Search: “ace”

The video above is from Redbull’s event yesterday. The Subaru is being driven by Lebanese champion rally driver, Abdo Feghali. [YouTube]

The winner of the event was Mubarak Al-Rumaidhi, the co-founder of Slide N’ Glide. He’ll now be going to Lebanon this summer representing Kuwait against other competitors from the region. You can watch one of his runs from yesterday in the video below.

[YouTube]

Update: Here are some photos taken by Hassan Raza [Link]

You can now view the entire collection of winning images from the 55th World Press Photo contest [Here]. There are a ton of great shots but below you can find some of my favorites:

Lucha libre at La Loba
15 June 2011
Masked luchadores at La Loba in the Chimalhuacán neighborhood of Mexico City. Lucha libre, the Mexican version of free wrestling, is probably only rivaled by soccer in popularity among Mexican people, and its cultural impact may be even greater.

Cliff-Climbing Polar Bear Attempting to Eat Seabird Eggs
30 July 2011

A male polar bear climbs precariously on the face of a cliff above the ocean at Ostrova Oranskie in northern Novaya Zemlya, attempting to feed on seabird eggs. This bear was marooned on land and unable to feed on seals–its normal prey–because sea ice had melted throughout the region and receded far to the north as a result of climate change.

North Korea
05 October 2011

A picture of North Korea’s founder, Kim Il-sung, decorates a building in the capital Pyongyang.

Occupy Wall Street
21 October 2011

Arrest of protesters in Harlem, New York, during a demonstration against police tactics and income inequality.

Here is a link to all the winning photos [Link]

According to the Kuwait Time’s photo the guys sister is Britney Spears. I’ve noticed they’ve been using random pictures off the internet for their articles. Below are two more:

Funny. You can check some more out [Here]

Update: Looks like Kuwait Times read this post and have corrected their mistake. They’ve now removed the Britney Spears photo and instead replaced it with Natalie Portman’s…

I finally got my GX1 camera. I originally ordered it at the beginning of December but the camera with the specific lens I wanted started shipping end of January and Aramex just dropped it off to my office earlier today. The GX1 is a replacement for my Panasonic GF1 which was (and still is) one of the most enjoyable cameras I’ve ever used. So far the GX1 seems exactly like the GF1 except better although it’s still too early to get a first impression. I’ll be posting my view on it after using it for awhile.

I ordered the Panasonic GX1 with the 14-42mm x power lens from [Amazon]

A classical piano concert will take place next week featuring Kuwaiti pianist Faisal Al-Bahairi who is a winner of numerous piano competitions as well as two up and coming pianist Lulwa Al-Shamlan and Abdul-Aziz Al-Abwa. The concert will include works by Mozart, Beethoven, and Chopin and will be taking place at the Abdul-Aziz Hussien Theater “Library” in Mishref’s Co-op on Tuesday, February 14th at 7:00pm. Entrance is free but seats are limited. For more information visit their Facebook page [Here]

A friend of mine just posted about a new Mexican restaurant that opened up in The Village. Going by the pictures and write up it looks like the place is actually pretty good. Check out his post [Here]

Registration is now open for entry into the 2012 PAWS annual dog show. The show will take place in the beautiful gardens of the British Embassy on Friday March 9th from 11AM to 4PM. There will be stalls at the dog show selling a variety of merchandise, activities for the children, refreshment stalls and of course the main attraction will be the dog competition categories.

Full details can be found on the PAWS website and all competition categories are listed on the application form which can be downloaded from the website as well. Here is the [Link]

Dr Farah Al-Nakib is holding a talk entitled: “Beyond Demolition and Heritage: On the Conservation and Re-Use of Kuwait City’s Early Oil Landscape.” The event is going to be looking at the importance of preserving and reusing old buildings in Kuwait instead of demolishing them or turning them into museums which is what seems to always be the case in Kuwait. Dr Farah will be sharing some real examples of how some people (mainly businesses) have made use of old buildings to revive areas and create “locally made business communities”. One great example she will be sharing is the Seif Palace strip where Pink Moon, Slider Station and Burger Hub are located.

