2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003

The road right next to Sadu House that leads towards the National Museum and the National Library is being replaced with a Sadu brick road. No idea who came up with this idea but I love it!

I’m changing up these Thursday posts a bit since we tend to discuss different shows and movies we’ve watched in the comments. So from now on, these Thursday posts are where I share various shows I’ve been watching through out the week or maybe a movie I streamed and you can also use the comments to share what you’ve been watching with other readers as well.

This past week I binge watched Platonic on AppleTV+. Watched a few episodes on the plane and then continued once I got back. It’s a cool show, I had fun watching it. I also binge watched Hijack on AppleTV+. I’m not sure if I like it yet, the first episode felt like it was full of B-rated cast but the show got me hooked so they’re doing something right.

Finally, I watched the movie The Beanie Bubble also AppleTV+. It was fun to watch but if you’re a Beanie Babies fan you might start hating them after this movie.

Movies at the Cinemas
The movies below are now showing at the local cinemas:

New This Weekend:
Haunted Mansion (6.3)
Insidious: The Red Door (5.9)
Meg 2: The Trench (6.0)
The Secret Kingdom (5.0)

Other Movies Showing:
Black Lotus (4.2)
Cobweb (6.1)
Cats Museum (4.4)
Elemental (6.8)
Farang (6.6)
Hidden Strike (5.8)
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (8.2)
Oppenheimer (8.7)
The Flash (7.3)
The Little Mermaid (7.2)
The Super Mario Bros. Movie (7.4)

The classic films below are currently showing at the 1954 Film House:
Flubber (5.3)
Training Day (7.7)

The numbers in brackets refer to the IMDB rating at the time of publishing.

A friend told me that Zain was launching RedBull Mobile next week to compete with Virgin Mobile. I didn’t know RedBull Mobile existed until she told me so I contacted a couple of sources to confirm this rumor but they were being tight lipped about it. But, it looks like it’s happening.

If you head to www.redbullmobile.com.kw/en right now you’ll end up at their website which seems to still be under construction. Their Instagram account will also be @redbullmobilekw. Like Virgin Mobile, I doubt this is going to have any effect on the market or anyone (unless there is some Formula 1 tie in and in that case this is going to be great! I love Red Bull Mobile, please get me RedBull Paddock access during a race).

Mo Amer, the Palestinian American comedian known for his hilarious performances in the Netflix show ‘Mo’ and the award-winning Hulu sitcom ‘Ramy,’ is coming to Kuwait to perform a stand-up comedy show at The Arena.

Mo was actually born in Kuwait and lived here till the age of 9. He only left Kuwait because of the 1990 Iraq invasion which is how he ended up in the US.

The show titled “Homecoming” is taking place on September 8th. Tickets start at 25KD and go up all the way to 75KD and are available for sale on The Arena’s website.

Found these vintage ANSI art relating to the 1990 Gulf War and thought they were super interesting. I use to love ANSI and ASCII art back in the day and if I remember correctly, my first digital porn image I had was a black and white ASCII drawing sometime back in the 80s which a friend had given to me on a 5.25 floppy. Source

33 years ago on August 2nd 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait. Abduljabbar Mansoor Marafi, an amateur radio operator decided to stay behind with his family and that decision eventually led him to become the last voice from Kuwait.

I hadn’t heard of his story until very recently and since its the anniversary of the invasion I wanted to share it since I found it really interesting from a technology point of view, but also the bravery involved. Marafi had been operating a sophisticated Radio Bulletin Board System (RBBS) using a personal computer and amateur radio set equipment long time before the invasion. He had even setup backup power supply in case of power failure which turned out to also be useful during the invasion.

When Iraq invaded, Marafi refused to flee hoping he could help his country by staying in Kuwait. During the early days of the invasion, Marafie used his radio to keep people outside of Kuwait in the loop with what was happening here. He was basically blogging before blogging was even a thing. When Iraq start cutting off communication in Kuwait from the outside world, Marafi’s radio system became even more important.

The easiest way I can think of to describe Marafi’s bulletin board system is to imagine a very basic version of email. You would send a message to a specific radio call sign (Marafi’s was 9K2DZ), and when that person later connects to their bulletin board system, they would see what messages they had waiting for them. I’ve embedded a video below from YouTube demoing this.

