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Last night was the launch for the movie theater at Avenues which I think its the largest one in Kuwait. According to their press release there are 11 theaters in total including 2 VIP theaters. The ticket for the VIP theater costs KD6, has only 22 seats, personal service and electric lazy boys with built in massagers. Although the theater launched last night, it will officially open to the public on the first day of Eid. Ahmad Helmi will be there also for the premier of his new movie but I’ve never heard of him so I don’t know if thats a big deal or not.

Also I was reading yesterday on Hilaliya’s blog that the movie The Kingdom is banned from playing in Kuwait. I hope that doesn’t turn out to be true because I was looking forward to watching it.

Seeing pictures of this one kilometer long pool (the worlds largest) makes me want to go through our hot summer all over again. [Link]

Thanks Anas!

A friend emailed me while I was in Beirut asking if I could help him out with something. For awhile now he’s been pondering what Banak really is and what its called in English. He did a bit of research online and all he found was another blog that was asking the same question. So does anyone know the answer?

Picture taken from COLoriya

A few weeks ago a new shawerma place opened up called Mr Subs. I got emails from readers of the blog telling me about it and some friends also recommended it to me. What made this shawerma place special is that it was owned by Samir Saeed, the owner of Mr Baker.

The place is located in Jabriya, over looking the 4th Ring Road near where Mr Baker is. I passed by last week for dinner and it wasn’t that hard to find, you take the first right after Hardees, then another right so that you are driving in the direction of the 4th Ring Road and at the end of the street take a left to find Mr Subs on your left hand side.

Mr Subs serve a variety of stuff other than shawerma but I wasn’t interested in them. I ordered two chicken shawermas and was told I had a choice of 3 different bread to choose from. I chose the regular Arabic bread, the other two choices were a burger bun like bread and a bread that had olives in it or something. First thing that struck me about the place is how clean it was. It’s probably the cleanest shawerma place I have ever seen, the area around the shawerma grills were spotless which really impressed me. Sadly that was the most impressive thing about the place.

After picking up my two shawermas I went back to the car and started munching on them. I wasn’t very impressed. The shawermas reminded me a lot of the Kurdo shawermas which I am not a fan of. Its what I call commercial shawerma and its mostly because of the sauce they use. Notice I said sauce not garlic because thats basically what both Mr Subs and Kurdo use. Its a consumer friendly replacement to regular garlic most shawerma places use. The sauce which probably does use a bit of garlic doesn’t taste like garlic, instead it tastes more like mayonnaise which I can’t stand. Its also very liquidi which makes the shawerma feel greasy.

Another problem I had with the shawermas were the price, starting from 600 fils per shawerma its not cheap. The cheapest shawerma they have is the one that comes in Arabic bread, the other two choices of bread add 100 or 200 fils more to the price. At 600 fils a shawerma is also puts it really close in the price range of the Villa Fayrouz Express shawerma which tastes a lot better and is of much better quality. Oh and while I was waiting for my shawermas at Mr Subs I saw them pre grilling their burgers. They were grilling their burgers and then placing them in a container so that if someone ordered a burger they could just place it on the grill and heat it up. Although the place is really clean I didn’t like the idea they were pre-grilling their burgers. Anyway for the final score I decided to give their shawermas a 3 out of 5.

Pearl, a fellow blogger sent an email to Jazeera Airways complaining about some problems she had with one of her flights. The response she got back from them was just unbelievable. The Jazeera Airways guy basically calls her a liar twice, accusing her of exaggerating and and making up facts.

I hope Pearl can post his email address and full name so someone at Jazeera can put some sense into him. [Link]

Update: Turns out I misread, someone left a comment on her blog on behalf of the airlines, it wasn’t a reply to her email which means there is no proof its from an actual Jazeera Airways employee. My mistake! [Link]

I was browsing Safat when I found a post by CyberRowdy on this local website where you can purchase fish online and have it delivered to your house. It’s pretty strange but cool, they have pictures and everything check it out. [Link]

Source CyberRowdy

A quick mashup of my friday morning [YouTube]
Marzouq posted pictures and some information on his blog [Link]
Also make sure you check out the Gulf Run website [Link]

According to a few readers and a post by K.thekuwaiti, Zain has acknowledged the issue with the iPhone and is trying to fix it. One comment on K’s blog even states the iPhone should be working with Zain by 3PM today. If thats true it would be perfect timing since Nat should be collecting her iPhone today from U Shop We Ship.

Update: It is now confirmed, as of 3PM today the iPhone started working with the Zain network. Thank you to everyone at Zain who helped out in updating the network to support unlocked iPhones.

After months of spy and leaked shots, Toyota finally announced their new 8th generation 2008 Land Cruiser. I am guessing they should be in Kuwait before the end of the year. [Link]

Update: Here are a ton of new pictures [Link]

For the past two days I’ve been working on a redesigned template for this blog. I really don’t have any major problem with the current design but I do think there are a couple of areas that does need addressing. I was planning on working on the redesign in secret and then overnight just surprise everyone with the makeover but I decided going the other route. If large companies like CNN and Amazon are allowing their users to see and give feedback of their redesign while still in progress why can’t I?

Now I still have a lot more work to do on the redesign but you can take a peak at it by going to unex-t.com/blog. This is more or less how the new redesigned site will look like, most of the changes I am currently working on are the smaller details. I probably will replace the header with a newer one, I might not, I am still not sure about that. At one point I was actually thinking of rebranding from 248AM.com to markandnat.com but decided against it the last minute.

Anyway your feedback is welcomed, I still have a lot of work to do and might take your ideas into consideration. Keep in mind there are a lot of things that aren’t working yet or looking strange on the test site. [Link]

Update: Here is a screenshot of how the new design might look with a black background. I am finding it a bit claustrophobic compared to the white background version. [Picture]

Update 2: Here is another option with a black background which I think works better than the version in the first update but I think I still prefer the full white background. [Picture]

Looks funky.. [Link]

I left Geo (my dog) with my parents for one night and this is what my sister did to him! [Link]

Note: This is not the first time… [Link]

I am going to Dubai tomorrow and coming back Saturday. I really don’t feel like going to Dubai, all I feel like doing is just sleeping in late and then ordering a pizza while I watch some TV on the couch. This would be the third weekend in a row in which I am traveling, but unlike the last two trips, Dubai doesn’t interest me. I won’t be taking my laptop with me and I don’t think I will be moblogging from there either. Last months bill increased nearly 600% from my usual because of my moblogging!

Gulf Run is a yearly event where guys with fast cars take them The registration for the Gulf Run event that will be held on November 15th is now open. The cost for participating is KD365 and this includes:

1. Registration for One Driver and One Car to GulfRun3
2. Qualified Racing Instructors and Drivers to guide you through the track events
3. Automobile transportation from Kuwait to Bahrain and back by Agility
4. Initial medical service team and fire crew on standby

I am probably going to go with them this year but as a passenger and I will probably be blogging from the actual event. To register or if you want more information or pictures from last years event, visit the Gulf Run website. [Link]

I was hoping to rest this weekend but it looks like thats not going to happen since I have a work related trip I need to take. Thursday I leave Kuwait around 1PM and get to Beirut at around 3. I spend the night there and next morning at 9AM I leave to London. I get to London at 1PM then the following day at 10PM I catch a flight to Bahrain where I catch another flight back to Kuwait. Its going to be really hectic but spending a day and a half in London is going to be worth it. Like last weekend I will be blogging directly from my phone which means I will be posting a lot of pictures. It should be a lot of fun.

Picture by kayodeok