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Yesterday, Kuwait Motor Town held their second open track event and once again, it was so much fun. Things were already great at their first event, but the KMT team worked out some minor kinks which made this second open track even more enjoyable. For example, there used to be an extremely annoying siren that would blast loudly every time a car would drive into the pit lane (which is all the time), they stopped that now. Fuel was also an issue at the first event since there wasn’t any available at the track, this time around they set up a fuel station at the end of the pit lane for refueling.

There are two more open track events taking place next month and they’re open to the public. There’s music and food trucks at the track as well as a play area for kids. So it’s a good event to come by and chill at since you can hang out in the grandstands and watch the cars race around the track or even sign up to be a passenger. I’ll keep you guys posted about the next event but I really have to say, KMT has turned out to be a lot better than I expected. I have to admit I did have low expectations, but still I’m really impressed with what they’ve managed to accomplish in such a short period of time. They are constantly having something going on so keep checking their instagram for updates @kmtkw

Thank you KMT!

Hey, this is your local film buff checking in on my yearly visit to this blog to spout out my favorite films of the year (because my opinion is right and everyone else is wrong).

Disclaimer: At the time of writing this article, I hadn’t seen the following highly acclaimed films that might have had a spot otherwise: Border, Caphernaum, Minding the Gap, The Rider, and Suspiria

Note: This year has proven to be one of the worst years for Hollywood Big Studio films, but an incredible year for independent cinema. As such, you may have never heard of some of the films listed below, but how boring would it be if I wrote this entire giant article just talking about films you already know. Wouldn’t it be great to be recommended stuff you haven’t heard of, so you can find it in you to take a risk and watch it? Who knows, you might find yourself surprised to discover a gem you would have never searched for otherwise…

A couple of weeks back, The Regency Hotel got in touch with me and asked me if I’d be interested in experiencing “Le Petit Chef” since they were hosting it in Kuwait for a limited time. I quickly googled it and found the video below and it looked interesting, so I accepted their invitation.

Le Petit Chef is a dining experience based around a mini animated chef and his culinary adventures following the footsteps of Marco Polo. The experience combines 3D projection onto your table and a 6-course meal composed of dishes from around the world. I was told the show was 2 hours long so I had warned my friend we might end up leaving before the show was over if I got bored. Surprisingly, I didn’t and we ended up staying till the very end.

The show started at 8:30PM but we were told to get there early for pre-drinks. The 6-course meal also has an option of drinks to go along with it, and I’m pretty they’re all meant to be alcoholic drinks that were turned into mocktails for Kuwait. When one of the drinks arrived I told my friend it looked like a smoked rosemary whisky sour and when I tried it, I realized it was, just without the whisky of course. At one point during the dinner, the waiter even asked us if we wanted white or red wine with one of the courses. Cute.

Just before the show started we were all led downstairs to one of The Regency’s restaurants which is currently hosting Le Petit Chef. The setup is pretty simple, but it works. Every table had a projector over it that projected 3D footage onto the table. Items like plates and trays get placed in predefined spots on the table so that whatever is being projected looks like it’s interacting with the real physical items.

The show was pretty cheesy, but I actually enjoyed it. The food was ok, nothing really special but I still had a good time because I hadn’t experienced anything like it before. It’s like those restaurants that serve you food in complete darkness or the sub zero ice bars, they’re gimmicks you experience once with a friend, have fun but never go back to. Le Petit Chef is pretty much the same. Two hours ended up flying by without feeling too long nor with me getting bored (which is impressive).

The price, on the other hand, is going to be a bit hard to swallow. The 6-course meal costs KD39 per person, while the accompanying drinks are an extra KD12. So it’s not a place you’d want to take kids to. My recommendation? Skip the drinks, they’re too many and there’s no alcohol involved so you won’t enjoy them. The show is running for a limited time only and takes place daily at 8:30PM except for Sundays. If you’re interested you need to call and book ahead of time on 25766880.

Yesterday I took part in the first open track event at Kuwait Motor Town and I had such a great experience I had to share it on the blog. The day after it still feels a bit unreal, not only do we finally have our very own race track in Kuwait, but it’s a great one as well!

National Circuit (4,540M)

Our track layout is just incredible! They had the National Circuit layout open for yesterdays event (pictured above) and compared to the two track layouts I’ve raced on in Bahrain, I think ours is way more fun. It’s fast, long and there is a lot going on all the way. I was worried the track might favor larger more powerful cars but I think it works really favorably for mine.

The video above is a full lap around the track starting from the pit lane exit. Sorry about the sound, and RIP little bug my GoPro killed halfway through.

