Category: Kuwait

This morning I noticed 4 tow trucks and a police car near my office. I went to check what all the commotion was about and noticed some men hard at work trying to unlock a parked car to get it ready to get towed. I asked the cop what was going on and he said they were towing illegally parked cars. I thought that was cool and about time since the area gets major traffic sometimes due to the fact the illegally parked cars turn the two way road into one.

Sadly, I went back during lunch and noticed the tow trucks were gone, the cop was gone and all the cars parked illegally again. At least they tried…

I picked up a second hand Nikon 85mm F1.8D AF prime lens from World Photo last night for KD35. It’s a very cheap price for one considering a new one costs over KD150. The reason its so cheap is because neither the autofocus or the electronics work so I have to manually set everything which isn’t too bad. On my way to work I tried the lens out on some workers near the office and you can check the pictures out below. Will try to get some better ones tomorrow.

Turns out you can watch the Allah Made Me Funny show for free tonight and skip on paying to watch it at GUST. The Ministry of Awqaf & Islamic Affairs with The Grand Mosque Western Perception Of Islam Center are sponsoring the show tonight. The show will take place around 7:30PM (after the Isha prayers) and the location is the Grand Tent close to the Grand Mosque. There are an estimated seats 1000 and enough parking for 550 people. The event is for free and there’s no reservation!

Thanks DarkWolf80s via Q8geeks

Update: The show turned out to be a press conference were the fans were able to meet the guys. No stand up comedy sadly.

Spotted some UAS students cleaning up the beach near McDonalds this morning. Beach cleaning seems to be a popular thing lately, I wonder if there is some kind of coordination between all the beach cleaners so they don’t end up cleaning the same strip of beach over and over.

Once upon a time there were two cool photography stores in Kuwait City. One day the building that hosted the two shops got demolished and the stores disappeared…

After a bit of looking around I then noticed one of the shops ended up moving to Muthana Complex but since I didn’t know what happened to the other store I assumed it just closed down. Then out of the blue, a friend of mine tells me he found the place in Shuwaikh. It seems when they demolished the building they decided to move out of Kuwait City and into the industrial area of Shuwaikh for some reason. I passed by and noticed they still had all the used film cameras and lenses on display for sale. They also still have Cokin filters and various tripods, camera bags and studio lights for sale. I was checking out the Nikons, they had the F3, F4 and F5 for sale but none of them were really in great condition. They had two medium format cameras (a Kiev and Mamiya) and also a bunch of compact cameras.

If you’re interested in passing by they’re easy to find. Go to Canada Dry street and if McDonalds is on your right keep going straight past the traffic light and straight under the bridge. Keep going straight you will see a huge place on your left called Ramez. You need to keep driving until you hit the round about and then do a u-turn and head towards the direction you came from. Before the Ramez building you take a right and then you turn left behind the building and drive straight. You should see World Photo in front of you.

As you know the Animal Friends shelter burned down last week and many of their dogs were left without homes. The Royal Animal Hospital near the Friday Market were kind enough to host their dogs while they found homes and yesterday we ended up passing by and getting the dog above which we’ve decided to call Dyski. Originally we were going to call him Blacky but figured no one would realize we meant Blacky from Grendizer. We then thought about Kooji (also from Grendizer) but realized it sounded like Gucci which would have been lame. Anyway Dyski and my dog Geo (named after the Neo Geo) weren’t really getting along the first day but now it seems they’re doing ok. I am hoping they both bond and become best friends like big dogs and small dogs usually do in cartoons.

If you’re interested in fostering a dog temporarily until the Animal Friends shelter gets rebuilt please call 66187301 or e-mail [email protected].

Here is the calendar for Cinemagic’s rooftop movie nights for April. This month they’ve got movies from all over the world. Check out the full list below:

Thursday, April 1st at 07:00 PM
Tekkon kinkurîto, Japan 2006
Director: Michael Arias
Genre: Animation | 111 min | English Subtitle
Rated: PG 13

Saturday, April 3rd at 07:00 PM
Central do Brazil, Brazil 1998
Director: Walter Salles
Genre: Drama | 113 min | English Subtitle
Rated: PG 13

Thursday, April 8th at 07:00 PM
Vozvrashchenie, Russia 2003
Director: Andrei Zvyagintsev
Genre: Drama | 105 min | English Subtitle
Rated: 15+

Saturday, April 10th at 07:00 PM
Tuvalu, Germany 1999
Director: Veit Helmer
Genre: Drama | 101 min | English Subtitle
Rated: 15+

