Categories
Events Kuwait Movies

Event: The Age of Stupid first screening

Here is a free activity for the people who were asking. This Thursday the movie The Age of Stupid will be screening at the British Council in Mansouriya from 6 to 8PM. Admission is free but you must book your seats in advance before tomorrow (Tuesday). If you’re interested send an email to [email protected] to book your seat.

Thanks Yara




Categories
Information Kuwait Personal Sports

Milsim Kuwait


[YouTube]

I hate it when people say there isn’t much to do in Kuwait because from my experience there are a ton of cool activities here. One new activity I found out about is Milsim. This has to be one of the coolest things to do in Kuwait and its now going to be something I will do as often as I can.

Milsim is a military simulation that has a lot of strategy and some very cool realistic weapons. Unlike paintball which uses paint pellets, Milsim uses powder pellets. Also unlike the paintball here in Kuwait where you run around hiding behind inflatable balloons, Milsim uses real life locations for their games. I got invited to participate in a game today and I’m now in love with Milsim. Todays location was an abandoned prison in Doha near Entertainment City. They have different locations for different sized groups for example when there are 40 guys they like going and play at an abandoned residential compound that’s around 3 blocks large. Since we were 16 guys they decided on the prison location due to its close combat nature. Judging by the video above it seems they also have a very cool abandoned farm they use.


[YouTube]

First thing they do is split everyone into teams, todays mission involved the Marines and Delta Force vs the Taliban’s. I was placed in the Taliban team. We were then briefed on the mission which was the following… Marine One crashed and it was carrying the President of the United States. The Marines were with the president and the game starts off at their crash site. They have 15 minutes to defend their zone and protect the president before the Delta team reinforcement arrives. After an hour into play they would receive a radio call with the location of the landing in which they then have 30 minutes to get to that point and evacuate. As Talibans, our aim was to capture their president or capture a box that contained nuclear keys, if we captured any of the two we would win. Everyone was limited to just 4 magazines and each contained 20 rounds. There are no refills and although the weapons can fire at full auto its highly discouraged because you will run out of ammo very quickly. We also all had 3 lives, if you get shot (anywhere) you have to put your hands over your head and walk to the medical zone where you have to remain for 10 minutes before you go back and join your team.

How was it? A lot of fun that’s for sure and very exhausting. My team ended up losing, not sure how since we had a ex Austrian military guy, a local special forces guy and the Milsim owner, while the opposing team were made up mostly of newbies like me. We even had flares and smoke grenades! Oh well it was still a lot of fun and its something as I said I’m going to do a lot more of.

I took some pictures which you can check out below. The first video on top is a video they created to show the kind of weapons and gameplay style. Unlike paintball their games aren’t only about shooting but its about accomplishing missions and involves strategy. The second video above is one I shot today when me and some guys were getting briefed on how to use the weapons. This is seriously one very cool activity, and they say there isn’t anything to do in Kuwait…

If you’re interested to participate in Milsim its KD10 per person. That includes the weapon, gun magazines, vests, helmet, goggles, water and pelets. I think its actually pretty cheap for what you get. They cater to groups, individuals and even for corporate outings. For contact information you can visit their website at www.milsimkuwait.com.




Categories
Events Information Kuwait Movies

Cinemagic rooftop movie schedule for May 2010 – Cinemagic at Cannes

Here is the calendar for Cinemagic’s rooftop movie nights for May. This month they’ve got movies from the Cannes Festival. Check out the full list below:

Thursday, May 6 at 07:00 PM
Ali Zaoua, Morocco 2000
Director: Nabil Ayoush
Genre: Drama | 99 min | English Subtitle
Rated: PG 13

Saturday, May 8 at 07:00 PM
Vozvrashchenie, Russia 2003
Director: Andrei Zvyagintsev

