2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003

Ten Kuwaiti athletes will be competing at the Tokyo Olympics due to take place between July 23 and August 8. The athletes are:

Yacoub Alyouha – Men’s 110 m hurdles
Mudhawi Al-Shammari – Women’s 100 m
Mohammad Al-Mosawi – Men’s Karate
Lara Dashti – Women’s 50 m Freestyle Swimming
Abbas Qali – Men’s 100 m Freestyle Swimming
Abdullah Al-Rashidi – Men’s Skeet Shooting
Mansour Al-Rashidi – Men’s Skeet Shooting
Abdulrahman Al-Faihan – Men’s Trap Shooting
Talal Al-Rashidi – Men’s Trap Shooting
Abdulrahman Al-Fadhel – Men’s Single Sculls

There doesn’t seem to be a lot of buzz around the athletes even though there should be. They actually should have plastered them on billboards all around Kuwait similar to how Talabat did with restaurant owners last month.

You can follow the official account of the Kuwait Olympics on Instagram where they’re currently sharing stories of the athletes in Tokyo. @kuwaitolympic

Ceado grinders are pretty popular with coffee geeks especially their single-dose grinders. I didn’t know they were available locally and I have a friend actually who ordered one online and paid a ton for shipping so figured I’d put this info out there in case anyone googles “Ceado Kuwait”.

Turns out Mabrook are the dealers for Ceado in Kuwait as well as Slayer coffee machines. They had a number of Ceado grinders on display, one of them, the “E6P Filter Burrs” model had a price of KD367 on it. Online the same model sells for KD330 so the local price isn’t that far off especially if they give discounts (which they generally do).

Mabrook doesn’t have any Ceado grinders listed on their website but they do mention them a few times on their Instagram account. If you’re looking for Ceado grinders check out their showroom here.

A few years ago I sold my Nikon D800 and Sony RX1 and replaced them with the incredible Sony A7 III. I never regretted selling the Nikon but I did regret selling the RX1. There are only 3 cameras I’ve owned that I’ve felt very passionate about, The Panasonic GF1 and GX1, and the Sony RX1. They were compact cameras I carried with me everywhere and used extensively for the blog. I was hoping the A7 would replace the RX1 but due to its size that never happened.

Then a few weeks back I passed by the new Fujifilm store in Boulevard and it got me thinking about the new X100V. I’ve always loved the way the X100 series looked but I’ve only ever used the original one that was released back in 2011 and I didn’t like it. Since my original review, Fujifilm released the X100S followed by the X100T, X100F, and now the X100V. According to all the reviews I read online, the X100V was considerably better in every way over all the previous versions. On Amazon they sell for around KD422 without tax or shipping. In Kuwait they have a summer offer right now and are priced KD399 after discount, so I ended up picking one up. They were originally out of stock but they had a shipment coming in so I waited around a week before getting the call to pick it up. I also ended up getting a slightly better discount on the camera due to a blog reader so ended up saving quite a bit more over the Amazon price.

I’ll eventually post a detailed review on the camera but I wanted to post about it now since the offer might end soon if it hasn’t already. The camera so far has been fantastic, and I’m really loving it. It was between the X100V and the X-E4 but ended up with the X100V because of some extra features that I prefered like the larger viewfinder and slimmer body. If you were thinking about ordering the X100V online, check it out locally first. The local Fujifilm website shows it’s out of stock and priced at KD435, but it might not be updated so I’d check their store in Boulevard.

A local coffee shop called Blend launched a new campaign for a black-colored soft serve by using a visual of a guy in blackface. The guy in the photo is the local photographer @bonmr who is known for superimposing himself onto photos. Both Blend and Bonmr turned off comments on the photos after people started protesting their use of blackface.

As of this morning, Blend have completely removed the photo from their account while Bonmr still has the photo up with the comments disabled.

You’d think after the huge backlash last year after the popular Kuwaiti makeup up artist Ghadeer Sultan posted a photo of herself in blackface that people finally understood the negative connotation behind it. I guess not.

A couple of weeks ago while flipping through an old newspaper I accidently found a Kids ‘r’ us 1-year anniversary ad. So right away I thought to myself, if I go back one year then I’ll most likely find the original opening ads, and I did! I found the pre-opening ads, the grand opening ad, and a few more and uploaded them all onto Flickr to be downloaded freely in full resolution.

