Totally awesome video, it can’t be all real though, I don’t think it can at least. [YouTube]
Update: Here is the Kuwaiti version [YouTube]
Category: Sports
Fucking cool. [YouTube]
Update: Remember the Ronaldinho Nike ad where he keeps kicking the ball and it keeps hitting the goal post and bouncing back? Check out this version with Ronaldo instead. [YouTube]
Last month Al Nasr, a Basketball team in Kuwait signed up American center John Francis Smith to play for their team. Well John is in Kuwait now and he’s made a video of the apartment the team has given him. It looks really nasty and very old, I don’t think I could even spend a night there yet alone live there. Its a really shitty place and he’s really really pissed. [YouTube]
Categories
Skydive for just KD74
Before you get too excited this isn’t in Kuwait, its in Dubai. But, with cheap Jazeera tickets it still comes out to be pretty affordable. You could probably fly out in the morning, skydive and come back in the evening. The video above is of some guy skydiving and here is the link with more info and prices. [Link]
Categories
We came 17th!
Red Bull sent us the results of the Flugtag and we weren’t last we actually came in 17th place! Pretty cool.
1 THE FLYING STARS
2 OPTICAL BOYS
3 BLACK PEARL
4 MISHAAL AL NAJADI
5 AMZN
6 THE PHOENIX
7 eL ¼
8 THE RED CARPET TEAM
9 THE FLYING PIRATES
10 NISSAN ZEPPELINS
11 DRAGON FLY
12 CIRQUE DU SULTAN
13 HUNGER 7
14 BLIZZARD
15 BUTTER FLY
16 THE FLYING MUMMY
17 IMPERIAL 27
18 HKM 3
19 DIET CENTER
20 B-TUNES
21 FLYING ANGELS
22 DREAM TEAM
23 BENQEEZ
24 FLYING LOGISTICS
25 DIVAS TEAM
26 4TH RING
27 PIRATES OF THE ARABIAN
28 AUTO TECH
Just booked my tickets to Bahrain via Jazeera Airways. They are practically giving them away, it cost me only KD23. Weird thing is after I booked I was checking the passenger name and it was written TESTTT, TESTT. I called Jazeera Airways up a few minutes ago to fix it and I am actually still on hold waiting for someone to pick up while I am writing this post.
So anyways, Gulf Run is next week, I am going to be taking both my video cam and digital camera so I can take a ton of shots. Marzouq, Bader and Khalid are also going and I don’t know if there are any other bloggers also going. If you want to find out more about Gulf Run you can check out their website on www.thegulfrun.com
And Remember, Magic is the Natural Energy Drink 😉
By the way, I am done writing this post and I am still on hold!
update: After waiting for like 10 minutes they hung up on me, I called again and I am now still on hold
update2: Finally got a hold of someone who was very professional and straight to the point. Fixed my problem instantly. I guess they just need more operators.
Today was such a blast! We got to Marina Waves around 9AM in the morning and first thing we had to do was move our plane to the proper location which was the front of the line. One team ahead of us had withdrawn from the event so we became team #3 instead of #4.
Our friends started to come one by one until our station resembled a large diwaniya then judges started passing by to judge and ask questions about our plane. Every time a judge would see our plane they would get this shocked look on their faces but they all had sense of humors and cracked jokes with us. They all agreed though that our plane was the most comfortable one to sit in, kinda like a lazy boy version of a plane. Later that we found out one of the teams had a large helium canister which we quickly took advantage of. We kept filling balloons with helium and passing them around to everyone to inhale, that cracked everyone up for a while.
Finally around 2PM they started the event and we were the third plane to jump off. We were dressed as traditional Kuwaiti fisherman which didn’t make sense at all but its not like anything else did. Every team had to play a song and have a dance before they pushed the plane off the ramp and our song was Sabo7a. I think that and our dance which was also traditional Kuwaiti cracked up people the most. For me I think the dancing was the worst part, I hadn’t danced the traditional Kuwaiti dance since I was like 10 years old in school so I was just a mess but who cared it was still fun. The rest of the team, Khalid, Bader and Marzouq were naturals though as you can see in the video at the end of this post.
Once we were done with the dance we got behind the plane and Bader who was our pilot got into it and we started to push. We pushed as hard and fast as we could and just before the end we let go and stood and watched. All I saw was our plane fly out a few meters and then slam hard into the water with Bader lying on his back and this look of horror and pain on his face. It was priceless! It was then our turn to jump in, we didn’t have to but we wanted to. The only reason we participated in Flugtag was to have some fun and jumping in was the last thing we had to do.
When you look down from the edge the water looks really far but I thought about that for just a second before I just went ahead and jumped in. For some reason I decided to land on my ass so I landed pretty hard and it was kinda painful but not as bad as landing on your back which Khalid and Bader did. The water was amazing and it was just an incredible rush jumping off after such a long and amazing day. I could hear the crowds cheering and laughing and I could also hear Bader, Khalid and Marzouq all laughing. We then got on the jet skis that came to rescue us to take us back to shore, me and Khalid got on behind this one guy and just as he was taking off the whole jet ski flipped on its side and we landed on an adjacent jet ski which was pretty hilarious at the time I don’t know why.