Genre: Drama | 105 min | English Subtitle
Rated: 15+

Thursday, May 13 at 07:00 PM
“Winner for Best Director, Cannes 2008”
Three Monkeys, Turkey 2008
Director: Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Genre: Drama | 109 min | English Subtitle
Rated: PG 15

Saturday, May 15 at 07:00 PM
“Winner of Golden Palm 2009”
The White Ribbon, Sweden 2009
Director: Michael Haneke
Genre: Drama | 144 min | English Subtitle
Rated: R 18

Thursday, May 20 at 07:00 PM
“Un certain Nominee 2009”
Precious, USA 2009
Director: Lee Daniels
Genre: Drama | 109 min | English Subtitle
Rated: PG 15

Saturday, May 22nd at 07:00 PM
“Golden Palm Nominee 2008”
Promise Me This, Serbia 2008
Director: Emir Kusturica
Genre: Comedy | 127 min | English Subtitle
Rated: PG 13

Thursday, May 27 at 07:00 PM
“Opening Ceremony, Cannes 2001”
LOTR: The Fellowship of the ring, USA 2001
Director: Peter Jackson
Genre: Fantasy | 178 min | English Subtitle
Rated: PG 13

Friday, May 28 at 07:00 PM
LOTR: The Two Towers, USA 2003
Director: Peter Jackson
Genre: Fantasy | 179 min | English Subtitle
Rated: PG 13

Saturday, May 29 at 07:00 PM
LOTR: The Returm Of The King, USA 2004
Director: Peter Jackson
Genre: Fantasy | 201 min | English Subtitle
Rated: PG 13

Cinemagic movies are screened in the old Salmiya, on the roof on top of Alghanim Electronics and LG. There is a KD1 charge for the venue fees which includes refreshments, popcorn and much more. Here is a link to their facebook group [Link]




Categories
Kuwait Music

Kuwaiti in the Snoop-Dogg Remix Competition


There is a Snoop-Dogg remix competition currently taking place and there is a Kuwaiti hip-hop producer called Faisal who entered the competition and was in first place out of the thousands of entries submitted until today when he dropped down to second place. He needs your support so visit the link at the end of this post and vote for him. Voting will be open for 2 weeks and it already started on the 30th so hurry up. Here is the [Link]




Categories
Apple Information

Using the iPad App store without a US credit card

I started getting a lot of emails after my Zinio post asking me how I am getting my apps from the iPad app store without using a US credit card. Well, in case you missed it, I already posted a step by step guide [Here]

Update: Here is a step by step walk-through…

1) Go to maximuscards.com and purchase an iTunes card
2) Open up iTunes and go to the iTunes store
3) Make sure you’re not signed in to your Kuwait account
4) Scroll to the bottom of the store and make sure the US flag is showing on the bottom right. If its not click the flag and choose US.
5) On the bottom of the iTunes store you will find a bunch of text links
6) Click on “Redeem”
7) Copy and paste the code Maximus Cards emailed you
8) Then choose create new account and follow the instructions (enter a US address)
9) When it comes to payment options there should now be an option called “none”, click that
10) Continue till the end and you should end up with a US account without having to use a credit card

When you run out of credits in your account you need to follow steps 1 to 7 and then for step 8 sign in the account you previously created. Below are screenshots showing the steps above.

Now if you aren’t interested in purchasing anything from the US app store but instead just want to download free apps that aren’t available in the Kuwait store (like CNN, Amazon and eBay) you can follow the steps below:

1) Make sure you’re not signed in to your Kuwait account
2) Scroll to the bottom of the store and make sure the US flag is showing on the bottom right. If its not click the flag and choose US.
3) Buy any free iPhone or iPad app from the US store
4) When you are asked to login create a new account
5) Enter a US address and choose “None” for payment method




Categories
Food & Drinks Guest Bloggers Healthier Lifestyle Information Personal

We no havva rerivery now! You not undastaand?!

Posted by Fahad AlYehya | Core Fitness – Kuwait

Your world rocked in 3, 2, 1….