Kids ‘r’ us officially opened on November 10th, 1983. According to the ads it was the largest toy store in the region at that time with over 10,000 toys. The original store was located in Dajeej near where Sears is right now. That location was destroyed during the 1990 invasion but post-invasion they had a smaller store in old Salmiya where Xcite is at the moment. Kids ‘r’ us was an Alghanim Industries concept, the same Alghanim that has Xcite and Chevrolet today.

If you want to check all the ads out, click here.

A reader shared some photos of an old Sinclair game he still had which he purchased from a computer store in Kuwait back in the early 80s. The store was called AL RUSHAID and the tape had the following info on it:

AL RUSHAID Trading & Contracting Co. (RTC)
P.O. Box 25443, Safat-Kuwait
Tel: 412404, Telex: 23721 KT

He also had this info to share (I’ve edited it slightly):

While I do remember the computer store at the Salhia complex and it was my favourite shop for a while (and my description on your website remains the way I remember it), I am not sure the branded cassette I’ve shared is from the store at Salhiha. There was another nearby computer store that I used to visit as well which also used to sell ZX Spectrums and games. I couldn’t tell you the street name, but I think it was on the main shopping street, somewhere between The Grand Stores, Salhia Complex, and Al Muthanna Complex. Definitely, it was not near Al-Sharq Tower because that was far away from the shopping area.

Another thing you probably know is when Al-the Khalejia department stores first opened, they used to have a small section that sold computers like the ZX Spectrum, they had some original games on sale. I think the computer section didn’t last long and it disappeared sometime later.

Later around 1985 I used to get games for my computer by visiting the Hilton Hotel, there was an international magazine shop inside the hotel that used to sell computer magazines from the UK, there were several ones for the ZX Spectrum (and the Commodore 64). Many of these magazines came with a free demo cassette with free games and previews of upcoming games.

best regards
Sufian

PS. My parents were expats in Kuwait, and I lived there until I was 18, then left abroad to the US to study, and then moved to Belgium as my mom is from Belgium. I still have lots of my school books from Kuwait in Arabic, and other things that I grabbed with me when I left Kuwait in 1988.

Since the game was branded RTC I thought it might be the same RTC as the electronics shop in Hawally since according to their about us page they’ve been around since 1983. But after talking to RTC Electronics I was told pre-1990 they were called Babel so they’re not the same place. If anyone remembers where Al Rushaid was or have any info on it, let me know!

Update: Found a news clipping and an ad in an old Kuwait Times newspaper

I’ve been using a 2013 iMac 27″ as my main computer since well, 2013. It was the entry-level 27″ at that time with a 3.2ghz quad-core i5 processor and I had upgraded the RAM to 24GB and the hard drive to a 1TB SSD. It was showing its age but it held up great over the years and honestly could have survived a couple of more if Apple hadn’t released the redesigned iMacs a few months ago.

As soon as I saw the new iMacs I realized I wanted one, in green, and ASAP. I ended up pre-ordering one from Apple online with 16GB of RAM and 1TB hard drive in addition to an Arabic English keyboard. When I had placed the order the iMacs hadn’t been shipped yet and so I basically ordered it blindly based on photos hoping it would look as good in real life. Well, it does. Now that I’ve been using the new iMac for a few weeks, here are some points:

• With the new iMac I decided to go completely wireless everything. I had a Kensington trackball which I love and had been using for 11 years but it was wired so I decided to get the wireless version of it for my new iMac. The wireless trackball uses a USB-A wireless adapter but the new iMacs only have USB-C. Luckily BEST sells a tiny USB-A to USB-C adapter and it’s not an issue. The trackball does work with Bluetooth but it was super laggy when I set it up that way.

• My KEF LSX speakers were previously connected to my iMac using the headphone jack but on the new iMac, the headphone jack is on the side which meant the cable would stick out. I decided to ditch the wire and instead connect the speakers via Bluetooth. Here is a tip, to stop your Bluetooth speakers from constantly disconnecting from your computer every time it went to sleep, turn off that energy-saving feature.

• Probably the main reason I got the new iMac is for the touch ID keyboard. I use 1Password to manage all my passwords and it’s a lot easier to use my fingerprint to unlock my passwords. In use, it’s been flawless, with a touch of a button I can wake up and unlock my iMac similar to my MacBook Pro which is super convenient.

