2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003

For the month of Ramadan, Solo Pizza Napulitana will be supporting Bayt Abdullah’s Childrens’ Hospice as part of their social responsibility. For every pizza and Nutella Dario that is ordered, half a Kuwaiti Dinar will be donated towards Bayt Abduallah. If having the best pizza in Kuwait wasn’t a good enough reason to go there, now you have a bigger incentive. Their opening hours for Ramadan will be from Saturday to Thursday, 10pm to 1am (Closed on Fridays). Here is their website with directions to the place. [Link]

I previously heard that there were two DeLoreans in Kuwait and yesterday I found one of them. I know it doesn’t look like much in the picture above but if cleaned up the car it would look like the one below.

And with a little bit more work it can look like the one from Back to the Future.

Wayne Carini from the Discovery Channel show Chasing Classic Cars was in Kuwait last February for the Concours d’Elegance and since then I’ve been watching every episode hoping to catch the one on Kuwait. Well turns out Kuwait won’t be showing up until this fall according to a source of mine. Once it does get released I’ll link it on the blog but for now here is an interview Wayne did at Marina Crescent when he was in Kuwait. [YouTube]

I know many of you feel we already have too many burger places in Kuwait but I have to obviously disagree with that. I think we still have room for a couple of more burger joints and the couple being Five Guys and In-N-Out. From what I was told by one of my readers, it looks like Five Guys is coming to Kuwait.

According to the reader him and his partner were trying to strike a deal with Five Guys and after getting all the paperwork, doing a feasibility study and agreeing on all the terms, they contacted Five Guys again only to be told that they had given the franchise rights to someone else in Kuwait. The rumor is Al Homaizi got the franchise rights and I’ve already sent an email to my contact there hoping to get a confirmation on this but I still haven’t received a reply yet.

What does that mean? It means all we need now is In-N-Out and we will officially be the burger capital of the world.

Thanks Fahad

Last month I posted about a recently graduated high school student who decided to start a campaign called “Be Aware” to raise awareness on mental health issues. Well they’ve now put together a video for their campaign which you can watch above. [YouTube]

Website: www.beaware-campaign.org
Facebook: facebook.com/BeAware.EndTheStigma

LoYac will be holding their Summer Program Expo tomorrow (Saturday) at 360 Mall. They will be having a bunch of different activities including a performance by DJ Miro from Marina FM, a performance by a Flamenco Band, a singing performance by Eisa Al Marzouq, Poetry, an acoustic guitar performance, break dancing and Nagy Souraty theatrical performance with LoYAC students in addition to booths for the different departments showcasing their work.

Date: Saturday, July 30th 2011
Location: Exhibition Hall, 360 Mall
Time: 4:00pm to 9:00pm

According to the video this happened a few days ago. [YouTube]

I’ve previously posted about old cinemas in Kuwait but I’ve got some more old photos to share, ones that aren’t on the Cinescape Facebook page. The picture above for example is of the Hawalli open air cinema. I can’t imagine sitting on this hard metal chairs for 2 hours and in this heat, not sure how they used to do it before. Below are all the pictures I got:

If you want to see some more old pictures you can check out the ones that are on the Cinescape website [Here]

Thanks Ali

Just a minor note. I’ve gone ahead and separated the events section so that it can function by itself. What this will allow me to do is post more events in that section without over running the main blog with random event posts. I will continue to post events on the main page here but only ones that I think should be highlighted. You can access the events section by clicking on the events tab in the navigation strip on top.

Since I’ve started running and biking I was using the Nike+ GPS app on my iPhone to calculate the distance and amount of calories I was burning. But it had limitations and a few bugs so I decided to invest in a watch that would do a better job at it. The first watch I looked at was the Nike+ SportWatch GPS but it wasn’t cheap at $200 and it didn’t come with a heart rate monitor which was another $70. It also wouldn’t work well with biking. After a bit of research I finally ended up getting the Garmin Forerunner 305 for a number of reasons while I will list below.

The Forerunner 305 has a built in GPS, a very large screen and it comes with a heart rate monitor. The amount of information it can collect during a run (or bike ride) is overwhelming. For example, you can find out the distance traveled, your top speed, average speed, max hear rate, average heart rate, amount of calories burned, the elevation, the duration, the length of your rest breaks, what zone your heart rate is in and a few more details all of which you can be uploaded onto the Garmin Connect website and get it displayed as maps, charts and numbers.

The 305 has a large screen which as a result allows you to display a lot of information on it. The screen can be divided into 4 sections with each displaying information of your choice. For example I have it set up to show me:

– The current duration of my run
– The amount of calories burned
– The distance I’ve traveled
– The current time

All the above in one screen and if with a press of a button I can flip over to a second screen with 4 more pieces of information. If that’s a lot of information you could also divide the screen into 1, 2 or 3 sections. I also got two accessories with the watch, one is a bike adapter so I could mount the watch onto my bike and have the information in front of me. The second accessory I got is a velcro strap since it’s thicker then the rubber strap that comes with the watch and personally I think looks much better.

There are two negatives about the watch, nothing major but ones that are worth mentioning. Because of the GPS, the battery on the watch lasts for just 10 hours before needing a recharge. 10 hours is more than enough time since my runs are a lot shorter but I already have too many devices I need to charge and don’t really need another one. The second issue is the way it looks. This is not the best looking watch out there. But on the positive side it is very light and I would rather have an ugly watch with a large screen over a good looking one with a smaller one. But still, this watch would probably rank high up in my Top 10 Ugliest watches ever list.

I’ve saved the best thing till the end which is the price. This watch cost me just $128! It’s literally a steal right now since the newer Forerunner 310 came out. This watch originally cost over $400 and at $128 I don’t think there is any other watch in the market with similar features at this price point. This is a good deal, just ignore the way it looks. You’re not supposed to look good working out anyway, if you do then you’re doing it wrong.

Here is the link to the Forerunner 305 [Amazon Link]

This is a cool site where you type in an airport and you get a birds-eye view of it along with pictures taken at there. The funny thing is when you search for Kuwait you get 4 pictures, 3 of which are of McDonalds. That’s not a good sign. [Link]

I haven’t been to Failaka since the late 80s but looking at these pictures taken by Kenneth I’m thinking I should really pay a visit and maybe even spend the night since the hotel above looks great. [Link]

Multi-talented Kuwaiti artist and musician Fatima Al Qadiri is the producer and vocalist behind Ayshay. I just heard her latest track called WARN-U and although I didn’t like it I do like the remix of it which you can hear at the bottom of the post. From what I heard her music has been gaining a lot of recognition lately in the underground scene in New York but haven’t really heard anything about her locally.

Fuelled by her fascination with the sacred songs of Islam ‘WARN-U’ is a homage and reinterpretation of the sounds that have haunted Al Qadiri since she was a child. Constructed entirely out of her own vocals, which she filtered and layered upon one another ‘WARN-U’ is Al Qadiri’s attempt to reconfigure the concept of ‘sacred’ music as inspiring divine love and divine fear.

She’s always been pretty weird (in a good way) so it’s no surprise really she would come up with something like this. For more information on her upcoming album click [Here]

Ayshay – WARN-U (Nguzunguzu Remix) by TriAngleRecords

Update: You can check out the music video below, looks like it was shot in Kuwait. (Note: turns out it was shot in Qatar)

[YouTube]

There are three buildings I bike past on my way to the gym and it looks like they’re nearly completed but I have no idea what they are. The structure is located right outside the Green Island entrance and they look like they will be turned into restaurants but I couldn’t find any sign or logo hinting to anything. Does anyone know what will be opening there?