2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003

Shakshooka, the nomadic farmers market is coming back again this year. If you are a passionate person who likes making things from scratch, are crafty and a foodie then they’re looking for someone like you. The food has to be handmade by you, nothing processed, no nutella, no lotus, no cookies and no cupcakes.

To be part of the Shashooka market contact Mimi on [email protected]

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

New This Week:
A Street Cat Named Bob (7.4)
Bleed for This (6.4) ♦
Complete Unknown (5.5)
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (8.3)
Ghost Coins (7.5)
Raven the Little Rascal – The Big Race (7.6)

Other Movies Showing:
Deepwater Horizon (7.2)
Doctor Strange (8.0) ★
Hacksaw Ridge (8.8) ★♦
Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (7.4) ★
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (7.2)
Operation Chromite (6.3)
Ouija: Origin of Evil (6.8)
Shut In (N/A) ♦
The Accountant (7.8) ★
Trolls (6.7)

Numbers in brackets refer to the IMDB rating at time of publishing.
★ is for movies I’m interested in. ♦ implies movie might contain censorship.

If you don’t know what the mannequin challenge is, it’s basically a new craze that went viral a couple of weeks back where people freeze in a scene. A ton of celebrities have made their own videos including, Hillary Clinton with Bon Jovi, LeBron James with Michelle Obama, Ronaldo, Sesame Street and so many more. I’ve been kinda waiting for a Kuwait version to pop up and it did yesterday. It was shot at a Nuqat workshop and if it wasn’t for the people in the background it would have been pretty flawless. Check it out above.

For the gamers who are interested in picking up the new NES Classic Edition console, I just got back from Rehab Complex and nobody has it, not even for an exorbitant price. Most of the places I asked didn’t even know what I was talking about even after showing them a picture. One shop did tell me that they might be getting it this Thursday. I gave them my number and they’re going to call me up if they do. Will keep you posted.

Aerial yoga seems to be the current “in” activity to do. I haven’t tried it and don’t think I will, but it seems fun and it takes place outdoors so should be great to do in this weather. Aerial yoga is similar to traditional mat yoga but instead of the mat you’re suspended in the air with soft fabric hammocks.

Fly High Kuwait are holding classes aerial yoga classes in Jumeirah and the classes start from KD15 a session. If you’re interested to find out more, check out their website [Here]

Update: I thought they were ongoing till Thursday since that was written on their website, but turns out they made a mistake and the last day was actually yesterday. So it’s over now.

It’s no secret that Mark (and I) have an online presence and therefore we are a target of online harassment. It so easy for some people to sit behind a computer and put out their issues in negative comments. Mark (and I) believe in freedom of speech, and always let people say what they want on the blog or via email, just like Mark (and I) are enjoying our freedom of speech with our posts, we want the same for our readers. Unfortunately though Mark (and I) have both received unnecessary threats from a person or two.

What can you do if you face the same situation? What can you do if someone comments on your twitter “I want to beat the **** out of you”. People think that because they are behind a computer no one can find out who they are! It is as if they didn’t know that Kuwait has a Cyber Crime department under the Ministry of Interior, that is highly capable of finding out where the person is located, what device they are using and other information. (They once found a criminal on behalf of my client in Morocco).

If you are facing any type of online harassment you need to go to the said department located in Salmiya across from the new Boulevard Mall. You will fill out a paper, and you will need to show them the comment. They will gather all the information from you and start an investigation, within 10 days if the person that commented is in Kuwait he/she will be called in for an investigation.

What charges is the person going to face? There is a few different crimes that I could write in my brief to the court but the easiest would be in reference to Article 6 of Law 63 of 2015 famously dubbed as the “Cyber Crime Law” (it has a more complicated name) and I don’t want to complicate things as the law refers to another law, but the person could easily face a KD 3,000 to KD 10,000 fine.

Of course once the criminal court passes the final judgment, Mark could file a civil case and ask for compensation as well. Good thing though the law forgives those who apologize or notify authority before any serious damage is done. Be careful with what you say guys and remember to be nice to each other. We all have difficult situations in our life and sometimes its so easy to let out our frustration on someone else. But we really need to respect each other more. If you have gone through a similar situation email me, I would love to hear from you. Stay legal guys.

Feel free to email me [email protected] with any legal questions. I do not have the capacity to answer everyone for free (but I try), and I am happy to announce that I am currently working with a great team and therefore we are able to reply back to all emails with a reasonable time frame.

