2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003

Late last week I ended up upgrading my coffee machine and grinder from a Rocket Appartamento and Faustino grinder, to a La Marzocco Linea Mini with a Mahlkönig X54 grinder.

I’ll post a review once I spend a lot more time with the machine but for now, if you’re looking to upgrade your coffee machine, I’m selling my previous setup with some accessories. Here is the link to the classifieds page.

Over the weekend the US Embassy in Kuwait posted a message by President Joe Biden in support of Pride Month and as you can imagine, that didn’t go well.

As of this post, there are over 21,000 comments under that Instagram post with the majority of people being really upset about it. The story was picked up by the international press and is now making its way around the Internet.

I was curious about whether the US Embassy in other Arab countries also posted a similar message supporting Pride Month, and if they did, what kind of reaction people had to it. Below are two lists, one relating to Instagram posts and another relating to Twitter:

US Embassies Pride Post on Instagram
US Embassy in Bahrain – Yes (633 Likes – 4.8K Comments)
US Embassy in Egypt – No
US Embassy in Jordan – No
US Embassy in Kuwait – Yes (2,930 Likes – 21.8K Comments)
US Embassy in KSA – No
US Embassy in Lebanon – No
US Embassy in Qatar – No
US Embassy in the UAE – Yes (609 Likes – 1K Comments)

US Embassies Pride Post on Twitter
US Embassy in Bahrain – Yes and Banner (18 Likes – 73 Comments)
US Embassy in Egypt – No
US Embassy in Jordan – No
US Embassy in Kuwait – Yes (1,009 Likes – 2.3K Comments)
US Embassy in KSA – Yes (560 Likes – 1K Comments)
US Embassy in Lebanon – Yes Retweet (39 Likes – 99 Comments)
US Embassy in Qatar – No
US Embassy in the UAE – Yes (41 Likes – 156 Comments)

A few interesting things. Firstly this wasn’t a universal message posted on all the embassies’ social media accounts. The US Embassy in Bahrain went a step further and replaced its Twitter banner with a Pride Month one. Finally, one thing is pretty apparent from the lists above, Kuwait’s social media response completely shattered the other Arab countries when it came to comments and likes. I’m now curious to see what’s going to happen next if the US Embassy doesn’t remove the post, are we going to boycott US products? Doubt it.

I’m guessing everyone felt this morning’s earthquake since, unlike the previous ones that have hit Kuwait before, this one was fairly strong.

An earthquake of magnitude 5 struck Kuwait, the ministry of information tweeted on Saturday.

The ministry said “the Kuwait National Seismic Network recorded an earthquake measuring 5 … southwest of al-Ahmadi, and it occurred at exactly 04:28:02 a.m. Kuwait time (0128 GMT), at a depth of 5 km (3 miles)”.

The Kuwait’s Fire Force also said that there was no damage as a result of the earthquake. Source

According to some sources online, the earthquake measured a magnitude of 4.4 but according to the Kuwait Institute of Scientific Research (KISR) it was actually a 5.

Below is the list of events for this weekend. As usual if I missed anything please let me know in the comments:

Thursday
Exhibition: I Am Here – Manuella Guiragossian
Exhibition: My Name Is Woman – Maha AlAsaker
Exhibition: Deconstructed Phyche – Sheikha Al Habishi
Exhibition: “The Mystic Letters” By Antonella Leoni
Perfumes, Cosmetics & Watches Exhibition
Musical: MAMMA MIA!
Movies at the Park: Mr.Bean’s Holiday
Talk: Save the Turtles
Bel Canto d’Italia Recital

Friday
Perfumes, Cosmetics & Watches Exhibition
Musical: MAMMA MIA!
Kuwait Kayak Fishing Championship
A Walk In Tunisia – Omrani’nd The Crew

Saturday
Exhibition: I Am Here – Manuella Guiragossian
Exhibition: My Name Is Woman – Maha AlAsaker
Exhibition: Deconstructed Phyche – Sheikha Al Habishi
Perfumes, Cosmetics & Watches Exhibition
Grand Mosque Tour
Sunrise Yoga with Hiba
Miseen Scene: Z
Musical: MAMMA MIA!
TrashTag Kuwait: Salmiya Park Cleanup
TrashHero: Blejat Beach Cleanup
Coffee Sunset Cruise
Stranger Things Watercolor Experience

For those of you who swore off Shop&Ship and moved to MyUS or vice-versa due to bad experiences, I got some bad news for you:

Dubai-based logistics company Aramex has signed an agreement to fully acquire cross border e-commerce platform MyUS in a $265 million deal.

The US-based company provides package forwarding solutions to customers who shop from retailers based in the US, UK and China, according to a statement. Source

One positive thing that might come out of this acquisition is if Shop&Ship ends up with a Florida-based mailbox similar to MyUS. Right now you save around 7% just by shipping to a MyUS mailbox since you don’t have to pay sales tax when shipping to a Florida address.

The movies below are now showing at Cinescape, Grand Cinemas and VOX:

New This Weekend:
Barbarians (4.6)
Dual (5.8)
Last Seen Alive (5.9)

Other Movies Showing:
Fireheart (6.1)
Memory (5.6)
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (6.9)
The Bad Guys (7.0)
The Batman (8.1)
The Cellar (5.3)
The Northman (7.5)
The Twin (5.0)
Top Gun: Maverick (8.7)
Yakari (6.4)

Classic Movies Showing:
The Last Samurai (7.8)

The films below are also showing at the Scientific Center IMAX theater:

IMAX Movies Showing:
Antarctica
Asteroid Hunters 3D
Ocean Odyssey
Turtle Odyssey

Numbers in brackets refer to the IMDB rating at time of publishing.