And we’re back with part 2 of my original post (Herro Prease!) that seemed to cause more racial and homophobic controversy than health and fitness orientation and guidance.

Taste Buds
I’m often criticized for my diminishing taste buds. When on a strict diet, the food consumed tends to taste awful and total caloric intake is extremely low. I’m eating 6-8 small portions per day of gooky old-fashioned oatmeal, funky-smelling boiled eggs, cold and barely chewable chicken breasts, tasteless and dry brown rice, and a lightly sweetened protein shake that tries its best to taste like a Johnny Rockets milkshake, but is actually one notch above dirt, and dirt can taste like ice cream when dieting.

So Masta of da Universe, if taste bud BAD, how can we trust you, haaaa!?
Have you ever sat next to a person who has been dieting more than 3 weeks? He/she will stare at you eating that burger and those fries. Moreover, they’ll tell you how to lightly dip your food in ketchup. What’s even more annoying, they’ll screw you over for not eating your entire meal; I should know, since I’m that annoying person. Lastly, I base the meals I eat on the ingredients used and how I feel after consumption. Through trial and error, I’ve discovered how long it takes my body to clean itself out if I just ate a fatty and carby meal.

Breakfass!
I am not a morning person at all. I hate the sun and anything associated with looking at the sun. I’ll even wear sun-glasses indoors in the morning, and I could care less if it made me look douchey. (If anyone has any job offerings somewhere cold and dark, please let me know.) In the meantime, I can’t deny the sensation of breakfast food. Once in a while, I’d wake up early on weekends and just have this strong urge to ditch my gooky oatmeal and boiled eggs for some tasty restaurant-served breakfast food. Before I begin, you need to take these points into consideration:

  • Upon waking from 8-10 hours of sleep, our bodies are deprived of nutrients and water.
  • Our inner functions tend to work optimally in the A.M., providing a challenge to any calorie intake; you can actually get away with a large thick pizza for breakfast and it’ll have a hard time storing itself as fat (assuming your healthy and fit).
  • Eating breakfast at a maximum of 1 hour after waking up will provide your metabolism with a boost from heaven. The earlier you eat breakfast, the better.
  • Eating breakfast more than 90 minutes after waking up will skyrocket your chances of obesity by 150%!



Categories
Interesting Kuwait Television

Build it Bigger – Al Hamra Tower

The Discovery show Build it Bigger aired an episode featuring the Al Hamra Tower and I’m downloading it now from my favorite torrent site as I am typing this. The reason it featured Al Hamra Tower is because it’s the world’s tallest twisting structure and so makes it very unique. You can watch a snippet from the show [Here]

Thanks misz

Update: The full episode is on YouTube divided into 8 parts, here is a link to part 1 [YouTube]




Categories
Personal Travel

Traveling with a cast

Who would have thought having a cast would be a complicated thing when traveling. I’ve been in Beirut for a couple of days now and I am getting back today but for some reason security at the Lebanese airport is being very anal about my cast. Kuwait airport didn’t even bring it up as a problem but here I’m being treated like I am trying to smuggle a machete or surface to air missiles in my cast.

I get to the airport at 6:30am still sleepy and hungover when the first security screening stop me from going through. They’re like wheres your paper? I was like what paper? They’re like for your hand. I was like wtf? They then spent 15 minutes fondling my arm and passing it in and out of the metal detector before letting me through. Then I found out my flight got rescheduled till the afternoon so I left.

Fast forward to around 3:30pm and I get back to the airport and pass through the same security checkpoint and they stopped me again. This time I got bounced from one person to another each asking me if I have a paper for my cast. I was like what paper where do I get it from? He’s like from where you got the cast. I was like I got my cast done in Kuwait you want me to go get a paper and come back?? I don’t think they liked my sarcasm because they then wanted me to remove the cast so they could check if I had hidden anything. I told them I couldn’t remove it and wouldn’t remove it and in the end had to get my arm fondled for 15 minutes again and waved through the metal detector a few times. What a mess, glad I just had my hand in a cast and not my ass or something.




