2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003

Once upon a time there were two cool photography stores in Kuwait City. One day the building that hosted the two shops got demolished and the stores disappeared…

After a bit of looking around I then noticed one of the shops ended up moving to Muthana Complex but since I didn’t know what happened to the other store I assumed it just closed down. Then out of the blue, a friend of mine tells me he found the place in Shuwaikh. It seems when they demolished the building they decided to move out of Kuwait City and into the industrial area of Shuwaikh for some reason. I passed by and noticed they still had all the used film cameras and lenses on display for sale. They also still have Cokin filters and various tripods, camera bags and studio lights for sale. I was checking out the Nikons, they had the F3, F4 and F5 for sale but none of them were really in great condition. They had two medium format cameras (a Kiev and Mamiya) and also a bunch of compact cameras.

If you’re interested in passing by they’re easy to find. Go to Canada Dry street and if McDonalds is on your right keep going straight past the traffic light and straight under the bridge. Keep going straight you will see a huge place on your left called Ramez. You need to keep driving until you hit the round about and then do a u-turn and head towards the direction you came from. Before the Ramez building you take a right and then you turn left behind the building and drive straight. You should see World Photo in front of you.

As you know the Animal Friends shelter burned down last week and many of their dogs were left without homes. The Royal Animal Hospital near the Friday Market were kind enough to host their dogs while they found homes and yesterday we ended up passing by and getting the dog above which we’ve decided to call Dyski. Originally we were going to call him Blacky but figured no one would realize we meant Blacky from Grendizer. We then thought about Kooji (also from Grendizer) but realized it sounded like Gucci which would have been lame. Anyway Dyski and my dog Geo (named after the Neo Geo) weren’t really getting along the first day but now it seems they’re doing ok. I am hoping they both bond and become best friends like big dogs and small dogs usually do in cartoons.

If you’re interested in fostering a dog temporarily until the Animal Friends shelter gets rebuilt please call 66187301 or e-mail [email protected].

Posted by Fahad AlYehya | Core Fitness – Kuwait

“Dude, I’m really skinny up top, but down below I’m a MESS!”

“I’ve been doing ab work for ages! I literally spend hours in the gym everyday crunching and leg raising my butt off! Why do I still have this belly!? Where’s my six pack!?”

“I might as well paste that muffin I just ate on my thighs, because eventually that’s where it’s going to end up.”

“I’m a 27 year old guy that has better breast development than Pamela Anderson!”

“I’ve been on Lipo-6 for 3 months! Nothing happened!” Me: what’s your diet like? “I pretty much eat whatever I want.”

These pretty much sum up what I am about to tackle today (and obviously the title). Before I do, I’d like to point the finger of blame:

1) Training is 20-30%; it only refines a physique.
Nutrition is the other 70-80%.
2) Abs are made in the kitchen.
3) Why are you crunching with no weights when you clearly don’t have any abdominal muscles?
4) The abdominals are a muscle. If you work a muscle everyday it’ll shrink and never grow.
5) If you eat like a pig and train like a horse, you’ll lose overall weight; except for those stubborn fat stores you want to get rid off.

Too many of you quit too early to see any significant results. You tend to give it all up once results start to slow down. It took you years to gain all that fat, so why do you expect to lose it in such a short time?

It’s hard to make your first million, but once you do, you’ll know exactly what kind of work ethic you’d have to give in order to get it. Same thing goes with a set of abs or shapely thighs; you’re pretty vague about how long or hard your journey will be, but once you give into the commitment then it’ll be all worth it.

I’m here to serve as a guide to that journey, where simple bouts of information may prove useful for that much needed push you’ve been looking for.

Here is the calendar for Cinemagic’s rooftop movie nights for April. This month they’ve got movies from all over the world. Check out the full list below:

Thursday, April 1st at 07:00 PM
Tekkon kinkurîto, Japan 2006
Director: Michael Arias
Genre: Animation | 111 min | English Subtitle
Rated: PG 13

Saturday, April 3rd at 07:00 PM
Central do Brazil, Brazil 1998
Director: Walter Salles
Genre: Drama | 113 min | English Subtitle
Rated: PG 13

Thursday, April 8th at 07:00 PM
Vozvrashchenie, Russia 2003
Director: Andrei Zvyagintsev
Genre: Drama | 105 min | English Subtitle
Rated: 15+

Saturday, April 10th at 07:00 PM
Tuvalu, Germany 1999
Director: Veit Helmer
Genre: Drama | 101 min | English Subtitle
Rated: 15+

Thursday, April 15th at 07:00 PM
Offside, Iran 2006
Director: Jafar Panahi
Genre: Drama | 93 min | English Subtitle
Rated: PG 13

Saturday, April 17th at 07:00 PM
SURPRISE FILM – South Korea 2009

Thursday, April 22nd at 07:00 PM
Salmer fra kjøkkenet, Norway 2003
Director: Bent Hamer
Genre: Comedy | 95 min | English Subtitle
Rated: PG 13

