Search: “cop”

For someone that spends so much time trying to dig up stuff on Kuwait I don’t know how I just found out there was an English newspaper back in the 60s and 70s in Kuwait called “The Daily News”. I found two copies of the newspaper this weekend while sifting through a pile of old newspapers at an old books and magazines sale in Sulaibiya and was completely caught by surprise since I didn’t know this paper ever existed.

One copy is dated Wednesday August 16, 1972 while the other Wednesday October 17, 1973. The newspaper is described as “Leading Political Daily Newspaper in Arabian Gulf” and Edititor-in-Chief was Fahed Al Massaeed. The newspaper was published by Al Rai Al Aam and was launched in 1963. I’ve found no information about it online which is why I never knew about it.

Both issues mostly covered international news but there were a few articles and ads in the papers that were super interesting. For example, one paper had a TV guide while the other one had a radio guide. Then one of the issues had a section called Kuwait Dateline which must be equivalent to a 1970s version of Twitter. Actually, I thought Dateline was really bizarre, why would random people reading the newspaper be interested in this info I have no idea, and they’re so detailed! For example:

Al Haj Nicola Abu Khater, Bristol Hotel Manager flew for one day – stay in Lebanon which he spent with his children in Aljtoun.

It must have been a thing they did back then because traveling wasn’t so common?

Another interesting article I found was regarding the acquittal of the editor-in-chief of the Al-Siyassa newspaper Ahmad Jarallah from the charges brought against him. I only know of Ahmad Jarallah because he’s constantly in the news, always being referred to the public prosecution or always having charges against him dropped. So seeing this article from 1973 which wouldn’t seem out of place today put a smile on my face. He’s STILL the editor-in-chief of the Al-Siyassa newspaper today and he’s STILL getting in trouble with the courts, I love that!

Anyway, I’ve uploaded all the interesting bits from both papers and you can check them out above and in the post below (click on more).

Back in 2014, a German documentary on used tires aired and Kuwait was featured prominently in it due to having the world’s largest used tires mountain. Recently the documentary made its way to YouTube and in English with no region lock and I just watched it now. Although a few years old I think the documentary is still worth watching although some things have changed since then.

Since the documentary aired I believe at least two tire recycling facilities have been set up including Green Rubber Recycling whom I posted about last year.

When I visited the tires graveyard back in 2012, the tires were all piled together in one large pile (pictured above). Due to safety issues and the continuous number of fires that take place there, the tires are now compartmentalized into smaller piles so that if a fire breaks out it’s contained in one area. Fires happen so frequently that it even shows on Google Maps.

While watching the documentary above just be aware that the info is not up to date. YouTube

Thanks Syed

Since it’s an odd posts day, here is another one. For those of you who aren’t aware, the first UFO sighting in the Arab world was in Kuwait back in 1978 and then again in 79. Reports of the sightings were published in newspapers and even the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR) got involved.

I’ve posted about the sighting before but this morning I found an interview with the photographer who captured photos of the UFO (Ali Shash) as well as an eye witness who contacted the press. The interview was shot the same week as the sighting since the eyewitness starts off by stating it was Friday 11:30AM when he spotted the UFO from his window which faces the Qadsia stadium. Very interesting stuff and I love that this interview is available online to view.

This is an odd post I know but there seems to be an old myth that one of the dancers in Michael Jackson’s ‘Beat It’ music video from 1982 was Kuwaiti. I first heard this from a friend a few months ago and shrugged it off, but this weekend I got an email from a reader telling me the same. So I decided to dig into this to see if it was true.

The story goes that the dancer in the white outfit who leads the rival gang in the music video is actually Kuwaiti (to the left of Michael in the picture above). Going by the way he looks I could see him passing as a Kuwaiti so I tried to dig up the full cast members list to see what his name was. Turns out that the dancer with the white top is Michael Peters, an American choreographer and director who has no connection to Kuwait.

I then decided to dig up the list of cast members in as many Michael Jackson videos as I could think of and I wasn’t able to find anyone that sounded Kuwaiti either. So I guess that myth is busted.

This year’s curfew was completely different from last year’s. I think mostly because there was less fear since we’ve all been dealing with Covid for the past year and are more informed on it, while last year the whole thing was still a mystery.

One thing I noticed this year was how every area had different activities going on like at one point I think Surra had a carnival during curfew. In Salmiya once the cars disappeared everyone came to the old souk where I live and turned the streets to mini badminton courts. I didn’t post about it on my social media or on the blog at that time because I didn’t want to bring it any unwanted attention, but it was so much fun. There were even mini badminton courts drawn in chalk all over the streets. It was kinda like a block party.

