2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003

One of my best friends bought a Tamiya car so we went over to the Tamiya track at the Tilal Complex in Shuwaikh to race our cars on their track. I wouldn’t call what we did racing since it was more like a destruction derby but it was the most fun I’ve had in a long time.

It was my first time using their new outdoor track and it’s amazing. A lot of nice curves, a good long straight and best of all they have 4 charging stations for our batteries. That means if you have two batteries you could race with one while charging the other and keep swapping for unlimited fun. It costs KD1 to use their track but its really worth it. I later noticed they have a small trail for the Tamiya crawlers so I will pass by tomorrow to try that out. It also turns out tomorrow is an off-road day which means they turn the track into an off-road one with jumps and stuff. I will be taking my Tamiya Frog to try that out as well.

My car shell has taken a lot of abuse from me so I decided to pick one up on the way out. I picked up a Ford Escort Cosworth which is actually my 4th favorite car ever (the first is the Lancia Delta Integrale), Going to paint it this week and hopefully race it next Friday.

Not going to attach a picture so I don’t ruin the surprise. I am trying to figure out what they sell or where to start from and I can’t figure it out! Oh and make sure you raise your computer volume for the full effect. [Link]

Here is another photography related post. This one is a collection of photographs called Happy Accidents in which the photographer Matt Stuart captures a moment in which strange/interesting things are happening. Some are a bit too subtle and fly over my head but most of them are easy to catch. You can check the colection [Here]

Note: When you get to the site click on the photograph to flip between them…

Martin Becka a photographer that uses a special printing/processing technique to make images look as though they were taken back in 1880. His recent project features picture of Dubai and the one above specifically is of Burj Dubai. All his pictures have the same outdated feel and it’s obviously very strange seeing something so modern but looking very old at the same time. He has more pictures which you can see [Here]

Registration is now open for entry into the fifth annual dog show. The show will take place in the beautiful gardens of the British Embassy on Friday March 5th from 11AM to 4PM. I’ve been to their first and second annual dog show and it was a lot of fun. I only missed out on the other two because I was out of the country. It’s very well organized and it’s really great having an event like this in Kuwait. I always sign up my dog to the different categories and even though he always ends failing miserably we still have a really good time. Here is a link to pictures I took at their first annual dog show back in 2006 when my dog was still just a puppy then. [Link]

For more information on the dog show and all the proper forms needed visit the PAWS blog [Here]

Please note that even if you are not entering a dog in the show and just want to go to the event to hang out, you still have to pre-register because it’s being held at the British Embassy. You can’t just show up at the gate and walk in, you need to be pre-registered to be let in.

Seems Arwa has gotten a face lift. A new water bottle and label design is going to be introduced, and compared to the previous bottle, it looks better. It’s not a great redesign but its better than before.

Here is the calendar for Cinemagic’s rooftop movie nights for February. Starting this month they will start charging KD1 for the venue fees including refreshments, popcorn and much more. There are lots of good movies this month, here is the list:

Thursday, February 4th
OUTSOURCED, USA/CANADA 2006
Director: John Jeffcoat
Genre: Comedy | 103 min | English Subtitle
Rated: PG 13

Saturday, February 6th
WHEN MARIAM SPOKE, LEBANON 2001
Director: Asad Fouladkar
Genre: Drama | 98 min | English Subtitle
Rated: 15+

Thursday, February 11th
UNDERGROUND, SERBIA 1995
Director: Emir Kusturica
Genre: Comedy | 170 min | English Subtitle
Rated: PG 15

Saturday, February 13th
SURPRISE FILM

Thursday, February 18th
HOUSE OF GAMES, USA 1987
Director: David Mamet
Genre: Thriller | 102 min | English Subtitle
Rated: PG 13

Saturday, February 20th
REQUIEM FOR A DREAM, USA 2000
Director: Darren Aronofsky
Genre: Adventure | Mystery | 102 min | English Subtitle
Rated: 18

Thursday, February 25th
CORPSE BRIDE, USA 2005
Director: Tim Burton
Genre: Animation | Drama | 80 min | English Subtitle
Rated: PG 13