• The webcam on the new iMac is great, not only is it a lot sharper and higher resolution than all my other Mac webcams, but I used to have an issue when video calling on my previous iMac because I have a large window behind me. During calls, the camera tended to adjust the brightness based on the windows and so I’d end up really dark and barely visible. I no longer have that issue with the new iMac.

• It’s fast, much faster than my older iMac and so far seems as fast or faster than my 16″ MacBook Pro.

Anyway if you’re considering getting one of these new iMacs and have any questions let me know in the comments. I’ve only seen two colors in Kuwait, blue and green. Gait in Avenues has a blue one on display and Xcite also in Avenues has a green and blue one. If you’ve seen any of the other colors anywhere mention it in the comments. The iMac upgraded with a 1TB hard drive and 16GB of RAM cost me around KD605 KD635 shipped to Kuwait.

Last week I found the old ad above from 1984 for a video game store that was located in Sharq Tower in Kuwait City. I actually visited that store back then specifically to check out the Intellivision gaming console advertised in the ad but ended up getting the ColecoVision instead.

But this reminded me of a computer store that was located in Salhiya back in the 80s on M2 opposite the Korean restaurant that used to be there. I don’t remember the name of the store I just remember they sold computers and they always had Dig Dug playing in the display as well as having computer chess boards.

If anyone remembers it or knew who the owner was please let me know!

Update: Found the Coleco ad below in a 1983 newspaper. I guess now I know where I bought it from!

Friday night I was in my car leaving my street when a white pickup truck stopped in front of me and started talking to some Egyptian workers on the street. The guy in the pickup then suddenly slammed the door open on one of the workers, went down, and started shoving him and yelling at him.

Not an unusual scene but things do get a bit odd. The guy in the white shirt then goes back into his car and grabs a lanyard with an ID on it and then comes back out and grabs the Egyptian guy and starts flashing the lanyard in his face and yelling at him to give him his Civil ID card. I was out of my car at this point and I tried to get a clear look at the ID card and couldn’t, but I assume he was some sort of cop. The guy in the white shirt then pushed the worker to the floor and started punching him.

We managed to separate the two and I held on to the guy in the white shirt to calm him down since he didn’t seem to be in the right state of mind. The guy in the white shirt then went back to his car and got handcuffs and was shoving and threatening the worker that he was gonna handcuff him. He then put his handcuffs away and went opened the backdoor to take out his police baton so he could beat the guy with it. The whole time I’m trying to hold the guy back and calm him down. He eventually did, enough to get back in his car and speed off.

My dashcam captured the incident including the license plate of the white pickup. The video above is two very short clips I stitched together but the actual full video is in 4K and around 3-minutes long. I cropped the video just for this post so I could hide the license plate number but I’m wondering if I should send the full video to one of the MOI Instagram accounts because obviously this situation was messed up especially if the guy was cop or pretending to be one. Actually, now that I’ve written out my thoughts I’m thinking I should probably drop the whole thing and not risk getting deported or something. So not worth it.

If you’re into MMA then check this out. Kuwaiti fighter Mohammad Alaqraa just got called a beast by UFC champ Khabib Nurmagomedov. I hadn’t heard of Mohammad up until now, his MMA record is currently made up of just 1 win with 0 losses and he seems to be training out of the popular gym AKA. Based on a video Khabib posted it looks like Mohammad was sparring with Khabib’s cousin and must have impressed Khabib. If you end up missing Khabib’s story, here is a screenshot and you can follow Mohammad on Instagram @mo_alaq

Thanks Azzam

Oogoo is an app that was recently launched that allows you to calculate the value of your car with just a few clicks. It could be a very useful tool when trying to figure out how much you should sell your car for. Depending on your car Oogoo will give you the option to either sell your right away or to list it for sale. I valuated a Lexus and got the option to sell the car on the spot, then I valuated an Audi and it only gave the option to place an ad for it so I guess it depends on if it’s a fast-moving car or not.

Oogoo also has a number of other features including a used car section and a section for checking out prices of new cars at the dealerships. The app is still new but shows potential. I used to like exploring used cars on Q8car but with their last redesign, the site has become a navigation disaster so really hoping a good alternative pops up. If you want to download and try oogoo, click here.

The first time I posted about Brett Jordan’s photos of Kuwait was over 10 years ago when he started scanning and sharing the photos on his Flickr account. Since then he’s added more photos to the collection and I’ve posted about them a number of times with the last time being back in 2013. As of now, he has over 300 beautiful high-resolution photos of Kuwait on his account, all taken back in the early 60s.