If you’re interested in attending the event it will be held in Dar al-Athar al-Islamiyyah this Tuesday. For more information click [Here]

I’m really not a museum type of guy but I have to highly recommend the British Museum in London. I passed by because I was in the area and curious but I’m really glad I did. The museum is HUGE, I think it’s the largest museum I’ve ever been to, actually I’m sure it is. It’s a maze of rooms after rooms filled with so much random stuff from all over the world that you’re bound to find something that interests you. Nat enjoyed the Egyptian mummies while my favorite section was the old watches and clocks but even the Japanese and Americas history section was fascinating.

What was going to be just a quick in and out tour of the museum ended up taking a couple of hours and I really was just walking from room to room barely stopping. That’s how big the place is.

The British Museum is just a few minutes off Oxford Street and entry is free.

Investigations are currently ongoing in a case in which a group of friends claim that an enemy they were preparing to fight against almost released a large tiger at them. The alleged incident reportedly took place on Al-Blajat street in Salmiya where the 12 young men approached someone they had unfinished business with, and decided to settle their differences the old fashioned way.

Soon enough, the enemy was joined by a friend, who reportedly had an adult tiger sitting in the backseat of his car. The group opted to flee when the tiger’s owner threatened to release the wild beast at them. They reported the incident at Rumaithiya police station immediately afterwards. Investigators are working to confirm the allegations before further action is taken.

WTF? [Source]

A leading music distributor has shuttered its Kuwait operations after claiming the Gulf states’s censorship of albums and artwork had made it impossible to run a full-scale operation. Music Master, which distributes music from major labels such as Universal, Sony and EMI, said curbs on content from bestselling artists such as Lady Gaga and Beyonce had left it battling to maintain its profit margins.

I didn’t even know they were in Kuwait. I actually can’t think of one place that still sells new CD’s now that Virgin has closed down. [Link]

Thanks Ahmad

Someone from WiMD the new internet provider I posted about earlier in the day left the following comment:

Many thanks, first of all, for giving us a platform to voice our services.

First things first, WiMD stands for Wireless Mobile Data. The name implies the meaning, so no gimmickry with names and how strong and powerful we are. Our technology is not based on the WiMAX standard and we don’t believe in sharing the customer subscribed bandwidth. We have nation wide coverage for our residential customers as of today.

Having said the above, we pride ourselves in what we commit to our customers. In today’s age of blogs and forums, we are aware that customer satisfaction is of prime importance and any wrong information/commitment can only do more harm to us than good.

As most of your readers have mentioned, they have never heard of us. This is true as we didn’t launch or market our services in the residential domain before today. All our existing residential customers till date have been through word of mouth and personal referrals. For obvious reasons you don’t get recommended for bad service or performance, do you?

We don’t want to take any further space and just want to introduce ourselves us a healthy alternative to your existing miseries with limited bandwidth and slower speed. Our request to all is, don’t judge us without even trying us. Our company policy for bandwidth commitment to customers is based on the site survey we do before delivering our services. Fair and transparent. Our NOC and Helpdesk are equipped to answer your queries.

And even after this, if your satisfaction quotient is not reached, kind reminder to our existing and prospective customers. We have a fair money bank policy which means, if you are dissatisfied with our services, you get the remaining balance on your contract reimbursed upon cancellation.

Just want to remind your readers, we are in Hall 6 @ InfoConnect. Please feel free to drop by.

We mean business and that is what we are here for. So no strings attached, no hidden dramas. JUST PERFORMANCE.

No idea on the price but one reader mentioned they start from KD385 per year.

Update: Here are their prices per year

1Mb KD130
1.5Mb KD150
2Mb KD180
3Mb KD225
4Mb KD270
5Mb KD320
6Mb KD325
7Mb KD355
8Mb KD390
9Mb KD473
10Mb KD523
11Mb KD590
12Mb KD660
13Mb KD730
14Mb KD800
15Mb KD870
16Mb KD940
17Mb KD1,010
18Mb KD1,080
19Mb KD1,150
20Mb KD1,220

Update2: I’m going to be trying out and signing up for their service. First hurdle is to see if I can install the antenna on my balcony instead of the roof since I don’t have access to my buildings roof. Hopefully the balcony would work, I’ll find out on Saturday.

