Search: “ace”

I just came back from Boubouffe which is my favorite shawerma place here in Lebanon and anywhere else in the world for that matter. With over 30 years experience, Boubouffe simply make the best chicken shawermas I have ever tasted. The price of each shawerma sandwich is KD1 which I guess would make it also one of the most expensive? Maybe, although I hear the shawermas in London aren’t cheap at all.

For some reason when I am in Lebanon I have a very bad habit of lying to taxi drivers. I think its because I feel sorry for them or because I don’t want to seem like a tourist in my own country but whatever the reason is, I always lie to them.

I always make it look like I work in Lebanon for one thing. When I get asked what I do for a living I am honest and tell them advertising but then I complain about how there isn’t much work in Lebanon and how I am considering leaving and that I have offers from Qatar and Kuwait. When they ask me if I know how to drive I say yes of course, how many Lebanese do you know that don’t? Then I either say that (a) I had an accident back in October and totaled the car so until I could afford to fix it I take cabs, or (b) I live with my brother so he drops me off where I want so I don’t see a reason to buy a car.

Cab drivers don’t make a lot of money in Lebanon and the expression on their faces and in their eyes just saddens me. I like giving them big tips, I actually leave big tips to a lot of people here in Lebanon since its like everyone has financial difficulties…

I got the following email from Cinemagic:

Dear All,

You are invited to attend “Short & Sweet”, Cinemagic’s weekly screening event. The events will take place at the Cinemagic Courtyard in Bait Lothan, Salmiya, on Wednesday 9th of May, and will run between 7:00 – 9:00 p.m.

This week we will be screening “Children of Heaven“, a 1997 Iranian film that was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1998.

It deals with a brother and sister and their adventures over a lost pair of shoes, while also touching upon the more serious subject of the political situation in Iran as well as class differences between the rich and the poor and daily urban life.

In 1998, the film was the first Iranian film to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, but lost to the Italian film Life Is Beautiful by Roberto Benigni.

It was successfully shown on numerous film festivals and won awards at the Fajr Film Festival, the World Film Festival, the Newport International Film Festival, the Warsaw International Film Festival, and the Singapore International Film Festival. It was nominated for the Jury’s Grand Prize at the American Film Institute’s festival.

For its part, 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 filmmaking.

As always, attendance is free of charge and you are encouraged to invite guests. Seating is limited, so make sure you come a little early. Snacks and refreshments will be served.

Yazan Al Ghazzawi
PR & Marketing Manager
Kuwait Cinemagic

Tel: (+965) 574 3253
Cell: (+965) 722 2416

www.cinemagics.com

I passed by the jewelery exhibit tonight at the Mishref fair ground to check it out since my cousin who recently came in from Thailand had a display there (ZoRaB). On the way in to the exhibit I found a huge shawerma stand outside so I went up to a guy there and ordered myself two shawermas. The guy turns to me and tells me these shawermas are not for sale, they are for management upstairs! I found that strange, actually not really that strange since this is Kuwait but still, a fancy jewelery exhibition and the management upstairs have their own shawerma stand right outside?

So I walked in to the exhibit hall and right at the entrance the Kuwait Customs had a display. Again this felt out of place but I figured I would get closer and check it out. I have to say, its one really strange display. The backdrop of the display had a collage of pictures from their most famous drug busts I think. There were also a couple of pictures of alcohol busts, you know the very cliche 200 bottles of red label on the floor and 3 Bangladeshis posing behind them. Now the cool part was the magic section. They had a display of magical items they had caught, its seriously the silliest stuff. There was a horse shoe, some rings, a few rocks and a lot of handwritten notes. I think those were curses or something. On the far left they also had some pharmaceutical items (they looked like adrenalin shots) and three fake DVDs. I still don’t understand why they had a display set up at a jewelery exhibition, maybe for comical relief.

The jewelery exhibit itself was kind of dull but I am also not really a jewelery person. The exhibition ends today (Monday) so if it is your kind of thing maybe you should check it out, the customs stand itself is worth the trip.

Virgin Megastore is open again and I think this time around they are taking censorship to the extreme. I think thats what I would do if I was them, I would want to show people how ridiculous censorship can be. The CD cover above is of the Buddha-bar CD, they’ve censored the Buddha’s face!

update: I have been told censoring the Buddha is not something new.

Just got back from the Double Decker pub here in Dubai. Me and my friend went there after Mall of the Emirartes to watch the AC Milan vs Manchester United match. The place was super packed, like so packed people were backed up all the way to the hallway entrance. I didn’t get to ski tonight because the slope was pretty packed but hopefully tomorrow while everyone is at work it won’t be so crowded. Other then that I have to say I love the Mall of the Emirates, every-time I go there I discover something new. Today for example I discovered two wings I didn’t know about and thats after spending hours previously making sure I saw every part of it!

My flight tomorrow is 5 in the evening so I am hoping to get a good nights sleep now and then go do a bit of shopping before I head out to the airport.

note: the hotel I am in has wifi but the signal is so weak that I am actually standing inside the cupboard near the rooms door typing this post!

