2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003

So I’ve previously post about Kuwaiti rappers and a country musician and so here is a Kuwaiti metalhead called Yousef. He has 4 sounds online, below is the metal one but you can hear his other songs [Here]

Lost by yahguitar

A reader emailed me to tell me that while collecting newspapers and magazines from the late 50’s he found an article about schools in Kuwait in the 1960’s. He managed to scan and email me the article (it’s a few pages long) and I put them together in a single PDF to make it easier to download and view. The article is in Arabic and here is the [Link]

Does anyone recognize the school in the picture above on the right side?

Thanks Camil

Kuwait has the highest ratio of domestic workers to citizens in the Middle East. The country’s more than 660,000 migrant domestic workers constitute nearly a third of the work force in this small Gulf country of only 1.3 million citizens. But domestic workers are excluded from the labor laws that protect other workers. They have minimal protection against employers who withhold salaries, force employees to work long hours with no days off, deprive them of adequate food, or abuse them physically or sexually.

[YouTube]

The weather is great and so the Cinemagic movie nights are back on. For this month they have everything from chilling thrillers to hot dramas, from warm romances to cool comedies, everything that will enrich your taste and love for movies.

Thursday, October 14th at 7:30PM
REVANCHE
Director: Gotz Spielmann
Country: Austria
Release: 2008
Genre: Thriller | Drama
Running time: 122 minutes
Language: German | Russian | English Subtitle
Awards: Winner BIFF 2008, Oscar Nominee Best Foreign film 2009
Rated: R

Saturday, October 16th at 7:30PM
ONCE
Director: John Carney
Country: Ireland
Release: 2006
Genre: Drama | Music | Romance
Running time: 88 minutes
Language: English | Czech Subtitle
Awards: 18 awards and 13 nominations
Rated: R

Thursday, October 21st 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, October 23rd at 7:30PM
SURPRISE FILM
Director:
Country: Germany, France
Release: 2006
Genre: Drama | Thriller
Running time: 147 minutes
Language: English | English Subtitle
Awards: 12 wins and 12 nominations
Rated: 15+

Thursday, October 28th at 7:30PM
THE HOST
Director: Bong Joon-Ho
Country: South Korea
Release: 2006
Genre: Horror | Drama | Comedy
Running time: 120 minutes
Language: Korean | English Subtitle
Awards: 6 wins and 1 nomination
Rated: R

Saturday, October 30th at 7:30PM
CZECH DREAM
Director: Vit Klusak, Flip Remunda
Country: Czech Republic
Release: 2004
Genre: Documentary | Comedy
Running time: 88 minutes
Language: Czech | English Subtitle
Awards: 6 wins and 1 nomination
Rated: PG

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]

A reader just sent me a link to a section of the Al-Diwan Al-Amiri website which contains really old photos of Kuwait, like the one above which was taken in 1911 or the one below that was taken in 1919 when Sheikh Jaber Al-Ahmed with Prince Faisal bin AbdulAziz visited London to mark the end of the First World War.

A lot of gems on the website and each photo has a description underneath. Check them all out by clicking [Here]

Thanks Avay!

A sheep, known for its particularly good breeding ability, has sold for a record KD25,000 in Kuwait. The sheep is named Mayzoon and breeders are willing to pay up to KD200 for use of it for just one evening, Kuwaiti daily Al Rai reported on Tuesday.

I am at a loss for words. [Link]

via The Buz Fairy

A friend at work just forwarded me this cartoon scan taken from a Simpsons comic which I hadn’t seen before. At first I thought it was a fake that someone put together but it turns out its really from an actual comic. Pretty funny. You can check the comic un-cropped [Here]

Interesting fact, 9.7% of all loans in Kuwait defaulted in 2009, that’s the worst rate among the GCC countries. On the other hand Qatar had the lowest level with just 1.7% of loans defaulting. With the financial crisis UAE went through I would have figured the rate there would be higher but in UAE only 4.6% of the loans defaulted. Weird. [Link]

Thanks FYI

It seems like a good amount of people took part this year in the “The Global Work Party”. I was checking out the pictures on Flickr and found two different group shots representing Kuwait in the Middle East category. Good stuff.

