2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003

I recently decided that whenever I travel I want to take a 35mm film camera with me instead of a digital camera. I realized when I have a limited amount of pictures I can take (36 per roll) I tend to take only the shots I really want and not just everything I see. With digital cameras I come back from my trips with hundreds of photos and I spend a lot of time deleting random junk because instead of spending more time taking 1 shot I use that time to take 5 shots of the same thing.

So I decided to stick with film instead of digital. When I went to Munich last year I took my 30 year old Nikon FE and came back with a lot of cool vintage looking shots. [Check here] Thats why I started looking for a new film camera, one that has personality which is something very important for me.

I started first by checking out the Nikon F3, then the Nikon F4, then the Yashica Electro 35 GSN, then the Canon QL17 GIII, then the Konica S2, followed by the Konica S3 until I finally landed on the Voigtlander Bessa R3A which is pictured in this post. Its one of the best looking camera I have ever seen. Its extremely well built and to some people its one of the best rangefinder cameras ever made right behind the Zeiss Ikon. I found one on eBay second hand that came with the fastest 40mm lens ever made, a Voigtlander 40/1.4 Nokton. Bidding was ending at 4:50AM so I set my alarm to 4:40AM and went to bed at 10PM. The maximum I wanted to pay was $500 since brand new the camera and lens were selling for $940. Sadly I didn’t win the bid. Even though I ended up increasing my budget to $600 the auction ended at $606 and the other person bidding looked like he could have taken it even further.

Now I need to decide what to do but I just wanted to share this camera with everyone now that the auction is over. Its such a beautiful camera!

K5 has an interesting post about this cool little store he found called Nawader Al Kuwait. The place has a huge collection of vintage Arabic vinyl records and also vintage radios and record players. The place also has other random items, personally I am interested in the painting of the musicians above so I might pass by tonight to check the place out. You can see more pictures and information about the place on K5’s blog [Here]

I got home after work to find a bunch of retards fighting under my building. I parked my car in the basement and walked up to the ground floor to find around 20 teenagers (16-18 year olds) shouting, screaming and shoving each other around. I watched them for like 5 minutes and then decided to go upstairs and watch them from my balcony. A lot of fights erupt next to my building because there is a billiard place in the building next door that attracts a lot of the wrong crowd. There is also a prostitution ring that operates in that same building but they only open for business like once a week and its a pretty tightly run ship with high end customers so they never cause any problems (I should post about them one day). The billiard place on the other hand just attracts all these trashy kids that want to fight for the dumbest reasons.

While watching the fight from my balcony I heard what sounded like one guy yelling at who I thought was one of the Bangladeshi janitors in my building so I went back downstairs to make sure no one did anything to the workers. Turns out the workers were inside the building away from harms way but the fight outside had turned really violent with guys holding cutters and some guys bleeding. I live in a shopping mall in the old Salmiya street and these guys were basically fighting in the backside, then moving inside the mall and then back out to the front of the building onto the main Salmiya street. It was ridiculous! So I asked the landlord if he had called the cops and he told me yeah when the fight had first started but no one had come yet.

20 minutes later and the cops still hadn’t showed up. Actually the fight dispersed and everyone ended up going their separate ways and the cops never showed up. I went back up to my apartment while the janitors started to clean up the blood stains. Unbelievable.

Yesterday I posted about how disappointing the Teshkeel Comics theme park looks like and today I found a post on another blog about the Cartoon Network theme park which already opened and looks pretty cool. I can’t seem to figure out where its located though. You can check out pictures of the Cartoon Network on the blog P0ach by following this [Link]

Global Finance magazine just released a list of the world’s 50 safest bank and the only bank from the region that made the cut was NBK which came in at #44. The German bank KfW topped the list at spot #1 while HSBC came in at #19. For the full list here is a [PDF]

Thanks Abdullah!

I passed by Schlotzsky’s for lunch today and I left confused. I used to like this one kind of turkey sandwich back when I used to have Schlotzsky’s in Lebanon but I couldn’t find that sandwich on the menu here. In fact, from a total of around 8 sandwiches, 5 were turkey and from those 5, 4 were practically exactly the same. Other than their names they all seemed to have the exact same ingredients. I ended up going with a small original turkey sandwich, it was good, better than the sandwiches at Quiznos but not as good as the one I used to have. I need to go back and try the other turkey sandwiches until I find one similar to the one I used to have. Price for the sandwich was KD1.100. They’re located across from Al-Raya in Kuwait City.

Update: They deliver.. 22320777 (Thanks Nibaq!)

