Category: Information

Yesterday BuYousef emailed a link to an article in LIFE about Kuwait dating back to 1959 which contained a good amount of pictures and information. He had found that article by using the search feature in Google Books and it made me realize I might be able to find other hidden treasure and I did. Since his email I’ve been reading old articles none stop and I’m still not 0.0001% through them all.

A search for Kuwait in Google Books will get you tens of thousands of results but I managed to narrow down the search a bit and found the ones below:

1952 Venus is a crook in Kuwait
1955 Proved in the Blazing Heat of Kuwait!
1958 Fresh Water from the Sea
1959 Kuwait: the fabulous sheikdom
1961 A dusty vigil
1965 Everything’s up to date in Kuwait
1975 What happens when the oil is gone?
1979 Bite that tiger
1980 Solar power station for oil-rich Kuwait

Some of the interesting stuff I read weren’t just articles about Kuwait but articles that mentioned Kuwait. I didn’t post them above because there were too many but I did read some interesting stories like I was reading an article from 1961 about a Nazi war criminal that was hiding in Kuwait and then I read another small snippet from someone in Kuwait who had sent a letter to Boys Life. It’s just random bits like that which I found really entertaining to read. Google Books is just amazing.

Not sure if many people have noticed this but street lamps have unique numbers on them. I remember reading once that these numbers are used to identify the location in case of emergency like say you get into an accident and you call for help, you could read them the number on the lamp post and they would know exactly where you are. I wonder if that applies in Kuwait.

Spotted this bus on my way into work this morning. Turns out there was a building under construction that was lifting some metal beams via a crane but the beams crossed over the main road where a Citybus was passing by.

On a similar subject some of you might not be aware of this but the employees of KPTC, the public blue buses are on strike because they’re protesting a KD50 salary cut. [News]

Posted by Fahad AlYehya | Core Fitness – Kuwait

This generation’s females are anemic, bulimic, and anorexic. They deny those things ad infinitum, of course, but you can’t really trust anything they say. They think cupcake is a food group.

Because I want to be fair and balanced, I will write this post with my “female” voice. (Yes, I do have a female voice. I keep it locked away safe and sound though. And my female voice is still a beast that will scratch your eyes out. Don’t mess with Lupita, yo!) Take it away Lupita:

75% percent of us are ova’weight, ese!
It sucks to be fat and anemic at the same time; it’s like you’re fat for nothing. Malnutrition here translates into eating junk calories devoid of any essential vitamins and minerals, replaced by traditional wholesome food.

But you told us to satisfy our cravings in moderation, homes!
I worked with women who eat nothing but chocolate, cupcakes, muffins and donuts all day long. Eating desserts and sweets all day moderately is anything but moderate. Eat your 2-3 square meals first and enjoy snacking in between them but in moderation.

Psshhh, wha’eva fatty! I have a high metabolism and I can eat wha’eva ah want.
If only I had a fils for every time I heard that, I’d be able to cross all of Lupita’s 160 cousins over the border. Studies conducted in Kuwait have shown that females between the ages of 14-18 are playing Russian Roulette with high cholesterol levels and diabetes. You don’t have high metabolisms; it’s called skinny fat. A person with a high metabolism looks like an anatomy chart. You look like a skinny stripper with extra jiggle.

Like I could care less what you tink. I’m enjoyin’ life and I’m happy! And my momma tinks I’m too SKINNY!
My mother, Allah bless her heart, is overweight and your mother’s also probably overweight. Mothers should set better examples by teaching their children on how to eat properly. Unfortunately, mothers enjoy dessert and sweet consumption more than their daughters. No one wants to be fat alone, so listen to mommy and have that extra cupcake. With whipped cream. And mango juice. And ice cream. With fondue on the side. Maybe cookies. Screw it, I’m adding in cookies.

OK OK! I get it! Save me from my own demise, papi!

I thought you’d never ask.

Awhile back a reader sent me some PDF files related to the construction of the Kuwait Towers and Kuwait Water Towers. The PDF’s contain photos, sketches and information regarding the projects. For example according to one of the PDF’s the total cost of the Kuwait Towers was KD4,700,000 (or $16,450,000) while the cost of the Water Towers was KD2,800,000 (or $9,800,000).

