Search: “ace”

I passed by Symphony Mall to check out the new Bang & Olufsen store but found it closed so I decided to wonder around the mall to check out what other stores are open. The whole mall is pretty much vacant except for a new store in the basement called Destination XL. It’s a big and tall men’s store that opened up just two weeks back.

The place from the inside looks pretty nice with the layout looking very similar to a men’s section in a large department store like Macy’s. I wasn’t allowed to take pictures of the inside but I spotted brands like Lacoste, Polo Ralph Lauren, Joseph Abboud and Calven Klein among others.

It’s too bad the store is just for the big and tall since I liked the fact they carried a bunch of brands all in one place. Symphony Mall is located in Salmiya right next to Missoni Hotel opposite American University of Kuwait. The entrance is from the back side and the mall looks like it’s still under construction but DXL are open in the basement.

Qatar Airways currently has a photography contest taking place that’s fairly simple to take part in. The four categories you can submit pictures to are Magnificent Cities, Vibrant Cultures, Breathtaking Nature and Exciting Journeys. As for prizes they’re going to be giving away 10 Business Class return tickets and 50 Economy to the winners so your chances of winning something is pretty high. I just checked the gallery and there’s already a bunch of people from Kuwait participating so if you’re also interested then you need to hurry up since the contest closes at the end of the month. [Link]

Gucci currently have a silent sale taking place on some of their items. 50% off shoes and clothing while the discounted bags are 30% off.

Update: YSL next door at 360 also have the exact same sale taking place.

I’ve been really looking forward to watching this movie since I first found out about it back in December and now that I’ve watched it I have mixed feelings about it. The movie is directed by Ridley Scott who also directed the original Alien movie among other blockbuster hits and although I read that Prometheus isn’t a prequel to the Alien franchise, it’s hard to believe it’s not after watching it.

Plot: A team of explorers discover a clue to the origins of mankind on Earth, leading them on a journey to the darkest corners of the universe. There, they must fight a terrifying battle to save the future of the human race. –IMDB

The movie has a lot of intese parts and the plot is incredibly good but I did find it a bit slow paced as well. A lot of people in the theater were getting restless and even I was starting to doze off which is why I have mixed thoughts about it. The movie right now is stuck between being a quick action packed movie like The Avengers or an epic 3+ hour adventure similar to Lord of the Rings. It should have either been shorter and faster or longer and deeper. Ridley Scott spent a lot of time showing the viewers some really interesting things but then when the movie finally picked up pace, it ended very quickly. I could easily see a sequel come out of this or maybe even a prequel.

As I said at the start, I have mixed feelings about Prometheus. I didn’t leave the theater thinking the movie was great but it’s been 3 hours since I finished watching it and I’m still thinking about it so it’s good in that sense. Worth watching, just don’t expect it to be action packed.

I watched the movie in Lebanon so it was uncut. The movie contains one scene where a couple make out and have sex. It didn’t contain any nudity just kissing but it would most likely be cut in Kuwait and that scene plays a crucial role in the movie. Other than that scene there are a few scenes where the female characters are wearing basically a two piece swimsuit, no idea if that would get cut in Kuwait but they’re also important scenes in the movie.

If you haven’t watched the Prometheus movie trailer then watch it now [Here]

For the past 10 days I’ve been sleeping on an AeroBed Mattress while waiting for my furniture to arrive and I think I’ve spent enough time with it to give it a proper review. I purchased the AeroBed mattress from Ace Hardware and brought it with me here to Lebanon since I wasn’t sure where I could find them here. Ace had two or three different versions but this queen sized AeroBed was the only one that came with a motor to inflate it. The other air mattresses required the purchase of a separate pump (different options available) but I didn’t want the headache and instead wanted an all in one solution.

