2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003

A reader called Steven emailed me his review on the newly added United Airlines direct route, Kuwait to Washington DC. Its kinda long but it might be interesting for people who are considering this route (or airlines even). Here is his take on the flight:

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Hi Mark, I am a frequent traveler from Kuwait and have gold status in the frequent flyer programs of Kuwait Airways, Emirates and British Airways. I decided to try United Airlines new direct flight from Kuwait to Washington DC (14 hours) this weekend and I have to say that the flights there and back on United Airlines were some of the worst I have flown.

The flight UA981 on January 20th from Kuwait was one and a half hours late to fly because of computer problems on the aircraft. They did serve welcoming drinks – water. Once the aircraft flew, the inflight entertainment system was partly bad and the airmap which I like to use to track progress was not working. The business class seats have a very uncomfortable headrest in which the lower part presses onto your shoulders and forces you to sit in an uncomfortable position. The food aboard was very poor and service staff was not very attentive. To make matters worse, the lavatory drainage in business class backed up causing their sinks and floors to fill with foul smelling brown goo. I am sure there was some serious health hazards there.

A new video of Saddam taken after he was hanged has been leaked onto the web. If you can’t handle seeing a dead person don’t watch the video. [Video]

Thanks vampire

I know a lot of people really hate the new Hardees “Thickburgers”. Mushroom & Swiss used to be my favorite until they ruined it by replacing the thin burger with the terrible tasting thickburger. Thats why I stopped ordering it at Hardee’s until recently when I found out I could still order the old “classic” mushroom & swiss.

When you place an order for the Mushroom & Swiss just tell the employee you want the old thin burger. They will still charge you the same as the thickburger except when they call it inside to the kitchen they yell out “one mushroom & swiss special”. Now you can enjoy the original Mushroom & Swiss again.

First it was KFC and now its Hardee’s. [Link]

So I have had the 2007 Infiniti G35 for three days now and its really grown on me. There are a couple of things I like about it and a couple of things I dislike about it, here is my list so far:

– Key-less entry. I have a small key chain I keep in my pocket, once I touch the door handle the car gets unlocked. Whats cool is when I had the key chain in my jacket pocket and I kept my jacket in the car and I tried to lock the doors it wouldn’t lock, the car knew the key was inside the car not outside it. What I dislike is when I touch the door handle only the driver side door unlocks, I need to unlock the other doors using the door unlock button located inside the car.

– Reverse camera. I first saw this on the Infiniti Q45 two or three years ago and now its becoming standard on more and more cars. If only there was a way to activate it without going into reverse, it would be a cool way to spy on the people in the car behind during traffic.

– Sound system. Its Bose which I dislike but surprisingly its pretty beefy. Loads of speakers scattered all over the car and the bass isn’t lacking. Car also has video and audio RCA inputs so you can hook up your iPod Video and just watch videos or listen to music on the screen.

– Steering wheel. Its covered in thick hand stitched leather and it gives the car a very lush feel.

– Center console. Its a love hate relationship. It feels very Japanese which I dislike. I prefer the design of the Europeans. The interior of the Infiniti reminds me a lot of the Lexus which makes sense since its also a Japanese car.

– BLS or G35? Easily by far the G35. I think I will post a more detailed comparison later.

– Acceleration. 0 to 100km in just 5.3 seconds, do I need to say more?

I can’t believe I have to give this car back in a few days.

update: found a bunch of settings I can change using the settings button on the console. I figured out how to turn on the option that allows all the doors to open when I touch the door handle, I also found other nifty options like how dark should it be before the car lights automatically comes on and other little things like that.

I haven’t written any movie reviews lately because the majority of the stuff I watched have been crap like Pirates of the Caribbean 2, Jackass 2, Danika and The Illusionist or they have been really good, just difficult to write about like Brick and Idiocracy. Today though I watched a movie that exceeded my expectations, Running Scared.

While watching the movie I tried to figure out where I had seen the main actor before and I couldn’t put my finger on it until just 5 minutes ago while checking out IMDB. The main star of the movie is Paul Walker, the blond guy from The Fast and The Furious movies. I thought he was pretty lame back then but in Running Scared he was like a different person.

The movie is about Paul Walker trying to get back a gun he had in his possession that was used to kill a cop. The gun keeps changing hands “in an underworld of freaks, pimps, hookers and pedophiles” and Paul spends the whole movie trying to find it while avoiding his gang and the cops.