I got in touch with Brett recently to find out more about the photos that have been circulating social media accounts and WhatsApp groups in Kuwait for a decade now. Turns out Brett’s collection of photos were actually taken by his parents who were both English and were working for an American oil company in the late 50s and early 60s. Brett’s dad was a refrigeration engineer and after Brett’s mum gave birth to him, they left Kuwait in the early 60s and moved back to the UK. But while in Kuwait his parents were part of a lively expat community that enjoyed a lot of partying, amateur dramatics, and drinking. His mum always speaks fondly of her time in Kuwait with the only ‘blot’ being a serious car accident when his dad drove into a huge pothole during a sandstorm.

I asked Brett if he still had more photos so he called up his mum and according to her she has more slides up in her loft. So he’s going to look for them the next time he visits her and hopefully scan those as well. For now, check out all the photos he’s scanned so far by clicking here.

Update: Brett has gone ahead and grouped up the Kuwait photos into one album so I’ve updated the link to reflect the change.

Back when I visited the National Library in October you couldn’t access any of the books yourself due to COVID safety precautions, you needed to have someone fetch the books for you. But, things are back to normal now. Yesterday morning I passed by the National Library and I was allowed access to all the books and archives. I still had to book an appointment via the meta.e.gov.kw website and you also need to be vaccinated to be allowed in, but other than that things are back to normal.

The library is next to my office which means I can go back to randomly passing by in the mornings on the way to work. I usually love going through old newspapers to find gems similar to the Hardees ad above from 1988 featuring the Thunder Cats. If you want the full resolution version click here.

The library is open Sunday to Thurday from 9AM to 1PM and for more info on what’s inside, check out my old post here.

Back in the mid 90s we really only had two places to hang out as teenagers, a restaurant called Fuddruckers on the Gulf Road and Johnny Rockets in Salmiya. Both were pretty expensive for broke teenagers and we didn’t have malls or places like Starbucks where you can just go and chill for hours. But then McDonald’s came to Kuwait and they opened a location over Johnny Rockets and it became the go-to place for me and my friends to meet up at. The staff didn’t care if we just hung out without ordering anything and the street corner outside became a popular meeting point for teens. So when Mcdonald’s shut down and Shakir took over the location, I was kinda upset about it but also curious to see what Shakir would with the place.

Yesterday I passed by the new location to get a sneak peek and noticed they had removed the large hoarding that had covered the side of the building revealing a brand new facade. The old building no longer looks dodgy anymore and instead looks pretty great. As I walked into the space I was expecting to see some indoor seating since McDonalds had seating but there wasn’t any. The whole interior was designed and optimized around fast order pickups. Shakir is so popular that the whole indoor space is one large queuing system with a long railing that splits the interior in half. As you go in through the entrance, the railing leads you to the far end of the restaurant where the ordering windows are. After you’re done ordering the railing leads you back towards the pickup area which is near the exit doors.

Disappointingly, there won’t be V-Thru at this location which is what I currently use to pick up my orders at their Rai location. If you haven’t used V-Thru before it’s one of my favorite services, you order from a restaurant via their app and once you arrive outside the restaurant, they bring the food out to your car. I mostly use it for Arabica when I order beans and Shakir to avoid the long car lines.

Shawarma Shakir Salmiya is opening tomorrow, July 7th at 7PM. They’re on instagram @shawarmashakir

I was just organizing some photos on my Mac and was moving some images into my “Vintage” folder when I noticed one of the photos in the album had Pearl Marzouq written on it. It was a photo of my parents (pictured on the right) with my aunt and uncle having dinner at the restaurant in what I presume to be the early 70s.

I had forgotten I had this photo and then I remembered just a few weeks ago I had spotted an ad for the restaurant in a 1972 issue of The Daily News. I need another trip to Lebanon so I can go through all the photos and see what other treasures I could find.

Below is also a photo of Pearl Marzouq taken in 1971 after construction. It was designed by SSH, the same architects behind JACC. I’ve tried getting more photos from them but they’ve been unresponsive so if anyone can help me get access to their archive, please let me know! SSH were behind a lot of big projects in the 70s including Messilah Beach Hotel and half of the buildings in old Salem Mubarek Street.