The open track started from very early in the morning. According to the schedule they sent us we were meant to arrive around 8:30 so we could start with the registration process before the drivers briefing at 9:20. I got there early around 8:15AM and to my surprise, there were cars there already. People actually started showing up on time and so the drivers briefing started on schedule with a brief about the track, the different warning flags as well as giving us a bunch of safety tips. Super informative for first time open trackers.

This is probably a good time to highlight the fact that the team working at KMT yesterday were extremely professional. Everyone knew what they were doing and the whole thing was extremely organized. It didn’t feel like their first open track event, it felt like it was something they had been doing for years and that was impressive.

I didn’t count the number of cars yesterday, but I think we were around 60 in total since I was #59. They divided us into two groups, I was in Group B. Another example of how organized they were, they handed out lanyards with our names and group letter on the front, while the backside had the days schedule. That was incredibly practical, in Bahrain we’re always asking what time lunch is or when our turn is etc..

Once we were done with the briefing we took our cars into the pitlane. The pits I think were the most disappointing part about KMT. They were small, had low ceilings and the bathrooms felt cheap and flimsy. That’s one thing I prefer about Bahrain’s circuit over ours and it’s my only complaint about Kuwait Motor Town. But, it’s not a deal breaker.

The first sessions of the day involved following a lead car. This wasn’t at very high speeds and it was to familiarize ourselves with the track and the racing lines. Once those practice sessions were done, it was flat out racing and it was so much fun. I had a bunch of friends in the same group as me so we just spent the day racing each other. The video above was shot from inside my car and kind of gives you an idea of how it feels to race in an open track event. The track is overexposed in the video but you can still make out the tarmac and the cars so it’s watchable. Keep in mind there are no winners in an open track event, it’s all just for fun.

The event finished at 5PM just as the sun was setting. It’s a beautiful track and looked even better as the sun was setting. I really had such a blast yesterday and now I can’t wait till the next open track event. No offense to ASCC and JACC, but this is by far my favorite Diwan Al Amiri project. Thank you KMT for hosting such a great track day. For more information about Kuwait Motor Town and a list of their upcoming events, here is a link to their [Website]

Was the guy hiding behind the traffic light? I don’t get it… [YouTube]

A few hours ago Kuwait Motor Town uploaded a coming soon trailer highlighting the various activities that will be available at the race track. I’m super excited since it looks like it’s finally happening. Check out the trailer above or on [YouTube]

I was watching the video below and wondering if demolition had started on Al Sawaber, or if people were able to save it. Sadly as you’ll see by the end of the video, Al Sawaber couldn’t be saved.

The Sheikh Jaber Al Ahmed causeway project is nearly complete and is set to open this coming April. Once it opens the bridge will be the world’s longest with a total span of 48.53km [Source].

Going by the drone footage in the two videos here, the drive will be very scenic over the Kuwaiti bay and take around 35 minutes from one end to the other. There isn’t anything on the other side to see yet but at least the road isn’t broken and full of potholes and little rocks flying around like every other road in Kuwait at the moment.

I’ve posted previously on how easy and smooth the process of obtaining a power of attorney (tawkeel) is in Kuwait and you can check that post [Here] After experiencing that department three more times since that post I have to say, I think they one of the best-run government departments I’ve experienced anywhere, not just Kuwait.

Every time I ship my car to Bahrain for a track day, I tend to get a new POA done because the car transportation company tend to send a different driver every time. Last week the transportation company actually asked me to do a POA for 16 of their drivers so that way I don’t have to keep getting a POA done every time. 16! So I headed to the Ministries complex in the city and I was honestly a bit worried. I thought when the government employee sees I need a POA done for 16 people he’s gonna either give me a hard time, tell me to f off or at the very least just complain about how much work that was. But surprisingly, the government employee didn’t even flinch.

As I’ve mentioned in my original post, getting a POA done in Kuwait is a very quick and efficient process. The department is well organized and well staffed so I tend not to wait more than 10 minutes for my turn. The government employees are always helpful and their work environment just seems to be very healthy based on what I’ve observed. So when I handed over 16 identification cards to the employee and told them I needed a POA done for them, I braced myself for the worst. But, the employee just took the photocopies and proceeded to type out all the information into the computer without hesitation. When everything was done and I just needed to get my papers stamped from another desk on the way out, the employee gave me a feedback form to fill.

Not only is this department so well managed and run, they actually give you a feedback card to fill up once you’re done! Obviously, I ticked all the “Excellent” boxes and when I handed the feedback form back to the employee they told me I needed to hand it to the person who’s gonna stamp my papers on the way out. I realized that made sense since you wouldn’t want to hand back the form with negative feedback to the employee you just had a negative experience with or they’ll just get rid of the form. I love this department.

