Search: “mis”

There are two new shows that I was looking forward to watching and are now premiering this weekend, Lessons in Chemistry and the new Frasier reboot. Also, and I’m not even slightly joking here, but one show I look forward to on weekends is The Kardashians.

A new episode comes out every Friday and the Hulu series is the only reality show I watch. It’s a lot of fun, there is drama, gossip, humor, cringe, but mostly, a lot of humor. I also like playing a game where I try to guess if it’s winter or summer on the show because there is no way to know. In the same scene Kanye could be wearing a huge ass leather bomber jacket, beanie and rain boots while Kim is in a Skims tank top. Really every scene is like that, the sisters go out to lunch and half of them look like they’re at the beach and the other half look like they’re about to go skiing.

Anyway, let me know if you watched a good show or movie this week.

Movies at the Cinemas
The movies below are now showing at the local cinemas:

New This Weekend:
Goldbeak (4.4)
The Exorcist: Believer (5.1)
The Getback (7.5)
The Island (4.3)

Other Movies Showing:
A Haunting in Venice (6.7)
Desperation Road (5.7)
Expend4bles (5.1)
PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie (6.1)
Saw X (7.2)
Sound of Freedom (7.8)
The Canterville Ghost (7.6)
a href=”https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11858890/”>The Creator (7.3)
The Equalizer 3 (6.9)
The Inseparables (7.5)
The Nun II (6.3)

The classic films below are currently showing at the 1954 Film House:
Coraline (7.7)
The Addams Family (6.9)
The Thing (8.2)

The numbers in brackets refer to the IMDB rating at the time of publishing.

A few years ago I came across the photo above taken by George Rodger in 1952 of the first elephant in Kuwait. Initially, I thought the elephant was for our current zoo, but that couldn’t have been possible since the zoo opened much later, in 1968. Turns out there was another zoo in Kuwait before that called “Salwa Garden”.

Salwa Garden was the first zoo in Kuwait and the first modern zoo in the Arabian Gulf. It was established in Rumaithiya by Sheikh Jaber Al-Abdullah Al-Jaber Al-Sabah in 1954 back when the area lacked basic infrastructure like roads or electricity.

Sheikh Jaber traveled to India and Africa in search of animals, and whenever he got the animals he also brought with them their minders to help ensure that the animals received proper care. He also strived to establish near-normal conditions for the animals. For the Himalayan bear for example, he purchased ice slabs for it from the Al-Ghanim ice factory until it adapted to Kuwait’s climatic conditions. He also made sure that all the animals were well fed and medically cared for.

The garden was called “Salwa” because it was an Arabic term for recreation and entertainment. Admission was free because Sheikh Jaber wanted to share his love for nature with others and it the garden ended up attracting both locals and foreigners.

A decade after establishing the garden, Sheikh Jaber decided to close it due to rapid urbanization and the establishment of the Kuwait Zoo in Al-Omariyah which he ended up donating most of his animals to.

It’s a really interesting story and if you want to read more about it, there is a great paper written by Rua Alshaheen, Yousef Alharoun and Mohammed Alajmi called “A case study of Kuwait’s Salwa Garden” which has a lot of info and where I got most of mine from.

There is also a book called “Salwa Garden” that was published by Mona Al-Sabah which contains information as well as a lot more photos of the garden.

Drops, my favorite groceries delivery app just received the iPhone 15 Pro Max and they’re launching them on their app tonight.

They just have one model, the iPhone 15 Pro Max 256GB and in the hard to find “Natural” color. If you order before 10PM you’ll get the phone delivered within two hours or else you’ll get it the next day.

I’ve been using Drops for nearly 2 years now, and I’m a pretty loyal customer but I only recently found out they also sell electronics and home appliances. They have a lot of different Apple products available on their app and even TVs.

The phones are available in limited supply for 464.9 KD, so don’t miss out! @dropskuwait

Don’t miss the Draconid meteor shower tonight.

The shower will be visible just after sunset and throughout the evening hours. Expect to see around 10 meteors streak across the sky per hour which is less than other showers, but the advantage is, they’re going to be moving slowly. The Draconid meteors are know to move slower than other showers so they should be visible for one or two seconds instead of disappearing in a blink of an eye.

You don’t need a telescope or any special equipment to view the shower, but if you want the best viewing conditions then it helps to be as far from artificial light as possible.

Ok not sure how I just found out about Gilly and Keeves but I spent all night yesterday watching clips on YouTube laughing out loud. Really silly and incredibly funny so I’m probably going to spend this weekend binge watching them or I might finally download Zelda Tears of the Kingdom and play it since I still haven’t done that.

