Search: “ace”

I passed by Family Bookshop today and took as many pictures as I could. I figured the place might shutdown any day now and so it might be a good idea to document the place. It was pretty depressing. They currently have a court case with the new owner of the building and they aren’t doing well at all. According to the guy I spoke to they get very few customers and those who do come are old customers who used to be young 20 or 30 years ago and now come back with their grand kids to show them the place they used to get their books from. I walked around looking for an old copy of Hardy Boys or Dungeons & Dragons but didn’t find any not even a Peter and Jane book. On the other hand I did find some left over Jughead and Veronica comics in their old comics section. Below are some pictures I took of the place.

They started putting up a fence around Safat Square today in preparation for the construction of the new large fountain project that will take it’s place. [Link]

The 248AM Forum now works with the mobile application Tapatalk. The application allows you to browse and participate in the forum using your phone but it makes it really easy since it uses the Tapatalk interface. What’s also cool about Tapatalk is the fact you can add all your favorite forums to it which makes things very convenient. The application is currently available for the iPhone, Android devices and BlackBerry and you can find out more information [Here]

Global Finance released the list of richest and poorest countries in the world for 2010 based on GDP data per capita. Kuwait came in 14th place while Qatar came in first. Congo on the other hand turned out to be the poorest. [Here]

Update: Here is the full list [Link]

Not sure how many of you are Le Mans fans but if you are and you’re stuck at work you can kinda watch the Le Mans online by visiting the Audi Live Racing website. They have a live cockpit cam inside the leading Audi car with commentary on the full race. Better than nothing. [Link]

Update: Here is the link to the Corvette on board cam [Link]

Yesterday I finally got the chance to pass by Elevation Burger at The Avenues. I had heard from a friend that they’re always packed so I tried to pass by early and got there around 1:45 which clearly wasn’t early enough since the place was already full. Luckily I found one table clearing up in a corner and had Nat wait at the table while I ordered at the cashier. The interior is pretty dull and kinda reminds me of a food court which is fine since it’s more like an upscale fast food joint then a restaurant but one thing that really bothered me was the lack of proper ventilation. I quickly tweeted that and the owner of the place replied saying they’re working on it. That’s great because I already have a hard time getting Nat to go to a burger place yet alone a burger place that will also make her smell like burgers.

I took a quick glance at the menu and right away knew what I was going to have. I ordered the Elevation Burger which is a double patty double cheese burger and added Elevation sauce to it, I also added a side order of french fries and a fountain drink. I took my receipt and went and waited for my order. A few minutes later my burger arrived and it looked really good. I quickly took my picture and then dug in. The burger was pretty thick, a lot thicker than it looks in the picture since after I picked up the burger I noticed the patty had slid down to the other side. Note to everyone, I love thick burgers. I took my first bite and in under a minute it was gone. I was originally worried the bun wouldn’t be soft enough but it was and it also did a good job of soaking up all the burger juice which there was a lot of. The beef patties were super greasy, by the time I was done with the burger there was a large pool of grease lying at the bottom of my plate. I thought the sauce could have been thicker since it was washing away with the grease but it might have been thick to start with and then got diluted with the grease I’m not sure. In any case the burger was good and I was considering ordering a second helping but since I still had my fries I decided not to.

I’m not a fan of their fries and wouldn’t order them again. If you’re a fan of home made fries you’ll like the Elevation ones but the next time I’m there I’ll be skipping the fries and ordering a second burger instead. The main direct competitor for Elevation burger right now at the Avenues is Johnny Rockets but in a few months time it’s also going to be Shake Shack. Would I go back? Yes I would. It’s located in a convenient location, it’s a no frills in and out dinning place with good burgers. The biggest issue really is their ventilation which is getting fixed this week. Elevation Burger is located outside in Avenues Phase II, on the top floor.

