Category: Information

I found out about this online BBQ store from Buzberry and I think the idea is pretty interesting. But there are a few things I would fix like adding pictures of the products, better descriptions, decreasing the delivery time to a few hours instead of 48hours, and lowering the minimum order down to KD5 or something instead of the current KD20. Adding an option to have them BBQ the stuff for you in case you don’t want to go through the hassle of doing it yourself would also be cool. [Link]

Can we get solar farms instead??

The Ministry of Electricity and Water in Kuwait has confirmed its participation in Earth Hour 2009. The ministry will provide the campaign with all the required consumption statistics before, during, and after the event. Also, the streets’ lights management in the ministry has confirmed switching off two light bulbs per street light in about 11.6 Km of the total length of the Arabian Gulf Street, one of the most famous streets in Kuwait, without affecting the public safety. This length represents around 60% of the total street’s length.

The Ministry of Electricity and Water find this event a good opportunity to show the bad consequences of over energy consumption in the community and its effects on the environment.

Thanks Yousef!

Looks like the new police Dodge Chargers are getting ready to go into service. Someone shot a video of a bunch of police Chargers parked outside the Mulla Behbahani service center in Al Rai. I first posted about the Dodge Charger back when the MOI were still deciding between which car make to go with so it’s interesting to see the progression in time from testing to the final release stage. [YouTube]

January 2008 – MOI testing new police cars
July 2008 – Dodge Charger is finalist
September 2008 – Kuwait orders 150 Dodge Chargers

Video by 8YuKoN8

Smoke House is a place I heard about recently from a friend. They opened up just two months ago in Mahboula and I posted about them a few days ago. Everyone who visited the place had good things to say about it so I got there with high expectations only to feel let down once I saw the place.

Smoke House is a very tiny restaurant with a very lame looking exterior and a pretty uninspiring interior. There is no love at first sight here more like what the frak brought me to this place! I passed by with a friend of mine and when we arrived 2 out of the 4 tables were occupied. We sat down and were greeted by a very friendly waitress and were given the menus to look over. I quickly decided to go with a chili cheese fries for starters, a Smoke House Burger (medium well) with cheese for my main dish and a side order of mashed potatoes with gravy. My friend ordered the lamb chops with a side order of coleslaw and sweet corn and butter. For drinks I decided to order root beer since I noticed one of the other diners was drinking root beer out of an A&W root beer jug so I decided I would have one also.

My burger arrived awhile later and I was totally shocked. It had to be the best burger presentation I had ever seen and I don’t mean just in Kuwait. The plate had a very gourmet like presentation to it and the burger looked very appetizing, I quickly took my shots before I bit into the burger. The burger didn’t come with any lettuce or tomatoes just a bit of thinly sliced onions and cheese. I think I’ve mentioned this before but I don’t think lettuce or tomatoes belong in a good burger, it takes away from the flavor which in this case was great. The patty was thick (not too thick) and very juicy. The bun was soft, looked wonderful and although was surrounded by some juice when it arrived it wasn’t soggy. The only negative thing about my burger was the fact the cheese wasn’t melted properly.

I went to Smoke House expecting a good burger but I didn’t expect this. I’ve decided to give this burger a 4.5 out of 5 making it the highest rated burger in my burger challenge so far. The root beer I ordered by the way tasted like crap. Turns out they weren’t using A&W root beer just their mugs but the waitress was nice enough to swap it with a regular coke and I wasn’t charged for the root beer. Other than that issue the sweet corn and butter was great, the coleslaw was very good, my friend’s lamb chops were supposedly also delicious and the quantity was huge. For dessert I had an apple pie and I ended up really liking that too. They really need a nicer and much larger place but according to the waitress if they do good for 6 months then they will be opening up a bigger place which makes good sense. The prices are also very affordable if anything maybe a bit under priced and I liked the way they dealt with my complaint, very professional. I’m actually going back there tomorrow with another friend and I am going to try and convince myself to have something other than the burger, maybe their Philly cheese steak. Good stuff.

Smokehouse is located in Mahboula
The cost of the Smokehouse Cheeseburger is KD1.950

Update: It seems they’ve changed their burger! Not sure why anyone would do this but their new burger doesn’t taste the same as the one in the review.

I finally got to pass by the new Sultan Center branch in Hawalli. First I have to say the location is crap since its located in traffic hell Hawalli, also if there is anything going on at the stadium next door don’t even think about passing by this branch since the stadium and Sultan Center share the same parking lot.

