Search: “salmiya”

I got the following email from Cinemagic:

Dear All,

You are invited to attend “Short & Sweet”, Cinemagic’s weekly screening event. The events will take place at the Cinemagic Courtyard in Bait Lothan, Salmiya, on Wednesday 9th of May, and will run between 7:00 – 9:00 p.m.

This week we will be screening “Children of Heaven“, a 1997 Iranian film that was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1998.

It deals with a brother and sister and their adventures over a lost pair of shoes, while also touching upon the more serious subject of the political situation in Iran as well as class differences between the rich and the poor and daily urban life.

In 1998, the film was the first Iranian film to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, but lost to the Italian film Life Is Beautiful by Roberto Benigni.

It was successfully shown on numerous film festivals and won awards at the Fajr Film Festival, the World Film Festival, the Newport International Film Festival, the Warsaw International Film Festival, and the Singapore International Film Festival. It was nominated for the Jury’s Grand Prize at the American Film Institute’s festival.

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.

As always, attendance is free of charge and you are encouraged to invite guests. Seating is limited, so make sure you come a little early. Snacks and refreshments will be served.

Yazan Al Ghazzawi
PR & Marketing Manager
Kuwait Cinemagic

Tel: (+965) 574 3253
Cell: (+965) 722 2416

www.cinemagics.com

American University of Kuwait which is located in Salmiya is having a carnival/open-day this Thursday from 10am till 5pm.

Just got back from the dentist, I had to get some scaling done. The dentist tells me I need to pass by every 3 months but I keep telling him its such an awful experience that I need at least a year to forget about it before I could come back. He is a cool dentist and has a sense of humor which is why I keep going back to him. For anyone who’s interested I go to the Bayan Dental Center in Salmiya opposite Sultan Center. I forgot which blogger recommended I visit them, maybe it was Zaydoun. They are really great.

Can anyone recommend a car rental agency. I am looking to pay max KD8 a day.

Update: So I called some rental agencies and here are the results:

Avis: No one picked up
Budget: They had a 2007 Lancer for KD8, but they couldn’t have it ready for me before 1PM and the guy I spoke to didn’t know if car smelled of cigarettes or not.
Hertz: For KD8 they only had a Hyundai
AutoMax: They had a 2006 Camry for KD8 but they were located in Salmiya.
Europcar: Very friendly and professional. Only had medium sized car available. Location close to my office.
Sixt: Called them up, they had problems with their automated teller, everytime I pressed 3 for Sixt it would take me back to main menu.

In the end I went for Europcar mostly because I needed a car before 1PM and they were walking distance. I was in contact with the Sheraton branch and the employee there was very friendly. She gave me a 2007 Lumina for KD10 and promised to arrange me a cheaper car from a different branch. I picked up the car at 12:30 and it was in excellent condition with just 1300km on the dial.

Cinemagic is having a weekly screening event called “Short & Sweet”. The events will take place at the Cinemagic Courtyard in Bait Lothan, Salmiya, and will run every Wednesday between 7:00 – 9:00PM. The screenings 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 they will screen a different selection of 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.

This week, they will screen “Promises” a 2001 Academy Award-nominated and Emmy-winning documentary film that looks at the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from the perspectives of seven children living in the Palestinian communities in the West Bank and Israeli neighborhoods of Jerusalem.

The film follows the journey of Israeli-American filmmaker B.Z. Goldberg as he meets with seven Palestinian and Israeli children between the ages of nine and thirteen, seeing the Middle East conflict through their eyes. Rather than focus on specific political events, the film gives voice to these children, who, although they live only 20 minutes apart, live in completely separate worlds.

Attendance is always free of charge, but seating is limited, so make sure you arrive early. Snacks and refreshments will be served.

The Annual exhibition by KASA (Kuwait Architectural Students Association) is being held at Bayt Lothan from 10 to 14 March. The exhibition is open from 7PM to 9PM and will be displaying work done by architecture students. Bayt Lothan is located in Salmiya adjacent to Marina Mall.

I remember the air show that was held in the early 90s. I think over 140 planes participated in that one. Today there is another air show although not as grand, if you are passing by Salmiya keep your eyes up in the air. Dailystar has more details. [Link]

update: I think I posted this too late

Today morning I went riding with Marzouq on the Gulf Road. The weather is great so I am trying to take advantage of it as much as I can. Other then riding my bike I am going to be taking the roof off of my Wrangler (after National Day due to foam season) and I will also be going out riding.. on my bicycle. I haven’t ridden my bike since early last year way before I got my motorbike so I figured I would start again now since the weather is good again.

I went to Ace Hardware, picked up an electric air pump and came back home to pump some air into my bicycles tires. After filling it with air I decided I would take it for a small spin around my parking lot just to see how it felt.

It felt incredibly strange. Because I now ride a motorbike, riding my bicycle just feels completely way off. The seat is uncomfortably hard, the bicycle is super light, the riding position is different and the strangest thing of all.. I have to actually PEDAL! After taking the bicycle for a few spins up and down the floors of my buildings underground parking I was exhausted and had a headache. I couldn’t even ride properly! Since my motorbike weighs around 170KG and my bicycle like 12KG I was literally throwing it around turns.