She’s mine… she’s mine; Fisticuffs in row over ‘veiled’ wives

KUWAIT CITY, Feb 25: Jahra securitymen on Wednesday apprehended a Kuwaiti and an unidentified man for engaging in a fistfight at a shopping complex in the area. According to security sources, the Kuwaiti and his wife — a veiled woman — went inside the shopping complex on Wednesday. They were later separated as they went from one shop to the other then the Kuwaiti noticed another veiled woman, who was standing near an unidentified man. Thinking she is his wife, the Kuwaiti called the woman, but the man standing beside her suddenly went berserk, claiming the woman is his wife.

A heated argument between the two men escalated in a fistfight and they used some items in the commercial complex to hit each other. The security officers in the complex and some passersby interfered and tried to calm both men. After receiving information about the incident, Jahra securitymen rushed to the complex and referred the men to North Jahra Police Station for interrogation.

By Mezyed Al-Saeedi
Special to the Arab Times

Thanks Nibaq!

I was emailed photos of the Teshkeel Comics theme park thats currently being created out in Jahra. The official opening date is March 19 but judging by the pictures the park looks disappointing. From what I can see (which isn’t much really) it looks like they took a regular theme park with regular rides and just stuck Teshkeel Comic stickers everywhere. Click continue to see the rest of the pictures.

I’ve started experimenting with Twitter, trying to figure out why people use it. I already set myself up with an account and I’ve started posting there. I even installed a twitter application on my iPhone so now I am posting to my twitter account through out the day. If you want you can check it out by going to twitter.com/mark248am

When I first started this blog over 4 years ago I was getting only a handful of visitors a day. Since then the site hasn’t stopped growing and I’m now averaging over 10,000 visitors a day. From day 1 the blog was being hosted by a good friend but now it’s time for me to move the blog to its own dedicated server.

I just signed up with Rackspace, a leading web hosting provider hosting sites like Threadless, 37signals, Liquid Web Laughing Squid, ESPN, Disney Online, Motorola, Canon USA and more. They gave me a really good deal and promised to have my server up and running by Tuesday. This means I would probably start moving my blog to the new server sometime late next week.

If you’re interested my new server will have the following specs:

Dell 2850
Dual socket = 2 Xeon 3.2 GHz performance CPU’s
Two 146GB 10,000 rpm Hard drives (Raid 1)
4GB RAM
1 x Cisco 506 Firewall
24x7x365 Unlimited live person support
Guaranteed 1 hour hardware replacement
100% network uptime (Backbone = 65GB throughput)
1000 GB High Performance, Tier 1 Redundant Bandwidth
Constant network monitoring for latencies and intrusion

During the move there should be some downtime but I will post about it ahead of time.

[YouTube]

This fire happened on Wednesday and resulted in two dead woman and 64 injured. What I found shocking is this:

Relatives of the women initially blocked firefighters from entering the wedding hall, an action that some suggest may have contributed to the disaster. According to an eyewitness, when firemen first arrived at the scene, they were prevented from entering the hall by some men (apparently relatives of some of the women inside) on the grounds that it was an all-women place. “You can’t get in,” they shouted.

According to eyewitnesses, the hall was filled with smoke at first, which frightened the guests. They panicked and a stampede broke out when flames began to engulf the area.

Witnesses added that what aggravated the situation was the fact that many women who were trying to flee the scene, stopped to put on their veils and head covers. They also said that the hall accommodated 220 women and children. [Kuwait Times]

Thanks Kuwait Black Market!

I thought this project was canceled but I guess its still on. Kuwait is planning to build the tallest skyscraper in the world, one thats around 30% taller than the current tallest skyscraper, Burj Dubai. [Link]

Thanks DJ

I am extremely tempted to buy the RC plane pictured above and get into the hobby. It looks fantastic and comes ready to fly meaning I don’t need much to get it up and running. Price wise its also very affordable costing KD124 on Amazon. I’m just worried summer is already here and outdoor activities season is over. [Amazon]

Note: The plane is 1.28m long and 1.48m wide. Its gas powered and comes with a flight simulator software which will help you learn how to fly the plane on the computer first. Also comes with an adapter that will connect your radio controller (pictured above) to the computer to use with the flight sim. More details on this plane can be found here. [Link]

A new pizza place recently opened up in the Avenues food court called Pizzeria Rustica. Its located opposite Applebee’s. The rice placed called “Rice” also looks to be opening up any day now. The lights were on and the staff looked like they were getting training.

I haven’t been to Johnny Rockets since they introduced the new menu so I was looking forward to see whats new. Since I never really paid attention to anything on their menu except for the burgers I couldn’t really tell what new items they added but I did spot one new burger and the Philly Cheese Steak which is what I decided to try. It wasn’t that bad (tastes much better than it looks) and its definitely a good substitute for the burger although I did find it a bit dry. The price of the Philly Cheese Steak is KD2.650.