Search: “kuwait”

Our own car was rocked by a group of about 10 hoodlums trying to get in. We didn’t have foam. We didn’t even make eye contact. They kicked the doors, they scratched the paint, they shouted obscenities. The police had no way of controlling the crowds; most looked on with disgusted expressions; many of the older guys shaking their heads in disappointment.

Desert Girl has a really good post on how the National Day and Liberation Day celebrations keep getting worse and worse every year. Its really sad how these kids have turned 2 days of celebration into 2 days of terror. Next year I hope they ban the sale of foam cans in stores. Here is a link to her post. [Link]

Kuwait is the 8th fattest country in the world, even ahead of the US! [Link]

1. Nauru
2. Micronesia
3. Cook Islands
4. Tonga
5. Niue
6. Samoa
7. Palau
8. Kuwait
9. United States
10. Kiribati

Hungry Bunny is a local creation that opened up in the early 80s in Kuwait. It was inspired by a Australian franchise called Hungry Jack which was what Burger King was called in Australia back then.

In 1997 Al Homaizi Foodstuff Co. who owned Hungry Bunny got the rights to Burger King. Since they couldn’t have two competing franchises they decided to close down all the Hungry Bunnys and open up Burger Kings in the same locations.

Since then there have been copycats the most popular being “Hungry Bunny World” and “Super Bunny” which was named after the famous Hungry Bunny burger. Hungry Bunny World actually opened up a branch on the 4th Ring Road back in 2005 and called it just “Hungry Bunny”. This led to a lot of speculation and rumors that Hungry Bunny was relaunching but they weren’t true. Al Homaizi sued (or threatened to sue) so they added the word “World” on their signage.

I heard awhile back from a friend that Al Homaizi was actually thinking of relaunching Hungry Bunny but I don’t know if thats true or not. For now the only way you can enjoy Hungry Bunny is to drive down to Saudi Arabia where the franchise still exists there. Here is the link to their website: www.hungry-bunny.com

note: the above information is based on my knowledge. If there are any mistakes in dates or events I will fix them but as far as I know the above is accurate.

update: A reader by the name of HaMooR wrote the following:

Dear Mark,

Al Homaizi has the BK franchize since the first hungry bunny openned in Kuwait. and I believe it was Kaifan branch, in order for Al Homaizi to sake BK prudects at that time in kuwait. they have to change the name of BK, because BK was consider in the taboo list (boycott Isreal).

There was a big sign in kaifan branch that says all the meat prudects are BK. So when BK was removed from the list back in 97 .. and there is no reason to for them to hide the name, they switched to BK.

Unlike Kuwaitism, I don’t have work today.

So its this time of year again when Kuwait turns into one large foam party. I don’t mind it if some of the kids weren’t like REALLY into it.

Tonight I was waiting in traffic and some kids passed by and asked if they could spray my car. My window was closed so I figured what the hell let them have some fun. The kids started foaming my car but then one faggot starts spraying my front windshield and then lifts up my wipers. Right then the traffic light turned green and I started to drive off blindly, I turned on my wipers and it was useless and the water was barely having an effect. Finally I had to stop my car in the middle of the Gulf Road and get out to put the wipers back down because I literally couldn’t see anything in front of me.

I mean come on what the fuck? I was nice enough to let you foam my car so why the hell are you trying to kill me? This is the problem with foaming, some people really abuse it.

I got the following in my email today:

Cinemagic Kuwait Launches Weekly Short Film Screenings
“Short & Sweet”

(Kuwait 05/12/2006) Cinemagic Kuwait are organizing “Short & Sweet”, a schedule of weekly short film screenings. The screenings will commence on Wednesday, February 21st, and run throughout the year. The events will take place at the Cinemagic Courtyard in Bait Lothan, Salmiya, and will run between 7:30 – 9:00 p.m.

The screenings will bring together a collection of short films from all over the world including Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy, Poland, Brazil, Jordan, Lebanon and Kuwait. Each week we will screen a different selection of short films of varying genre, nationality, and style.

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

Attendance for the event is free of charge, but seating is limited. Snacks and refreshments will be served throughout. For more information, please do not hesitate to contact me at the numbers below.

Yazan Al Ghazzawi
PR & Marketing Manager
Kuwait Cinemagic

Tel: (+965) 574 3253
Cell: (+965) 722 2416
www.cinemagics.com

I thought Levi’s closed for good in Kuwait after their store in Al Fanar shut down but today I found another branch. I was in Dar Al Awadi complex in Kuwait City, its the really tall building with a wizards hat on top. The Levi’s store is located in the basement of the small mall there and it seemed pretty decent. I just took a quick peak and saw that the jeans were priced between KD21 and KD29 which is cool but most of the styles and colors they had even I would call old fashioned.