Tomorrow I am going to try riding my bicycle around Salmiya, if it turns out to be a crappy experience like today I will probably end up selling it. The whole point of the bicycle was to go urban exploring but now since I have a motorbike license I can just go get myself a dirt bike.

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

Placed order with Papa Johns at 8:30. Promised would be delivered within 45 minutes. Called back at 9:20 telling them pizza hadn’t arrived yet, they told me within 10 minutes. Called back at 9:35 telling them pizza hadn’t arrived yet, they told me they will check on it and get back to me. Called back at 9:45 telling them pizza hasn’t arrived yet even though I called twice. They transfered me to manager who told me he will call back in 2 minutes. Its been 5 minutes and no call back yet and I need to leave the house.

update: called back at 9:55, spoke to manager again told him he had told me he would call me back in 2 minutes and he hadn’t. He told me he spoke to Salmiya branch manager and he is probably trying to call me now and he is getting a busy tone. I told him no I have call waiting if he was trying to call me I would know. I told him I need to know when my pizza will get here because I need to leave. He was like if you have to leave I can’t do anything about it. So I was like then cancel my order, he was like fine. What the hell, what lame customer service is that.

Then a few minutes later I get a phone call from the Salmiya branch manager telling me my pizza will be late. I told him why didn’t you call me half an hour ago when the call center manager told me you would call me. He was like I had to call the driver. I was like you need 30 minutes to do that? I was like anyway I canceled my order. He was like ok and I closed the phone.

I would never order from them again. Why?
– They should have been apologetic instead of blaming it on traffic
– Its Thursday night and they know there is traffic so why tell me 45 minutes in the first place
– After my first call they should have called the driver and found out how long he needed
– After they told me they would call me back they should have called me back
– At the very least they should have offered me the pizza for free, its been over an hour and a half and the pizza is going to be cold anyway
– The two managers I spoke to were not friendly enough

I was on the Gulf Road yesterday driving towards Salmiya when I saw a bright flash light go off around a 100 meters in front of me. The speed camera just before the gas station and Texas Chicken was installed again over the weekend…

Just got back from my ride today morning. I first cruised around Salmiya for a little bit and then headed off to Marina Crescent to see if their were any bikers there I knew. I ended up finding Marzouq who earlier in the morning had been out biking with Nat. We decided we would ride to Green Island where a bunch of Ducati and BMW bikers were gathering up for a ride out to the desert which was organized by TriStar.

As we were approaching the gathering area I spotted the new Ducati 1098s from far. There was no way to miss it, it was parked away from the rest of the bikers and it was sparkling under the sun. We parked our bikes, said hi to some friends and then me and Marzouq went over to the 1098. Its a really tiny and light bike weighing around 170KG and producing around 160HP! Thats nearly one horse power for every kilogram.

Anyway we hung out for a little while and then headed out for a ride. One thing I did today was go back to the intersection I had my first crash in and take the same route I took that day. Might not sound like much but after I had my accident I went through the whole incident in my head over and over and then I kept visiting that route with my car just to go over the spot and try to figure out how I messed up. So today I decided I couldn’t avoid that intersection for ever and I took it with my bike. I think going through the turn gave me a boost of confidence which is what I needed.

One issue I realized I had today was accelerating from a traffic light while I am with Marzouq. I usually know how much throttle to give and how much clutch to let go of using the sound of my bikes engine. But the problem is Marzouqs bike is bigger and much louder and so when I am with him I can’t hear my bikes engine anymore. I swear I think I messed up at like 6 traffic lights today, it made me feel like such a newbie. This is why I decided I am going to either upgrade the mufflers with some really cool louder ones by Termignoni or, try and convince Nat I “need” a Ducati 749.

I am going to start off by saying I am not a fan of Wataniya. I have been an MTC user since 1995 and I am very loyal to the brand. So, when I was contacted by Wataniya to try out their new W-net internet router I wasn’t very thrilled because I would rather it had been MTC calling me. But I still went ahead and met with the Wataniya guy who turned out to be cool and a Nintendo Wii fan and he explained to me what W-net was and told me that Wataniya had hooked me up with a 6 month prepaid subscription. I was thinking worst case scenario if the connection turned out to be crap I could take the router to work and hook it up over there since my office lacked a wifi connection which annoys the hell out of me whenever I take my Macbook to work. After using the device for over 2 weeks I can say I am impressed.

When I first opened the package I found the Quick Start Guide which involved 11 steps on how to setup the connection. I ignored the guide, turned on the router and connected to it via wifi on my Macbook. Thats it, I was connected to the Internet. Its a lot easier then 11 steps.

The Wataniya router works on the HSDPA network which is a 3G mobile protocol. Currently 3G isn’t covered everywhere in Kuwait so if you don’t have 3G in your area you will end up connecting onto the much slower EDGE network. So if you want to take full advantage of W-net you better hope you live in a 3G zone. I live in Salmiya and I have 3G here.