Thursday, April 15th at 07:00 PM
Offside, Iran 2006
Director: Jafar Panahi
Genre: Drama | 93 min | English Subtitle
Rated: PG 13

Saturday, April 17th at 07:00 PM
SURPRISE FILM – South Korea 2009

Thursday, April 22nd at 07:00 PM
Salmer fra kjøkkenet, Norway 2003
Director: Bent Hamer
Genre: Comedy | 95 min | English Subtitle
Rated: PG 13

Saturday, April 24th at 07:00 PM
Black Cat White Cat, Serbia 1998
Director: Emir Kusturica
Genre: Comedy | 127 min | English Subtitle
Rated: PG 13

Thursday, April 29th at 07:00 PM
Earth, India 1998
Director: Deepa Mahta
Genre: Drama | 110 min | English Subtitle
Rated: 15+

Saturday, May 1st at 07:00 PM
Ali Zaoua, Morocco 2000
Director: Nabil Ayoush
Genre: Drama | 99 min | English Subtitle
Rated: PG 13

Cinemagic movies are screened in the old Salmiya, on the roof on top of Alghanim Electronics and LG. There is a KD1 charge for the venue fees which includes refreshments, popcorn and much more. Here is a link to their facebook group [Link]

I got an interesting email from Mohammed Boland the creative behind local fashion label Capital District last night. It seems a Saudi based fashion label called Kalimah Jeans has copied one of his popular designs. He was walking at the Avenues when he spotted the familiar design in a shop display. Understandably he’s upset and he knows that very little can be done about it which must be really frustrating. I’m not sure which store in Avenues was selling the shirts but maybe if the owners found out they would be willing to withdraw the item from the store and return it to Kalimah as a way of supporting local talent.

I was dropping my Beemer off at the dealer today for a service when I spotted a closed booth that contained a car inside. Turned out to be the new BMW 5 series and it looked really good, much better than the new BMW Gran Turismo. I spotted one when I was in Lebanon and it looked really ugly, like if you took the already awkwardly looking X6 and had King Kong step on it and squash it. Seriously don’t know what they were thinking with the GT. Anyway the 5-series I saw today was the 535 and it was already reserved for someone.

Local blogger and teacher Miss Farah posted something which I wanted to share with my readers. One of her kids in class had brought only chips and chocolate for lunch (pic above), so Miss Farah sent a letter to the parents explaining to them how unhealthy that was for their daughter. Next day she checked the kids lunchbox and this time the little girl had cucumbers, carrots, croissant, corn and juice (pic below).

I thought it was great of Miss Farah for caring enough to contact the parents and I thought it was also great from the parents to actually listen to her. Hopefully the lunchbox continues to stay healthy and other parents reading this can do the same with their kids. You can check Miss Farah’s blog [Here]

The other day I posted about Kuwait’s first drift track, well it turns out the picture above is from the original drift track in Kuwait back in the 1970s. Ok, that’s not true, I actually retouched the picture to give it a vintage feel because I found pictures on the blog Every Little Thing that were taken today at the track and literally ALL the cars in the pictures were from the 70s. Seriously its like every Datsun from that era was at the track today, it was like a vintage car meet. Check out the pictures [Here]

On the bright side its great seeing those guys drifting on the track instead of blocking the highway and making donuts in the middle of traffic…

Update: Thanks to a reader, here is a [Video]

UNO restaurant at the Avenues has a pretty cool offer where if you buy one of their burgers you get another one free. Sadly I wasn’t impressed with my burgers (stay tuned for a review) but it’s still a pretty good deal.

I just found out from a friend that Blimpie is opening up in Kuwait. Blimpie is a American submarine sandwich chain just like Subway and Quiznos. Since Quiznos has closed down their only store in Kuwait, Blimpie will now be our alternative to Subway. First Blimpie branch will open in June, location still undisclosed.

Three girls with guns dressed like that and driving down the Gulf Road in their black GMC is going to make every guy on the road wanna chase them. Check out more pictures [Here]

Update: It seems Alqabas removed the images which is very strange. Here is another one I had saved luckily [Picture]

Update2: Alrai newspaper has a ton of pictures here is the [Link]

Update3: Very high quality shots available [Here]

American Eagle will be officially opening tonight at 5PM at The Avenues. Mohammed Alshaya will be there for the ribbon cutting ceremony so maybe we can all go there and yell out “We want In-N-Out… we want In-N-Out… we want In-N-Out…”