Yesterday the Associated Press uploaded the short video above of a group of Kuwaiti divers who are on a mission to clean up Kuwait’s seabed and improve its marine environment. According to Walid Al-Fadhel who is the team’s leader, they were able to salvage 172 boats and yachts.
The video was only uploaded in 360p resolution for some reason so it’s not great quality, but it’s good enough to tell their story.
Sam Chui, one of the most popular aviation and travel vloggers in the world was invited to Kuwait by Kuwait Airways recently. That was a couple of weeks ago when the airline made a number of announcements including the revealing of the new flight attendant uniforms. His video of the trip just went up and there really isn’t anything revealing or controversial.
But I did find one thing odd, Sam was getting a tour of the Kuwait Airways headquarters and the CEO mentioned that the building was inspired by the stealth bomber. I thought that was an odd design decision for a civilian airline headquarters.
Josh Cahill is a German-Czech aviation vlogger and airline critic who is considered to be the most-watched flight reviewer on YouTube. Yesterday he posted a video review of his flight with Kuwait Airways and spoiler alert, he had a wonderful experience. He liked a lot of things including surprisingly, the Chicken Kiev which he described as one of the best meals he’s had on any flight. Now I feel like I have to try it. Check out his review above.
The Undertaker went on a PR tour recently ahead of his induction into the WWE Hall of Fame and during one of his interviews, he recalled the infamous incident he had on KTV with fellow wrestler Vader and Kuwait TV host Bassam Al Othman. WWE (previously WWF) was performing in Kuwait back then and both wrestlers went on KTV’s Good Morning show to be interviewed by Bassam. During the interview, Bassam asked Undertaker and Vader if wrestling was fake. In response, Vader flipped over the table they were sitting at and grabbed Bassam by the tie, asking him if it seemed fake while using foul language. If you haven’t watched that old interview before, I’ve embedded it below.
According to The Undertaker in his recent interview with SHAK Wrestling (video below at 14:50 minute mark), they actually ended up arresting Vader after the incident:
“I remember them whisking me out,” he said. “When everything broke down, I remember Jerry Brisco grabbing me and like, ‘let’s get in a car, we’re getting out of here.’ I look back and I see Leon like, ‘Take, what do I do?’ I was like, ‘I’ll see you at the hotel, brother.’ Because I am getting pulled, I am physically getting pulled to get into the car before everyone gets arrested. We just didn’t know. I knew that was going to be a bad decision right away and it was. He didn’t leave with us, he had to stay there for a week or so after we all left.”
I never knew Vader was arrested but I found another show on KTV that discussed the aftermath of the incident and supposedly, after the interview, the Good Morning show host ended up pressing charges on Vader at the police station. Two scrawny cops then went and arrested Vader who was put under house arrest for a couple of weeks until the WWE eventually managed to get him out.
The anniversary of this incident is actually in a few days since it took place on April 12th, 1997. Good times.
اليوم وفي رالي الكويت حصل حادث لأبني @Azizsaadon ولله الحمد لم يصب بأذى لكن خسر المركز الثاني بسبب دخول احد المتفرحين الذين تفاداه عبدالعزيز مما ادى الى حصول الحادث اقول الحمدالله على سلامته والله يوفقه في الجايات pic.twitter.com/eFVHZaMbMB
Qatari rally driver Abdulaziz Saadon Alkuwari got into an accident yesterday during the FIA Middle East Rally Championship when a quad bike got across the race track. Abdulaziz narrowly missed hitting the quad bike but then lost control of the car and hit a rock causing the car to flip and crash.
You can watch footage of the crash in the tweet on top but he also has more photos and clips in his instagram story @alkuwari_rally. Luckily both he and his co-pilot escaped unharmed.
It’s been a year now since the DJI Mini 2 got launched but I just got mine a couple of weeks ago. I’ve been wanting the DJI Mini 2 ever since it was released so a few weeks ago I got in touch with Xcite and asked them if I could get one to review. I’m not a drone expert so this review is directed at other people like me, beginners basically. The Mini 2 shoots in 4K, is pretty tiny, and it’s also really light weighing just 249g. If you want more detailed specs of the Mini 2 there are tons of videos on YouTube that do just that. Instead, I’m going to give you my opinion on why I think this is the best drone a beginner can get right now.
Full disclosure, I have a long-standing relationship with Xcite who provided me with this drone. They’ve been very supportive of the blog from the very early days and they’ve lent or given me a number of items over the years to review, as well as hooking me up with discounts. I’m a huge Xcite fan.