The most impressive thing about the W-Net connection is the download speed. I have a 512 DSL connection by Qualitynet and I usually download files at around 63 KB/sec. With W-net on the other hand I download at around 107 KB/sec which is nearly twice as fast as my DSL connection. The upload speed is slow though at around 15 KB/sec where as my Qualitynet hits around 35 KB/sec.

Loading websites feels slower on the Wataniya connection. When I type in a URL its always quicker to load on my Qualitynet connection. I thought it was because of the connection latency but I pinged mark248am1.wpenginepowered.com on both my Qualitynet connection and the Wataniya connection and the results were very close so I don’t know why the lack of acceleration.

Qualitynet
PING mark248am1.wpenginepowered.com (66.199.240.42): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 66.199.240.42: icmp_seq=0 ttl=45 time=321.393 ms
64 bytes from 66.199.240.42: icmp_seq=1 ttl=47 time=305.564 ms
64 bytes from 66.199.240.42: icmp_seq=2 ttl=45 time=325.444 ms
64 bytes from 66.199.240.42: icmp_seq=3 ttl=45 time=356.846 ms
64 bytes from 66.199.240.42: icmp_seq=4 ttl=45 time=376.722 ms

Wataniya W-Net
PING mark248am1.wpenginepowered.com (66.199.240.42): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 66.199.240.42: icmp_seq=0 ttl=45 time=306.380 ms
64 bytes from 66.199.240.42: icmp_seq=1 ttl=47 time=327.925 ms
64 bytes from 66.199.240.42: icmp_seq=2 ttl=45 time=383.964 ms
64 bytes from 66.199.240.42: icmp_seq=3 ttl=45 time=295.931 ms
64 bytes from 66.199.240.42: icmp_seq=4 ttl=45 time=472.001 ms

For the geek users, you can customize the settings of the router to your liking just as if it was an ordinary router. It originally came set with the IP address 192.168.1.1 but my network runs on 192.168.0.X so I just logged in to the router settings and just changed stuff like turning of DHCP and changing the routers name. The router has an Ethernet port so you can connect it to the regular network or directly to your computer in case you don’t have wifi.

The price of the router plus Wataniya data line is KD135. The monthly charge for the connection is KD28, or KD300 for 1 year and KD565 for 2. I don’t know if you can order a different cheaper router off the web and use it with the Wataniya data line, I guess it could work.

Would I give up my DSL connection for W-Net? No I wouldn’t. I upload a lot of stuff all the time and 35 KB/sec is slow for me yet alone 15. I also browse the web a lot and like it when pages load instantly. The W-Net connection reminds me of my previous Shownet connection (which was Satellite based). It has a high top speed but slow acceleration meaning when browsing websites you don’t really feel the connection is fast only when you start downloading files do you notice it.

Would I recommend the W-Net connection? Yes in certain situations. For example in my old place in Salwa I couldn’t get a DSL line setup because the phone network in my street didn’t support it. My only option was a Satellite/Dialup combo which sucked. If I was still living there then I would definitely get W-net. Also for people who can’t get phone lines for one reason or another or for people who simply want an Internet connection wherever they go (camping, challet, anywhere with a power outlet) then this would also be a good option.

Am I going to take the router to the office? Nope, whenever I have files to download I just switch over to the W-Net connection and download them. Its really convenient having it because its cutting my download time in half. Anyway if you have any questions regarding W-Net just leave a comment below and I will try to answer it.

www.wataniya.com

There will be a blogger meetup tomorrow at 5:30 since its the first Thursday of the month. The difference this month from other months is the meeting will be held at Dunkin Donuts in Salmiya. Thats a much cooler venue then the previous one which was Second Cup in Kuwait City plus its a lot closer to my house. Whoever changed the location a big thank you! I haven’t been to a bloggers meetup yet but I will tomorrow.

I was parking my car outside Sultan Center in Salmiya when I first spotted this place. Its located in the backside area near the clinic and because of the name I felt I had to try their shawermas.

After I was done shopping I put the bags in the trunk of my car and walked over to Shoo? Shawerma to order some food. I ordered two chicken shawermas with no pickles and a coke. Total price? 800fils. I was like “fuckin A” this must be some seriously good shawerma if they are charging 350 a piece for it. So, I picked up my two shawermas and headed to the car where I started eating them.

After my first bite I turned around and told Nat this was a 2.5, but the more I ate it the more I hated it. The shawerma was really bad, like really bad. It tasted really greasy and the garlic flavor was no where to be found so there was nothing to cover up the god awful taste of the chicken. It was so bad that once I was done with my first shawerma I threw the second one away. I had NEVER done that before!

Now if this was any ordinary crappy place selling shawermas for 200fils then I might expect something this bad, but 350fils for a shawerma, thats the big league, fuck that, thats the super league. Most top scoring shawerma places charge 300 fils for a shawerma and this joint was charging 350 for the worst shawermas I have ever had. Even the Pepsi can was the small 250ml one, who still sells these, even Bader Al Badoor sells the 330ml Coke cans!

So super high price, small Pepsi can, and most importantly the worst shawerma I have ever experienced in my life earned this place half a star out of a possible five. It only got that half star because if I was stuck in the desert with no food except for their shawerma then I would consider eating it.