Post by Fajer Ahmed – Legal Counsel
The legal opinions expressed in this post are those of the author Fajer. Opinions expressed by Mark or any other writer on mark248am1.wpenginepowered.com are those of the individual’s and in no way reflect Fajer’s opinion.

So as you’re aware I’ve been inviting more and more people to write on the blog recently. One of the new people I’ve invited to write is Grant, the brand manager of % Arabica Coffee. He’s the guy who got me into coffee and is a real coffee geek. The reason I’ve asked him to write about coffee is because I noticed a lot of people drink coffee, but don’t know much about what goes behind a good one. Based on the comments under some of my coffee posts I know there are quite a few coffee geeks who read my blog so you’ll appreciate Grant’s posts. For the average joe, I think you’ll still find Grant’s coffee posts informative and not that technical, so I think you’ll enjoy them. His first post is up, check it out [Below].

So I was asked by Mark to write about coffee. At first I was overjoyed at the thought. This was, after all, what I had wanted to do for ages. So I got sucked in; I put my head down and I wrote. I put together a little over 1500 words and I reread it. It was gibberish, strewn with jargon and technical talk, laden with scientific references. It was too much, but then where does one start with coffee? Well, at the beginning of course, the beginning being the flavour of coffee and in this article I am going to focus on how temperature affects flavour.

Customer: “My coffee is cold”

This is something one hears all too often, and you begin to think as a consumer these baristas really ought to know how to steam milk to the right temperature – heck it’s their profession! What you’ve just done is stumbled into a great coffee shop, riding the 3rd wave of coffee – you’ve just had a cup made by a coffee specialist and know that there is method to this madness.

The first point to consider is how your tongue works. Simply put, it registers flavours better in a certain temperature range. If we use ice cream as an example; One does not taste the sweetness when it is frozen, only once it melts on your tongue (Go get an ice cream, I’ll prove it). Similarly, melted ice cream can be hard to drink because of its intense sweetness.

Beverage producers in the modern era focus less on quality and flavour and more on ensuring the beverage is served at a certain temperature. I call this the “warm beer phenomenon”. In my home country there is a very popular malt beverage and the company advertises its flagship bottle being drunk in frigid conditions. The merchandising team stocks bars with powerful sub-zero fridges and the design team has even put a large snowflake on the label that turns blue when it is cold enough to drink. They are planting the seed that this has to be served extra cold.

Ok, so what does this have to do with coffee? The answer is as follows: the colder the beverage the less you are actually tasting (your tongue works best tasting things between 15-50 degrees). Once the beer in question warms slightly you will more than likely throw it out.

Larger coffee chains use this technique too. Their hot drinks are scalded and their cold drinks are over iced – you will even see crushed ice being used instead of blocks. This crushed ice has an increased surface area in contact with the liquid so you have significant, rapid cooling.

What it boils down to is this: These coffee outlets are hiding their flavour, likely because it is bad. They are serving super cheap beans on subpar machines with undertrained baristas, but you the consumer are left unaware as you cannot taste much and that’s exactly what they want. The consistency is also much greater, they are consistently bad.

The second reason certain shops serve warm coffee is this: Heating milk to and not above a certain temperature enhances the inherent sweetness. Above 65 degrees you start to breakdown the lactose present in the milk (lactose can be thought of as milk-sugar). This as well as other reactions occur at higher temperature and affect not only sweetness, but also texture. Overheat your drink and you are left with milk that has terrible texture and much lower levels of sweetness.

But what if my coffee is served without milk, it’s still not hot enough?! Well, the same applies with regards to tasting only between a certain temperature range. However, if actual ground coffee is subjected to temperatures above 93 degrees, you start burning the coffee and this inevitably results in a bitter, over extracted drink. This is similar to what happens when one steeps their tea for too long.

So before sending your warm coffee back next time (and you may, you are entitled to whatever temperature you wish – you are paying for this drink), take a sip, think about what you’re tasting and know that you will sacrifice this fantastic orchestra of flavours, aromas and textures when overheating your coffee.

Post by Grant Mouton
Self–proclaimed coffee guru, coffee education addict, SCAA/SCAE accredited. Brand manager at % Arabica.