I’m not sure where to start this review since I’m really excited about the drone, and I wasn’t expecting to be. If you’ve never owned a drone before it can be a bit intimidating at first and even if you have had a drone before, maybe a basic one like the original Mini 1 or the Spark, then flying probably still intimidates because of certain limitations like the battery life and connection issues. At least those were the two things that kept me from flying my drone often and both those things no longer are an issue with the Mini 2.
The last drone I had was the DJI Spark which was pretty good but most of the time I’d have connection issues once it got to a certain height, distance or if I was flying in an area like Salmiya which caused a lot of interference. It was freaky because I didn’t want to lose the drone and it made me a lot more cautious whenever I wanted to take it out. The DJI Mini 2 on the other hand uses a different connection technology called OcuSync and I think this is my favorite new feature. I haven’t had a single situation, not even for a second where I had a connection problem. I’ve flown it out far and as high as it can get and haven’t had a signal drop or even a low signal warning. It’s made flying the drone so much more enjoyable and it’s given me much more confidence.
The other feature I’ve been loving on the Mini 2 is the battery life which now lasts up to 30 minutes. That’s a lot of time which is great cuz I always felt so rushed with the Spark which only had around 15 minutes of battery life. Last week I headed out to Sulaibikhat to film the flamingos and I actually spent a lot of time just hovering my drone low near the water just watching them on my screen. It would take around 5 minutes to reach them since I was parked pretty far from their location and another 5 minutes to get back but with that, I still had around 20 minutes left of just pure stalking time. It’s enough time to get completely immersed and zoned out, I literally spent all my time just watching flamingos catch their food and eat as if I had my own private National Geographic channel. Whenever the battery was going to die the drone would just let me know and then start flying back to me. Really easy.
OcuSync and the battery life together have made me want to take out the drone more often and not have to worry about anything which is why I think it’s the perfect beginner’s drone. I can just focus on shooting and not worry about the other things. When the weather was misty this past weekend I just parked next to the Kuwait Towers and casually took the drone out to see if I can capture the towers coming out through the fog. It’s such an easy thing to do now and it’s because I’m no longer worried about flying the drone. After reaching a height taller than the towers I realized the fog was too high and had completely engulfed it, so I decided instead to fly towards the city to see if I could capture Hamra Tower. I didn’t end up getting a good shot but just the fact that I was able to on a whim head into the city with my drone is something I’d never have done with the Spark.
The DJI Mini 2 is really everything I’ve wanted into a drone. Something small, light, have a long battery life, and no connection issues. It’s made me want to fly the drone much more and given me the confidence to do so. If you want to get into drone photography, this has to be the best drone to start off with. I got the DJI Mini 2 “Fly More Combo” pack which comes with three batteries, a charging hub, extra propellers, and even a nice carrying case. The price of the full package is 175KD and you can get one from Xcite.
I left the house yesterday not realizing half of Kuwait was flooded and headed to Shuwaikh to pick up some car-related stuff. Getting into Shuwaikh was a mission since the cops had blocked off a bunch of roads that had flooded. I was in my lifted FJ so wasn’t too concerned about getting stuck in a flood and ended up getting everything I needed without having to deal with the usual heavy traffic. For example, the main Toyota spare parts branch on Canada Dry street was completely empty except for me when usually I would need to take a number and then wait 15 minutes or longer for my turn.
A bunch of videos got circulated yesterday over whatsapp and social media and so I picked out the best ones and compiled them into the video above in case you didn’t get to see them.
“Flasher” is a locally made movie that’s currently playing in local theaters. The name of the movie makes it sound like it’s about a guy who exposes his genitals in public, but obviously, it’s lost in translation and I think they just mean the flashing lights on top of police cars? Or maybe it is about a flasher? I’m not sure, I probably have to watch the movie to find out but it actually looks like it could be fun to do anyway going by the trailer.
This was a surprisingly very interesting and well-put-together short video on showjumping in Kuwait. Lots of interesting tidbits on the history of the sport in Kuwait including info on how it all started. I also had no idea that in 1982 three girls from Kuwait won first, second, AND third place at the Asian Games showjumping competition. That’s pretty wild, and what a year it must have been for sports in Kuwait with the football team also taking part at the World Cup just a few months earlier.
The film is just 7 minutes long so definitely check it out. YouTube