There is a shop next to my office that has a discount on everything including Maglite flashlights. They’re selling the 3-D cell version for KD6.250 which is nearly the same price as Amazon and the cheapest I’ve seen in Kuwait. The place is located right next to the NBK branch on Fahad Al Salem Street, opposite the park.

There is a petition currently circulating twitter asking the Ministry of Communications to break the ISP monopoly. Not sure if it is going to do any good but its worth a shot and just takes a minute to sign. Here is the [Link]

Update: While on the subject, check out this post on Z District on a conversation that took place on the KEMS Facebook page [Link]

I’ve got a ton of TV shows and documentaries on my server and for the longest time ever I had been using XBMC to watch them all. XBMC is basically a software that allows you to stream videos from another computer or hard drive. Originally I used to use XBMC installed onto the old original xbox, then I installed it on a hacked AppleTV but since XBMC on AppleTV couldn’t play 720p video I finally I ended up purchasing the small Acer Revo and was using that to run XBMC until Boxee.

Boxee is the name of another media center software that was actually built using XBMC. But unlike XBMC, Boxee was more focused on providing content (TV Shows/Movies) from the internet primarily and from a local home server secondary. Boxee never really interested me much until the end of 2010 when they did something I always wanted XBMC to do… release a set-top device that was dedicated to just running the media center software. The Boxee Box (pictured above) is a beautifully designed tiny angular cube that runs the Boxee software. Everything about it from the package to the interface is very tastefully designed and that really sets it apart from XBMC. Where XBMC looks like it was put together by geeks, Boxee looks like it was put together by Apple. They even paid attention to the little details like how the Boxee logo lights up in a nice green glow when the device is powered on.

It might not show in the pictures above but the Boxee Box is pretty small, maybe around the same height as the iPhone. It comes with a double sided remote control that has a very simple minimal amount of buttons on one side and a QWERTY keyboard on the other. The remote uses radio instead of infrared to send signals which is great because you can hide the Boxee Box anywhere in the room and still be able to control it. It also comes with a power adapter that works in Kuwait (110-240v) as well as a HDMI cable.

The interface is very easy to use. You can easily browse the available online TV Shows and Movies all nicely organized but you need to have a VPN account (I use StrongVPN) to actually watch the shows online since they don’t allow non-US residents to stream stuff. Watching your local media files is also easy, you can either plug in a hard drive into one of the Boxee USB ports or connect to your home server over Ethernet or Wifi. Once you add the media it will scan IMDB for information on the shows or movies and then download the DVD cover and all the other information and store them on Boxee. It’s really very easy to use, much easier than XBMC since Boxee is trying to be fairly mainstream.

There are some minor downsides but it’s really just nitpicking. I don’t like how the remote control feels and I can never tell which side is up or down without looking at the remote. The remote keyboard buttons on the rear also need to be pressed hard but I guess that’s better than no keyboard at all. Boxee is also not as easily customizable as XBMC.

Price wise it’s fairly decent costing around KD50 on Amazon plus around KD13 to ship it with Aramex to Kuwait. I think this is probably the best media center option available right now until Plex (another XBMC clone) starts working properly on the Roku. Boxee doesn’t have any trouble playing 1080p video files and most importantly it doesn’t take much shelf space while still managing to look very cool. If you have a lot of media files and are looking for an easy way to watch them on your TV screen then I highly recommend the Boxee Box. It’s only available on Amazon and here is the link if you’re interested [Amazon Link]

Update: Forgot to mention you can install Apps in Boxee and my favorite is Pandora.

I just found out that Alshaya are currently in negotiations to bring The Hummingbird Bakery to the region. The Hummingbird Bakery is based in London and they have the best Chocolate Devils Food Cake in the world. It’s an incredible place and I use their cookbook to make some amazing cookies and apple pies.

If you haven’t heard about The Hummingbird Bakery before, here is a link to their website [Link]

Note: Someone NEEDS to bring Ben’s Cookies to Kuwait. They already have a few branches in Saudi and they’re now opening up in Dubai as well. What about us over here??

