2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003

Now that the price of oil is like the lowest in 16 months does that mean McDonalds, Burger King, KFC and Hardees will drop their prices? Will products at Sultan Center cost the same as they did 16 months ago? I think it’s only fair that if they raise the prices because oil prices are up then they should drop the prices when oil prices go down.

If you’re too young to remember the original Wassup Budweiser commercials click [Here]

FIFA has suspended Kuwait from all international matches and activities because of the government interference in the affairs of the football federation.

Contrary to the road map established by FIFA and the AFC, the Kuwaiti Public Authority for Youth and Sport has continued to interfere. Elections were held on 9 October in direct violation of the FIFA Executive Committee’s May 2007 decision to the contrary. As a consequence, the committee recommend to the FIFA Executive Committee that the Kuwait Football Association be suspended. [Link]

Kuwait’s federation were to have held their general assembly in September but delayed it for Ramadan but after no meeting took place Blatter said the Kuwaitis had been “definitively suspended” from international matches. [Link]

Thanks 7ussien

The new True Value location opened up today and I passed by to check it out. I didn’t like it, I actually hated it. The old True Value never really was that great but at least it felt cozy which now it lacks. The location of the new True Value is Al-Rai. If you’re on the 4th ring road and Lexus and Toyota are on your right hand side, keep going straight and take the right turn before Alghanim Electronics. Then, keep going straight until you see True Value on the left.

Back when I was taking pictures for my Miskan project I passed by the Kuwait Stock Exchange and ended up taking some cool pictures. Since the stock market is a popular topic at the moment I figured I would upload all the pictures I had taken that day so people can download them and use them. I’ve gotten a lot of emails from magazines and newspapers asking for the hi-res pictures so here they are all compressed into one zip file.

Download stock market pictures (4.8MB)

In return, please credit the blog if you end up using any of the photos.

Animal Friends League of Kuwait if holding a charity bazaar this coming Saturday, here is the information I got by email:

Christmas Charity Bazaar

Saturday 25 of October,
from 10am to 2pm

Mulbarak Al Kabeer,
Block 1, Street 25, House 32.

All profits in support of
Animal Friends League.

Please come and browse through the tables pilled up with hand made items, fabric related decorations, Christmas ornaments, pearls, Swarovski crystals, labels… Animal Friends League will have a table promoting their work here in Kuwait with pictures of the animals in need of a friendly home.

Please DO NOT PARK on the street, there is some construction going on right in front of our house and there is plenty of room in the Co-op parking lot.

Please contact AFL if you need more information:
https://www.animalfriendskuwait.org

The Kuwait Stock Exchange, the second largest in the Arab world tumbled at opening today. I don’t know what that will mean for us regular folks (more price increases at McDonalds?) but there are currently investors outside the stock exchange demonstrating. The 4th Ring Road blog are dramatically calling this the “KSE Bloodbath” and are currently tracking things and posting pictures of the demonstration, here is their [Link]

I have a feeling Virgin is going to end up closing down at Marina Mall. I don’t think they’ve been doing good for a long time and the only thing they really have left is their electronics and video games section. Today I was at Marina and noticed Alghanim was opening up right in front of Virgin. Alghanim sells both video games and electronics for cheaper so whats really left for Virgin?

A funny site. [Link]

After having lunch at Quiznos yesterday in Baitak Tower I found this cool place called The Nut Tree. Unlike regular nut shops in Kuwait The Nut Tree had flavored nuts like glazed, honey dipped and more. They even had some dipped in chocolate, I ended up getting dried banana dipped in chocolate and also hazelnut dipped in chocolate. Both were REALLY good. When I got back home I googled them and it turned out they’re a small British chain, you can check their website [Here]

I am lazy, super lazy and there is no way I am going to drive all the way to a gym and work out there for an hour or two when I could be home watching my favorite shows on television. Thats why I decided the only way I would consider working out is if I brought the gym to me.

I went to every place in Kuwait which I knew of that sold home gyms and here is what I found:

Go Sport
They have a handful of treadmills, found a very decent Pro-Form treadmill for KD215. They also carried Weider and Vectra brands of multi-gyms. They only had two small Weider’s gyms with the exact same features, one for KD74 and the other for KD115. What I was interested in was the Vectra gym. Vectra make some of the best home gyms in the world but they are expensive. The Vectra gym they had on display costs KD1,300. Overall I thought their prices were pretty decent specially considering the fact that they’re located in the Avenues.

Sears
Loads of treadmills (Pro-Form and other brands). They had a good selection of multi-gyms (mostly Weider brand) but all of them except for one worked using resistance instead of weights. The only one that worked with weights was the Nordictrack 360. It looked cool but after watching the demonstration video I realized it was just too complicated to work. I also felt their prices were pretty expensive.

