Search: “ace”

As I mentioned last week I picked up a Tamiya 502x race buggy to review for the blog. It’s been nearly a week now and I’ve been working on the car every night for a few hours trying to get it built. Currently I would say I am more than 90% done with the build. I have mostly electric stuff I need to work out and then cutting up and painting the body.

The build was fairly easy although there were some difficult moments. The car frame and a large chunk of the parts are in carbon fiber with a lot of metal parts as well which is expected since this buggy is race ready. But, for the price and purpose of this car I would have expected even more metal parts at least for example when it came to the steering parts which are currently mostly plastic. Tonight I’m gonna try and get the electrics done so I could then prep the body for painting and if everything goes smoothly I might have the car up and running by Saturday.

By the way for those of you who’ve never built a radio controlled car before you need to try it since it’s really a lot of fun. I always compare it to Lego and IKEA, if you like building and putting stuff together then you’ll really enjoy building these cars specially since you get to drive them afterwards. They’re a lot more challenging than building a Lego police station or an IKEA cabinet as well as more rewarding.

[YouTube]

965malls uploaded the video above which he shot of some teenagers fighting underneath his building. What makes his video special is the fact a car ends up running those kids over. According to him no one got hurt as a result.

The teenagers fighting bit I can easily relate to since my neighborhood in Salmiya has turned into the ghetto (plus a garbage dump) due to the fact I have a billiard place in the building next door. Fights amongst teenagers and young adults are practically a daily occurrence and women getting harassed by them has also become the norm.

Come to think of it I don’t know why I don’t use my blog to help improve my area by highlighting problems like I previously did [Here]. I’ve recently been considering moving out of my neighborhood because of all the garbage and fights but why should I move? I’ve been on this street for 30 years now and I shouldn’t have to move because the garbage collecting company isn’t collecting the garbage or the fact that there are no longer any street cleaners as well picking up garbage or that the cops don’t care about any of the violations that are happening on the street. I’ve mentioned this before but there is actually a brothel in the building next door and I have to say I’m glad they’re there since they’ve actually cleaned up a bit of the area around their building. Things are so bad I was actually considering hiring my own street cleaner just to take care of the area around my building!

As you already know by now I am currently being sued by the Las Palmas Restaurant Company who own Benihana and Subway in Kuwait. They’re suing me over my review which you can read [Here] in case you missed it. Today was the second hearing and this is just an update of what happened.

During the first hearing Benihana submitted documents to back up their claim and my lawyer had requested time to review the printouts and the judge gave us one month. The documents submitted by Benihana were basically print outs of my Benihana review, my Benihana media round up post and a print out of my Facebook page.. actually not my page but what you see when you search for my name.

Today my lawyer presented documents to prove that when I had posted my review I didn’t have any ill intent towards Benihana or Las Palmas Restaurant Company and that my post was based on my experience which happened to be a negative one. The documents my lawyer submitted were print outs of previous posts in which I had spoken positive things about Benihana as well as posts in which I had spoken positive things about two other brands owned by Las Palmas which are Subway and Charley’s Grilled Subs. Their lawyers then requested from the judge time to review the documents but the judge refused and instead set a third court date for April 26th in which a decision will be made on this case.

I’m crossing my fingers…

According to the latest report by CB Richard Ellis “How global is the business of retail?”, Kuwait City ranked 13th in the world the list of most targeted retail destination, up one place from 14th last year. Dubai and London tied for first place followed by New York in second and Paris third. 13th place is actually incredibly good (we tied with Berlin and Istanbul) since the 12 countries ahead of us are big shots like LA, Moscow, Hong Kong, Barcelona, Berlin etc. plus we beat out cities like Milan, Munich, Tokyo and Miami. Below is the top 20 list:

1 – Dubai
1- London
3- New York
4- Paris
5- Madrid
6- Hong Kong
7- Moscow
8- Los Angeles
9- Singapore
10- Barcelona
11- Beijing
12- Shanghai
13- Berlin
13- Kuwait City
13- Istanbul
16- Riyad
17- Milan
18- Munich
19- Tokyo
20- Las Vegas
20- Miami
20- Hamburg

You can download the full report from the CBRE website [Here]

Now slightly off topic, they represented Kuwait with two visuals in the icon above, one is a stretched out version of Kuwait Towers, but what is the other? Looks like our very own Taj Mahal maybe.

I like posting strange and out of the ordinary stuff and I think this falls into that category. Abdulaziz Al-juraib is a 19 year old Kuwaiti special effects make-up artist who’s currently still studying in university. I took a look at some of the stuff he’s done and I have to say he’s not that bad. Keep in mind we don’t have any schools for this here nor do we have proper facilities or shops to purchase special effects products from. If anyone is doing a short movie that requires a bloody and gory scene then he’s probably the guy you should contact. Check out some of his work on his facebook page [Here]

People, if you’re going to hold a party don’t put a flyer up in a public place. A reader shot the flyer above and posted on his flickr account and the 248AM Forum. The flyer says:

Gentlemen Club is open on this Saturday. Our club team is organizing an exclusive party for our NON-ARAB friends. This is a special even you should not miss.