On the other hand the supermarket itself has really wide aisles and everything is nicely spread out. They seem to have more varied products compared to the main Salmiya branch but thats probably because they can fit more stuff. I think I’m going to do all my shopping at this branch from now on. Here is a link with a map and more info. [Link]

I am going to divide this post into two, in the first half I will talk about Cinemagic’s weekly movie screenings and in the second about Oldboy.

Last time I posted about Cinemagic was a year ago and a lot of you might not know about them. They are a local organization that focuses on helping and establishing local film makers in the region. They have courses, trainings, connections, everything that’s film related. One of the things they also try and do is increase the public’s interest in the beauty and art of the moving image and one of the ways they go about doing this is holding movie screenings every week. They hold these screenings in the old Salmiya, on the roof on top of Alghanim Electronics and LG. Anyone can go and watch a screening for free and they even provide snacks and refreshments.

Now the best part about all of this is the type of movies they play. They don’t play any of the mainstream stuff which Cinescape plays, instead they share a lot of small indie and foreign movies. This week they will be screening one of my favorite foreign movies called Oldboy which I reviewed here back in 2005. It’s a Korean movie about a guy who got locked up in a studio apartment for 15 years by some unknown assailants. Then one day, he gets released and decides to seek revenge and find out who locked him up and why. Its a violent movie which never gets boring and has a really messed up ending.

So if you’re interested, they’re screening this movie on Thursday March 19 at 7PM. I find out about their movies via a weekly newsletter and I have no idea how you could sign up to it but they do have a website which I believe is updated weekly and you can visit it by clicking [Here]

Update: Here is a link to their facebook group. [Link]

A group in Kuwait called BLD have started posting videos of their graffiti escapades. So far they’ve posted only one video titled “Kuwait Graffiti #1” and there is a second video on the way soon. I personally prefer more colorful graffiti which hopefully their second video will contain. [YouTube]

I was emailed the following:

Throughout the coming months there is going to be an eventful calendar of activities at different Starbucks locations. Ranging from insightful and inspiring photography exhibitions, to fun live music performances and gigs and many other more art forms to be included and surprises to be later announced.

Each weekend the photography exhibitions will take place in 3 Starbucks stores across Kuwait so choose the closest to you and come encourage young creative youth in Kuwait and spend a great weekend at Starbucks..

The schedule of events and locations are to be found for reference below:

6 -7 March
Starbucks Al Bidaa:
Ammar Al Othman & Samar Al Bader

Starbucks Behbehani Villa – behind Church – Kuwait City:
Saleh El Gaith & BaderAl Ajeel

Starbucks Mishref Coop:
Abdula Al Foudary & Nawaf Al Saleh

13-14 March
Starbucks Avenues (by Fountain):
Maha Al Asaker & Jarrah Al Boloshi

Starbucks Kuwait Free Zone:
Saleh El Gaith & Bader Al Ajeel

Starbucks Palms Spa & Resort:
Samar Al Bader & Sherifa Ben Ali

20-21 March
Starbucks Al Bidaa:
Maha Al Asaker & Jarrah Al Boloshi

Starbucks Salem Al Mubarak – Opposite Al Fanar:
Bader Al Ajeel & Ammar Al Othman

Starbucks Hilton Al Mangaf:
Abdulla Al Foudary & Nawaf Al Saleh

27-28 March
Starbucks Behbehani Villa – behind Church – Kuwait City:
Sherifa Ben Ali & Maha Al Asaker

Starbucks Palms & Spa Resort:
Jarrah El Boloshi & Saleh Al Gaith

Starbucks Marina Mall:
Ammar Al Othman & Abdulla Al Foudary

For more information visit their Facebook group [Here]

Thanks Maha!

A reader yesterday emailed me a link to a website of a Kuwaiti illustrator called Ahmed Al-Refaie. I checked out his work and was blown away so I emailed Ahmed and asking him if he could tell us a bit about himself and his illustrations and this is what he had to say:

Currently, Im about to graduate from Kuwait University “English Literature”. I don’t like it, but certain circumstances forced me to since there was no Graphic Design in KU. My name is Ahmed Al-Refaie (22) (Kuwaiti, although that does not matter, an artist is an artist no matter the origin ), my art is called vector art. I’m self-taught, never attended any art related classes. When I was 10, I started sketching, beginning of high-school I began graphic design, but this current style you see all around my website started in early 2006. Usually my art was varied in style and that is what I think of as a corrupted aspect of an artist. So I made and refined my own style. My website does not include my old works. For more technical details, I use a mouse, keyboard and Photoshop CS3 ( I always get the question “do you use a tablet?” ), just a good ol’ Apple mighty mouse. I was a bit into 3D using 3D Max but quickly lost interest as there are many giants in that field, its just not for me. That said, my work is completely raw, no pictures, filters, I do however reference body gestures (sometimes) but the image used is removed and I recreate the whole thing.