Movies at the Cinemas
The movies below are now showing at the local cinemas:

New This Weekend:
13 Exorcisms (4.3)
All Fun and Games (4.6)
PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie (6.1)
Supercell (4.3)
The Creator (7.3)
The Kill Room (6.9)

Other Movies Showing:
A Haunting in Venice (6.7)
Blue Beetle (6.8)
Cats Museum (4.4)
Elemental (6.8)
Expend4bles (5.1)
Gran Turismo (7.0)
It Lives Inside (5.5)
Oppenheimer (8.7)
R.A.D.A.R.: The Adventures of the Bionic Dog (5.4)
Rabbit Academy: Mission Eggpossible (5.4)
Retribution (5.3)
Sound of Freedom (7.8)
The Equalizer 3 (6.9)
The Nun II (6.3)

The classic films below are currently showing at the 1954 Film House:
Casablanca (8.5)
Coraline (7.7)
Space Jam (6.5)
The Addams Family (6.9)
The Thing (8.2)

The numbers in brackets refer to the IMDB rating at the time of publishing.

I’m finally caught up with all the episodes of Yellowstone so started catching up to Billions. Billions used to be one of my favorite shows but this season I’m not really feeling it much so just powering through it for now. There are a couple of TV shows I added to my need to watch list this past week:

Extrapolations
This show seems interesting but haven’t started it yet. Lots of big name actors and it’s based in the future so has the potential to be great if it wasn’t for the fact the show deals with climate change and if its one of those shows with “a message” I’m really not gonna like it.

Lessons in Chemistry
This show caught my attention because of the aesthetics and the fact it stars Brie Larson. It’s not out yet, comes out next month.

Frasier
I’m also really looking forward to the new Frasier which comes out next month as well. Hopefully won’t suck because I have really fond memories of the show.

What’s on your “need to watch” list?

Movies at the Cinemas
The movies below are now showing at the local cinemas:

New This Weekend:
Expend4bles (5.1)
It Lives Inside (5.5)
R.A.D.A.R.: The Adventures of the Bionic Dog (5.4)

Other Movies Showing:
A Haunting in Venice (6.7)
Blue Beetle (6.8)
Cats Museum (4.4)
Elemental (6.8)
Gran Turismo (7.0)
Oppenheimer (8.7)
Rabbit Academy: Mission Eggpossible (5.4)
Retribution (5.3)
Sound of Freedom (7.8)
The Equalizer 3 (6.9)
The Nun II (6.3)

The classic films below are currently showing at the 1954 Film House:
Casablanca (8.5)
Space Jam (6.5)

The numbers in brackets refer to the IMDB rating at the time of publishing.

Until I’m done with Yellowstone I’ve been literally ignoring my other shows (I’m on the last season though). Billions is back but haven’t started it. I watched the new episode of The Morning Show yesterday and I’m up to date with Foundation and Ahsoka and that’s about it.

One thing I am doing which I haven’t done in a long time is play a video game, like sit down and play for hours kind of video gaming. A few months ago I got the ANBERNIC RG405M and I’ve been loving it since it can emulate my Dreamcast games easily and even consoles up to the PS2 without issues. But recently I started playing Secret of Mana on the SNES and I’ve been loving it. I’ve been wanting to play the game since it came out 30 years ago and just finally got around to it.

What did you watch this week?

Movies at the Cinemas
The movies below are now showing at the local cinemas:

New This Weekend:
A Haunting in Venice (6.7)
Rabbit Academy: Mission Eggpossible (5.4)
Sympathy for the Devil (5.5)

Other Movies Showing:
Blue Beetle (6.8)
Cats Museum (4.4)
Elemental (6.8)
Gran Turismo (7.0)
Oppenheimer (8.7)
Retribution (5.5)
Sound of Freedom (7.8)
The Equalizer 3 (6.9)
The Hero of Centopia (6.2)
The Nun II (6.3)

The classic films below are currently showing at the 1954 Film House:
Bringing Up Baby (7.8)
Casablanca (8.5)
Space Jam (6.5)

The numbers in brackets refer to the IMDB rating at the time of publishing.

Yesterday the Ministry of Commerce and Industry issued a decision where all restaurants and cafes in Kuwait will now be obliged to have tap water as an offering. Now that this was announced I realized how odd it was that this wasn’t a thing considering the tap water in Kuwait is actually really clean and safe to drink straight out of the tap.

Years ago I was invited to the Water Resources Development Center located in Shuwaikh where they explained to me how the water sent to homes is clean and safe to drink. The Water Resources Development Center also has two laboratories, a chemistry lab and a bacteriology lab and every single day water samples are collected from various institutions around Kuwait (schools, hospitals, mosques etc..) and delivered to their laboratories for testing. If the water is contaminated, the source of that water is closed down right away and only reopened once the problem has been fixed.

