2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003

The Undertaker went on a PR tour recently ahead of his induction into the WWE Hall of Fame and during one of his interviews, he recalled the infamous incident he had on KTV with fellow wrestler Vader and Kuwait TV host Bassam Al Othman. WWE (previously WWF) was performing in Kuwait back then and both wrestlers went on KTV’s Good Morning show to be interviewed by Bassam. During the interview, Bassam asked Undertaker and Vader if wrestling was fake. In response, Vader flipped over the table they were sitting at and grabbed Bassam by the tie, asking him if it seemed fake while using foul language. If you haven’t watched that old interview before, I’ve embedded it below.

According to The Undertaker in his recent interview with SHAK Wrestling (video below at 14:50 minute mark), they actually ended up arresting Vader after the incident:

“I remember them whisking me out,” he said. “When everything broke down, I remember Jerry Brisco grabbing me and like, ‘let’s get in a car, we’re getting out of here.’ I look back and I see Leon like, ‘Take, what do I do?’ I was like, ‘I’ll see you at the hotel, brother.’ Because I am getting pulled, I am physically getting pulled to get into the car before everyone gets arrested. We just didn’t know. I knew that was going to be a bad decision right away and it was. He didn’t leave with us, he had to stay there for a week or so after we all left.”

I never knew Vader was arrested but I found another show on KTV that discussed the aftermath of the incident and supposedly, after the interview, the Good Morning show host ended up pressing charges on Vader at the police station. Two scrawny cops then went and arrested Vader who was put under house arrest for a couple of weeks until the WWE eventually managed to get him out.

The anniversary of this incident is actually in a few days since it took place on April 12th, 1997. Good times.

The photo above of Souk Mubarakiya was taken by the photographer Mohammed Alomran and shows the amount of devastation that was caused by the fire on Thursday. A reader whose dad owns two stores that got burnt down told me on Thursday some workers were saying the fire started because of a welder who was working near flammable fragrances and this was later confirmed by the authorities.

There is even a video going around which you can watch above shows where the fire originally started. Sadly it looks like the huge fire might have been prevented if people had tried to extinguish it before it grew. Stores in the market had already suffered a considerable amount of financial damage due to the pandemic, this was going to be the first Ramadan where things were back to normal, and then this happened. Sucks.

To celebrate the month of Ramadan, Off-White™ has released an exclusive capsule collection that will only be available at their stores in Kuwait, Dubai, and Riyadh. The 17-pieces take on various interpretations of relaxed silhouettes and modest dressing in honor of the holiday.

If you don’t live in Kuwait, Dubai, or Riyadh, the items can still be purchased from Off-White™ but only through their website. The Off-White™ store in Kuwait is located in the Prestige section of the Avenues. Their local Instagram account is @off___white___kuwait

Around 3:15 PM I was heading back to the office from Shuwaikh when I spotted a fire in the distance. As I got closer I realized it was in Souk Mubarakiya, so I parked my car behind the old Central Bank of Kuwait building and walked over to where the fire was. The scene was pretty unreal when I got there since it was mostly business as usual. Like you can see the HUGE smoke rising in the background a couple of alleyways down, but everyone was pretty casual going about their day like it wasn’t a big deal.

Once I got to the alley closer to the fire, things were completely different. The fire was pretty loud with lots of pops and bangs, and there was the sound of glass breaking everywhere. You can also feel the heat of the flames from where I was standing which was at the main entrance to the alleyway that has Shamam and the fish market on the right, the bukhour, and the fragrance market on the left. The left side was on fire at that point but the fire was creeping towards the Shamam side via the roof.

View from Shamam

The firefighters were still not on this side of the market and there was a huge amount of onlookers as well as regular folks who were trying to put the fire out themselves with water hoses and extinguishers. Lots of food shops had moved their gas cylinders into an open square along with wooden benches and seating that I guess were from one of the tea shops.