Among the different sketches and architectural plans lies an interesting bit of information. According to one of the diagrams (close up crop above) there was a discotheque and dance floor planned in the Kuwait Towers on top of the restaurant along with an indoor garden. That would have been a pretty cool club although I don’t know how efficient the elevators would have been carrying the crowd up and down. You can download all the PDF’s and check out a ton of pictures from the construction to the completion of the towers by following this [Link]

Posted by Fahad AlYehya | Core Fitness – Kuwait

The first day of Ramadan was a total bust. True epic failure. You guys would’ve been disappointed at the horrors that took place at my family’s futoor table.

Yet, like the phoenix, I rise again and avail in favor of sticking to my plan like every other dedicated fitness enthusiast, which lasted a few seconds right after the kanafa, atayef and cheese cake arrived, where I yet again continued to disgrace my will and testament in keeping my mouth shut and saving dessert for later.

Of course a few cups of sage, thyme, ginger, white tea, gymnema sylvestre and peppermint post pig-out should minimize the gut-damage, at least in accordance to my mother.  On a side note, I’ll be discussing more about those 6 herbs and how they can benefit you when indulging in belt-widening carby and fatty mixtures from hell.

This Post’s About Dessert BTW

I guide you how to eat dessert responsibly, I throw in a few jokes, then you follow my advice by eating dessert responsibly and we all live happily every after. The usual Q&A is available for any necessary inquiries in regards to the subject or any other relevant areas in fitness, health and nutrition.

Snacking Rules:

*Dessert should never go above 300 calories.

*Each snack should contain all macro nutrients, including junk-nutrients such as sugar and fat. Inclusion of all macros balance out the snack, providing a more subtle release of blood sugar.

*This is bullet point #3 and isn’t remotely relevant to the subject at hand.

*Snacks are to be consumed 2.5-3 hours after a meal or before a meal.

I posted a couple of days back about how AlQabas newspaper stole an image from a Bahraini blogger and published it in the newspaper. Well just an update, Aysha the blogger will be contacting a lawyer who will be sending a letter to AlQabas. Depending on the response they get they will then decide what action to take. Personally I am curious to see what the outcome of this will be.

On another note, I emailed the editor of Arab Time asking him if he was aware of various cases in which they copy pasted posts from local bloggers into their newspaper without giving any credit. I haven’t gotten a reply yet.

A Bahraini blogger called Aysha was surprised to find out that not only did Al-Qabas newspaper steal one of her pictures and publish it in the newspaper but that the picture they stole was a picture of herself. She was completely shocked and surprised to find her picture plastered in Al-Qabas and now wonders if there is anything she can do. She has a full write up on her blog which you can check by clicking this [Link]

Sadly I doubt there is anything she can do about this and we all know this isn’t the first time that Al-Qabas uses pictures without permission.

I was in Phase II of the Avenues when I heard what sounded like a movie being played loudly in the middle of the mall. I followed the sound all the way up to the second floor near where Kenneth Cole is and found something called the XD Theater. Turns out for KD3 you can watch a short 3D movie that’s around 5 minutes long. It’s kinda like a small movie theater in the middle of the mall.

So today I wore my Shake Shack t-shirt to the gym and on my way I took a picture and posted it on my twitter. To my surprise, one of my followers on twitter replied back telling me that Shake Shack will be opening in place of Le Pain Quotidien at Avenues. I quickly SMS’d my Alshaya insider to confirm and it turned out to be true.

Of course I was upset since I’ve been promoting Shake Shack ever since I first found out they were opening in Kuwait and instead of getting the information first from my insider, I ended up getting it from a twitter follower. My insider did tell me though that they were planning to have the branch open by end of the year and that I would get more information regarding that next week.

I also found out two more things, one is that they’re planning to open a second branch of P.F. Chang’s next to Al Corniche Club. My guess is they will probably open up where I Love Souk used to be located. Finally, I also found out that Pinkberry will be opening their Marina Mall branch before Eid next month. That’s everything I got for now.

A couple of weeks back one of the power plugs at home melted and started smoking. Luckily Nat was in the house at the time and smelled something burning and managed to turn off the plug before anything serious happened. A few days after that there was the fire incident that happened in my office building. Because of these two events I decided I should be “fire ready”.

I have a small fire cabinet in my apartment. I didn’t put it there, it came with the flat and it had 3 empty fire extinguishers inside which I never replaced or even threw out (they looked nice in the cabinet). I decided it was time I got them filled so I took the 3 empty canisters and headed to Rihab Complex in Hawalli. I had seen some fire supply stores on the first floor behind the video game stores and figured they would refill my canisters. Well, turns out although they do refill empty fire extinguisher bottles they wouldn’t refill mine since they were around 25 years old and so weren’t compatible with their machines.

