2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003

I got the email below from a reader who used to live in Kuwait back in the 50s. Not sure how I never came across the video above myself!

Ahmadi In the 50s
I moved out there in 49 and went to the Anglo American school as did my sister Vivienne, In 54 I was sent to school in England and returned every summer to Kuwait on the lollypop Special flights. Most of the Holiday was spent at the Hubara Club around the pool and I remember going to the outdoor cinema with just a chair on the sand.

My last visit was in 1966 with a friend from the uk and I took some movie pictures of my time out there, this has been on Utube for some time under the title “Holiday in Kuwait 1966” which some of you may find interesting enjoy

– Nigel Horner

I’m not sure why this isn’t made a bigger deal of but one thing that really bothers me is how Kuwaitis are discriminated against when it comes to renting apartments. It’s one area where expats have it much better and I don’t understand why no one seems to be protesting this. It just doesn’t make any sense how everyone seems to be ok with ads advertising homes and then having a large note stating its “Only for foreigners” on it. How is this even legal?

I’ve had a lot of friends struggle to find apartments because they were either single male or female Kuwaitis. There is a post on Reddit right now by a Kuwaiti guy who had to leave home due to family issues and ended up living in his car because he couldn’t find an apartment that would rent to him. Eventually, he managed to crash at a friend’s place for a couple of months but now he needs to move out and he still can’t find a place that would rent to him.

salam people of r/Kuwait. some of you may have seen my post slightly less than 3 months ago about how i am homeless due to family issues and could not find a place that would rent for a single Kuwaiti male. i wish they would trust me because i am a nerdy guy whose day only consists of going to work and playing video games so i never have anyone over. i am very responsible with spending so inshallah i would never be late for monthly rent payments unless a great emergency occurs.

some compassionate people have messaged me either offering emotional support or offering to help me find a residence to rent. i was planning on accepting one of those offers after getting my salary but a chance for free stay came up and i took it. i am sorry for ghosting on those who offered me help but i felt too awkward to tell them that i didnt need it anymore (rude and stupid of me).

now unfortunately i have stayed more than was comfortable (2.5 months) for the friend who provided me with free stay. i need to find a place of my own before Friday otherwise i will have to sell most of my stuff and go back to sleeping in my car. it will make me so happy to find a clean place where i can sleep comfortably without hearing shouting all day and without worrying whether i will be told to leave the next day. source

It’s pretty absurd that a single guy who has a job and the ability to pay rent is forced to sell his belongings and live in a car because he is Kuwaiti and can’t find an apartment to rent. I’m not sure if it’s because a lot of Kuwaitis aren’t aware of this housing issue and that’s why it’s not a big deal, but if I was Kuwaiti I’d be calling up MP Safa Al Hashem daily to get this changed.

Have you gotten your loved one a Shani today? [Link]

Not a lot going on this weekend but there s the ABBA tribute concert taking place on Saturday which should be good. Check out the full list of this weekends events below:

Thursday
Exhibition: Haa – Jassim Meraj
2020 Kuwait Arts Forum
Movies At The Park: The Sound of Music

Friday
Exhibition: Haa – Jassim Meraj
Al-Farsi Kite Festival
2020 Kuwait Arts Forum
Spark Badminton Open 2020
Field trip to Failaka
Yoga in Jabriya Park
7th Men’s International Volleyball Tournament

Saturday
Exhibition: Haa – Jassim Meraj
2020 Kuwait Arts Forum
The Show: A Tribute to ABBA

If you’d like to share an event on the blog [Email Me]
For a full list of upcoming events click [Here]

Sometimes events get canceled or have details changed so always double-check with the organizers.

I just found out from a reader that some of my articles are being republished in the Arab Times. The thing is nobody from Arab Times contacted me about this so I’m not sure if this is the first time they’ve done it or something they’ve been doing regularly. Some of the articles have even been edited even obviously without my permission.

I’m having a hard time deciding if this is funny or just sad…

Thanks Adam

Sonic the Hedgehog

The movies below are now showing at Cinescape, Grand Cinemas and VOX:

New This Weekend:
Bloodline (6.0)
Fantasy Island (6.2)
Ordinary Love (7.4)
Sonic the Hedgehog (7.2)

Oscar Winning Movies Back in Theaters:
1917 (3 Awards, 10 Nominations)
Jojo Rabbit (1 Award, 6 Nominations)
Joker (2 Awards, 11 Nominations)
Ford vs Ferrari (2 Awards, 4 Nominations)
Little Women (1 Award, 6 Nominations)
Parasite (4 Awards, 6 Nominations)

Other Movies Showing Now:
Bad Boys for Life (7.2)
Birds of Prey (6.9)
Dolittle (6.2)
Frozen II (7.1)
Jumanji: The Next Level (7.0)
Just Mercy (6.9)
Latte & the Magic Waterstone (6.3)
Spies in Disguise (6.1)
The Gentlemen (8.1)
The Room (6.0)
The Turning (3.7)

The movies below are also now showing at the Scientific Center IMAX theater:

IMAX Movies Showing Now:
Amazon Adventure 3D (6.6)
Backyard Wilderness 3D (8.4)
Dolittle (6.2)
Turtle Odyssey (7.7)

Numbers in brackets refer to the IMDB rating at time of publishing.