What did your neighborhood do during curfew?

It’s hard to tell from these videos if the vaccination drives were only for mall employees or open to the public but whatever the criteria was, it looks like it was total chaos.

There was also a video that showed a police officer aggressively shoving and hitting people waiting in line to get vaccinated. After the video went viral the MOI quickly released a statement saying they’ve summoned the involved officer for questioning and that it was an individual act and in no way reflects the police department’s mission which is to serve and protect the community.

Has anyone else noticed how active and reactionary the MOI Instagram account has become? Whenever there is an incident that goes viral they’re always on top of it. From all the government accounts I think the MOI and Traffic Department are my two favorites.

A few days ago Mahmoud Alghanim, a pioneer in the local restaurant industry sadly passed away. Mahmoud was the creator of the popular pizza concept “Pizza Italia” as well as the Italian concept “Prego”. Considering the popularity of the concepts, there is oddly very little information on the brands online which is why I was always hoping to meet him so I could document his story and make it available to everyone.

From what I gather, Pizza Italia opened sometime in the mid-80s (1984?) and had at least 16 locations. They were open at least till 2005 since that’s when I took the photo above.

Prego, on the other hand, I found the CV of their executive chef “Luca Umberto Voncini” online so I have a bit more information. Based on his CV they opened their first location in Dalal Complex in Salmiya in 1993 and then closed it in 1995. This was the same location where their Pizza Italia branch was previously located. They had two other Prego locations, one in Mangaf and one in Kuwait City. Those opened up in 1996 and closed in 1997.

Both concepts were under the mother company “Arab Food Service Co.”

An accident in front of Pizza Italia Riqqa Coop branch in 1987.

I’ve started scouring the internet to try and find as many photos, commercials, and information related to the brands so I can put them all under one post. If you have ANYTHING related to both brands, a menu, a business card, anything no matter how insignificant you think it is please let me know.

Tidbit: The popular Pizza Italia commercial above was filmed in Salmiya, in the old souk on Salem Al Mubarak Street. It was directed by Nick Cate on a hand-cranked 16mm Bolex camera. The music was composed by an Egyptian composer called Mohammed Al Banna. The actor running in the commercial is a Lebanese actor but I don’t have his name.

Update: Managed to get some dates!

Pizza Italia opened in 1983 with its first store in Daiya. They ended up closing the whole brand in 2005.

Prego opened in 1993 with its first store in Salmiya, Rabih Building (now demolished), followed by another store on the Gulf Road in Sharq. Prego also closed down in 2005.

This is such a great video if you’re into racing and the video quality is surprisingly really great. The video is by CiTV Sport who produced a lot of rally videos back in the 80s and is narrated in English and features some rally legends including Saeed Al-Hajri who raced for the Rothmans Porsche team and also a young Mohammed bin Sulayem pictured below.

Even if you aren’t into cars you should at least watch the first minute or so of the video since it starts off with some footage of the old Kuwait Marriott Hotel. The Marriott Hotel was the base of the 1985 Kuwait Rally so all the drivers stayed at the hotel and that’s where the race started and ended.

The 1985 rally was sponsored by the furniture company Mahdi Habib whom I hadn’t heard of until today. According to their website, they’re one of the oldest companies in Kuwait and were established back in 1952.

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At the start of the curfew, I asked for some shows to watch since I had pretty much watched everything already. I got a bunch of suggestions and some turned out to be really great, so here are some more recommendations for you to watch:

New Amsterdam
This show is so cheesy but there are over 50 episodes and although it’s so not my style, I couldn’t stop watching it. It’s like driving by a car wreck on the highway, binge-watched the show over a two-week period non-stop so it helped kill a lot of time. There are two seasons out on Netflix and season 3 recently started on Hulu.

The Terror
Two seasons, two different stories. I loved season 1 but couldn’t get past the first episode of season 2. Season 1 on the other hand grabbed my attention from the very first episode. It’s very different from the usual stuff I watch and based in a time period I’m usually not a fan of so the whole thing was a bit refreshing. It’s a horror but has more of an amazing stories kind of vibe. Highly recommend it, available on Hulu.

Industry
While working on this post I realized none of the shows here have good trailers, Industry included. This is a show about young traders at a UK bank and if I just went off the trailer above I would have thought it was actually boring or lame. It wasn’t. It’s very different from other trading shows like Billions or Black Monday, but that’s mostly because it’s British so it’s a lot calmer and less dramatic. Only one season is out and it’s available on HBO.