Ace Hardware
Not much selection there. I think they had only two treadmills which were over priced and they had like three multi-gyms made by an unknown Chinese brand and the prices were also expensive.

Nasser Sports
I heard they had a building next to their Avenues branch that was dedicated to home gyms so I was expecting to find the holy grail… I didn’t. They had a bunch of treadmills, nothing that stuck out and they had a few multi-gyms of some unknown cheap brand. I didn’t find anything interesting.

Sports Corner
They’re located in the old Salmiya where Boushahri used to be. I found the best collection of Treadmills there, they carry around three different brands but in the end I went with a Reebok Series 3 treadmill. They had a 20% discount promo going on but I was able to haggle and get a 25% discount which brought the price down to KD285. They only had one multi-gym which was of some unknown brand, looked pretty flimsy and was already sold out.

Sportsman
They have two branches, one next to the old Video Club in Salmiya opposite Zahra Complex while the other is across the street in the building where Hald Rock Cafe used to be next to NBK. They had maybe three treadmills and I found them all too expensive. No multi-gym.

Wataniya Mall
I found two stores in this small mall which is also located in Salmiya but opposite NBK and Eureka. If you go down to the basement there is a store on right corner and one on the left. The one on the right caters mostly to gyms and not homes. The cheapest multi-gym they had was for like 4000KD or something. They also are the dealers for Everlast and CCM brands. The store on the left side had maybe two treadmills, one multi gym and a few other items. They carry the Carl Lewis brand you need to definitely haggle with them. The same Carl Lewis boxing bag available at Go Sport for KD90 they were selling for KD150. I managed to bring them down to KD100 and probably could have brought them down to KD90 to match Go Sport. Same with the home gym, they had it for KD150 and I brought them down to KD100. I was actually going to get it until I spotted the gym I really wanted at Sultan Center.

Sultan Center
I first went to the Sultan Center in Al-Rai and really didn’t find anything there. I don’t remember seeing a treadmill and they had one multi-gym that was in terrible condition from the brand Body Sculpt or something. Then by chance I was at the Souk Sharq branch when I spotted the Weider 4870 (pictured at the top of this post). It was pretty full featured and I right away knew this was the gym I wanted. I asked a salesman there how much the price was and he told me 300KD which is less than I had expected. A couple of days later I went back to buy the gym and I noticed they had a price tag of 230KD stuck on the gym which was even better! I quickly purchased it and they are now actually installing it for me while I am writing this post.

So, in case anyone is looking for a multi-gym my recommendation is to hit Go Sport unless you want the gym I got which is only available at Sultan Center. For treadmills I think the Reebok’s were really good value for money and they’re available at Sports Corner who had a very nice collection and their prices are negotiable. The Pro-Form treadmill at Go Sport for KD215 is also a really good value.

Will someone in Kuwait please buy this car? Someone is selling a 1979 BMW M1 on eBay for KD50,000 which is a steal when you consider the fact that soulless Gallardos go for more. This is one really incredible car. [eBay]

Quiznos, the American franchise opened up recently at the Baitak Tower (weird name). I passed by for lunch and it was pretty good (I had “the traditional” sandwich). The staff seemed a bit lost and they have a serious ventilation problem but as long as you sit outside the store its not a problem. 7inch subs were around KD1, 12inch subs around KD1.600 and to upgrade to a combo (fries+coke) its 500fils. Baitak Tower is in Kuwait City, next to the ABK tower where KFH and Alghanim X-Cite are located.

Alain Robert (Spiderman) who is famous for climbing famous skyscrapers around the world was in Beirut last week. He climbed the famous Phoenicia Hotel but the whole thing was too commercialized. He had permission from the hotel and the whole event was staged as a publicity stunt for Gillette. Not as interesting as his other climbs, very disappointing. [YouTube]

Arab Times printed an article in today’s paper on Latina Mina’s drunk deejaying the other night and the whole article was just all quotes from the post on my blog and all its commentators. Its cool that blogs are actually being taken seriously but they should have actually mentioned 2:48AM instead of calling it just “a blog”. I guess they should have also written an article instead of just taking quotes from everyone and sticking them together. Here is the link to the article on Arab Times and if it doesn’t open up for some reason I’ve saved a pdf version which you can download below. Maybe I should just call them “a newspaper” from now on.

Link to article
PDF version

Update: Latina Mina has fled the country. Here is the latest article on this from “a newspaper”. [PDF version]

Update2: According to someone working at 99.7, any employee at the station who asks for a recording of the session will get fired on the spot. The ministry really does not want the recording to make its way online.