Why isn’t the driving license renewal department not run by the same guy that’s in charge of the POA department!?? I’m actually not aware of any government department in Kuwait that even care about how your experience was let alone ask you to critique them. At the airport in Bahrain they have these smiley faces at various points around the airport asking you how your experience was. They have these faces after check-in, after passport control, after security check and even in the duty-free asking you how your shopping was. They’re not unique to Bahrain, they have them at various airports around the world but last night while leaving Bahrain I was thinking, if we had these stations at various government offices and departments, what would people click on the most? The POA department is the only one I could think of that would get the big smiley button press from me every time.

A month ago I posted my first impression of the new iPad Pro. I got the iPad from Xcite and since then I’ve also gotten the Apple Pencil as well as purchased the Apple Smart Keyboard Folio for it, and an iPad sleeve from WaterField. My setup is basically complete and now that I’ve been using the 12.9″ iPad Pro for over a month I managed to answer the ever so important question, can this iPad replace a laptop? Yes, or in my case at least it has replaced one, and I’ll explain how.

Full disclosure, I have a long-standing relationship with Xcite who provided me with this iPad Pro. They’ve been very active with me and the blog over the years and they’ve lent or given me a number of items over the years to review, as well as hooking me up with discounts. I’m a huge Xcite fan.

As I mentioned in my first impression post, my current Mac setup at home is composed of a 27-inch iMac which I use mostly for my design work, a 13-inch MacBook Pro which I use as my day-to-day computer, and a 9.7-inch iPad Pro I use for random things like watching YouTube videos in bed or when I want to chill and browse the web at a coffee shop. What I didn’t mention in that post was that I also had a small 12″ MacBook which belonged to the company I work for. I hadn’t used a 12-inch Macbook before joining this company and I really fell in love with it. It’s extremely compact, its lightweight and battery life was incredible. Instead of lugging my 13-inch MacBook Pro around to coffee shops or when traveling, I’d always prefer to take the 12-inch MacBook. But now that I was leaving the company I decided I wanted to get my very own MacBook, and that was around the same time the new 12.9-inch iPad was launched.

I’ll be honest, I was barely using the iPad Pro before getting the Apple Pencil or keyboard for it. I used the iPad Pro to edit photos in Lightroom but that was about it. I found the iPad Pro too large to use while sitting on my couch and I hate typing on the screen. In bed, the 12.9-inch iPad Pro was also too huge to be practical, so I continued to use my smaller 9.7-inch iPad before going to sleep. But, once I got the Apple Pencil and keyboard, things changed drastically. The keyboard for me turned the iPad Pro into a proper laptop, it really made a dramatic difference and I suddenly found myself using the iPad Pro whenever I had the chance. Even at home, I found myself reaching out for the iPad Pro more than my MacBook Pro when wanting to browse the web while watching TV.

Apple Pencil
I’m not an illustrator, in fact, I can barely draw stick figures, but you don’t need to be an illustrator to make use of the Apple Pencil. I found the Apple Pencil really useful in the photo editor Lightroom, and when using the Photoshop-like-app Affinity Photo. In Lightroom the Pencil gave me more precise control when adjusting the settings sliders while also allowing me to draw my image masks more accurately. In Affinity Photo, the Apple Pencil allowed me to draw my object selections better as well as made erasing backdrops so much more easier. If you can illustrate, then you could take the iPad Pro to a completely different level. I know a bunch of very talented illustrators who dropped their Wacom tablets and shifted to using the iPad Pro with the Apple Pencil as their primary illustration tool.

Apple Smart Keyboard Folio
As I mentioned earlier, I hate typing on the iPad screen and I never got the hang of it which is why I also had a keyboard for my smaller iPad. The keyboard on the new iPads though is a much better design. If you have the old keyboards then you know they’re not great to use on your laps because of the way they fold. The new keyboards don’t have that fold at the bottom, it’s one solid piece so it’s a lot more stable on your laps. Typing on this keyboard is great, I haven’t experienced any issues or even a drop in my typing speed either. The only thing I miss is the backlit keys, but that would probably add more weight to the keyboard and I wouldn’t want that since it’s already pretty hefty.

12-inch MacBook vs 12.9-inch iPad Pro
One thing I wanted to know was if the iPad Pro would be a better option for me over the small 12-inch MacBook. The biggest test would be if I could use the iPad to blog from. It sounds like a fairly simple thing especially since you could technically blog from any browser on any device, but that’s not what I mean. I’ve been blogging now for over 15 years and I’m used to blogging in a certain way. For one thing, I like my space, I can’t post from a small screen since it feels claustrophobic. I also need Photoshop because that’s what I use to resize photos so they fit on the blog as well as allowing me to control the compression strength of the jpg.