Your Honor
I was close to not adding this show to the list only because I really really hated the way it ended. But up till the ending, this show was so good and stars both Bryan Cranston and Michael Stuhlbarg (Boardwalk Empire) so really incredible acting. This show is on Showtime.

The Big Flower Fight
I thought I posted about this series but just searched the blog and turns out I haven’t. If you like shows like The Great British Bake Off then you’ll like this show since it’s got a very similar structure, style and mood. It’s on Netflix.

The Great Pottery Throw Down
Similar to The Big Flower Fight and The Great British Bake Off, a bunch of amateur potters compete to become the top potter. It’s also a British show so it’s slow-paced, calm and very chill to watch. It’s available on HBO.

Blown Away
Ok one more show similar to the two above except this one is about glass blowers competing against each other. Unlike the other two this one is an American show so it’s much more fast-paced and intense but it was also fun to watch and really interesting. This one is on Netflix.

Back in March my Garmin dash cam stopped working, I found out by mistake when trying to retrieve a video of an accident I thought I had captured only to find out my dash cam hadn’t been recording any footage for 2 years. I thought it was my dash cam that had failed but turned out it was the fault of my memory card. By then the local Garmin dealer had already seen my post and got in touch with me so they could send me their new Garmin Dash Cam 66W to replace my old one. Exciting!

I had my Garmin dashcam for 7 years and back when I had purchased it, the main selling point to me was how compact it was. But, compared to the new Garmin, my old one now looks HUGE (check the photo above). The size difference is enormous, not only because the dash cam itself is a lot smaller, but Garmin also redesigned the windshield mount making it much more compact. My new dash cam is so small it’s hidden behind my rear view mirror, I literally can’t see it when driving.

Another cool feature about the new Garmin that I love is the ability to connect to it with Wifi to adjust the settings, update the firmware and most importantly, view and download footage. Previously to view the footage I’d have to remove the memory card from my dash cam, take it home, connect it to my computer and then access the footage. When I’m done I then had to remember to take the memory card back down to my car the next time I leave my house which I obviously always forget to do. It was a hassle so I love how I can just connect to the camera from my phone directly. Without removing the memory card I can now connect to the Garmin, find the video I want, select which part of the video I want to download, and then download it to my phone. This is extremely practical, I really can’t emphasize how useful this feature is.

The two features above were really the most important for me, but there are a bunch of other features that other people might be interested in, for example, the Garmin has the ability to notify you of upcoming speed cameras. The 66W has GPS built-in and access to Garmin’s local database of speed camera locations so it can alert you if you’re getting close to one. The dash cam also has an extra-wide 180-degree field of view and records videos at 1440p. My previous dash cam had a 120-degree field of view and would record videos in 1080p but I never had an issue with the field of view or video resolution in my old camera. But, one thing I’m curious about with the new dashcam is how well it performs in the evening but due to our curfew I can’t test that out right now. During the day though, especially when the sky is blue, the footage is pretty sharp and clean and only starts to get noisy when the sun starts setting but that’s pretty normal.

Here are some other random features the cam has which I personally don’t care about:
– Forward collision warning
– Lane departure warning
– Voice control
– Travelapse
– Incident detection
– Go feature which notifies you when stopped traffic in front of you has started to move

As usual, I like to leave the negatives till the end and this camera has two. The first is the fact that it’s pretty slow transferring videos over wifi. It takes around 30 seconds to download 13 seconds of footage so you need to be veryyyy patient. The second downside is the price. The Garmin 66w costs KD75 which is right at the top end of the dashcam market. You do get a lot for that price and the build quality is miles apart from cheaper counterparts, but it’s still a lot of money especially when you can find decent ones at a third of the price.

Based on some recommendations from my readers I also ended up buying one of the most popular and cheapest dash cams from Amazon and I’ll be posting a review of that one soon. I’ll also do a comparison with this Garmin but I can tell you from now that once I got the Garmin I stopped using that other dash cam. The main reason was how cheap the other camera felt but also because of basic things like the user interface and the horrible LCD screen of the other one. But, if you’re interested in getting or checking out the Garmin dash cams, here is the link to the local dealer’s website.

Last year I posted about how Traffic Department’s instagram account @traffic_kw was very active and constantly posting videos of car chases and before and after videos of cars that had violated laws and then after they were caught. Over the weekend the Traffic Department posted a video of a tragic incident that took place last Sunday when one of their officers was killed by a reckless driver.