I think the guy is extremely talented and I think its about time KU setup a design department. There are a lot of talented young people and it would be sad to see them all taking random majors like English Literature or cooking just because they don’t have design.

Here is a link to his deviantART gallery [Link]
Here is a link to his personal website [Link]

I recently decided that whenever I travel I want to take a 35mm film camera with me instead of a digital camera. I realized when I have a limited amount of pictures I can take (36 per roll) I tend to take only the shots I really want and not just everything I see. With digital cameras I come back from my trips with hundreds of photos and I spend a lot of time deleting random junk because instead of spending more time taking 1 shot I use that time to take 5 shots of the same thing.

So I decided to stick with film instead of digital. When I went to Munich last year I took my 30 year old Nikon FE and came back with a lot of cool vintage looking shots. [Check here] Thats why I started looking for a new film camera, one that has personality which is something very important for me.

I started first by checking out the Nikon F3, then the Nikon F4, then the Yashica Electro 35 GSN, then the Canon QL17 GIII, then the Konica S2, followed by the Konica S3 until I finally landed on the Voigtlander Bessa R3A which is pictured in this post. Its one of the best looking camera I have ever seen. Its extremely well built and to some people its one of the best rangefinder cameras ever made right behind the Zeiss Ikon. I found one on eBay second hand that came with the fastest 40mm lens ever made, a Voigtlander 40/1.4 Nokton. Bidding was ending at 4:50AM so I set my alarm to 4:40AM and went to bed at 10PM. The maximum I wanted to pay was $500 since brand new the camera and lens were selling for $940. Sadly I didn’t win the bid. Even though I ended up increasing my budget to $600 the auction ended at $606 and the other person bidding looked like he could have taken it even further.

Now I need to decide what to do but I just wanted to share this camera with everyone now that the auction is over. Its such a beautiful camera!

I got home after work to find a bunch of retards fighting under my building. I parked my car in the basement and walked up to the ground floor to find around 20 teenagers (16-18 year olds) shouting, screaming and shoving each other around. I watched them for like 5 minutes and then decided to go upstairs and watch them from my balcony. A lot of fights erupt next to my building because there is a billiard place in the building next door that attracts a lot of the wrong crowd. There is also a prostitution ring that operates in that same building but they only open for business like once a week and its a pretty tightly run ship with high end customers so they never cause any problems (I should post about them one day). The billiard place on the other hand just attracts all these trashy kids that want to fight for the dumbest reasons.

While watching the fight from my balcony I heard what sounded like one guy yelling at who I thought was one of the Bangladeshi janitors in my building so I went back downstairs to make sure no one did anything to the workers. Turns out the workers were inside the building away from harms way but the fight outside had turned really violent with guys holding cutters and some guys bleeding. I live in a shopping mall in the old Salmiya street and these guys were basically fighting in the backside, then moving inside the mall and then back out to the front of the building onto the main Salmiya street. It was ridiculous! So I asked the landlord if he had called the cops and he told me yeah when the fight had first started but no one had come yet.

20 minutes later and the cops still hadn’t showed up. Actually the fight dispersed and everyone ended up going their separate ways and the cops never showed up. I went back up to my apartment while the janitors started to clean up the blood stains. Unbelievable.

Yesterday I posted about how disappointing the Teshkeel Comics theme park looks like and today I found a post on another blog about the Cartoon Network theme park which already opened and looks pretty cool. I can’t seem to figure out where its located though. You can check out pictures of the Cartoon Network on the blog P0ach by following this [Link]

Global Finance magazine just released a list of the world’s 50 safest bank and the only bank from the region that made the cut was NBK which came in at #44. The German bank KfW topped the list at spot #1 while HSBC came in at #19. For the full list here is a [PDF]

Thanks Abdullah!

I was emailed photos of the Teshkeel Comics theme park thats currently being created out in Jahra. The official opening date is March 19 but judging by the pictures the park looks disappointing. From what I can see (which isn’t much really) it looks like they took a regular theme park with regular rides and just stuck Teshkeel Comic stickers everywhere. Click continue to see the rest of the pictures.

I thought this project was canceled but I guess its still on. Kuwait is planning to build the tallest skyscraper in the world, one thats around 30% taller than the current tallest skyscraper, Burj Dubai. [Link]

Thanks DJ