The air mattress came in a small box that included a storage bag and aqn electrical pump. I had to purchase a 220v to 110v converter since the electrical pump that was included in the box worked on the US standard 110v. To inflate the mattress it’s a very simple process, just plug the pump into an electrical socket and then place the pump over the plastic ring located on the side of the mattress and rotate until it locks into place. Once the pump locks into place it will automatically activate and start pumping air. The mattress starts inflating instantly and within 60 seconds it’s ready to use. If you prefer the mattress to be firm you can let the air pump work for another minute or two before removing it.

The mattress is surprisingly comfortable and I really wasn’t expecting it to be. The top side of the mattress has a velvety texture which allows the bedsheet cover to grip onto it stopping it from sliding around. That combined with a coil construction (the mattress isn’t flat but has large dimples) helps reduce the feeling that you’re sleeping on what basically is a large balloon. The only negative thing I found is that the sides of the mattress are not very firm so if you get too close to the edge there is a high chance of the edge folding under your weight resulting in you rolling off it in the middle of the night.

If you’ve got relatives coming over for a visit or if you have friend’s come over often then this could actually be a practical solution. When deflated the bed takes up very little space and when inflated it’s actually very comfortable. I wouldn’t recommend it for camping just because it requires a power source to inflate. The cost of the AeroBed was around KD30 for the queen sized version and I found it at Ace Hardware. Here’s a link to the [Product Page]

In just 2 hours, our team of 2 volunteers and 1 staff collected 21 bagfuls of waste weighing a total of approx. 130 kgs waste. This stretch of Doha beach – home to migratory birds, colonies of mudskippers and many different crabs – is presently polluted with debris left behind by spring campers, including upto 6 intact toilet installations. Our team focused on clearing over 200 sandbags in over an hour, hacking each plastic bag open and dislodging the sand. Remarkable dedication by our volunteers Ching and Fahad!

Great initiative and this is with just 2 volunteers. [Link]

The Kuwait national women volleyball team will head to China Saturday to participate in the third Asian beach volleyball tournament, scheduled June 12­-22. In statements KUNA, Chairwoman of Kuwaiti Women Sports Federation Sheikha Naeema Al­Ahmad Al­Jaber Al­Sabah said Kuwait will be represented in the event with two teams, each comprises two players Sheikha Naeema that the Federation was keen to participate in the Asian tournament to show the progress of women’s sports in Kuwait and to enrich players expertise to improve their performance in coming international championships.

But out of adherence to Islam’s teachings and Kuwait players will wear modest uniform,” she said” Sheikha Naeema noted that the Federation had prepared well for the tournament through an intensive training program for players and the participation in the Arab women volleyball championship that was held recently in Jordan. [Source]

Firstly I didn’t know Kuwait had a women’s beach volleyball team and secondly what exactly is a modest uniform? It’s a sport that takes place on the beach so I can’t imagine them being covered up too much. I tried to find pictures online of the team but didn’t have any luck. I also tried to find a random picture of a women’s beach volleyball match that didn’t involve a skimpy two piece swimsuit but also didn’t have any luck. I imagine they might be wearing a burkini (pictured above)?

When I started blogging back in 2003 I really didn’t want to do it. My friend proposed the idea and I told him I thought blogging was stupid but I’d try it just for fun. Now, a decade later I’ve left my full time job at an ad agency to blog for a living instead.

Some people saw this coming, others are a bit surprised and many don’t really understand how blogging can be a job. Honestly even I’m having difficulties grasping that concept even though it’s a really simple idea.

I used to work from 9 in the morning till 7 in the evening and three times a week I had gym from 8 to 9 so I never had time for anything else. I never had time to go meet with people, pass by art exhibitions or even see my friends. Now that blogging will be my full time job I should have a lot more time to do all the things I wanted to but never had time for.

Things aren’t that simple since without a “real” job I can’t get my residency renewed and banks also don’t seem to like me unless I have a salary coming in every month. But I’m working on it.