The video is in Arabic but with English subtitles and you can watch it above. It’s pretty sad and makes you aware that the roads aren’t just unsafe for us, but also the cops. A week earlier another police officer was lucky to escape injury when a speeding car hit his parked car. The video of that incident along with the officer recounting his experience can be seen below. We really need to try and figure out how to make our roads safer because it’s not gonna get better by itself.

This new project by Mabanee (the same people behind Avenues) looks like it’s going to be pretty cool located within Jaber Al-Ahmad City.

The comprehensive development will include a modern, architectural design in a community feel, with several components including 276 residential units and facilities and services to accommodate its residents and visitors including parks, schools and a retail component consisting of international retail and F&B brands. Aventura is expected to open during the first half of 2024.

Going by the video it looks like a neighborhood you’d find in Dubai or Europe with proper sidewalks, bike paths everywhere, and lots of greenery. Ah sidewalks, how I wish we had them in my neighborhood.

Thanks Lovelykuwait

KDD just published their Ramadan commercial called “We Love KDD” and I think it’s great (you’re always gonna win me over with nostalgia). If you’re living in the US and want to order KDD Chocolate Milk, check out my previous post here.

Recently I started having lower back pain and after visiting the doctor I decided based on his recommendation to work on improving my posture, mostly when sitting in front of the computer. Like most people, I tend to hunch over the computer and I wanted to stop doing that so the first thing I did was get a posture corrector strap. A posture corrector strap kinda looks like a gun holster you see detectives wear on TV shows under their suits, just minus the gun. Although it did its job in keeping me from slouching, it wasn’t comfortable to wear for long periods, and depending on what you’re wearing, it could be visible.

I then found out about the Upright GO 2 through a friend of mine, a tiny device you stick to your back and monitors your posture. Whenever you start slouching it buzzes. My friend recommended it so I ended up ordering one for myself.

The Upright GO is super easy to set up. All you need to do is attach it to your back and then connect to it via Bluetooth and an app on your phone. You then sit or stand upright and hit the calibrate button in the app and that’s it, you’re set. It takes around a second or two but once the device calibrates it starts recognizing your movement when you slouch or hunch over. Anytime you exceed a certain angle threshold for more than a few seconds, the device buzzes gently to make you aware that hey, you’re hunching over.

The device is really tiny which is why I used my AirPods for scale in these photos. It’s also very lightweight and so whenever I stick it on my back I can’t tell it’s even there. The reusable adhesive on the back of the device uses a medical-grade sticky silicon, and in my case, it lasts for 7 days. After the 7th day, it no longer is as sticky and I swap the adhesive with a new one. The device came with 10 adhesives so it should be good enough for nearly 3 months of use since I don’t wear it on weekends.

Does it work? Yes, it does!

After using it now for two weeks I noticed my posture has improved. Not only that but because I hate the buzzing so much, even when I’m not wearing the Upright GO I still have the fear it will buzz. There is a bit of PTSD involved because even when I’m not wearing the unit, out of habit I expect my back to buzz anytime I hunch over. So I’ve mentally started recognizing when I start to hunch over and right away straighten up.

The Upright with the help of the app tracks your posture throughout the day and in my case, I recognized I am worse when I’m at the office. When I’m home on my computer I have a very ergonomic TOM chair that offers great back support and keeps me sitting up straight. When I’m at the office I sit on a regular chair with no back support so I tend to slouch and hunch over my laptop. But looking at my data over the past couple of weeks I can see that I have improved overall.

There are two versions of the Upright GO, the original version which is larger, has a shorter battery life and cheaper, and the Upright GO 2 which has a longer battery life, is much smaller but also slightly more expensive. I bought the Upright GO 2 for $99 from Amazon but I noticed it’s now selling for $79 and I’ve even seen it as low as $69. An extra pack of adhesives costs $9. If you don’t want to stick it on your back there is a necklace you can buy that attaches to the Upright GO but I haven’t tried it. The Upright comes with a small case that holds an extra adhesive and it’s where you are meant to put the unit when you’re not wearing it. Battery life on the Upright GO 2 is 35 hours so I only charge it once every few days.

The Upright is not something I’d wear for more than a couple of months at a time, it’s a behavioral training device and as I get the hang of not hunching over I’ll stop wearing it. When I see myself starting to hunch over again I’ll star wearing it again. If you want to get one, here is the link to Amazon.