Date: 09-Apr-2011
Time: 10:00pm – 3:00am
Venue:
Salmiya, Block 2
Abdullah Bin Masoud Street
Building # 3
Party room
(Keep Salmiya Holiday Inn main entrance and Electrozan electronic store to your right. Come until you see DukKan store which will be on your left. Building # 3 is left side building attached to DukKan).

Entrance: Male – 5 KD (Westerners only) / Female – Free

Here is a link to the flyer on [Flickr]

This has to be one of the coolest gadgets I’ve purchased in a while. I was looking for a camera I could set up in my apartment back in Lebanon so I could monitor my place while I’m here. Originally I had a budget of around $200 and started my search on Amazon. Within a few minutes I found out about the Foscam pictured above which had some pretty good features. The camera connects to your home network over Ethernet or WiFi, pans horizontally 300 degrees and tilts vertically 120 degrees, it has IR-LED for night vision, two way audio, remote viewing via a web browser and most importantly… it cost only $99! There must have been a catch but after reading the reviews I couldn’t find anything wrong with it and I placed an order for one.

The camera wasn’t that difficult to set up, I just plugged it into my network via Ethernet and ran an application that came with the camera that showed me what IP address the camera was using. I double clicked the IP address, it launched the browser and that was it. I could then watch a live video feed or change the settings. First thing I did was create a username and password and then set up the camera to work via my WiFi network. It was flawless.

Another cool thing is the fact there are a bunch of iPhone apps that work with the camera, I downloaded one called Foscam Surveillance which costs $4.99 and allows me to control and view the camera from my iPhone from anywhere in the world. It’s amazing and even the night vision mode works perfectly. It turns on and off automatically depending on the light in the room but you can also turn it on and off manually.

I’m going to purchase a few more of these cameras so I can place them all around my apartment in Lebanon and even in the garden. It can be used as a security camera and has the option to automatically take snapshots when it detects any movement and then email the shots to you. The night vision mode works at a distance of up to 8 meters which is also very cool.

If you’re interested in this camera it’s available for around KD27 on Amazon. Here is the [Link]

Back in January I signed up to the Orbit ShowTime service and I although the signup process was very smooth I was worried their customer service would be problematic since when I had Showtime back in 2005 any issue I had they would tell me to pass by their main branch in Dajeej which was unpractical and annoying.

Well I ran into a problem recently with my Showbox receiver, it kept rebooting randomly every 5 minutes or so which was very annoying. I reset all the settings, upgraded to the latest software did whatever I could to try to get it fixed myself and nothing worked. I finally gave up and decided to give OSN a call, I was expecting them to tell me to take the receiver to their workshop in Dajeej which is why I tried to fix things myself but instead I was told a technician would come over on Monday (that was on Saturday). Sunday (the following day) I get a call from the technician telling me if I was free that day he could pass by. I was like no problem but did they tell you what my problem was? He was like you aren’t getting a signal. I was like no my Showbox keeps rebooting. He told me no problem he would replace it for me and a few hours later he did come over and swap my receiver with a new one.

Everything is working perfectly now and I didn’t even have to drive out to Dajeej to get my problem solved!

Last week I was checking my facebook account and noticed the local Tamiya dealer (My Toy) started a weekly competition where people could win a Tamiya TRF 501x race buggy. So, I entered the competition and didn’t win BUT I did get an email asking if I would be interested in reviewing the new TRF 502x and I said yes of course.

It’s been two years since I last built a Tamiya car so I was pretty excited to pick the car up. Along with the 502x frame they’re lending me a servo, tires, lipo battery, brush-less motor and ecu. Basically everything I need to get the car built and running except for a radio controller and receiver since I will be using my own. Oh I also picked up fluorescent pink paint since I think a bright pink racing buggy with a black rear wing and black wheels might turn out pretty cool. Below is a picture of how the pile of boxes above will end up looking like once I am done.

Note: In case you’re an RC fan I have a section dedicated to RC stuff [Here]

As I mentioned last August, Shake Shack will be opening in place of Le Pain Quotidien at The Avenues. Since then I’ve been waiting and waiting for PQ to close down and I just found out they’ve now gone ahead and closed. This means they should start construction on Shake Shack right away and hopefully open up very soon. For those of you who live in Dubai, Shake Shack is opening up at Mall of Emirates this Thursday.

I think we’re going to be super lucky here because I highly doubt we’re going to have to wait in line for their burgers in the same way you don’t have to wait in line at Magnolia Bakery in Dubai. Below are pictures of the lines at both Shake Shack and Magnolia Bakery in New York. I waited 40 minutes in line at Shake Shack just to place an order!

What I still don’t know though is who will supply Shake Shack in the Middle East with the beef. In the US the beef is supplied by the famous Pat LaFrieda but I previously emailed them asking if their beef was Halal and they said it wasn’t. Hopefully by now they’ve worked some sort of deal with LaFrieda regarding this but will have to wait and see.