When we got back to the shore we met up with the other teams and they congratulated us and we shared with them our experience. After that we just packed up and left since we were all wet and tired.
I have to say all the other teams we met and interacted with were also a lot of fun. Majority of the guys there were there just like us to have a lot of fun. If you actually saw the planes at the event you can tell most didn’t care about winning, everyone just wanted to enjoy the day and crash land with style. From the teams, to the Red Bull staff and even the judges, everyone was very positive, super friendly and a lot of fun. I would definitely want to participate again next year maybe even with an updated plane although I love ours the way it is. After this event I actually suggested we convert our plane to a raft and just join the yearly raft race with it.
The pictures above were taken by Nicole except for the picture of goatse (we had spray painted it at the rear of our plane), that was taken by me. The video below was shot by Nat. Special thanks to Hashem (he doesn’t have a blog so I could link to) for helping us out by being our ground crew and helium supplier.
Kuwait’s Red Bull Flugtag 2007 from Mark on Vimeo.
I read about this earlier today on Forza’s blog and a reader (Lexicon) awhile ago sent me another link with a bit more info. It really sucks to see Kuwait fall back like this from its glory days in the 70s and 80s. [Link]
Categories
The new Sports Corner
A few months back I noticed a new sports store was opening up in place of where Boushari was located in Salmiya. I was pretty excited because I thought it was a new franchise opening but then I found out it was just Sport Corner and I lost interest. Sports Corner was already open further down the street near Thuraya Complex and I didn’t like the place so I wasn’t expecting this new one to be better. I even got invited to the launch of the new store but I wasn’t interested.
Tonight though I decided to go in and it was pretty impressive. The store is 4 floors and although I don’t think the floor space is as big as GoSport, its still pretty packed with stuff especially in the basement. The ground floor is dedicated to Adidas, the second floor to Reebok, the third floor is Champions and the basement is packed with weight lifting, exercise equipment, bikes, punching bags, rackets and just a ton of stuff. The place is worth a visit if anything just so you know whats available in Kuwait in terms of sporting gear. GoSport still caters to a wider range of sports while I would say Sports Corner has a larger variety of weight lifting and exercise equipment.
Oscar Pistorius is a double amputee athlete who runs with the aid of carbon fibre transtibial artificial limbs. I read about him in WIRED magazine but this is the first time I see him in action. [YouTube]
Categories
Riding Vs Riding
My favorite thing about Ramadan is that I get off work at 3PM. This allows me to have a ton of free time to do stuff I wouldn’t usually do like riding my bicycle.
Yesterday I went riding with Nat and the weather was surprisingly great. We rode from Marina Mall to Scientific Center, a short route since we didn’t want to take a longer one in case our bikes had developed problems after a year of storage. Imagine riding all the way to the Kuwait Towers and then finding out the bike has a problem and you have to walk back all the way to Salmiya. It would suck…
Riding the bicycle is really different from the motorbike. For one thing falling off a bicycle is no longer a big thing. Nat crashed yesterday when her bicycle slid on a curve and she just got up and continued riding. When the same thing happened to me with my motorbike I ended up with road rash, a fractured wrist and a large repair bill.
There are two brands of bikes I would recommend people getting, Trek and Cannondale. I personally prefer and ride Cannondale. When it comes to road bikes I would go with Trek but for mountain bikes Cannondale all the way. The Cannondale dealer is located in Shuwaikh, you take the first right after McDonalds on Canada Dry street and once you reach the small round-a-bout the dealer would be on your right hand corner. Trek on the other hand is available at GoSport in The Avenues and eXtreme Sports at Marina Waves.
If you are looking for a place to ride, the Gulf Road is a good place to start. For a short trail you can start off at Marina Crescent and ride all the way to Scientific Center and back. For a longer trail you can go from McDonalds on the Gulf Road and head all the way to Souk Sharq and back. Both routes use a sea side trail away from dangerous car traffic.
Cannondale have soooo many hot bikes to choose from, my favorite being the Gemini but the prices can get ridiculous with models costing KD1000 and up. You can spend a lot less of course, a member in the forum recently purchase a Trek for only KD148 and you can even get bikes for under KD50 even although I wouldn’t recommend them at all. The difference between the cheap and expensive bikes is usually weight, quality of parts, the frame and the finishing. Cheap bikes are usually heavy, equipped with the crappiest brands and handle like crap.
There used to be a riding club that met up every Friday at like 7AM to go riding but I don’t think they do that anymore. If anyone knows of another riding club please leave it in the comments below.
Rangers Vs Celtics, lots of hate. [YouTube]