2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003

I just found out from Jacqui that OSN have released an iPad App for their OSN Play service. OSN Play allows you to stream movies and tv shows on the go and now with the iPad App you’ll be able to stream the content onto your iPad wherever you are in the Middle East. It’s perfect timing with the olympics currently taking place.

But I can’t get the App to work for some odd reason. I logged into my account but whenever I try to stream anything I get the error “You’ve now registered the maximum number of devices for this account.” I have no idea what that means but I’m hoping its a technical issue from their side that will be worked out soon.

If you’re an OSN subscriber you automatically have free access to OSN Play and you can download the App from [Here]

Update: Turns out every time you log in to OSN Play from a different computer it adds that computer as a device. You can have maximum two devices which I already have which is why I couldn’t get OSN Play to work on the iPad. There is a workaround without having to remove an already added device. OSN Play allows you to have other members in the house create sub accounts so I just created a second account for myself and this should solve the problem.

Last month I posted about the Flying Start Triathlon that is going to take place this coming October here in Kuwait and it got me thinking if it would be possible for me to compete. I think I’m in great shape since I’ve been working my ass off at Core Fitness for the past two years and I’ve been eating really healthy so I think I’m ready.

There are two distances in the Flying Start Triathlon and I’m hoping to complete The Sprint which is the shorter of the two. The running and biking seem very doable it’s the swimming I’m more concerned about. Currently I can swim across an Olympic sized pool horizontally once before collapsing in exhaustion and that’s only like 25 meters or something which is not even close to the 750m distance required in the race. That’s why I passed by The 3 Club who are the organizers of the event and asked them if they did any training. Turns out they did and starting next week I’ll be training with them twice a day every day.

There will be two sessions daily which rotate between biking, running and swimming exercises. I’m pretty nervous about this since I have no idea how I’m going to perform. Once I actually start the classes I’ll post my impressions here. So far my schedule for Ramadan looks like this:

5PM – Training with The 3 Club
7PM – Training at Core Fitness
10PM – Training with The 3 Club

Best part about this though is I’ll be eating WHATEVER I want since I’ll be burning so much calories. Fat Mark is going to make a comeback.. at least in a mental state.

The Future Shorts Festival is the biggest pop up film festival of its kind, showcasing the most exciting short films from around the world. As part of their world tour they’ll be making a stop in Kuwait next week at the Contemporary Art Platform.

Date: August 8th, 2012
Time: 9PM
Location: Contemporary Art Platform, Shuwaikh
Ticket: KD2

For more information on the Future Shorts Festival click [Here]

According to a post on Mental Floss, Kuwait is among 21 countries with only one Olympic medal. I don’t think that is bad considering how tiny Kuwait is and how there is very little interest in track and field or most other Olympic sports. [Link]

Kuwait’s only Olympic medal was won by Fehaid Aldeehani in the men’s double trap shooting event at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. Fehaid is competing again in this years London Olympics and was the flag bearer during the opening ceromony (pictured above).

Thanks Ds

The continuation for the Red Mango commercial has been released and I now think their commercials are my favorite this Ramadan (and yes I prefer it over the Qualitynet one). [YouTube]

If you missed out on the first part you can watch it [Here]

Update: I just noticed the video says part 2 of 3 which means there’s still another one left. I don’t mind a series of ads for the same campaign but I’m not a fan of one single ad divided into smaller parts. This is YouTube, you can release one long ad and not have to worry about the advertising cost…

I passed by Bang & Olufsen recently to check out their computer speakers and although I didn’t end up getting anything I always love checking out their stuff.

They had the Beolit 12 (pictured above) which is their Airplay compatible portable music system. Design wise it looks very sharp and if I didn’t already have the BeoPlay A8 I would have considered getting this. Price wise it’s selling for KD250 which is very reasonable for a B&O product.