Check out all the pictures of the different groups from around the Middle East that participated this year by clicking [Here]

Even though the official opening of the Historical Vintage & Classic Cars Museum has been postponed till next week, the museum is actually open right now. Their timings are from 9AM to 12:30PM and 5PM to 8PM. They’re located across the street from Tilal Complex in Kuwait City. Tilal Complex is right next to City Center for those of you who don’t know it.

Translation: “We have large sizes available up to 10XL”.
Thought it was funny until I googled it and turns out 10XL is an actual size…

Great old footage of the tank graveyard. I tried to get to the graveyard once and couldn’t pass the army check point before it. Does anyone know if its still there? [YouTube]

A friend of mine, Laila Al-Gharabally, wrote and illustrated a children’s book called “Al-Hadiya” (“The Gift” in English). She will be selling and holding a book signing at her publisher’s booth (Arab Scientific Publishers) on October 14 in the evening at the Kuwait International Fair’s 35th Book Fair in Mishref.

The annual book fair held at Kuwait’s International Fair (www.kif.net) is the biggest book fair in Kuwait and will last for ten days starting from October 13th to October 23rd. For more information on the book fair click [Here]

Some of you already noticed that I changed the blog banner last night from the “THEBSIDES” to “The A-SIDES”. Continuing to use the term B-Sides didn’t make sense since 2:48AM wasn’t the B-Side anymore. Originally during my Miskan project I needed a place to dump photos and talk about things that didn’t have room on Miskan (remember I was limited to 1 post a day) and so 2:48AM was created and the B-Side tag slapped on.

My Miskan project ended 5 years ago and 2:48AM no longer was the B-Side, instead it became the A-Side and I don’t know why it took me so long to change that.

So 2:48AM is now the A-Side but that made me realize something. When the blog first started I used to post 5+ posts per day. As the site grew and my readership base grew I started becoming a lot more picky to what to post and what not to. This is why I decided to create a B-Side to 2:48AM, a place where I could post stuff that wouldn’t usually make it on my main site here but was still content that many people would find interesting.

2:48PM [The B-Sides] is now live and you can access it by going to www.248pm.com or clicking the link on the far right of the navigation bar on top of this site. Starting today you will have a lot more posts and content to shift through so I hope everyone enjoys it. Any comments, feedback and ideas are always welcomed of course.

Since the weather is currently great I figured I would try a new activity this week which is scuba diving. I had never scuba dived before and have always been wanting to try it out but never really had a chance until today. I woke up early and headed to the Kuwait Science Club next to 360 Mall with Nat. There we met up with some members of the Kuwait Diving Team who were going to take us through the Discover Scuba Diving course.

The first thing we had to do was sit and watch a short video about scuba diving. After that we were verbally instructed on the basics of scuba diving, some safety advice and given a bunch of other information before we headed to the pool for a live test.

The idea behind the Discover Scuba Diving course is to give you an idea of what it’s like to breathe underwater. When I first put the air regulator in my mouth it felt a little uncomfortable but I quickly got used to the idea of breathing in and out from my mouth. The scuba gear on your back isn’t as heavy as it looks which was surprising since I thought it would be much heavier than that.

We spent a short period of time in the shallow end of the pool practicing how to breathe, how to put the regulator in and out of our mouth under water, how to signal if everything is ok or if we need help, etc… We then proceeded to swim to the deep end which goes down to 5 meters and we then spent the rest of the time at the bottom there swimming, throwing a small toy torpedo around and generally getting comfortable swimming, breathing and spending time deep in the water without going out.

It was a lot of fun and I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. Nat is going to continue scuba diving by taking the open water course with them but I on the other hand don’t think will have time for scuba diving with all my other activities.

The Kuwait Diving Team guys are really great, they love what they do and they’re extremely dedicated. If they aren’t spending their time instructing they’re out in the sea saving the coral reefs, recovering sunken ships or performing some other environmental heroism. The Discover Scuba Diving course is free and runs for around 3 hours. Once you take the course and feel like scuba diving is something you want to get into then you can sign up to the Open Water / Advance course which is KD140. That course involves 5 pool dives, 5 classroom sessions and 4 open water sea dives. Once you complete that course you would get your scuba diving certificate and will be able to go diving with other certified scuba divers without a need for an instructor.

For more information or to setup an appointment for a Discover Scuba Diving course you can contact PADI Instructor Meshari Alkhabbaz on 97900714.