The government is responsible in providing you clean and safe water up until the building meter, after that point it becomes the building owners responsibility. If the water you’re getting at home isn’t clean, thats most likely because of a problem with your building pipes, boilers, or storage tanks. In that case, you’re recommended to use a filter which is what most restaurants will also be using.

But the answer is yes, Kuwait’s tap water is safe to drink but only if your building or home is maintained correctly, if not, you’ll have to use a filter.

Back in 1978, James Brown came to Kuwait and performed over 7 days at Al-Andalus Cinema in Hawalli. The event was organized by a person called Hussein Abul who over the years had brought other performers to Kuwait including Boney M, Demis Roussos, and Santa Esmeralda.

I also heard an unconfirmed story that Hussein had also signed a contract with Michael Jackson to come to Kuwait, but due to cultural changes in Kuwait taking place at that time, concerts started to get banned and Hussein ended up moving to Brazil permanently.

The James Brown event on the other hand was a huge success to the point the organizers had to add more performance slots. Saif Abu Baker from the local band The Scorpions used to be managed by Hussein and ended up getting the job of driving James Brown around since Saif spoke both English and Arabic. That opportunity later got Saif to play bass on the track Super Bad with James Brown on stage.

I’ve previously found newspaper clippings of the concert but only in Arabic. But, thanks to @kuwaittimes giving me access to their archive, I managed to find a few ads for the event as well as two articles.

“Had not the Andalus authorities exercised diplomacy on the audience, the cinema hall would have turned into a dance hall when the celebrated musician James Brown made his debut in Kuwait yesterday. – Kuwait Times, Dec 1978”

The ticket prices for the concert ranged from KD2 to KD10 which in todays money would be around 10KD to 50KD which is actually a pretty good deal.

While writing this post up I realized I haven’t really watched a lot of TV this week, not unless you count TikTok as TV. Other than catching up on shows like Foundation and Physical the only new show I watched this week was Yellowstone. Binge watching it and I’m liking it so far. I kinda was hoping it would be background TV but it does need a bit of focusing.

What have you been watching?

Movies at the Cinemas
The movies below are now showing at the local cinemas:

New This Weekend:
Puppy Love (6.3)
Retribution (5.5)
The Hero of Centopia (6.2)
The Dive (5.6)
The Equalizer 3 (6.9)

Other Movies Showing:
Blue Beetle (6.8)
Cats Museum (4.4)
Elemental (6.8)
Gran Turismo (7.0)
Haunting of the Queen Mary (4.9)
Meg 2: The Trench (6.0)
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (8.2)
Oppenheimer (8.7)
Sound of Freedom (7.8)
The Adventures of Jurassic Pet (3.7)
The Last Voyage of the Demeter (6.5)
The Secret Kingdom (5.0)
The Super Mario Bros. Movie (7.4)

The classic films below are currently showing at the 1954 Film House:
Bringing Up Baby (7.8)
Space Jam (6.5)

The numbers in brackets refer to the IMDB rating at the time of publishing.

Yesterday the Associated Press uploaded the short video above of a group of Kuwaiti divers who are on a mission to clean up Kuwait’s seabed and improve its marine environment. According to Walid Al-Fadhel who is the team’s leader, they were able to salvage 172 boats and yachts.

The video was only uploaded in 360p resolution for some reason so it’s not great quality, but it’s good enough to tell their story.

So last week I asked for recommendations of shows to watch on my 6 hour flight to Paris. I ended up watching two things, Cocaine Bear and binge watching Poker Face. Cocaine Bear was one of the best movies I’ve watched in a long time, it was hilarious, really silly, had lots of famous actors and was a lot of fun to watch. It’s extremely underrated! Highly recommended.

Poker Face is a Peacock original show and I started watching the first episode just to see if I liked it or not and surprisingly it was great. Not sure how many episodes I ended up watching back to back, maybe 4 before I finally arrived to Paris. I’m heading back to Kuwait today and I’m hoping to continue binge watching it on the way back.

Now Barbie. I watched it a few days ago here in Paris, obviously the uncensored version although now that I watched it I have no clue what was censored and why it was banned to begin with. I focused so hard throughout the film trying to figure out what was so controversial and I have no idea honestly, like zero clue. There wasn’t even a kiss in the whole movie, no gay characters or lesbians, there was nothing! Maybe one scene with a rainbow in the sky in the background but no flags, trans or even bad language. WHY WAS THIS BANNED? I am so confused!