The other day I posted that I had heard about a movie called Shabab Cool and it dealt with street racing in Kuwait. I also heard it was banned and after watching parts of the movie I figured out why… its because the movie is REALLY crap. You have to watch the video I uploaded onto YouTube to really see what I am talking about. Its extremely cheesy with some of the worst acting I have ever seen.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=Gr9nAeTNrog

Bazaar Magazine have a new website (finally no more hotmail emails) which you can access by going to bazaar-magazine.com. Sadly the WHOLE site is flash based which is a disaster. Who still does a fully flashed based website nowadays yet alone a magazine?

As K.thekuwaiti put it, Flash is dead. Bazaar should have done a proper online magazine which would archive all their articles so they could at least be search able. They need to start building a database of all their previous issues and their current ones because old fashioned print magazines are quickly becoming extinct. Digital is the future and a perfect example of an excellent magazines online presence is WIRED.

Finally, where is the Bazaar blog? Majority of companies and corporations are adding blogs to their website so its surprising to see that a popular, young and trendy publication like Bazaar still hasn’t jumped on board the blogging wagon knowing for a fact that the editor of the magazine and majority of their writers read blogs themselves.

Currently the website barely has anything to make it worthy of a second visit. Unless they revamp it I don’t think I would ever bother checking it again. [Link]

Recently Marina Mall has become extremely cluttered with ads and it seems things will just get worse. A few days ago “ads 2 blog” posted Marina Mall was going to install a fog screen where ads would run on it. Now today ads 2 blog posted that Marina Mall is also launching a Sky Billboard which will fly around inside the mall displaying ads!

On the bright side, Avenues is opening up on the 20th of this month which is just three days away.

Was approaching Seef Palace today when I noticed smoke and some traffic. When I got closer I saw a Blazer smoking and a bunch of guys trying to put the fire out. I guess the fire extinguisher law can come handy once every blue moon.

Today the weather started off perfect. In the morning I went riding with Marzouq on my bike and then in the afternoon drove around in the SLK with the roof down. Its a lot of fun driving around in a roadster convertible, so fun that I didn’t want to even park the car somewhere so I could take shots for the blog.

I was cruising on the Gulf Road with Nat by my side when I spotted k.thekuwaitis car on the other side of the road heading the opposite way. He then called me up and we decided to meet up on the side of the road. Thats when I took the camera out to take shots of the car or else I would have kept on driving.

The SLK although having the small 1.8 liter engine doesn’t feel too slow on the road. The acceleration feels fast and I thought the car was actually faster then my beemer but to my surprise when I checked the stats online turns out the SLK actually is 1.1 seconds slower from 0-100. I guess with the roof down and the sound of the engine blasting it exaggerates the impression of speed.

So far I am really enjoying the car. Its both compact and a convertible so its a lot of fun. Best thing of course is the hard top. Once the weather got really dusty it took a click of a button to put the top back up and just like that its not a convertible anymore, it was a coupe with a hard roof.

I found this movie trailer on K.thekuwaiti’s blog. Its a movie made in Kuwait and from the looks of the trailer it looks pretty cool. Although the plot is really cliche, “six kids have the adventure of their lifetime” the fact that its about six Kuwaiti kids in Kuwait makes it special.

There is another movie I heard that was good called “Shabab Cool”. I was told it was about street racing in Kuwait and that it got banned from the movies here.

By the way, the movie Sharq is directed by Erik Sandoval. The only Sandoval I know is Hope Sandoval of Mazzy Star. I wonder if he is related to her?

I got an email yesterday from the owner of Shoo? Shawerma asking me to go back and try their shawermas now. He had read my extremely negative review of Shoo? Shawerma and decided to explain the situation to me.

It turns out they had a problem with the shawerma master and they ended up firing him and replacing him with a new more qualified guy. He also told me the reason their shawermas are more expensive then other places is because most places uses Indian beef which is 600fils a KG while they use Brazilian beef which is KD1.300 a KG. But with the firing of the shawerma master they decreased the shawerma price down to 300fils and they changed the menu.

So next time I go to Sultan Center I will pass by Shoo? Shawerma and give it another shot and then either update my review or keep it the same.

Don Veto just posted a picture of the newly decorated Water Towers. I passed by the one on the 5th ring road last week and I was surprised to see it decorated like this. I really hope its only temporary because of National Day cuz I think these lights make the towers look really girly.