Other than that issue I’m looking forward to this since I’ll have so much more free time on my hands to do whatever I want. I might help Nat out with her work, I’m thinking of maybe doing my Masters, taking one hour Muay Thai sessions at Core, signing up again at Sidekick for some Jujitsu and maybe even take Scuba diving lessons or some other activity I previously never had time for. One thing I’ve always wanted to do is ditch work and drive to Entertainment City instead. I can’t ditch work anymore since I no longer have a job but maybe I can wake up in the morning and pretend I’m going to work and then go to Entertainment City? I don’t know I’ll have to see how I can get that idea working right.

But, more importantly, I will now have a lot more time to focus on this blog, I have a couple of projects that have been pending for ages which I want to get a move on, I also have the Kuwait Blogs app I need to fix because right now it keeps crashing and even my 248AM iPhone app needs an update as well. I’ve even handed over my blog’s media to a media company called Dot Backspace so they could take care of the blog’s advertising while I focus all my attention on the content.

I’m excited (and a bit worried) about blogging fulltime but I’m also looking forward to it. I’m currently in Lebanon for the next 10 days on my summer break so I won’t really notice anything different until I get back to Kuwait and realize I don’t have to wake up at 7:30 the next day to go to work. We’ll see how things will pan out.

Taken from Arab Times:

Last weekend in Kebd, farm areas: Volunteers found a horse in a terrible condition in front of a farm on a paddock. When we arrived the horse was lying lifeless in the middle of the sun, that time we had about 46 Degrees Celsius. We tried to inform the people inside of the farm but nobody answered. Without hesitation we went inside and tried to motivate the horse to move into the shaded area at the corner of the paddock. When the horse got up we realized his terrible constitution …he was sighing under great pain and was not able to stand on his front legs, he tried to jump on his shivering back legs into the direction we asked him to…after an hour for us endless time the horse made the 4 m distance and fell down in the shade with a scream of pain and desperation. We fixed provisionally fences around him that he couldn’t roll back into the sun, then we immediately pored cool water over his whole body and had a closer look on his front leg hoofs…the picture was indescribable…

He was obviously suffering of an advanced laminitis, the coffin bone becomes detached from the horny wall and may rotate or sink. In lay terms, this is known as “founder,” from the maritime term meaning to sink.

Early treatment of a Laminitis is necessary, a delay of even a few hours can literally be the difference between continued healthy living and euthanasia. This horse was obviously not treated properly or at all for days or even weeks…

I sent the pictures of the hoofs to a horse vet, he never saw a laminitis in this stage, the sole of the hoofs were already gone…

We tried as good as possible to disinfect the raw feet, padded the hoofs and applied bandages to protect it from further infections. Actually in this stage there is no other solution than to euthanize a horse. He was in agony, his eyes were broken and he was the whole time sighing that we all had to fight our tears.

After half an hour finally the staff of the farm came out and were quiet surprised about the activity outside. We asked for the number of the owner and asked them to move the horse inside but they were unable to do anything, they haven’t be aware of the serious situation. They told us the horse was treated a while ago and showed us some old medicine, they didn’t even have betadine, bandages or anything else which was appropriate.

After taking care of the horse we had to leave and hoped to reach the owner at least to euthanize the horse in a humane way as it was his duty…but the following hours taught us cruely about the ignorance and arrogance of some human beings.

A few hours later I was called back and was accused to have stolen dogs from the property, I was accused of entering a private property without permission. The Kuwaiti lady was threatening me to send me to jail, she could find out my place of living and tonight her brother would show up with the police to arrest me…I offered her to meet her brother at the police station, because I just helped an animal in pain and asked her if she would be able to pray tonight with a clear heart and without any regrets to leave a creature of GOD/ ALLAH in this condition outside without any medical support or even supervision; her answer was:

“This is my country and I can do whatever I want with my animals, it’s not your business!’’

Really? Is she right? Is it that what this country wants and needs?

I explained to her that any suffering animal or human is our all business, education, empathy and humanity are the keywords for a modern world, for a modern society..