When it came to computer speakers they had two models available. The first I saw were the BeoLab 4 (pictured above). These speakers look very cool but at KD325 they were a lot more than what I wanted to pay.

They also had the BeoLab 3 on display which looked even cooler than the BeoLab 4 but these also cost nearly four times more coming in at over a thousand Dinars so I didn’t even consider them.

If you’re interested in passing by their store they located in Symphony Mall next to Missoni Hotel in Salmiya. They haven’t launched the new store officially but the shop is open if you want to pass by.

That looks slightly better than our DeLorean in Kuwait. [Link]

Grand Cinemas, the new theater company in Kuwait will be opening in Al Hamra Tower during Eid. The theater once open will have a total of 9 screens with one of them being a VIP theater which I’ve been told will rival those of Dubai.

Update: The launch has been postponed [Link]

Looks very futuristic. It’s not yet open to the public so you can’t experience it just yet. [YouTube]

Update: Vimeo video got set to private, YouTube video still active so I swapped the links

Update2: YouTube video has also been removed now

Borderlinx is a service in which they provide you with a US and UK forwarding mailbox so you could shop online. It’s similar to Aramex’s Shop and Ship except Borderlinx works with DHL. One of the major complaints about Borderlinx was the fact you had to pick up the packages yourself but now that’s no longer the case since they’ve just started delivering. Plus, while Shop and Ship keep increasing the prices, Borderlinx recently announced a price cut and some of their shipments are now %30 cheaper. If you don’t have a Borderlinx account you can sign up for one from [Here]

Hopefully Aramex will react by reducing their prices or improving their shipping speed.

I’ve gotten confirmation from two different sources that Prada will be opening at 360 Mall this October. I was also told a second branch would be opening at a later stage in Avenues Phase II. The launch date for the 360 Mall Prada store is currently set for October 15th.

Update: My guess is that the Miu Miu space in 360 Mall is actually for Prada as well.

[YouTube]

As a way of keeping up to date on the Kuwaiti athletes at the Olympics you can follow some of them on Twitter. As of now I’ve found the following athletes on twitter:

Faye Sultan @fayedolphin
Fehaid Aldeehani @aldeehani

This happened in Dubai. [YouTube]

A reader made me realize that OSN subscribers can watch the Olympics online via OSN Play. They will have 10 different live streams broadcasting at the same time and you don’t need a VPN or anything of the sort to access the streams just a valid OSN subscription. Here is the [Link]

The Olympics is going to start tomorrow and most of us will be at work or away from our TVs during the various sporting events. Luckily with the BBC app for the iPhone, Android and Blackberry’s, you will be able to watch the events from wherever you are.

There is one minor hurdle and that is the fact that streaming is only allowed if you live in the UK. But, there’s an easy fix. All you need is a VPN server based in the UK. This is similar to using a VPN to sign up to Spotify or Pandora except in this case we want BBC to think we live in the UK not US. So here is what you need:

UK Based VPN Server
I use StrongVPN and their $55 a year package includes both US and UK servers. I currently have mine set to the UK server so I can watch the Olympics on my phone. Here is a link to their [Website]

When you get to their website, click on packages, then on the bottom of that page click on “click here to see all our packages” and then choose their cheapest $55 a year package.

Once you’re done move over to the next step

Download the BBC Mobile Apps
Android
Apple iOS
BlackBerry

or

Watch Online
To watch online you need visit the BBC website [Here]

I’m currently on a 20Mbps connection and have a ping rate of around 124ms with the UK server and on my desktop I find the video a bit pixelated but this might improve once the Olympics officially starts tomorrow. On the phone it’s not noticeable. One thing to note with the iPhone app is you need to get it from the UK store so if you don’t have a UK Apple Store account you need to create one.

NBC Olympics Live Extra
US based NBC have an iPhone, iPad and Android application and will be offering live streaming for US residents. BUT, other than a US based VPN you would also need to have a cable, satellite or telco TV service package that includes CNBC and MSNBC.