Q80Boy sent me an email telling me that last night at 9:30PM, Virgin in Marina Mall was shutdown because they were caught selling inappropriate movies. Can anyone confirm this? It’s confirmed!

update: I just got back from Marina Mall and Virgin is closed. There are red stickers all around the place and two A4 photocopies of the closing order which you can view [Here] and [Here]

Zaydoun just posted two pictures of a Monster Burger taken at The Burger Hub here in Kuwait. Its cool a place finally decided to create a monster burger, I haven’t been to The Burger Hub yet but now I have a reason to because I NEED TO TRY THIS BURGER! [Link]

note: I called up The Burger Hub and it seems this Monster Burger will launch on the 29th of April which is on their anniversary. The price isn’t final yet but it should cost over KD15.

On my way to Marzouq’s place tonight I ran over a beautiful white fluffy cat. It was horrendous but there was nothing I could do to stop it. I was exiting the the Fahaheel expressway going around 80km/hour when suddenly out of no where this white fluffy cat jumped out of the bushes and right in front of my Wrangler. I slammed the brakes but it was useless the cat was too close, I quickly centered the car to pass over the cat but the cat still hit the bottom of my car. I pass over it and look in the rear view mirror, I saw a cloud of smoke from my brakes and then noticed the cat bouncing madly in the middle of the road. I couldn’t stop since there were a lot of cars behind me but I was hoping one of them would run over the cat and put it out of its misery. I felt awful and the thing is for the brief second I did see the cat it didn’t look like a street cat but more like someones pet. Sucks!

So I passed by the BMW dealer today and they tell me that I have a leak in the car which is causing it to overheat. They then give me the list of parts required to fix the leak, here are the items:

SP: KD30
Mount. plate: KD13.850
Exp. Tank: KD18.950
Thermostat: KD14.200
Radiator Cap: KD4.650
Switch: KD4.400
Housing: KD24.600
Fan Clutch: KD45.850
RMFD. Pump: KD21.950
Hose: KD9.050
Hose: KD7.700
Hose: KD7.500

Parts = KD202.700
Labor = KD98.750
Mis. = KD20.000
———————-
Total = KD321.450

Is it me or does that seem like overkill just to fix a leak? I am not a mechanic but why would I have to replace the radiator cap to fix a leak? Why change the thermostat, a switch and fan clutch also?? Wouldn’t the leak be from just one place? So why not just replace that one item why do I have to replace everything else also? I had my car towed out of the dealers garage and its now going to get fixed elsewhere. Once I find out how much its going to cost me to fix it outside I am going to post it here.

Found this while waiting for the tow truck to pick up my car. Its a new pizza place thats opening soon. The logo looks very familiar…

You won’t believe what happened to me today! Yesterday I picked up my BMW from the dealer and as I mentioned before, the car overheated just before I reached my home. Today morning I was supposed to pass by the dealer to give them a piece of my mind when on the way while driving on the Gulf Road my car overheats again! I parked the car in the Green Island parking lot and called a friend who got a tow truck to come pick up my car. We took my car to the BMW dealer and I go up to the guy who had taken care of my car and told him that after I left the dealership yesterday the car over heated and today on my way over it also over heated. He was very cold and didn’t apologize or anything, he took my car keys and told me to wait and then left.

Fifteen minutes later the guy comes back and tells me your car needs to stay here you can leave now. I was like what do you mean I can leave?? What about my car, how long does it need, whats wrong with it? He was like they are checking on that now. I was like ok but I need another car, I have work and things to do. He was like you can talk to the manager so I do.

I explain my situation to the manager, I tell him I brought my car in because of some strange vibrations and after paying a shit load of money I take the car back and suddenly its over heating. I tell him its a fault from their side and they should give me a car to use until they fix their mistake. He tells me its not their mistake and its not their responsibility. He tells me its very normal for a car to over heat and it can happen to any car at any time. I stood there in shock, other then the fact that no one apologized to me but now the guy is telling me that the problem is my fault no theirs! What car built in this century still over heats?!? Maybe if it was 1985 and I was stuck in traffic I could imagine a car over heating but this is a 2001 BMW and its over heating without any traffic!

I end up leaving the place thinking about how much I hate BMW and the dealership. When I was thinking of selling my car I was thinking of maybe getting a BMW Z4 or a Land Rover LR3 but now I am thinking about how I never want to buy a BMW ever again yet alone anything from this dealership.

A few minutes ago I get a phone call from BMW, they tell me they found some leak and it will cost KD320 to fix. I was like excuse me? No thank you, please don’t touch my car I will pick it up tomorrow and go fix it somewhere else.

So I haven’t had anything to eat all day because during my lunch break I had to pick up my BMW from the dealer. Then when I am finally on my way home the car overheats and that pisses me off. I finally get home and I am starving so I place an order from Hardees. Usually it takes them 15 minutes to deliver the food to my place but its been over an hour now and the food isn’t here yet! I had to call them up and cancel my order and now I am trying to figure out what to do. Its clearly not my day!

A friend of mine just made me aware of this event. It seems next week the Kuwait Boat Show will start and its organized by Knotika, that same people that set up the Dubai Boat Show. The event will take place at the Al Kout mall’s marina and it will be running from April 21st to April 25th from 3:30PM till 10 in the evening. Entrance tickets are KD3. I will probably be going Saturday and I will try to take pictures, I am assuming the whole place is going to be lit up well. For more information you can check out the Kuwait Boat Show website which surprisingly is pretty decent. [Link]

Yesterday I posted about the strange trying to be funny messages on the Marina Mall bins, well it turns out they actually copied it.

Thanks Mark deSouza for pointing it out.