Categories
Information Kuwait Sneak Peek Toys

Sneak Peek: Infunity Revisited

I woke up this morning to a phone call from a friend in charge at 360 Mall asking me if I wanted to try out the roller coaster at Infunity. Infunity hasn’t opened yet and won’t be open for a few more months but today they were testing out the roller coaster and if I accepted the mission we would be the first passengers on it. I though it was a fun idea since I never beta tested a roller coaster before and agreed to meet him there before lunch.

Last time I passed by Infunity was in October and since then the place has changed a lot. As I mentioned back in October, Infunity will have a bunch of cool things going for it including a very large climbing wall, Go-Kart Drifting (very cool), an indoor roller coaster designed and built by the same people who create ones for Six Flags, and also a ton of other stuff I’m not sure if I am allowed to share.

When we first got there it turned out the German engineers were still working on the roller coaster so I walked around and checked out the place and took some pictures to kill a bit of time. Nat hadn’t been to the place before and I wanted her to see everything anyway. Once they were ready we went up the stairs to the boarding area. They had just finished testing the ride with sacks full of sand and now we would be the first people to ride it. We got into the seats, fastened the safety harness and took off. First of all the whole place was very dimly lit by a few portable projectors here and there. There was no one in the whole place except for three German engineers and the five of us so it was very empty. We were also the first people to try out the ride so there was that slight fear in the back of our minds that something could go wrong which added to the excitement. The ride although short turned out to be incredibly fun. The roller-coaster although on a fixed line actually rotates so one point you could be facing forward, the next backwards or sideways. The ride also takes you through one wall and then spits you out from another side and once the ride is completed the area behind the wall will actually have fake snow that comes down while you pass through. It was really a lot of fun and the whole time I felt like I was either going to get thrown from the track or hit my head on some pole, I loved it. We rode it a couple of times before we headed to lunch.

Now hopefully I am going to go back again once they start trying out the wall climb or drifting. I shot a video of the ride in the coaster which I might put up later but for now you can check out the pictures below.




Categories
Food & Drinks Healthier Lifestyle

No more McGangBangs

I just realized that just over a year ago I posted about the McGangBang and how great it was but now I haven’t had a McDonalds burger (or BK, KFC, Hardees etc..) for nearly a year. I’m eating a lot healthier, having a ton of salad and not really missing any of the fast food. I went from eating at those fast food joints practically daily to never. I think it’s like quitting smoking (I don’t smoke but I’m guessing). It’s difficult at first but then once you’re off you’re off.




Categories
Apple Apps Blog Info Information Kuwait

The Kuwait Blogs iPhone App

This is the second app that I’m releasing for the iPhone and one that should be very useful to many, its the Kuwait Blogs app. I’ve taken all of my favorite blogs and placed them in one app which is very convenient and practical. I will still be adding more blogs in the next update but for now these are the blogs that are included in the app:

2:48AM
360 Dewan
4th Ring Road
Ansam
Blushberry
Buzberry
Confashions
Frankom
iLSul6ana
P0ach
Some Contrast
Tidbit du Jour
zDistrict

I would have added more blogs but it was very time consuming trying to create an icon, header, footer and color scheme for every blog so that it matches their actual blog theme. So if you’re not in this first release I’m sorry but you might be in the next update.

For the Kuwait Blogs icon and launch screen I wanted to use a picture that represented Kuwait but didn’t want anything cliche like the Kuwait Towers or flag so I ended up going with an abstract shot of the Ice Skating Rink which I had taken a few years ago for Miskan. I love the design of the Ice Skating Rink and thought it would represent Kuwait very nicely.