A bunch of these new enclosed pedestrian bridges have popped up around Kuwait and although they had been completed for some time, they remained closed and non-operational until recently.

There isn’t really much to see inside, instead of regular stairs you have escalators to take you up and down and the bridge is air conditioning for the summer.

I’m not really sure why we need air-conditioned bridges since if I’m using it in the summmer, it’s because I got there walking in the heat in the first place. I guess a cool down area or maybe to entice people to use it instead of crossing the street under the bridge? Not sure…

Local band Galaxy Juice have a new single out called “Dancing Night” which I currently have on repeat. Its their first single from their upcoming album “Galaxy Juice and the Forty Thieves” which will have more Arabic and Khaliji influenced beats and rhythms compared to their previous releases. They’re calling this genre Khalijiwave, check out the new track above or on SoundCloud.

I booked a week-long vacation starting next Wednesday to Tbilisi, Georgia since I heard a lot of good things about the city. The last time I took a proper vacation was back in August 2018 and it was also for a week so I’m really really looking forward to the time off. I’m taking Jazeera Airways since they fly to Tbilisi directly and then going to rent a Land Cruiser LC76 while there so I can also drive over to Armenia next door.

I’m looking for things to do, see, and places to eat at so if you have any recommendations please let me know!

Back in October I briefly mentioned that my 240z was getting a full restoration job and since it’s a slow news day, here is an update. Back in October after getting my 1970 Alfa registration done and I could drive it I decided to drop the car off at a garage called Blue Collar to get it fully restored. Blue Collar was a body shop in Shuwaikh that kept getting more and more classic cars to work on so they decided to open up a separate garage just for classics and I was going to be their first customer.

Progress has been going really well, they nicknamed the car Rusty because of the amount of rust it had on the undercarriage. Instead of the rust getting repaired over its lifetime, previous owners just had metal panels bonded over the rust spots which didn’t really fix things. So they basically had to cut out all the old flooring and install new panels and you can see the difference between the photo above and below. I knew the car had rust issues when I bought it, I just didn’t think it was this bad. There were some other bodywork issues around the car as well but one by one they were all fixed.

A reader who’s restored six other 240z’s previously is also helping me with the car restoration as well. He hooked me up with a guy who rebuilt an engine for me and has been handing me lists of parts to get for the car so that it eventually ends up brand new. When I started the project I honestly wasn’t planning a full restoration but the more I got into it the more I realized it’s something I really wanted. I set a budget for myself upfront on how much I was going to spend on this and based on my expense sheet I’m 80% there but I’ve also pretty much-purchased everything. The most expensive item I’ve had to purchase was a full Fujitsubo exhaust system and the second most expensive item was a fuel injection replacement kit.

I’m keeping the color of the car blue and since all the bodywork is nearly complete it’s going to hit the paint booth soon. I’m really excited and can’t wait until I get the car back. I’m hoping it will be done and ready before the summer hits when I’m going to park the Alfa away for the summer.

The picture above is my original computer setup when I started blogging back in 2003. I’m trying to remember why I had both a Mac and a PC setup but I can’t seem to figure it out.

I’ve got a pretty organized digital photo archive that dates back to the 90s when I first started scanning pictures, and so it’s fairly easy for me to pull up an old photo from a specific time period. I love digging up old photos since it’s always fascinating to see what kind of tech I had back then since I was fairly geeky. The photo above was my portable set up back then, my 12inch Apple iBook, a Sony Ericsson T68i phone and a Palm Tungsten T personal digital assistant (PDA).

I also found the photo above from the same time period but featured my Sony CLIÉ PDA, my original Apple iPod with a Firewire port, my iOGEAR Bluetooth to USB adapter and my T68i phone again. The Bluetooth adapter allowed me to connect my laptop to my phone to get online, something unheard of back then but ordinary today. The photo below is when I first sucessfuly got online from my laptop using my phone’s internet. I remember I took this shot parked near the Kuwait Towers, the date of the photo is February 18th, 2003 which is 12 days after my first blog post ever.

Good times!

The Ministry of Interior has updated its website with a new residency section allowing you to renew, cancel, and make changes online. I wasn’t able to try the service myself since I just recently renewed my residency but when I tried to log in to it I got the weird message below.

I’m going to assume the service is working and my error is unrelated. Here is the link to the residency renewal section.

Thanks Musaed

Well this sucks!

Hello Mark,

Please note that we will soon be discontinuing the Carriage Black service.

If you have an active Carriage Black plan, you will be able to enjoy your Carriage Black plan benefits until the end of your billing period without interruption. Your plan will not renew after the end of your billing period.

If you have any questions about your plan, our Customer Care team will be happy to help. You can reach them easily using the Customer Care feature in your Carriage Application.

With warm regards,
Your Carriage Team

I guess the bright side to now having to pay for delivery will mean I’ll be ordering a lot less munchies late at night.

The very popular luxury piercing studio Maria Tash is going to be opening in Kuwait soon. Maria Tash posted on their instagram account that they will be opening up in the Avenues and also updated their profile description with “Coming Soon: Kuwait”.

No opening date was mentioned but they do mention this will be a new permanent store and that’s because they’ve previously had pop-ups in Kuwait. Maria Tash has locations in New York, London, Rome, Dublin and Dubai and if you want to be notified on any updates you can sign up to their mailing list.

Sucks we never got to set up the pool on the roof. @cosmicxcircus