A friend just emailed me the following:

Thought you might be interested to know that I just left Symphony building and there are HUGE pannels of glass flying off the building, cause by the wind, and crashing into the parking lot. I tried to take a closer look but the whole area has been closed off and the fire department is on their way. From what I saw though one car got hit and is quite badly damaged and there were 3 other large peices of broken glass laying in various places in the parking lot

As usual if anyone has pictures email me them so I could post them here.

Thanks Ali

Update: Here is a picture of the damaged car sent in by a reader called Abdul Hameed. According to him this happened a couple of months back as well and that time the glass window landed on his friends car.

April might be the final month for Cinemagic’s rooftop movies since they usually stop playing movies once the weather gets really hot. Since the evenings now are still cool you should really take advantage of this.

Saturday, April 2nd at 7:30pm
MICMACS
Director: Jean – Pierre Jeunet
Country: France
Release: 2010
Genre: Comedy | Crime
Running time: 105 minutes
Language: French | English Subtitle
Awards: Best Director, , Best Cinematography, Best edit
Rated: R

Saturday, April 9th at 7:30pm
SYMPATHY FOR MR. VENGEANCE
Director: Chan Wook Park
Country: South Korea
Release: 2002
Genre: Crime | Drama | Thriller
Running time: 129 minutes
Language: Korean | English Subtitle
Awards: Best Actor, Best Film, Best Director
Rated: R

Thursday, April 14th at 7:30pm
THE WIZARD OF OZ
Director: Victor Fleming
Country: USA
Release: 1939
Genre: Adventure | Fantasy | Musical | Family
Running time: 101 minutes
Language: English | English Subtitle
Awards: 2 Oscars, 5 other wins and 8 nominations
Rated: PG

Saturday, April 16th at 7:30pm
AWAY WE GO
Director: Sam Mendes
Country: USA
Release: 2009
Genre: Comedy | Drama
Running time: 98 minutes
Language: English | English Subtitle
Awards: Nominated Best Actors, Best Film
Rated: 15+

Thursday, April 21st at 7:30pm
JAR CITY
Director: Baltasar Kormakur
Country: Iceland
Release: 2006
Genre: Thriller
Running time: 93 minutes
Language: Icelandic | English Subtitle
Awards: Best Film, Best Actor, Best Director, Cinematography
Rated: 15+

Saturday, April 23rd at 7:30pm
WATER
Director: Deepa Mehta
Country: India
Release: 2005
Genre: Drama
Running time: 117 minutes
Language: Hindi | English Subtitle
Awards: Best Film, Director, Cinematography, Script
Rated: PG

Thursday, April 28th at 7:30pm
THE HEADLESS WOMAN
Director: Lucrecia Martel
Country: Argentina
Release: 2009
Genre: Drama | Mystery | Thriller
Running time: 87 minutes
Language: Spanish | English Subtitle
Awards: Cannes, in competition, Best film, director, actress
Rated: 15+

Saturday, April 30th at 7:30pm
THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET’S NEST
Director: Daniel Alfredsson
Country: Sweden
Release: 2010
Genre: Crime | Drama | Thriller
Running time: 147 minutes
Language: Swedish | English Subtitle
Rated: R

Cinemagic Kuwait, is organizing these events as part of its efforts to contribute to the development of an internationally competitive Kuwaiti audio-visual production industry, partly by bringing the filmmakers and audiences together and by Increasing the public’s interest in – and appreciation for – the art of film-making. Cinemagic movies are screened in the old Salmiya, on the roof on top of Alghanim Electronics and LG. There is a KD1 charge for the venue fees which includes refreshments, popcorn and much more. Here is a link to their Facebook group [Link]

This two events got canceled last week since the track got covered with sand so it’s being pushed to this Saturday April 2nd at Pro Kart.

Karting Speed Max Challenge 4 Hours
The first event is a 4 hour karting race. 40 drivers will compete in scoring the best time with 5 drivers racing every heat and the winner continuing on to the final race. The race starts at 4PM and ends at 8PM. The race is open to the public and it’s free of charge!

Dolphin Karting Cup
The second event is an event for juniors aged 5 to 8 year-olds. This race event starts at 3PM and is also free of charge.

For more information on these events and a map to the location plus contact numbers you can visit the Pro Kart website [Here]

Has anyone been to Tatami Japanese Restaurant yet? I just heard about it from a friend and a quick google resulted in some shots of the place. It’s supposedly a local creation and judging by the pictures, a pretty cool looking one.

Here is a link with pictures of the place [Link]
Here is a link to the Tatami website [Link]

Update: His&Hers passed by Tatami over the weekend and you can read their review [Here]

I hadn’t heard of Pei Wei Asian Diner but it’s a Chinese fast food place and according to Wikipedia it’s owned by PF Chang’s which makes sense why it’s opening up in Kuwait and why it’s also Alshaya that’s bringing it. No idea yet when and where it will open just that they’ve got the franchise and it’s coming to Kuwait.