2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003

According to Arab Times “expatriates will no longer be required to pay for cancer diagnosis and treatment in all hospitals and medical centers, provided they are legal residents in the country.”

I think that’s really great news for expats like me living here. Here is the link to the [Article]

I’m still working out three times a week at Core Fitness, it’s been over a year now and since summer is around the corner the only way to look ripped at the beach and showoff my abs is to shed some body fat. At my best my body fat percentage was 14% but that was before the Benihana lawsuit and since then I think I’ve gone back up to 15 or 16%. My abs are currently hidden behind a layer of fat and to get them to show I need to be under 12% so I’ve put that as a target to hit by the end of this month. I don’t know if that’s possible or not but I asked Fahad for help and he’s updated my diet to help me reach my goal.

I’ve actually been on a diet for over a year now and for the past 6 months and I’ve only been eating grilled food for lunch and dinner with Friday being an eat whatever I want day. It was hard enough but this month it’s going to be even harder. I am no longer allowed to eat taouk for example or have tabbouleh or even munch down on olives. Instead for lunch and dinner it’s now the following:

Pick 1 Carb Source:
– 1-cup of White Rice
– 1 Baked Sweet Potato (no white potatoes)

Pick 1 Protein Source:
– 10 oz Chicken Breasts (not Shish Tawook)
– 10 oz Lean grilled or raw fish (hammour, white fish, tuna, squid, shrimp, calamari)

Salad
Bowl of greens (no tabbouleh, or any dressing… just raw greens!)

Sauces Allowed
Tabasco, Red Rooster or Yellow Mustard

This month is going to be horrible. I don’t think I’m even going to cheat on Fridays since after suffering the whole week I don’t think I want to ruin it with a big fat juicy burger or a mouth watering chocolate dessert! Will see if I can hit my target or not and post another update at the end of the month.

Update: Found a lunch meal that fit into my new diet, it’s the “Only Salmon” platter from Sakura Express. According to Fahad “The meal’s loaded with omega-3 and fish oil (which are both great).”

Thanks Aziz

Local weather guru Mishaal Al Roomi has the following weather warning:

The weather is turniing unstable with increasing clouds. By Sunday, the winds will be very high ranging from 25 to 45 km/h with gusts up to 60 km/h. I don’t suggest rather I advise strictly no off shore activities starting Saturday afternoon and especially starting Sunday. We all know what happened as a result of the last Sandstorm; we had three casualties and couple are still missing. To avoid such dissapointment and grief; please be updated with the weather. Q8Weather will be live with you at all times during this “sarayat” or “unstable” season.

Everyone is advised to keep updated with the forecast. We all have internet around us nowdays and I will be updating Q8Weather several times a day to meet your convenience and more importantly your safety.

If you have any inquiries please do not hesitate to contact me; [email protected] or [email protected]

Mishaal also has a message regarding the earthquake rumors which you can read on his website [Here]

April might be the final month for Cinemagic’s rooftop movies since they usually stop playing movies once the weather gets really hot. Since the evenings now are still cool you should really take advantage of this.

Saturday, April 2nd at 7:30pm
MICMACS
Director: Jean – Pierre Jeunet
Country: France
Release: 2010
Genre: Comedy | Crime
Running time: 105 minutes
Language: French | English Subtitle
Awards: Best Director, , Best Cinematography, Best edit
Rated: R

Saturday, April 9th at 7:30pm
SYMPATHY FOR MR. VENGEANCE
Director: Chan Wook Park
Country: South Korea
Release: 2002
Genre: Crime | Drama | Thriller
Running time: 129 minutes
Language: Korean | English Subtitle
Awards: Best Actor, Best Film, Best Director
Rated: R

Thursday, April 14th at 7:30pm
THE WIZARD OF OZ
Director: Victor Fleming
Country: USA
Release: 1939
Genre: Adventure | Fantasy | Musical | Family
Running time: 101 minutes
Language: English | English Subtitle
Awards: 2 Oscars, 5 other wins and 8 nominations
Rated: PG

Saturday, April 16th at 7:30pm
AWAY WE GO
Director: Sam Mendes
Country: USA
Release: 2009
Genre: Comedy | Drama
Running time: 98 minutes
Language: English | English Subtitle
Awards: Nominated Best Actors, Best Film
Rated: 15+

Thursday, April 21st at 7:30pm
JAR CITY
Director: Baltasar Kormakur
Country: Iceland
Release: 2006
Genre: Thriller
Running time: 93 minutes
Language: Icelandic | English Subtitle
Awards: Best Film, Best Actor, Best Director, Cinematography
Rated: 15+

Saturday, April 23rd at 7:30pm
WATER
Director: Deepa Mehta
Country: India
Release: 2005
Genre: Drama
Running time: 117 minutes
Language: Hindi | English Subtitle
Awards: Best Film, Director, Cinematography, Script
Rated: PG

Thursday, April 28th at 7:30pm
THE HEADLESS WOMAN
Director: Lucrecia Martel
Country: Argentina
Release: 2009
Genre: Drama | Mystery | Thriller
Running time: 87 minutes
Language: Spanish | English Subtitle
Awards: Cannes, in competition, Best film, director, actress
Rated: 15+

Saturday, April 30th at 7:30pm
THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET’S NEST
Director: Daniel Alfredsson
Country: Sweden
Release: 2010
Genre: Crime | Drama | Thriller
Running time: 147 minutes
Language: Swedish | English Subtitle
Rated: R

Cinemagic Kuwait, is organizing these events as part of its efforts to contribute to the development of an internationally competitive Kuwaiti audio-visual production industry, partly by bringing the filmmakers and audiences together and by Increasing the public’s interest in – and appreciation for – the art of film-making. Cinemagic movies are screened in the old Salmiya, on the roof on top of Alghanim Electronics and LG. There is a KD1 charge for the venue fees which includes refreshments, popcorn and much more. Here is a link to their Facebook group [Link]

Not really, it’s just a knock off Target store I happened to pass by last night. What I found funnier was their poster below where they also managed to squeeze in the Best Buy logo as well.