To install the app search for Kuwait Blogs in the App Store on your iPhone or install it into iTunes by click this [Link]




Categories
In Focus Kuwait Photography

In Focus: World Photo

Once upon a time there were two cool photography stores in Kuwait City. One day the building that hosted the two shops got demolished and the stores disappeared…

After a bit of looking around I then noticed one of the shops ended up moving to Muthana Complex but since I didn’t know what happened to the other store I assumed it just closed down. Then out of the blue, a friend of mine tells me he found the place in Shuwaikh. It seems when they demolished the building they decided to move out of Kuwait City and into the industrial area of Shuwaikh for some reason. I passed by and noticed they still had all the used film cameras and lenses on display for sale. They also still have Cokin filters and various tripods, camera bags and studio lights for sale. I was checking out the Nikons, they had the F3, F4 and F5 for sale but none of them were really in great condition. They had two medium format cameras (a Kiev and Mamiya) and also a bunch of compact cameras.

If you’re interested in passing by they’re easy to find. Go to Canada Dry street and if McDonalds is on your right keep going straight past the traffic light and straight under the bridge. Keep going straight you will see a huge place on your left called Ramez. You need to keep driving until you hit the round about and then do a u-turn and head towards the direction you came from. Before the Ramez building you take a right and then you turn left behind the building and drive straight. You should see World Photo in front of you.




Categories
Food & Drinks Healthier Lifestyle Kuwait

A Healthier Lunchbox

Local blogger and teacher Miss Farah posted something which I wanted to share with my readers. One of her kids in class had brought only chips and chocolate for lunch (pic above), so Miss Farah sent a letter to the parents explaining to them how unhealthy that was for their daughter. Next day she checked the kids lunchbox and this time the little girl had cucumbers, carrots, croissant, corn and juice (pic below).

I thought it was great of Miss Farah for caring enough to contact the parents and I thought it was also great from the parents to actually listen to her. Hopefully the lunchbox continues to stay healthy and other parents reading this can do the same with their kids. You can check Miss Farah’s blog [Here]




Categories
Apple Apps Blog Info Interesting Kuwait Personal

The 2:48AM iPhone App

It took a lot of my time but I finally finished my very own iPhone app. I actually launched it last week on my twitter page but I didn’t officially announce it since I wanted to get some feedback and fix any bugs that I might have missed first. Good thing I did since I spotted a silly bug the first day it got released and quickly released a version 1.1 update a couple of days later. Now the version has gone up to 1.2 and I’ve been able to introduce a few nifty features which I felt helped round off the app and make it launch worthy.

Originally when I went about creating the app I didn’t know what the use would be. Already the blog was very viewable on the iPhone because of a plug-in I had installed that formatted the site to work perfectly on the iPhone so if my app did the same thing it would be useless. I kept thinking about what else I could do and bit by bit I started adding stuff to it that made it more useful. Here are the things you can currently do with my iPhone app:

– Check my latest posts
– Check the latest comments on my blog
– Check the latest posts in the forum
– Check my twitter
– Check my YouTube channel
– Check latest posts on Safat
– Check latest Kuwait news from Arab Times
– Check the weather via the Kuwait Meteorological Center (contains more details than the default iPhone weather app)
and my favorite…
– Get the latest traffic updates via #q8traffic on Twitter

These are just the features I have currently but hopefully will be adding more stuff down the line. If you want to download the iPhone app search for 248AM in the app store or click the following [Link]




Categories
Geek Information Interesting

I can now broadcast live video!

In the post below I was just testing to see if I could broadcast live footage and it worked! For the people who were able to catch my live act I was just broadcasting video of my dog sleeping on the floor so you didn’t miss out on much. I got this idea for live broadcasting from P0ach and wanted to see if there was an easy way to do it and it turned out there was. I signed up for a free account on ustream.tv and downloaded the iPhone app for Ustream called Ustream Live Broadcaster and thats it. All you need is your iPhone’s 3G connection or WiFi and you can broadcast live video from anywhere to the blog. So next time I witness a fire or fight I can just broadcast the video live for everyone to watch. Pretty cool!