The threats and calls continued, I begged her to euthanize the suffering horse, but she refused. At least her brother, the owner, went out that night to have a closer look….

A conversation with a local horse vet confirmed me in my believe that Kuwait needs urgently regulations, screening, registration, statistics, research when it comes to animal husbandry or breeding.

Animal Pharmacies allow every private person to treat their animals by their own good will, with or without medical background. Thousands of animals are suffering in farms and breeding stations due to wrong diagnoses, wrong treatment and unprofessional care. Most of the animals which are later sold are suffering from incurable diseases, cost the owner a lot of money to cure these diseases or lead to abandoning cases.

I would love to tell you a happy end of this tragic story, but there is none…when we visited the place at the next day the horse was gone…

By: M. Winkler

The new food court called Tick-it Lounge 6 that includes Potbelly, Pinkberry, Starbucks and a new place called Tick-it has finally opened up at the airport. Local blogger Baba 3od has more pictures and information [Here]

Last week I had a shipment of wireless surveillance cameras get confiscated by Kuwait Customs. For some odd reason they’re cracking down on the import of any kind of surveillance equipment and to get an exception you’ve got to do a small runaround. This post will show you how to get that done quickly.

Aramex passed me my package clearance paperwork on Wednesday and I headed to the Kuwait Airport cargo area the following day. At first I thought clearing the package was a similar process to clearing other packages from customs so I printed a map I had created and instructions I had posted a few years back and started using it as my guide. But I quickly found out that was the wrong process for this case and instead I needed to head to the Aramex office in the cargo area.

[Google Maps]

The Aramex office is located right at the other end of the cargo area and you need to walk there under the sun since there is no shaded pathway. I highly recommend you go there in shorts, a tshirt and a baseball cap. Seriously it’s a miserable walk. Once I got to the small Aramex office the guy there signed the documents and told me I should head to another office back on the other side of the cargo area where they will have my package. So I walked back in the blistering heat and quickly found the second office by asking someone. Once inside I handed my paperwork to an officer who then went to a back room and brought out my shipment. He filled up a bit of paperwork, handed me one of my cameras from the box (I had ordered 3) and told me I should now take the paperwork and the camera and head over to the Kuwait security department near the VIP airport.

[Google Maps]

I walked back to my car and drove around the airport twice until I found the building. It’s located opposite the long term parking lot but to get to it you need go in by car from near the airport arrivals entrance. Once I got to the heavily protected compound (it has high walls topped with barbed wire and security cameras pointing in every direction) I then had trouble finding parking space. They have a tiny parking lot that was fully packed so I was forced to park in a no parking zone right next to a your car will be towed signed. Once inside I headed into the first building but turned out it was the wrong one and needed to go into the second white building that was a short walk away.

I went inside to this second building and headed up to the first floor and then walked all the way down to the end of the corridor and into an office on the left side (before the couch). There were two officers sitting, as soon as they saw me they told me I needed to go into another office two doors down on the left where someone would fill in a request for me. I did that and came back to him and he looked at my box and asked me why I got the camera? I told him I wanted to be able to monitor my apartment in Lebanon while I’m in Kuwait. He was like why didn’t you buy it locally? I told him I couldn’t find this specific model locally and it’s always cheaper online anyway. He was like ok, go next door and photocopy your civil id card and come back. I did and two minutes later I get back only to find the officer gone. The second officer who was sitting on the couch told me he’d be back. 10 minutes later some other officer comes and decides to finish up my paperwork. I had to write a letter stating that I was planning to use the cameras for personal use and then had to sign it and give it to him. He then finalized my paperwork and I had to go back to the Kuwait Airport cargo area back to the office that had my package. I showed them the paperwork there and was then allowed to take my cameras and leave.