This two events got canceled last week since the track got covered with sand so it’s being pushed to this Saturday April 2nd at Pro Kart.

Karting Speed Max Challenge 4 Hours
The first event is a 4 hour karting race. 40 drivers will compete in scoring the best time with 5 drivers racing every heat and the winner continuing on to the final race. The race starts at 4PM and ends at 8PM. The race is open to the public and it’s free of charge!

Dolphin Karting Cup
The second event is an event for juniors aged 5 to 8 year-olds. This race event starts at 3PM and is also free of charge.

For more information on these events and a map to the location plus contact numbers you can visit the Pro Kart website [Here]

If you’re a long time reader you probably know that there is cookie flavor at Choowy Goowy called Mark&Nat. We had been invited by Choowy Goowy back in 2006 to create our own cookie and after experimenting with a bunch of different variations and trying them all out we ended up with Oreo cookies which got labeled Mark&Nat.

So last night I was browsing the web when I suddenly spot the most amazing thing ever… an oreo stuffed chocolate chip cookie. It was simply a full oreo shoved inside a chocolate chip cookie, I quickly posted it on 248PM and then sent a BBM to my buddy Essa of Choowy Goowy and I was like dude you got to take an oreo cookie and shove it inside a regular chocolate chip cookie and send me some. I then made sure I didn’t eat any carbs all day today and once I got back home from my gym I found a bunch of oreo stuffed cookies waiting for me. I had 3 cookies and I think they were REALLY good. I am now trying to convince him to actually produce them and sell them as the new and improved Mark&Nat oreo cookies. So if you’re reading this Essa, please sell these cookies!

Has anyone been to Tatami Japanese Restaurant yet? I just heard about it from a friend and a quick google resulted in some shots of the place. It’s supposedly a local creation and judging by the pictures, a pretty cool looking one.

Here is a link with pictures of the place [Link]
Here is a link to the Tatami website [Link]

Update: His&Hers passed by Tatami over the weekend and you can read their review [Here]

Blogger Mathai just posted amazing pictures he took at the Motocross Challenge which I posted about last week. This is the second event in a row where I could have gone and taken pictures at but instead decided to spend it at home sitting on my ass. The first event was the Kuwait Rally and now I missed out on the Motocross Challenge. I’m a perfect example of how even when there are things to do in Kuwait I end up sitting at home and watching TV instead. To check out all his pictures click [Here]

I hadn’t heard of Pei Wei Asian Diner but it’s a Chinese fast food place and according to Wikipedia it’s owned by PF Chang’s which makes sense why it’s opening up in Kuwait and why it’s also Alshaya that’s bringing it. No idea yet when and where it will open just that they’ve got the franchise and it’s coming to Kuwait.

Thanks Bader, I owe you a Shani

Some of you might noticed the blog went down and up a few times today. The reason for that is I had a problem with the server. I’ve actually been having a problem for around a month now, the site was feeling sluggish and it was going down often for a few minutes at a time. Well thanks to the Rackspace technicians where my server is hosted, they managed to find the problem.

Because the blog gets so many visitors a day small issues are big issues and in my case it turned out my “Related Posts” plugin was the small issue that turned big. You might have noticed before that when you click on a post, right below it you would find a section called “Related Posts” which would contain links to previous posts on a similar subject. Well the previous plugin I had that created those links stopped working so I installed another one around a month or so back. Turns out the new plugin I installed wasn’t programmed properly which resulted in the plugin using all my server resources to the point where the server was becoming unresponsive and required a reboot every so often hence the down times.

How bad was the plugin? The server resource utilization dropped from 121.82 load average down to 0.60 load average just by disabling it! That’s a humongous difference. So now the server is back to normal, it’s a lot faster and more responsive. I’ve also installed Super Cache as well so that should also take the load off from the server.

Everything should now be better than normal.

Update: Just realized why the server went to hell all of a sudden today and not earlier. Turns out the rumor about Jackie Chan passing away came back to life today. Since I’ve previously posted about it I got around 10,000 people come in from google using the search term jackie chan passed away since my link comes up first.

I just heard that there was a fire at Al Corniche Club. I am calling them to confirm but no one is picking up. Anyone have any information or pictures? [Contact Me]

Update: No one is still picking up but I found out it was a fire in the electricity room and it wasn’t that big but it temporary shutdown their electricity.

Update2: Found the picture below on twitter

Update3: Al Corniche sent out the following message to their members

Dear members we apologise to inform you that the Club is closed today due to a small fire damage. We hope to open tomorrow with limited facilities. Thank you for your cooperation!

Update4: The blog q8iblender has more pictures and information [Here]

Update5: I just heard from an Al Corniche employee that the fire wasn’t small with sections like the Men’s Spa being completely ruined.

I’m not a fan of jazz but I know many people are so here is some info on the Gulf Jazz Festival that’s going to be held next month.

April 27th, 2011
There will be a BBQ dinner and concert with two artists that night, the first is the Polish jazz artist Jarek Smietana Trio as well at American jazz artist Karen Edwards.

April 28th, 2011
There will be a BBQ dinner and concert with Swedish artist Monica Borrfors performing with her band.

Both events will be held at the Al Hashemi II Grand Ballroom at the Radisson Blu Hotel.

For more information visit www.gulfjazzfest.com