News of Marafi’s bulletin service started spreading by word of mouth in Kuwait. Families began giving Marafi messages to send to their relatives abroad, and families abroad started contacting radio amateurs in the countries they lived in asking them to send messages to their relatives in Kuwait through Marafi’s bulletin board. In addition to helping transmit messages between families, Marafie also used his radio system to expose to the outside world the horrors that were being committed by the Iraqis in Kuwait.

When Iraqis found out news was leaking out of Kuwait they suspected it was due to radio amateurs since all other sort of communication had already been cut. The Iraqis then started interrogating Kuwaiti radio amateurs and confiscating their equipment, including Marafi’s. But Marafi was expecting that and had set up a complete radio setup behind a false wall in his basement. The setup outside that was confiscated was mostly broken or old equipment.

The full story of Abduljabbar Marafi and his radio system is too big to tell in all its detail but if you want to find out more you can google his call sign 9K2DZ. Sadly, Marafi passed away last November.

I’ve uploaded a PDF of an article taken from the September 1991 issue of Alam Al-Computer. I borrowed some of the information in this post from that article and it’s really interesting to read. You can download it here.

Similar to what happened with Oppenheimer, there are currently rumors circulating that the Barbie movie is banned in Kuwait. As of now, that isn’t true and it’s just rumors.

According to a source of mine at the cinema, the Barbie movie is coming out in Kuwait at the end of the month, but it will be censored. My understanding is the scenes that will be censored are LGBTQ+ related and that the studio already approved the removal of those scenes last month. The only reason the movie was going to be banned in Kuwait is if Saudi Arabia decided to ban it, but yesterday according to @kuwaitnews, Saudi said the movie will be released so thats good news for us.

If everything goes according to plan, the movie will be released in Kuwait on August 31st. On a side note, with my pink colored blog I kinda feel like I need to be collaborating with Barbie somehow, maybe a Barbie launch day takeover or something, I need ideas!

Update: And it has now officially been banned. So if you’re looking to watch it you’re going to have to drive down to Saudi or head to Bahrain where the movie will be premiering today.

If you’re looking for something to do this weekend, Yard is holding a food festival in Al Hamra Mall. The ‘Vibe Food Fest’ starts this Wednesday August 2nd and runs till Saturday August 5th from 10AM to 10PM. @yardkw

Has anyone watched the documentary ‘After Work‘? I just found out about it now and only because Kuwait is part of the documentary. You can watch the trailer below, Kuwait makes an appearance 47 seconds in.

Thanks Dina

Last week I flew to Athens for a quick getaway and I fell in love with the city. I hadn’t been there since I was a kid in the 80s so it was basically my first time. The ticket was around 140KD on Kuwait Airways, and it was a short 3 1/2 hour flight so I definitely want to go back again. Below is a quick guide of all the favorite spots I found which I think you’d also like:

Eat
I had my best meal at Cherchez La Femme (@kafeneioncherchezlafemme), a small cafe serving greek food in tapa sizes so you can mix and match. Sushimou (no insta) was a great (and affordable) sushi bar serving an omakase menu. The owner and masterchef (@thalis) was named the world’s 100 top chefs. Do Birdman (@birdmanathens) for a Japanese grill with great music and drinks or their sister location Ekiben (@ekibenathens) for a quick bite. For breakfast go to the picturesque cafe Minu (@minu.athens). Head to Wild Souls (@wildsoulsgr) to pick up gifts for friends, and if you’re there in the summer, go to Oggi (@oggiathens) for the best gelato.

Drink
Dope Roasting Co (@doperoasting), Anana (@ananacoffeefood), Motiv (@motivathens) and Behold Theman (@behold_theman) were my favorite coffee shops. If you want a place to sit in a garden and enjoy a few drinks, six d.o.g.s (@sixdogsgr) was super chill.

See
KORI (@kori.gr) have lots of beautiful jewelry and ceramic pieces by Greek designers and artists. DangerousMinds (@dangerousminds.gr) if you’re looking for streetwear while Eating +he Goober (@eatingthegoober) is a very cool greek contemporary clothing brand. The Naxos Apothecary (@thenaxosapothecary) is a Greek fragrances and body creams store which is their equivalent to Aesop. Finally, visit the hidden but very scenic neighborhood of Anafiotika which surprisingly isn’t overrun by tourists.