By the time I left around 6:30 PM, the police had shut down the area and had forced people out of the market. I don’t know why it took them so long to close the market, it might be because they were initially understaffed, but by 6:30 there were hundreds of police and firefighters on the scene and I even saw firetrucks from the National Guard arriving.

I was sharing everything live on my Instagram account so if you want to see the videos and photos I took, I’ve created a temporary highlight on @mark248am

This is the last weekend before Ramadan begins and it’s kinda slow but still a few things going on. Below is this weekend’s list of events, if I missed anything let me know:

Thursday
Exhibition: Seeking Refuge by Amira Behbehani
Exhibition: “Creatures Floating in Absurdity” by Mohamad Omran
Exhibition: Graduation Ceremony by Aseel AlYaqoub
Ramadan Food & Household Exhibition
Treasure Hunt at ASCC
SADI 2022 – Reviving our Roots
Q8 Comedy Club Stand Up (Arabic)
Kuwait Motor Show
Comic Festival Convention
Kuwait Motor Town Open Track Day
Sunset Paddling

Friday
Albohayra Farm
Ramadan Food & Household Exhibition
SADI 2022 – Reviving our Roots
Kuwait Motor Show
Comic Festival Convention

Saturday
Exhibition: Seeking Refuge by Amira Behbehani
Grand Mosque Tour
Albohayra Farm
Ramadan Food & Household Exhibition
SADI 2022 – Reviving our Roots

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

New This Weekend:
Morbius (5.0)
The Ledge (5.1)

Other Movies Showing Now:
Ambulance (7.6)
Blacklight (5.0)
Encanto (7.8)
Spider-Man: No Way Home (9.2)
The Bad Guys (N/A)
The Batman (9.0)
The Lost City (7.2)
The Requin (2.6)
The Tiger Rising (4.6)
The Wolf and The Lion (6.0)
Uncharted (7.2)

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

IMAX Movies Showing Now:
Antarctica (N/A)
Asteroid Hunters 3D
Backyard Wilderness 3D (7.7)
Turtle Odyssey (7.2)

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

Back in 2019 I bought my first RIMOWA bag, a medium-sized check-in Original which is part of their aluminum series. Since then I’ve fallen more in love with the brand and ended up purchasing two more, a cabin version of the bag and a large check-in.

I bought the large bag recently, back in October when I was in Europe. I ended up shopping a lot more than I expected and so couldn’t fit all my stuff in my medium-sized bag and so decided to buy the large one to match my other two. I used the bag once on that trip to fly back to Kuwait, and then I used it again when I went to Istanbul last month.

When I got to Istanbul I removed the sticky luggage tag from the handle and noticed the paint peeled off the handle. I don’t mind my bag getting dented and scratched up, it’s part of the reason I got a metal suitcase to begin with, but paint peeling off the plastic handle just looked bad. It was also weird because it didn’t happen with my other two bags which I’ve owned for longer and traveled with a lot more. I figured it must be a production issue so once I got back to Kuwait I shot off an email to customer support on the main RIMOWA website to get the problem sorted under warranty.

In less than 24 hours I got a response back from RIMOWA asking for my bag’s serial number as well as asking me some questions and if I could share a photo. Then the next day I got a phone call from the RIMOWA dealer in Kuwait who were super nice and asked me to drop off the bag whenever I was free to their store in Avenues. When I did drop the bag off they even offered to fix the dents on my bag which I told them to not to. A day or two later I got a call back telling me the bag was ready to pick up, they had replaced the handle with a new one.

It was super easy, probably the easiest warranty fix experience I’ve ever had with any brand which is why I wanted to write about it. After living with the RIMOWA bags for a few years now, and after having dealt with the local dealer, I can’t recommend the brand enough. No competition, they’re the best travel luggage you can get.

Arby’s in Kuwait closed down a couple of years ago but it looks like it might be coming back. The previous Head of Food & Beverage for the Emirati company Majid Al Futtaim has just joined the company Inspire Brands and taken over the role of Director for International Business for the Middle East.