So, I decided to get some new bottles. I figured they were going to cost me an arm and a leg but was completely surprised by how cheap the fire extinguishers turned out to be. There are two main types of extinguishers I found, powder and CO2 based ones. Both put out the same kind of fires but according to the salesman the powder one is cheaper but messier while the CO2 extinguishers cost more but don’t leave a mess. I ended up picking up two small 1KG powder fire extinguishers and one larger 2KG CO2 extinguisher from the shop pictured above. There are around 6 to 8 fire supply shops next to each other which means you can haggle on the price. The 1KG powder extinguishers cost KD2.5 each while the 2KG CO2 extinguisher costs KD8 (4KG powder costs KD8 as well), I picked three of them up for KD11.

So now you know where you can pick up fire extinguishers from and how much they cost so there really isn’t an excuse why you shouldn’t also be fire ready. I put one of the small extinguishers in Nat’s car since she didn’t have one (my car came with one) and I am now going to pick up a few more extinguishers this weekend for my parents home. Its better to be safe than sorry.

According to local blogger NicoleB there was an oil spill in Mangaf a couple of days back. I haven’t read about this in the news yet so I am guessing they’re trying to keep it a secret.

This morning when we went to the beach, I saw a bulldozer arriving and one car after another going to the beach. Getting closer I saw workers in coveralls walking along the shore, digging the sand and throwing stuff in the water to soak up the oil – I guess.

Some guys in a Pickup stopped beside me and told me not to let the dogs in the water, because there’s oil. But it’s not a problem. Mh. Right.

I checked the beach past Mangaf, direction Fahaheel. The oil was slowly arriving there as well.
I can’t find any news online and probably won’t at all.

Was down there this afternoon again, the workers were sitting on the beach. An oil spill response vehicle was there, two boats out in the ocean, but no action.

You can read her post [Here] and check out pictures of the spill [Here]

I passed by the new Lulu Hypermarket that opened up recently. The place is huge and I found a ton of stuff that I hadn’t seen before. I do all my shopping at Sultan Center since they have a lot of imported US and UK products but I will probably be adding Lulu to the list now. This is just an example of what I found at the first fridge once I walked in: Diet Coke “caffeine free”, Diet Coke with lemon, Diet Coke with cherry, Fanta Zero orange and Fanta Zero lemon, Sprite Zero, and Dr Pepper Zero. They also had a whole variety of Tropicana juices I hadn’t seen before (and for a reasonable KD1.600) and even the UK brand Innocent. I didn’t take any pictures after that fridge since there were “No Photography” signs everywhere (not sure why). I did manage to snap a picture of a strange fruit I found, hadn’t seen one like it before (pictured at bottom of post).

To get to Lulu you take the 40th and then exit on the 208 heading towards the Wataniya Airways airport. It’s located on the main road so you won’t miss it. Check out some more pictures below.

A reader emailed me an article in which Kuwait asks BlackBerry to block around 3000 porn sites so I went to myself what? I opened my browser on my BlackBerry and typed in playboy.com and hit go and guess what? It opened! Why didn’t anyone tell me about this before? I never knew I could access blocked sites on my BlackBerry.

Kuwait has asked BlackBerry maker Research in Motion (RIM) to block pornographic sites though will not suspend services like other Gulf states have threatened to do, a local newspaper reported Tuesday.

RIM has given “initial approval” to block 3,000 porn sites at the request of Kuwait’s communications ministry, the al-Jarida daily said, quoting a source it did not identify by name.

It said the Canadian manufacturer asked the ministry to give it until the end of the year to implement the block.

It’s also good to know that the BlackBerry service won’t be blocked in Kuwait. Here is a link to the [Article]

Thanks Deborah

If you have an iPhone and an iPad you will probably understand how annoying it is that you can’t share your phones internet connection over wifi to you iPad. Well now it’s super easy.

Visit www.jailbreakme.com from your iPhone browser and follow the instructions to jailbreak your phone and install Cydia. Shoul take around 2 minutes.

When done launch Cydia and search for the app called MyWi. It costs $20 but you can try it out for free for 10 days. Using MyWi you will be able to share your phone’s internet connection over wifi which you could connect the iPad to. Very easy.