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This Thursday Cinemagic will be showing an Ingmar Bergman movie called The Seventh Seal (Det sjunde inseglet). Ingmar Bergman is one of the greatest directors of all time and The Seventh Seal is one of his most popular movies but its black and white and in Sweedish so it might not appeal to everyone.

Time: Thursday, April 23rd, 2009 at 7:00 PM

Cinemagic movies are screened in the old Salmiya, on the roof on top of Alghanim Electronics and LG. Attendance is free of charge and snacks and refreshments will be served. [Facebook]

I am going to divide this post into two, in the first half I will talk about Cinemagic’s weekly movie screenings and in the second about Oldboy.

Last time I posted about Cinemagic was a year ago and a lot of you might not know about them. They are a local organization that focuses on helping and establishing local film makers in the region. They have courses, trainings, connections, everything that’s film related. One of the things they also try and do is increase the public’s interest in the beauty and art of the moving image and one of the ways they go about doing this is holding movie screenings every week. They hold these screenings in the old Salmiya, on the roof on top of Alghanim Electronics and LG. Anyone can go and watch a screening for free and they even provide snacks and refreshments.

Now the best part about all of this is the type of movies they play. They don’t play any of the mainstream stuff which Cinescape plays, instead they share a lot of small indie and foreign movies. This week they will be screening one of my favorite foreign movies called Oldboy which I reviewed here back in 2005. It’s a Korean movie about a guy who got locked up in a studio apartment for 15 years by some unknown assailants. Then one day, he gets released and decides to seek revenge and find out who locked him up and why. Its a violent movie which never gets boring and has a really messed up ending.

So if you’re interested, they’re screening this movie on Thursday March 19 at 7PM. I find out about their movies via a weekly newsletter and I have no idea how you could sign up to it but they do have a website which I believe is updated weekly and you can visit it by clicking [Here]

Update: Here is a link to their facebook group. [Link]

I got an email the other day from Alghanim Electronics asking me if there was anything they had I would be interested in trying out and reviewing. I thought about it for a bit and decided to ask for the Beats by Dr.Dre headphones. I’ve been thinking about getting them but really wanted to try them out first before spending the big bucks. I already have a lot of head/ear phones: Bang & Olufsen A8, Shure E2, Sennheiser PX100, AKG K81 DJ and the Ultimate Ears Super.fi 5 Pro. So I really needed a good reason to get another and I think I just found it.

THE BASS!

Damn, I was just listening to random stuff from my itunes list, Nine Inch Nails, Paul Oakenfold, Warren G, Pet Shop Boys, Chemical Brothers.. just anything I clicked on and everything was sounding really great. Then I put Touch It by Busta Rhymes and my jaw hit the floor. I am still in shock on how something so small (ok they aren’t really small but they are smaller than my full sized speakers) could put out this much bass. It just sounded incredible, makes me want to keep listening to music all day.

The headphones cost KD99 at Alghanim Electronics which surprisingly makes it cheaper than Amazon. On Amazon.com they cost KD95 (with tax) plus factor in KD5.5 for shipping and you end up paying at least KD100. Will post more about these headphones once I get to properly test them out.

Update: Amazon is currently offering a $50 discount on the Beats by Dre. Click here to check it out. [Amazon Link]

I purchased an oven from Abyat a few days ago. Yeah it sounds strange buying an oven from Abyat and not a place like Alghanim or Eureka but I was looking for a built in oven for my new kitchen and I found a really great looking Gorenje oven from the Ora-Ito collection and for a really competitive price at Abyat.

So yesterday they call me up to deliver the oven. I tell the driver how to get to my place and within 30 minutes he comes over with the new oven and leaves.

So today Abyat call me up to deliver the oven. I tell the driver how to get to my place and within 30 minutes he comes over with the new oven and leaves.

I didn’t mistype, it was déjà vu. It seems they made a mistake and they delivered my oven twice. I now have two beautiful ovens in my kitchen but not for long. I called them up and told them about the mistake they made. They were surprised but very apologetic and will be coming by tomorrow to pick up the extra oven. I like Abyat, its no Home Depot but its close enough.

I just bought a new plasma over the weekend for a really good deal. LG just reduced their plasma prices a few days ago and they’re the best I have seen. I purchased the 42″ PG20 model (contrast ration 25,000:1) for only KD275 while the 50″ version is selling for KD445. I am not a big fan of LG but my dad purchased one awhile back and when he found a problem with it (used to turn on by itself in the middle of the night) their customer service was extremely good and they swapped the TV for him with a new one no questions asked.

The Acer Aspire One laptop deal is back at Alghanim Electronics. After running out of stock on the low end Aspire One (512MB RAM, 8GB HD) the machines are back in stock and are selling for KD79. I saw two colors on display, white and a blue. Just to give you an idea on how good this deal is, the same laptop with the same specs is going for KD88 on Amazon without tax.

Just to add to this I noticed Alghanim have now started selling Alpine and Rockford Fosgate car sound systems. I wish they had started selling them a few months back when I had to purchase all my items from online.