Movies at the Cinemas
The movies below are now showing at the local cinemas:

New This Weekend:
Blue Beetle (6.8)
Haunting of the Queen Mary (4.9)
I’ll Be Watching (3.9)
Retribution (5.7)

Other Movies Showing:
Cats Museum (4.4)
Elemental (6.8)
Gran Turismo (7.0)
Haunted Mansion (6.3)
Meg 2: The Trench (6.0)
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (8.2)
Oppenheimer (8.7)
Sound of Freedom (7.8)
The Adventures of Jurassic Pet (3.7)
The Last Voyage of the Demeter (6.5)
The Secret Kingdom (5.0)
The Super Mario Bros. Movie (7.4)

The classic films below are currently showing at the 1954 Film House:
Inside Man (6.6)
Flubber (5.3)
Training Day (7.7)

The numbers in brackets refer to the IMDB rating at the time of publishing.

I was planning to rent Wes Anderson’s most recent movie Asteroid City but then it got released on Peacock for free so didn’t have to pay for it. Thank god for that because it was such a boring film, it had to be the worst Wes Anderson film I’ve ever watched. Would not recommend. I also randomly ended up watching the chick flick Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret a few days ago and that was so much more entertaining than Asteroid City.

Other than those two movies I’m still binge watching Schitt’s Creek. I’m traveling tomorrow to Paris and since its a nearly 6 hour flight I’ve been downloading shows to watch on the plane. So far I’ve got the following shows I haven’t watched lined up:

Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning
Poker Face
Twisted Metal
Yellowstone

I still need to add more shows so if you have anything thats good and doesn’t start slow please let me know. I’ve run out of stuff to watch.

Movies at the Cinemas
The movies below are now showing at the local cinemas:

New This Weekend:
Shrapnel (6.7)
Sound of Freedom (7.8)
The Adventures of Jurassic Pet (3.7)
The Last Voyage of the Demeter (6.5)

Other Movies Showing:
Cats Museum (4.4)
Elemental (6.8)
Gran Turismo (7.0)
Haunted Mansion (6.3)
Hidden Strike (5.8)
Meg 2: The Trench (6.0)
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (8.2)
Oppenheimer (8.7)
Run Rabbit Run (5.0)
The Secret Kingdom (5.0)
The Super Mario Bros. Movie (7.4)
Til Death Do Us Part (5.8)

The classic films below are currently showing at the 1954 Film House:
Inside Man (6.6)
Flubber (5.3)
Training Day (7.7)

The numbers in brackets refer to the IMDB rating at the time of publishing.

Last week while flipping through some old Kuwait Times newspapers from 1971 I spotted the article above titled “No. This Is Not In Soho, This is in Kuwait”. The article was about the introduction of the discotheque in Kuwait at a popular hotel back then called Phoenicia. Here is the article typed out if you can’t read it in the image above:

The discotheque, at Phoenicia Hotel, was the scene of a lovely and ac-tion-full night Saturday, when most of the young and several other not-so-young celebrities showed up to enjoy this new form of entertainment to emerge on the Kuwaiti scene, thanks to the efforts made by the organisers of the British Trade Week.

The star attraction of the evening was, of course, the “Miss British Trade Week” Brenda Wheeler. British Ambassador, Mr. Whilton, was also present to lend the evening an official importance.

The Discotheque, in short, is a success in Kuwait, and many people hope it will continue – and also not just in one place.

An interesting side note, the original plans for the Kuwait Towers included a discotheque.

I spent this past week binge watching Schitt’s Creek from season 1 but also catching up on the new season of Physical and Futurama. Physical is great, Futurama on the other hand, even though it used to be my favorite animated show, I’m just not into it anymore.

Other shows I’m watching are Foundation and Swagger. Both great shows and the new season has been good although the last episode of Foundation was a snoozer.

In other news, Barbie is now officially banned, so if you want to watch it you need to drive down to Saudi and watch it there where it’s being released today.

What have you watched this week?

Movies at the Cinemas
The movies below are now showing at the local cinemas:

New This Weekend:
Gran Turismo (7.0)
Run Rabbit Run (5.0)
Til Death Do Us Part (5.8)

Other Movies Showing:
Black Lotus (4.2)
Cats Museum (4.4)
Cobweb (6.1)
Elemental (6.8)
Haunted Mansion (6.3)
Hidden Strike (5.8)
Insidious: The Red Door (5.9)
Meg 2: The Trench (6.0)
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (8.2)
Oppenheimer (8.7)
The Secret Kingdom (5.0)
The Super Mario Bros. Movie (7.4)

The classic films below are currently showing at the 1954 Film House:
Flubber (5.3)
Training Day (7.7)

The numbers in brackets refer to the IMDB rating at the time of publishing.