The most difficult blogging day for me is usually Thursdays because that’s when I post my “movies now playing list” as well as my events list. I say difficult because it involves a lot of jumping around on different pages, lots of researching, downloading of images, a lot of copying and pasting of information and lots of linking. If I could get my Thursday posts done on my iPad Pro, then it would pass the test. Spoiler: It passed.

Last Thursday I did all my posting on my iPad Pro and I was even able to complete my posts at a much faster pace than usual because of the way I can split the screen up and did two things at the same time side by side. My setup during my movies post, for example, had my blog open on the left side of the screen while the cinemas and IMDB websites were open on the right. I could then copy paste the info from the right screen to my left and basically work on my post without having to keep swapping tabs. Simply put, the iPad actually made my job a bit easier. Because the screen is also slightly larger than the 12-inch MacBook, I could also see and fit more information on the screen at once and it just felt a lot less cramped.

Dash Sleeve for the iPad Pro from WaterField

Conclusion
The 12.9-inch iPad Pro with the keyboard is now what I will take with me when I travel and it’s what I will be using to blog from when I’m posting from outside my house. I’m actually using the iPad right now for this post because I’m at a coffee shop and it just makes more sense to post from an iPad when I’m advocating how great it is to post from it.

Both the 12-inch MacBook and 12.9-inch iPad Pro are similarly priced once you add the keyboard and pencil to the iPad. And really, if I had gotten the MacBook instead I wouldn’t complain since I love it so much. But what the iPad Pro is offering is something a bit more. Because it’s a tablet and a fairly fast one, I found I prefered editing my photos in Lightroom a lot more enjoyable than on my MacBook’s. This iPad Pro is actually faster than the MacBook and my MacBook Pro. The Apple Pencil also an extra dimension which the MacBook’s, in general, can’t compete with.

So can the iPad Pro replace your computer? It really depends on your requirements but the simple answer would be yes it can. Right now the only thing I’d really like on the iPad is a full version of Adobe Photoshop but that’s supposedly coming out next year. Until then I’m using Affinity Photo which pretty much has 80% of the things I need from Photoshop. As long as you’re prepared to change your habits a bit, I don’t think moving to an iPad as your primary computer would be that difficult.

The new iPad Pro is now available in most places around Kuwait but I got mine from Xcite and you can find them on their online store [Here]

David Guetta performed last night in Saudi after the first Formula E race of the season took place there. How did Saudi Arabia suddenly become more open than Kuwait? If they legalize alcohol in Saudi before us that would be both the funniest and saddest thing at the same time.

With the roads in such terrible condition at the moment, its such a relief finding a long stretch of highway that isn’t falling apart. Over the weekend I was testing out a new location for my GoPro mic in preparation for an upcoming track day, and decided to take the new highway the starts in Shuwaikh.

I’ve taken the highway before but always exited towards Jahra so was pretty surprised to find out the highway actually continued a good distance past my usual exit. If you’re looking for a nice strip of road to drive on, this is probably your best bet right now.

Here is the starting location on [Google Maps]

I haven’t had much time recently to start a new TV series which is why I haven’t published a must watch tv post since the summer. But, last week I somehow managed to find time start the HBO series The Deuce and after just one episode, I made enough time to watch all two seasons of it.

The Deuce takes place in New York during the 70s and 80s, before the city was cleaned up. We get to follow the lives of prostitutes and pimps and watch the birth of the porn industry and VHS tapes, we get an insight into the gay community at that period of time and the backdoor dealings between the NYPD and the mobs. In a way, the series is a kind of documentary thats filled with sex and nudity, but one thats also informative and very fun to watch.

The Deuce was created by George Pelecanos and David Simon who are best known for their work on The Wire, a series which many consider to be the best ever made. The cast is also incredible with James Franco being the biggest name but a ton of other great actors whom you’ve seen before on other shows like The Wire, The Sopranos, The Night Of, and Entourage. Even the kid from The Karate Kid is in the show.

If you’re looking for a new show to binge watch, I can’t recommend The Deuce enough. It’s on HBO so if you don’t have an account you can always sign up for a month, binge watch the show and then cancel your membership (although I’d also recommend you binge watch Barry, Crashing and Succession as well). I highly recommend it. [HBO]

If you don’t read the title you could easily think this video was shot just a couple of weeks back (skip to 2:24). [YouTube]