If you like the opera or want to experience the opera, the Italian Embassy in Kuwait is hosting one tomorrow night (Thursday) at JACC. “Bel Canto d’Italia Recital” is taking place at 7PM and no tickets are required. For more details, click here

The 3rd GCC Games ended yesterday and Kuwait ended up winning the games with 36 gold medals and a final tally of 96 medals.

Really impressive considering it wasn’t even close between Kuwait and second place.

On Saturday I was at the Toyota dealer service center picking up my car. I get there early and head towards the glass office of the customer service person whom I’m supposed to pick up the car from. I knock on his door and see he’s on the phone, he tells me he’s finishing up with another customer on the phone and to give him just a few minutes. I’m like sure and I go back out and wait outside his office.

As I’m waiting, a fireman comes and stands outside the guy’s office. In my head, I’m thinking that maybe I should be nice and let him go in ahead of me since he’s a fireman and is busy saving lives, putting out fires, and helping cats down from trees. As I’m finishing that train of thought, the fireman starts banging on the glass window of the office and yelling at the service guy to hurry up and get off the phone. I realized that I probably don’t have to be nice and give the fireman my spot since it looks like he’s going to push ahead of me in line anyway. So to make it clear to him that I’m ahead of him, I tell the firefighter that I’m also waiting for the guy to finish.

A few seconds later, the fireman angrily barges into the office and yells at the customer service guy to get off the phone because there are customers waiting outside and tells him he’s going to give him five minutes to do so. The fireman leaves the office yelling loudly at how the service guy is on the phone while there are customers waiting. Another Toyota employee came out from another office to see what all the commotion was about and saw the fireman yelling so took his papers and told him he’d help him.

At that point, I had a realization, any job in Kuwait that involves having to deal with customers, is probably the most dangerous job in Kuwait. From Shop&Ship customer service people to delivery drivers, I can’t imagine how much abuse they have to deal with on a daily basis from entitled people who think the quickest way to get things done is with threats and yelling. That’s one job I don’t think I’d last a day in.

The last Beethoven event got rescheduled and is instead taking place this coming Friday. Ahmadi Music Group will be holding a lecture concert about Beethoven and the 5th symphony at JACC and tickets are on sale starting at KD10. Tickets are selling fast so if you want to attend the performance, get your ticket now.

A Business Insider article was published yesterday on the worst airports in the world and Kuwait came in 2nd. The problem is the list Business Insider used is from 2019 and so the list being shared locally is outdated.

In the current ranking, Kuwait STILL has the 2nd worst airport, but the rest of the list is slightly different:

1- Lisbon Portela Airport, Portugal
2- Kuwait International Airport, Kuwait
3- Eindhoven Airport, Netherlands
4- Henri Coandă International Airport, Romania
5- Paris Orly Airport, France
6- Malta International Airport, Malta
7- Frankfurt International Airport, Germany
8- Dubai International Airport, United Arab Emirates
9- London City Airport, United Kingdom
10- Manchester Airport, United Kingdom

The biggest difference between the 2022 list above and the 2019 list is that Kuwait is joined by UAE on the list. Dubai’s International Airport is currently ranked the 8th worst in the world for some reason. Qatar’s airport on the other hand is still ranked as the world’s best airport.

For the latest ranking of best and worst airports, check out the full list on AirHelp.

If you’re on the highway right now you might be noticing a large plume of black smoke in the distance. Turns out tent city which is located next to Friday Market in Al Rai caught fire.

@kuwaitnews has some more footage here and @alqabas are also posting updates.

The Ahmadi Music Group is performing a jazz soiree tomorrow night at the residence of the French ambassador. The dinner and music event is being held in aid of Ukrainian refugees and tickets are selling for 30KD. If you’re interested get your tickets before it sells out. Link

Update: It’s sold out

Over the weekend Oula and Alfa fuel stations started closing some of their fuel pumps and operating just one for each lane due to a lack of staff. This started causing long queues at the pump with some people waiting 45 minutes just to have their car filled with fuel. It’s odd that this started happening at both stations at the same time, but they both seem to want the same thing, either to start charging for the service of filling your car up, or turn the stations to self-service ones.

Oula posted a story yesterday stating that their Al-Omariah station now operates on a self-service system. Their plan it seems is to want to charge 200 fils for people who want fuel filled up by one of their employees which makes sense but, based on the comments on their Instagram, people don’t want to pay and would rather drive to an Alfa station instead. Alfa on the other hand hasn’t posted anything on their account while KNPC posted last night saying that basically nothing will change and nobody is gonna start charging for service.

Personally, I find this whole thing just odd. We all used to fill up fuel ourselves like 20 years ago and it’s a normal thing around the world so I don’t understand why there is so much hoopla around this.

The Avenues mall opened in Kuwait back in April 2007, 15 years ago! I was looking back through my old posts and I think IKEA actually opened there at the end of 2006, before the rest of the mall was open since I posted about my first visit to it.

Over the years Avenues kept expanding and growing to become one of the coolest malls in the region and even the world. It’s one of my favorite places in Kuwait.