying to get some more clarification on this.
Update2: Nasser has posted the following comment in relation to the above:
To clarify things up I’m the first specialized person in the nuclear field In Kuwait. Although the others did get there certificates before me they didn’t actually work in a nuclear reactor so all what they have is theoretical backgrounds. I’m also the only person in the gulf that has a security clearance to work in nuclear reactors around Europe.