The new True Value location opened up today and I passed by to check it out. I didn’t like it, I actually hated it. The old True Value never really was that great but at least it felt cozy which now it lacks. The location of the new True Value is Al-Rai. If you’re on the 4th ring road and Lexus and Toyota are on your right hand side, keep going straight and take the right turn before Alghanim Electronics. Then, keep going straight until you see True Value on the left.

I have a feeling Virgin is going to end up closing down at Marina Mall. I don’t think they’ve been doing good for a long time and the only thing they really have left is their electronics and video games section. Today I was at Marina and noticed Alghanim was opening up right in front of Virgin. Alghanim sells both video games and electronics for cheaper so whats really left for Virgin?

Quiznos, the American franchise opened up recently at the Baitak Tower (weird name). I passed by for lunch and it was pretty good (I had “the traditional” sandwich). The staff seemed a bit lost and they have a serious ventilation problem but as long as you sit outside the store its not a problem. 7inch subs were around KD1, 12inch subs around KD1.600 and to upgrade to a combo (fries+coke) its 500fils. Baitak Tower is in Kuwait City, next to the ABK tower where KFH and Alghanim X-Cite are located.

Just found this interesting photoset on Flickr which contains photographs that were taken in Kuwait around 1950. All the pictures were scanned by David C. Foster from the photograph album of Francis Hadden Andrus. The picture above is of Yousef Ahmad Al-Ghanim on the left and Tom G. Mohney on the right. [Pictures]

Update: In case you missed it the shot below was featured on SomeContrast.com awhile back. Its a picture that dates back to 1956 and is of the first Porsche in Kuwait. The owner Murad Behbahani is sitting behind the wheel, and his brothers Mohammed and Redha Behbahani next to him. In a way it’s kinda similar to the shot above. [Link]

Earlier in the month I posted about how Carrefour started carrying the MSI Wind. Well I got a call a few days back from the MSI Wind dealer who wanted to give me an MSI Wind to keep and review for the blog. Of course I said YES and today I went and picked it up. I had three colors to choose from, the black, white and the pink and I decided to go for the black which I hadn’t seen before. Once I got back home and opened the box I was glad I went with black because it looks really great.

I’ve only had a few minutes to play with the Wind and so far I really like the size. When I had the 12inch iBook I hoped Apple would release a 10inch version but instead they ended up releasing the 13inch which although is great is pretty big to carry around. 10inch seems to be the right size for a portable laptop. Originally I had regretted getting the Eee when I found out about the Wind but now I have both which is perfect! I am going to Munich later this week so the MSI Wind came at a perfect time since I will be able to take it with me and try it out as a travel laptop. I am also interested to see how long the battery is going to last since it uses the new Intel Atom chip.

If anyone has any thing they want to know about the Wind or something you want me to compare to the Asus Eee 900 please leave your question in the comments below. A user in the forum was able to install Mac OS X on the Wind so thats something I will probably attempt to do once I get back from Munich.

According to the dealer the MSI Wind is sold at Alghanim, Electrozan, Carrefour, Lulu Hypermarket and Bin Khaldoun street for KD185. Actually it might be a bit cheaper at Bin Khaldoun street.

Update: I soooo hate Windows XP, how do you guys use it!

Update2: If you need to contact the dealer their number is 810810

I just found out about a new online electronics store called Feeezo. They don’t have a very large collection of electronics but if this is just the beginning then the idea sounds promising. The website looks like crap, and I think most of the items are from Alghanim except Feeezo is more expensive. But, its a nice idea which I think Alghanim should implement themselves. [Link]

Thanks Rakan!

I was at Alghanim today and saw this portable Humax satellite dish. It comes with a 17inch screen on the front and the dish mounted on the back. You just setup the tv/dish anywhere and point it in the right direction using the built in compass and thats it, live satellite TV where ever you are. Costs around KD300.

A friend just told me that Trader Vic’s is opening on the Gulf Road right after Kuwait Towers and Ruby Tuesday. There are 3 small buildings that were just built on the sea side and one of them supposedly is Trader Vic’s. Will try and double check this myself tomorrow.

Update: I can now confirm that Trader Vic’s is in fact opening on the Gulf Road near Ruby Tuesday in front of Mais Alghanim.

I was looking for an ATM machine today morning when I stumbled up this new Alghanim branch in Kuwait City. Its in the mall underneath the new KFH building next to Ahli Bank. The design is very similar to the branch in the Avenues which I’ve mentioned before I really liked. I guess this is their new look which is pretty cool.

Today I passed by Abyat to get a sneak peek. They officially open on the 18th but I’ve got a friend who works there and he told me I could pass by any time to check it out. Although the store isn’t 100% complete yet I did leave feeling very impressed. Compared to Alghanim’s Platform, Abyat is exactly 3 times as big and so have a lot more items. I will be going back there for sure once they launch since I found a couple of items I needed. I took a bunch of shots which you can check out below by clicking on continue.