Inspire Brands is an American company and the owner and franchisor of Arby’s, Buffalo Wild Wings, Sonic Drive-In, Jimmy John’s, Rusty Taco, Dunkin’ and Baskin-Robbins.

I’m a huge Arby’s fan so hopefully this does mean it’s coming back. Also, it would be completely random if they opened Sonic here.

Thanks Moey

There is an event opening tonight at Sadu House titled “Reviving our Roots“. Here is some info:

An exhibit that highlights the works of this year’s generation of SADI artists: Sulaiman Al Omar, Noor Al Fayez, Ali Al Yousefi, Noor Ebrahim, Talah Al Sayer.

SADI 2022 challenged artists to revisit their inner roots and the roots of Sadu; learn the basics of the craft, explore the raw materials and ideas that evolve into each weave, and reimagine the elements of Sadu through contemporary expression. Each artist deconstructed the rationale and processes behind Sadu, reigniting their relevance in today’s contemporary context.

If you’re interested in checking it out it’s from 7PM to 10PM. Google Maps

The largest comic convention in Kuwait, COMFEST starts today but sadly yesterday it was announced that cosplayers would no longer be allowed at the event.

Cosplaying is when people dress up as characters from a film, book, or video game and is a huge part of comic conventions (pictured above). But, due to pressure from an official, they were told not to allow cosplaying since it went against sharia law, public morals, and local customs.

So now we can add cosplay to the growing list of things banned in Kuwait.

The American actress Lindsay Lohan is back in Kuwait again. Last year she got engaged to a Kuwaiti who lives in Dubai, and the two are now in Kuwait to celebrate their engagement. I guess we’re going to randomly start bumping into her at places like Cocoa Room and Avenues now. Those who grew up watching her in movies like The Parent Trap and Mean Girls and were fans of hers probably find all this a bit unreal.

Looks like a fire broke out early this morning at the new Kuwait Airport terminal that’s currently under construction. Going by the videos and photos on Snapchat the fire looked pretty big.

The photo below was taken from the adjacent highway which helps show the scale of the fire. Hopefully nobody was injured.

Every couple of years I post an update on the easiest way to watch Formula 1 and this year has gotten a tad bit easier because there is now an F1 TV app for the Apple TV. F1 TV is the best way to watch Formula 1 since it’s their official streaming app and has a lots of great features and F1 content. The only issue is that it doesn’t work in Kuwait, but there is a way to get around that.

Firstly, you need to get an F1 TV Pro subscription. You can’t use your credit card because it won’t accept Kuwait based cards so you’re going to need an Apple device and have a US Apple Store account. If you have those two then can subscribe to F1 TV from inside the F1 TV app and pay for the subscription using your Apple Store account.

The biggest change over my previous post is the F1 TV app for Apple TV. You don’t even need a VPN if you already use SmartDNS to access streaming services like HBO, Hulu, Disney etc. If you don’t have SmartDNS then you need to get one, I use Smart DNS Proxy (affiliate link) and it’s around $5 a month.

Once you have your SmartDNS set up, it’s just a matter of launching the app whenever there is a race and you’re set. Easy.

Pretty much every football field in Kuwait is being turned into a Padel court.

Comic by @hb.comics

The National Geographic Ultimate Explorer experience is now open in Assima Mall. It’s kind of a mix between a museum and entertainment park targeting children:

Designed to inspire children to become the next generation of scientists, engineers, astronauts, biologists, thinkers and explorers, National Geographic Ultimate Explorer blends augmented reality, virtual reality and 3D technology to create a fully immersive play-based learning experience for children between 5-12.

The Kuwait Ultimate Explorer is composed of 14 different experiences but as of this post, only 10 are open. The prices are the following:

Baby 0-2: Free
Toddler 3-4: KD6
Child: KD12
Adult: KD10

I didn’t go in so if you want a peek of whats inside, check out some of the tagged videos on Instagram. There is also a gift shop which you can visit without having to buy a ticket.