Saturday, April 24th at 07:00 PM
Black Cat White Cat, Serbia 1998
Director: Emir Kusturica
Genre: Comedy | 127 min | English Subtitle
Rated: PG 13

Thursday, April 29th at 07:00 PM
Earth, India 1998
Director: Deepa Mahta
Genre: Drama | 110 min | English Subtitle
Rated: 15+

Saturday, May 1st at 07:00 PM
Ali Zaoua, Morocco 2000
Director: Nabil Ayoush
Genre: Drama | 99 min | English Subtitle
Rated: PG 13

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]

I got an interesting email from Mohammed Boland the creative behind local fashion label Capital District last night. It seems a Saudi based fashion label called Kalimah Jeans has copied one of his popular designs. He was walking at the Avenues when he spotted the familiar design in a shop display. Understandably he’s upset and he knows that very little can be done about it which must be really frustrating. I’m not sure which store in Avenues was selling the shirts but maybe if the owners found out they would be willing to withdraw the item from the store and return it to Kalimah as a way of supporting local talent.

I was dropping my Beemer off at the dealer today for a service when I spotted a closed booth that contained a car inside. Turned out to be the new BMW 5 series and it looked really good, much better than the new BMW Gran Turismo. I spotted one when I was in Lebanon and it looked really ugly, like if you took the already awkwardly looking X6 and had King Kong step on it and squash it. Seriously don’t know what they were thinking with the GT. Anyway the 5-series I saw today was the 535 and it was already reserved for someone.

Local blogger and teacher Miss Farah posted something which I wanted to share with my readers. One of her kids in class had brought only chips and chocolate for lunch (pic above), so Miss Farah sent a letter to the parents explaining to them how unhealthy that was for their daughter. Next day she checked the kids lunchbox and this time the little girl had cucumbers, carrots, croissant, corn and juice (pic below).

I thought it was great of Miss Farah for caring enough to contact the parents and I thought it was also great from the parents to actually listen to her. Hopefully the lunchbox continues to stay healthy and other parents reading this can do the same with their kids. You can check Miss Farah’s blog [Here]

The other day I posted about Kuwait’s first drift track, well it turns out the picture above is from the original drift track in Kuwait back in the 1970s. Ok, that’s not true, I actually retouched the picture to give it a vintage feel because I found pictures on the blog Every Little Thing that were taken today at the track and literally ALL the cars in the pictures were from the 70s. Seriously its like every Datsun from that era was at the track today, it was like a vintage car meet. Check out the pictures [Here]

On the bright side its great seeing those guys drifting on the track instead of blocking the highway and making donuts in the middle of traffic…

Update: Thanks to a reader, here is a [Video]

UNO restaurant at the Avenues has a pretty cool offer where if you buy one of their burgers you get another one free. Sadly I wasn’t impressed with my burgers (stay tuned for a review) but it’s still a pretty good deal.

I just found out from a friend that Blimpie is opening up in Kuwait. Blimpie is a American submarine sandwich chain just like Subway and Quiznos. Since Quiznos has closed down their only store in Kuwait, Blimpie will now be our alternative to Subway. First Blimpie branch will open in June, location still undisclosed.

Spotted by a friend in Dubai.

Thanks Nancy!

Read about this Russian roulette FAIL in the news and just found the video. Nothing graphic but some guy does shoot himself accidentally so you’ve been warned. [YouTube]

Three girls with guns dressed like that and driving down the Gulf Road in their black GMC is going to make every guy on the road wanna chase them. Check out more pictures [Here]

Update: It seems Alqabas removed the images which is very strange. Here is another one I had saved luckily [Picture]

Update2: Alrai newspaper has a ton of pictures here is the [Link]

Update3: Very high quality shots available [Here]

American Eagle will be officially opening tonight at 5PM at The Avenues. Mohammed Alshaya will be there for the ribbon cutting ceremony so maybe we can all go there and yell out “We want In-N-Out… we want In-N-Out… we want In-N-Out…”

As you know by now the Animal Friends shelter was engulfed by fire and so they now need help rebuilding it again. Animal Friends are going to hold a meeting on Friday to discuss the next steps in this rebuilding process. This is the email I received from them on this subject:

The outpouring of support and generosity since the fire has been overwhelming. Whether it is volunteering, donating, fundraising or fostering, your offers of help are hugely appreciated and will go a long way to help us get the AFL shelter back up and running as soon as possible. We are holding a meeting to give everyone the latest information, to discuss what the next steps are and how we can work together to help the animals.

When: Friday 26th March
Time: 4.00pm to 6.00pm
Location: Moevenpick Al Bida’a. Gulf Road Salmiya
Room Slaysell 2 & 3

Please email Olivia at [email protected] or call on 9737 7867 if you have any questions.

A big thank you to the Moevenpick Al Bida’a who are big supporters of Animal Friends and are allowing us the use of the meeting room and equipment free of charge.