Saturday, February 27th
SOPHIE SCHOLL: THE FINAL DAYS, GERMANY 2005
Director: Mark Rothemund
Genre: Drama | 127 min | English Subtitle
Rated: 15+

Cinemagic movies are screened in the old Salmiya, on the roof on top of Alghanim Electronics and LG. Here is a link to their facebook group [Link]

Two weeks back I posted pictures of the GulfRun guys getting their cars washed and stickers applied and now Negative Effect just released a video of that event. I’m looking forward for the video of the actual races since he had a whole bunch of FlipHD cameras setup around all the cars capturing footage from every angle. For now though you can watch this. [YouTube]

I couldn’t stop laughing, this has to be the coolest movie ever made. [Link]

via nibaq

This might sound strange but this little store is probably one of my favorite shops in Kuwait. It’s called Teacher’s Cellar and it’s located in Muthana Complex in Kuwait City. The store sells classroom supplies and it’s unbelievable the amount of stuff they were able to shove into the place. It has everything from scratch and sniff stickers to fake plastic food, washable crayola paint, stamps, hand puppets you name it. It’s mostly supplies for kindergarten and primary school classes so that’s why it’s all fun stuff. It’s really an incredible little store and I wish we had more of these little specialty shops in Kuwait.

They’re located on the Mezzanine floor of Muthana Complex opposite the Internet cafe. They also have a pretty decent website which you can check out by clicking [Here]

No not really. It’s actually one of the really old Toshiba laptops displayed at the Toshiba dealer in Kuwait City. This one’s from 1993 called the T100x Dynapad. It had a 25MHz CPU, 4MB of RAM and came with a 40MB hard drive. The Toshiba dealer has this amazing display of old laptops from the 80s up till the 90s. It’s like a mini museum.

Aramex just sent an email out saying that packages over 10KG will benefit from a 30% discount. Sounds cool but in the 9 years or so I’ve been using Aramex I don’t recall ever shipping anything that heavy. How about 30% discounts on all packages no matter what the weight for customers who’ve been with Aramex for 9 years?

This mini club was found inside what looks like an ordinary tent from the outside. Pretty cool. [YouTube]

A reader called Haresh sent me the picture above which he took last night around 8:45PM. I checked and the picture isn’t retouched, its straight out of the camera. That looks like a pretty big lightning strike.

Picture was taken with an Olympus E-520 with an f-stop of 5.6 and shutter speed of 5 seconds. Location is Salmiya.

When I posted my water review I wasn’t expecting much interest. I just did it because I thought it would be something fun but the response was much more than I was expecting. A lot of you requested I add more details like the sodium content or where the water comes from so I went ahead and did that. I just finished a long and very cold session in front of my fridge tasting all the water and taking down notes. Since the last review I went and purchased some more water brands and I think I managed to get one bottle from everything available in the market except for the bakala waters (random unknown brands you won’t see anywhere else).

For each bottle of water I’ve now written what kind of water it is, where it’s from, the sodium content and the taste. Water to me should have no taste but some brands (like the bakala ones) have a strange flavor for some odd reason. So when you read “none” keep in mind that’s a good thing.

Finally before I share the results, most of these brands of water can be found at your regular super markets except for the following:

10 Thousand BC and Icelandic Glacial are only available at Dean & Deluca.
Fiji I’ve seen only at Dean & Deluca and sometimes at Sultan Center.
TSC, O2GO and Metro Mint only available only at Sultan Center.
Isbre isn’t available anywhere yet but will be released in the Kuwaiti market this March.

The review did reveal some surprises. The biggest for me was TSC. Turned out to be bottled in Lebanon and contains only 2.3mg of sodium. I think TSC could actually be re-branded Rim water since both are bottled in Lebanon and both contain the exact same amount of Sodium. But that’s just my theory. Between locally produced water the two I would choose over other brands are Arwa and AlRwadatain. From the more expensive brands Highland Spring seems to be the best deal and also contains just 6mg of sodium. Check out the results below.