While there I noticed a variety of other cameras that were held. One guy I met had ordered a helicopter with a camera built in while I noticed another guy was trying to clear a spy camera. So if you’re planning to order any kind of surveillance camera you should know there is a high probability it will be held right now but clearing it isn’t too difficult. The whole process took me around an hour and a half but should take you less now that you know where to go.

The source suspects the peddlers to be cultivating marijuana inside Kuwait, “as it’s not worth the risk to smuggle it in. It is not worth it unless you are smuggling the goods in very huge quantities, running into hundreds of thousands of KD.”

Describing the hemps that are grown indoors by his friends, the source said the plants are grown in earthen pots under artificial lighting; due ventilation is provided for fresh air.”

“It doesn’t take up much space and can be grown in a closet, or on a corner in the bedroom.” One of his friends grows it in the bathroom because the plant gives off a peculiar smell, which is easy to detect.”

I guess when the oil runs out this could be Plan B? [Link]

I was having breakfast at The Early Bird when I spotted a new magazine called The City in their magazine stand. I brought the magazine home with me and have been flipping through it and there are things I like and things I don’t like about it.

One of the things I like is their writers. I recognized a few of the contributes including Dana Madouh who I got to meet the first time I visited Hamra Tower, and Ayeshah Al-Humaidhi and John Peaveler both of which are behind the Kuwait Society for the Protection of Animals and their Habitat (K’SPATH). There were also a few other familiar names as well.

Now what I didn’t like about the magazine is the layout and design. The choice of typefaces, the full forced justification and the very boring grid makes it look too much like a B-rated high school magazine. But, it’s their first issue and maybe the design will improve with the next issues.

One thing I thought was strange is that according to the Chief Editor in his intro column they’re “the fastest growing magazine available across the globe”.

If you’re interested in picking up the magazine I’m guessing it’s available at various coffee shops and restaurants around Kuwait but not sure since they don’t say where you can find it in the magazine. I got mine from The Early Bird.

Two days ago I get an email from Smoke House telling me they’re planning to launch a Hashi burger and if I was interested to try it out. Hashi turns out means baby camel and since I hadn’t tried camel meat before I figured why not.

I wasn’t too sure what to expect, I’ve tried ostrich meat before and found it very lean and chewy so I figured camel meat would probably be the same but maybe have a stronger flavor. I wasn’t expecting it to be good but thought it would at least be worth trying just for the experience.

It turns out camel meat actually tastes pretty much like regular beef. I had the burger with caramelized onions, cheese and BBQ sauce, strong flavors which slightly overpower the patty but in this case a great combination since hashi meat is slightly drier than beef so the toppings helped keep things juicy. I’m not sure why other places don’t have Hashi burgers as well, could be a good diet patty due to the fact it contains less fat than beef.

Smoke House haven’t introduced the burger yet nor do they have a price for it but they’ll be updating their Twitter account once they do as well as their website. Fahad if you’re reading this I didn’t have lunch so I could have this burger and I won’t be having dinner. Diet still on.. kinda.

I tend to flip flop between shipping companies A LOT and most of my long time readers know that. Not sure why shipping companies can’t stay consistent but I love the fact we have options to choose from. Two years ago I said goodbye to DHL Borderlinx, they had increased their prices, started charging based on volumetric weight and their customs clearance thing was very random.

Last week I decided I wanted the new Galaxy Tab 2 7″ as my portable movie player for my trips. It was May 23rd and my travel date is May 31st so I needed the Tab before that. I hadn’t used DHL for over 2 years but based on feedback I had read I was told they would be fast. I placed the order on Amazon and this is how it went:

I placed order from Amazon on May 23rd
Package arrives to my DHL mailbox in the States on May 24th
Package ships from my DHL mailbox in the States on May 25th
Package ready for pickup in Kuwait on May 29th

That’s fast and best of all I didn’t pay any tax since their US mailbox is based in Ohio. Shipping cost me KD6.5 and there were no custom duties. Total price I paid for the Galaxy Tab including shipping to Kuwait is just KD82.5!