Elsewhere is a a new ingenious concept that opened up next to Elevation Burger on the Seif strip. The concept is actually owned by TABCo, the company that owns Elevation (who are one of my advertisers). It’s an experimental space created for local entrepreneurs who have ideas and concepts they want to try out for limited time periods. Currently the space is occupied by Richard’s Coffee for the next 76 days whom I wrote about a couple of weeks back.

The space doesn’t have to be occupied by a coffee shop or a food related concept, they’re open to different ideas like fashion, retail or even some sort of activity. Even the amount of time you could rent the spot for is flexible, it can be as little as you want it to be as long as its an idea that will help bring traffic to the area. The rent is very reasonable as well for the space/location. I’m not sure I can share it on the blog because I’m assuming it’s not a one price for all, but I can say that they’re definitely not profiting from the rent. The rent is low to attract the interesting concepts who in return will bring traffic to the area and indirectly promote and bring traffic to Elevation Burger next door. It’s a smart marketing idea.

Currently nobody is lined up to take the spot after Richard’s, so if you’re interested in renting the spot you could contact them on [email protected].

Previously on my iPhone, whenever I got a spam message, blocking it was fairly simple, you clicked on the sender on the top and then a “Block this Caller” option appeared and I’d click it. But, with the new iOS, things are a bit more complicated and the “Block this Caller” option is now hidden in a different menu without an obvious way of getting there. It actually took me a bit of googling to figure out how to block callers in iOS10 so I figured I’d share it on the blog since spam messages are pretty common in Kuwait.

Step 1
Instead of clicking on the sender like you previously would do, you now need to click the little “i” on the top right of your phone (photo on top)

Step 2
In this second menu, you need to click on the senders name

Step 3
Once you’re at the last menu you’ll now notice the “Block this Caller” option is available again at the bottom of the screen.

Burger & Lobster is a British franchise that opened around a year ago in Kuwait. Their menu is very straight forward and simple with just 3 items, a burger, a lobster roll and a lobster, each for the same price which in Kuwait was just KD8.950.

That simple formula I guess didn’t do so well in Kuwait because last month Burger & Lobster expanded the menu by adding a lot more items while also revamping their pricing system. Now their 3 primary items have 3 different prices, the burger got dropped down to KD7, the lobster roll to KD8 while the lobster had its price increase and is now KD10. As I mentioned, they also added a bunch of other items to their menu ranging from soups to sliders. You can check out the full menu [Here]

Personally I go there for their lobster roll so none of their new items interest me. But, if it means these new items will help drive traffic and keep the place open, then I’m all for it. Their lobster roll is so good.

I wonder if they finally ended up catching him.

Yesterday I noticed Fantasy World was selling the Oculus Rift virtual reality system. I’m not sure they’re being sold anywhere else but the price at Fantasy World is a ridiculous KD399. I say ridiculous because you could order it from Amazon UK and have it shipped to you directly to Kuwait for just KD194 including customs which is half the price. Here is the Amazon [Link]

What a ridiculously packed weekend with a ton of things going on. Personally I’ll be popping in out of the Nuqat event this weekend. I also passed by the Weaving Stories exhibition a few days back and I thought that was cool, mostly because I somehow ended up spending an hour there weaving without realizing an hour had gone by. The Madeenah tours are also back again with their first tour of the season taking place this weekend. Check out the full list of events taking place this weekend below:

Thursday
Exhibition: Ain’t Nowhere to Hide
Exhibition: Poor Image by Khalid Al Gharaballi
An exhibit by Bait Al Sadu: Weaving Stories
A Fifteen-Year Journey: The Art of Amira Behbehani
Exhibition: Precious Fragments
The Seventh Nuqat Conference

Friday
An exhibit by Bait Al Sadu: Weaving Stories
The Seventh Nuqat Conference
Tai Chi in the Park
Hatha Yoga with Rosie
Mystery Of Shavasana Workshop
Red Bull Bar Bahr
Madeenah Tour: In Place of Democracy
Good Game: Magic – The Gathering
Jam Night
Salwa’ Walk and Socialize Meetup
Blood Donation Drive

Saturday
An exhibit by Bait Al Sadu: Weaving Stories
The Seventh Nuqat Conference
Run Q8
Farmers Trip
Yoga with the 3
Guided Tour: Grand Mosque
Yellow Parade
KTAA Bazaar 2016
Pilates by Oysho
Operation Turtles
Q8 Books Literary Night

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.