I liked the way the movie was shot and edited especially the colors and the locations, it was all very dark and urban. There is also a cool signature move where the main character (Paul) visualizes how an incident took place while standing still and looking around, kinda like how they do it in the TV show CSI. The only thing I disliked about the movie was one of the other stars, the kid Cameron Bright. I didn’t like him in The Butterfly Effect and I didn’t like him in Running Scared. The kid just looks really weird.

The movie was really fun to watch and it never felt boring, I actually only checked my email once throughout the whole movie which rarely happens, thats how fast paced it was. Final score though it gets a 4 out of 5. The reason is there were a lot of people I wanted to see more of, mostly his gang and the Russians. But the movie flowed through so many characters and so quickly that it never stopped or slowed down enough to really enjoy them all. In general though this is definitely a movie I would recommend.

From UrbanDictionary.com:

rebooty
1. A booty call made with an ex.
2. A renewed relationship with an ex.

After they broke up, Joe still called Kate for some rebooty on weekends.

Watch this video taken 3 days ago in Portland, USA. Its a video of cars sliding on the frozen roads and crashing into each other. [Link]

As of 12:15AM, anyone who is on a Qualitynet connection at the moment can access ANY site they want without the Qualitynet block page appearing. Try it and see, nothing is blocked.

update: many readers are reporting that everything is still blocked so it could be area dependent or just my connection? Its 9AM now and nothing is blocked on my connection.

Just got back from the city after meeting with a friend for coffee. On the way back I was racing with a few cars and the G35 was faster then most of them. I think I read somewhere that the G35 accelerates from 0 to 100 in 5.3 seconds which for a 4-door sedan is pretty fast.

Anyway my friend was at Rihab earlier buying games for his Nintendo Wii when he spotted a store selling 60GB PS3’s, American version for only KD199. Thats the cheapest price so far. For those of you planning to order one online beware, the PS3 is REALLY heavy. I can imagine shipping would easily cost more then KD20 probably like KD30.

There is this guy who is always running on the Gulf Road no matter how bad the weather is. The other day when it was raining, he was running, when its 50 degrees in the middle of summer he is out running. He is always running. So I decided next time I see him I would ask him if I could interview him like I did with Shark of Kuwait.

Well today while parked in one of the parking spots on the Gulf Road taking pictures of the Infiniti I saw him run by me. I quickly gave Nat my camera and told her to wait there while I ran after him. I must have ran behind him for a minute yelling out for him to stop before I was able to overtake him and make him stop. By then I was completely out of breath. The guy looked at me waiting to say something and then he fucking yelled out extremely loud in Kuwaiti “Tabi shay mini?” meaning “Do you want anything from me?” By the time I could catch my breath to say anything he yelled out something else and ran off.

I stood there still trying to catch my breath and wondering why he was so aggressive and why the hell was he shouting at me even though I was standing right next to him. Someone previously commented that he was a champion runner does anyone have information on him?

A few days ago I got an email from Infiniti saying they wanted to lend me a brand new Infiniti G35 for a week so I could try it out. They just launched the new model recently and wanted to know what I thought of it. I just got back from the dealer awhile ago and I now have in my possession a dark blueish grey top of the line G35… and its fast. The car has a 3.5liter engine which pumps out 327HP with the help of dual air intakes. The thing has amazing acceleration.

I am going to take the car out again later tonight, at the moment I am really hungry and need to have lunch. For a larger picture of the car [Click Here]

www.infiniti-me.com/gsedan/

So I came in to work today on my motorbike and I was planning on parking my bike in the underground parking lot where I usually park my car but I was stopped at the entrance. The parking people told me I couldn’t park my bike inside. I was like why? I am still going to pay you. They were like they aren’t allowed to let bikers in because bikes are “light” and “small” and “anyone can come and carry them out”. They don’t want the responsibility for having my bike get stolen. I was like huh???

So now my bike is parked outside the entrance in front of the parking peoples office. I told them to keep an eye on my bike and they were like fine… which contradicts their earlier argument. Weird people.

Think Gumball but on a local level and you have Gulf Run 2007. From the first couple of pictures on the Official Gulf Run website I can see 2 Porsches, a Ferrari, 2 Nobles, 2 Lancers, a 350z, and a Corvette but in total there are 22 cars participating this year. The drivers will be heading from Kuwait to Bahrain where they’ve booked the Bahrain International Circuit for a full day. I didn’t get any invitation to participate this year (must have been lost in the mail) so for now I will just keep checking their site for picture updates. K.TheKuwaiti is participating in the race this year. [Link]

An absolutely gorgeous shot which looks like it could have been taken in the fictional world of The Fifth Element. [Picture]

via BoingBoing