Qualitynet and KEMS have both published their bandwidth limits. Strangely they both have the exact same limits which are the following:

Speed – Daily Download Limit
512 Kbps – 1GB
1 Mbps – 1.7GB
1.5 Mbps – 1.9GB
2 Mbps – 2.9GB
3 Mbps – 3.8GB
4 Mbps – 4.7GB
5 Mbps – 5.4GB
6 Mbps – 6GB
7 Mbps – 6.8GB
8 Mbps – 7.9GB

If you have the Qualitynet Nitro package your download limit is slightly higher. United Networks haven’t published their limits yet but I am assuming it would be similar to Qualitynet and KEMS. Fasttelco also haven’t published their numbers although I heard that they will not be instating limits but instead punish only heavy abusers. But, unless they publish some kind of numbers, a heavy abuser might be someone that downloads 2GB a day or 20, we wouldn’t know.

Thanks Dylan

Update: I think the current system in place is unfair. My line can only handle 2 Mbps which means I am stuck with a 2.9GB daily limit and no option to increase it. I know the Ministry of Communications wants to reduce the internet prices which is great but placing download limits is not the way to go about it.

UFC legend and hall of famer Royce Gracie is going to be back in Kuwait next week for another Jiu-Jitsu seminar. He’s going to be holding two sessions this time around, one for beginners and one for advanced. Both will be held at the Sidekick Academy next to Tilal Complex.

Beginners
Date: June 14th, 2011
Time: 6 to 9PM
Location: Sidekick Academy

Advanced
Date: June 15th, 2011
Time: 6 to 9PM
Location: Sidekick Academy

Price is KD35 for the session. For more details their number is 99975562. Here is a link to the Sidekick Academy Facebook page [Link]

There’s a cool little pizza place in Lebanon called Margherita thats open in the Gemmayze street. It turns out they’re opening up in Kuwait before the end of the year. I recently posted a review of Margherita on my other Lebanese blog [Here] but in summary, it’s not as good as Solo pizza but it should give all the other pizza places in Kuwait a run for their money.

Margherita is most likely going to open at the Arabella projects in Al Bedaa. I like pizza nearly as much as burgers so I think it’s great that new pizza places are opening.

The Hoppin’ John String Band, a Bluegrass group, will be in Kuwait as part of a U.S. Embassy sponsored visit and they’ll be conducting public performances in several locations. All public performances will open to the public and free of charge. No tickets or seat reservations will be required. Here are the details:

The U.S. Embassy Kuwait In cooperation with the National Council for Culture, Arts & Letters presents: The Hoppin’ John String Band

Date: June 15, 2011
Time: 7:15pm to 8:30pm
Location: National Council for Culture, Arts, and Letters’ Al-Dasma Theatre Mishref Theater (next to the Mishref Cooperative)

Date: June 16, 2011
Time: 9:00am to 10:00am
Location: Live on Sabah Al-Watan (Al-Watan Television)

Date: June 16, 2011
Time: 8:30pm to 9:30pm
Location: The Higher Institute for Musical Arts

Date: June 18, 2011
Time: 6:00pm to 7:00pm
Location: Live on Raykum Shabab (Al-Rai Television)

Date: June 19, 2011
Time: 7:15pm to 8:30pm
Location: The Al-Babtain Central Library for Arabic Poetry

Here is a link to the U.S. Embassy Kuwait Facebook page [Link]

Update: June 15th location was changed

On my way to work I spotted some banners on the road advertising “KarimKTV @ YouTube”. I didn’t think much of it but decided to check it out on YouTube and after watching one of his videos I’m wondering what the consequences will be to his campaign. It’s a successful one that’s for sure since twitter has been buzzing all morning with people talking about the banners. I thought the banners were placed just around Salmiya but it seems they were placed all around Kuwait.

Picture by Abdullah