Sleep
There were a lot of great hotel options but I ended up staying at The Foundry Suites (@thefoundrysuitesathens), a hip boutique hotel with just 12 rooms in a neighborhood full of cafes and antique stores and is not busy with tourists (@perianthhotel was my Plan B). I also spent a night at the Dexamenes Seaside Hotel (@dexamenes) which I would highly recommend. Technically not in Athens because it’s over 3 hours away, but definitely worth it. Rent a car and drive, the road is chill and very photogenic.

Like all my travel guides, this is a curated list with most places being off the beaten path and not packed with tourists. Use it to supplement your own things to do list. Also with some restaurant you need to book in advance so keep that in mind. Also in case you missed them, check out my previous travel guides for Barcelona and Istanbul.

There’s an old story from back in the 70s about a man who wasn’t dressed well walking into the Rolls Royce dealer in Kuwait to check out the cars. The man asked the salesman how much the car cost and the salesman replied that he wouldn’t be able to afford it. The man left the dealership upset but came up with an idea for payback. A few days later he went to the dealership again and purchased the Rolls Royce. He then registered it as a taxi cab and had it painted orange with a white stripe.

The man then put the taxi into service and was regularly picking up passengers and he even used to park it in front of the dealership just to mess with them even more. Eventually the dealership reached out to the man apologizing to him and offered to buy back the car from him and give him a more expensive one in return.

The man accepted and he handed the orange Rolls Royce to the dealership and got a new one in return. The orange Rolls was thought to have been repainted back to its original color and then resold, but, the car was recently found at a scrapyard in Khafji, Saudi Arabia, complete in its original orange paint and still had the original red license plates!

That’s pretty insane! You can check out the video by Bin Zuayd on YouTube embeded above or visit his Instagram account @khalid_eisaa to watch it there.

Urban Outfitters are selling 35mm films for those of you who are looking. I can’t tell if they’re reasonably priced or not because the prices in the market keep fluctuating depending on availability and where you’re getting them from (@qomrahfilm is cheaper for example). But, one advantage Urban Outfitters has is that they’re conveniently located at The Avenues.

They have three types of films available:
Kodak Gold (ISO 200) – KD5.750
Ilford HP5 Plus (ISO 400) – KD7.500
Kodak UltraMax (ISO 400) – KD7.500

But they also had a 3-piece pack of Kodak Gold they’re selling for KD16 (so KD5.333 per piece).

Late last week the Capital Markets Authority (CMA) issued a circular banning crypto payments, investment and mining.

Kuwait is currently one of the cheapest countries in the world to mine bitcoin. It is estimated that last year the cost of mining in Kuwait was just $1,400 per BTC when bitcoin was worth more than $40,000 at the time. But, the high power consumption of mining doesn’t seem to be the reason for the ban. According to an article on Yahoo Finance, the reason behind the ban is money laundering. Countries are required to put up guardrails to prevent money laundering but I guess it’s easier to just ban it completely.

What does this mean if you already own cryptocurrency? My best guess is that it would make transferring large sums of money from abroad into your account in Kuwait more difficult. If you transfer large amounts of money you need to explain where it’s coming from and I don’t think you can tell the banks anymore that they’re from your crypto investments. Maybe a banker can clear this up for us.

Update: according to a reader the circular doesn’t apply to individuals.

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

New This Weekend:
Cobweb (N/A)
Oppenheimer (N/A)

Other Movies Showing:
Elemental (6.8)
Guy Ritchie’s the Covenant (8.5)
Hidden Strike (5.8)
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (6.9)
Insidious: The Red Door (6.3)
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (8.2)
One True Loves (5.4)
The Flash (7.3)
The Little Mermaid (7.2)
The Super Mario Bros. Movie (7.4)
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (6.5)

The classic films below are currently showing at the 1954 Film House:
Ocean’s Eleven (7.7)
Lady and the Tramp (7.3)

The numbers in brackets refer to the IMDB rating at the time of publishing.

Back in November, I broke the news that Chipotle had signed with Alshaya and were coming to Kuwait. Now, 7 months later, its finally official.

Chipotle just announced that it had signed an agreement with Alshaya Group, its first-ever franchise partner, to open locations in the Middle East next year. The initial plan calls for two locations each in Dubai and Kuwait.

This is pretty huge news especially since this is the first time Chipotle has enlisted a local franchise retail operator as it moves into a new market. Alshaya really know how to get things done, exciting!