I’m leaving to London early Friday morning for a week. It’s going to be a chilled out vacation and so far I’ve got the following things planned, all of which I haven’t done before:

– Cadbury World
– Stonehenge
– The Newman Arms
– G Kelly Pie
– The Last Tuesday Society
– The Hideout aka Trisha’s
– Cabman’s Shelter
– Bicester Village

Still trying to find an interesting castle to visit. Oh and I need to walk through Hyde Park. For some reason I haven’t done that yet. I’ll be staying at Easy Hotel in Paddington again since I had a good experience the last time. I’m going for a slightly larger room this time around so looking forward to that. If anyone has any recommendations on where to go just leave a comment below. I’ll of course be going to the regular places like Harrods, Oxford Street, Portobello Road, Borough Market etc…

The luxurious car show Concours d’Elegance is going to be held for the third time in Kuwait next month. Like the previous years, it going to be an important and prestigious event that will attract people from both inside and outside Kuwait.

What is the Concours d’Elegance?
Concours is a French word meaning competition. The concept of Concours originates in 17th C. France when aristocrats used to choose their best horse carriages to parade around parks of Paris during the summer week ends and holidays. Later these traditions changed to automobiles from the 20th C. Concours today have strict regulations and cars are inspected by qualified judges. Trophy winners are carefully chosen. Each year there are numerous events which take place across the world, many of which are world famous, including Villa d’Este in Italy, Goodwood in UK, and Pebble Beach in USA. The Kuwait Concours d’Elegance is rapidly becoming a fixture in this international program, able to attract some of the world’s rarest and exotic motorcars.

Date: February 15th to the 18th
Time: 10:00AM – 10:00PM
Location: Marina Mall interior, Marina Crescent and Marina Lawn

Tidbits
There are going to be some very interesting cars this year at the show including the Zagato, Jaguar F-Type, the McLaren and other surprises which they wouldn’t tell me about except that they’re “Concours Special Editions”. Valentino Balboni the former chief test driver for Lamborghini is going to back this year. Bruce Meyers the inventor of the Dune Buggy will also be at the event.

The new Supercar De Macross GT1 is going to be officially launched at our Concours. The GT1 has an 800hp Rouch engine and incoporates technologies currently used in F1… including some that are banned.

The Concours categories
Vintage: Class-A 1900 – 1930
Classic: Class-B 1931 – 1945
Post war Classic: Class-C 1946 – 1965
Modern Classic: Class-D 1966 – 1975

Muscle Cars Section
69 Dodge Daytona
70 Plymouth Superbird
71 Plymouth ‘Cuda 340 Convertible
67 Mustang Shelby GT500
74 Trans-Am SD
69 Shelby GT500 owned by Carroll Shelby him self!
and many many more.

Hollywood Cars
This year they’re bringing real life sized Pixar/Disney cars including Lighting McQueen, Finn and Mater.

Daily Events
15th – Muscle & Classic
16th – Supercars
17th – Kuwait Bike Show
18th – Enzo Ferrari Birthday

Once I find out more information I’ll add it to this post.
Here are some related links:
kuwaitconcours.com.kw
@KuwaitConcours
Facebook.com/Kuwait.Concours

The Kuwait Towers in Middle East by Eric Walker

Eric Walker, a blog reader sent me a link to a 360 Panorama he took at the Kuwait Towers. I thought he used some special equipment since the panorama is seamless and very well made but after talking to him it turns out he used just a regular camera with some accessories and software. Here is how he does his panoramas:

– He uses a regular point and shoot camera on regular tripod but he’s added a panorama tripod head mount (similar to these)

– He takes on average 40 shots depending on the scene. He prefers to have a tall structure nearby so that the majority of the panorama doesn’t result in just a plain blue sky. To get a clear shot of the ground below the camera without the camera shadow, he cheats and moves the camera back a bit and then takes the shot

– He uses the photo stitching software PTGui to stitch the photos all together. You can get that software from [Here]

– As a last step he uploads the final stitched image to his 360 Cities account where it is then reviewed by their council of reviewers. If they don’t find any stitching errors or other problems, the panorama gets published to their website and it can then be placed in Google Earth (360 Cities is the only panorama site that is partnered with Google)

Here are some other Kuwait panoramas Eric has taken:
Behind the Kuwait Towers
The Scientific Center of Kuwait
Mutla Ridge

Here are some Kuwait panoramas taken by other photographers:
Onboard Al-Boom Dhow
Hawally Park
Dhow in Souk Sharq
360 Mall
Kuwait Seaside Sunset
Heritage Souk
Salhia Complex
Water Clock in Souk Sharq Kuwait
Rooftop Swimming Pool