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The past few weekends have been pretty exciting for me, I had a Lotus for three of them and then this past weekend I had the new 2017 model year Porsche 911 Carrera S. It was actually perfect timing since I had recently taken out the Lotus Evora which I consider a direct competitor of the 911 so it was a good opportunity to compare the two. This wasn’t my first time in this current generation 911, I had previously raced one around the Dubai Autodrome during the Porsche World Roadshow a few years ago. But this model I drove this past weekend was the face-lifted version which they’re calling the 911 II.

Visually the exterior of the 911 II doesn’t look that different from the previous years with most of it being just aerodynamical upgrades. But, there are some important changes that take place under the hood. The new Carreras are now turbo charged giving both the regular Carrera and the Carrera S an extra 20HP each. This upgrade has allowed the Carrera S to hit 0 to 100km/h in under 4 seconds making it the first Carrera to break the 4 second barrier. The previous model hit 0 to 100 in 4.1 seconds but this new model now does it in just 3.9.

Another major upgrade is the infotainment system which now includes Apple’s CarPlay. I’ve been using CarPlay since 2014 and although it looks pretty, it’s fairly buggy and lacks some important features. Luckily you’ll still be able to use your phone via bluetooth in the Porsche, something I sadly can’t do in my car. An important thing to mention is you now no longer have multiple options of the infotainment system to choose from. I think thats great because end of the day this is a Porsche so you’d expect all the cars to be fitted with the best infotainment system available. But previously what came standard was an infotainment system that lacked features unless you were willing to plough down around 800KD for the proper one. Now all the 911’s come standard with this new system which is great. Finally one more new feature which I personally loved is the new steering wheel with a rotary switch that controls the driving mode similar to that of the Porsche 918. The steering wheel was oddly my favorite thing about this 911, it felt great in my hands and the design will surely look great years down the line, something I can’t say about the older Porsche 911 (996).

The 911 is pretty much flawless, there really isn’t anything I can fault about the car, even the trunk was surprisingly big. The car was fast, lots of fun to drive and the model I drove had a flashy lava orange color with a beautiful black interior. Which reminds me…People of Kuwait I have a request, STOP ordering Porsches with Bordeaux Red or Beige interiors! Please stop it! Seriously there needs to be an intervention. I was so surprised when I realized I was about to get into a 911 with a black interior in Kuwait, I figured it must have been an international Porsche dealer guideline or something. The Porsches interior looks so much sportier and hotter in black, it’s really the only way to go. Anyway, back to what I was saying, the car was fantastic and I can understand why everyone in Kuwait has one, it’s probably the best daily driver sports car you can get.. which is why I don’t think I’d ever buy one myself.

The cars local success is the cars biggest downfall for me. Every other person in Kuwait seems to have a 911. When I want to plucker down KD40,000 for a car I don’t want to blend in with half the population of Kuwait. I mean I get why everyone is buying the car, it makes perfect sense but Kuwait is such a weird place, you’d think these cars were so much more affordable based on the number of them out on the road.

Still that doesn’t stop me from heading over to the local Porsche dealers website every few weeks and building my own car. If you’ve never checked out their website before you should, there is an option to build a Porsche but the best part about it is it will tell you how much it will cost (Jaguar you guys need to add the prices on your website). So I’m on their website every now and then building a Cayman GT4 or a 911 for fun trying to fill it up with options that make sense and offer the most value and I take it fairly seriously as if I’m buying the car even though it’s all just imaginary. After driving the 911 this weekend there is one option I’m taking off the list for sure and thats the KD900 Burmester sound system. It’s not worth it, the car I drove this weekend had it and I was disappointed with the sound. It was extremely boomy and I can’t imagine the stock sound system sounding any worse. Another option I won’t be adding? The Lane Change Assist (a KD210 option), there aren’t any blind spots on the car and anytime the lane change warning light came out, the other car would be in clear sight of me. There are tons of options you can add to the car and they quickly add up. For example the Carrera S starts at a very reasonable KD34,000 but the model I drove costs around KD43,000 because of all the options it had in it. You don’t need door sill guards in stainless steel and illuminated (KD220 option), or the air vent slats painted (KD360 option) or the Porsche crest embossed on the head restraints (KD60 option) or a bunch of other superficial options. So if you hold yourself back with the options you should still be able to get a 911 at a fairly affordable price (for what it is).

I ended up dropping the car back to the dealer earlier then planned, that should basically summarize my feelings towards the car. I’ve driven a ton of cars over my lifetime, a lot of them were dull and a lot of them were exciting. When I took out the Camaro ZL1 or the Lotus Exige, I was a completely different asshole in them, when I took out the Mercedes S-Class I felt like a pimp. But with the 911, I just felt like a boring and responsible person, it didn’t excite me in anyway. On the plus side, they’ve introduced the Miami Blue color which reminds of the old 90s Riviera Blue 911 (993) which was and is my favorite Porsche of all time. FYI, thats the color to get with a full black interior.

Like I said, if you haven’t done so already, head over the Porsche Kuwait website and build your own car [Link]

One of my biggest concerns when I bought my 240z Datsun was that I wouldn’t find a garage I could take it to whenever I needed any work done on the car. The guy I purchased the car from showed me a spot in Shuwaikh where he used to take the car to, but when I passed by to get some stuff done on the car, I had difficulty communicating what I needed done due to language issues and I also didn’t really feel like it was a mechanic that I could connect with. Then while getting my car detailed at ProTech, the owner who had also recently purchased a 240z himself told me about a garage he found called Omid’s Garage. So I passed by to check the place out and right away I liked the place.

Omid is a young guy probably in his late 20s and is really passionate about cars and by that I mean he really loves his job. His garage is frequented by other 240z owners but also owners of other vintage cars and people who need anything from regular mechanical work done to complete engine swaps. Every time I passed by he would be like see this old white Caprice? It has a supercharged LS3 engine producing nearly 700hp. Or see that 240z there? It has a 400hp V8 engine. It’s like every regular looking car parked outside his garage has something interesting under the hood.

What I liked about Omid is that it was a one stop shop for me. We didn’t have any communication issues, he was very organized and wrote everything down and I wasn’t an easy customer, I had a whole laundry list of random little things I needed to be worked on my car including:

– Needed AC installed
– Replacing all the cars bushings
– Check brakes, swap pads
– Right turn signal didn’t always work
– Dash lights were too dim
– There was an engine lag on strong acceleration
– Door lock issue needed to be looked at
– Wiper water pump wasn’t working
– New rubber shift boot needed to be installed
– Electric engine fan to be installed
– Alternator upgrade
– etc..etc..

So as you can see the kind of work I needed ranged from mechanical to electrical and I didn’t even list everything I had him look at. Omid had the car for around 2 weeks and went through my list and got everything done one by one. Not only for example was he able to get AC installed but he managed to hook up the AC to function with my cars stock fan/heater controls. I read about people doing this mod in forums online so it was great he had it done for me. The guy barely sleeps since he’s always working, the last day he was up till 3AM finishing up my car and by the time I got home and went to sleep it was around 4AM. Next day I wake up to find a message from him at 8AM asking me how the car is. Turns out he still hadn’t slept and was still working on other cars. But, he actually prefers working late at night on cars since he doesn’t have any distractions to deal with.

Since I had a great experience I wanted to post about him so that if anyone ever needs a good mechanic they could pass by him. His instagram account is @omids_garage and here is his location on [Google Maps]

Back in February I was listening to the Joe Rogan Experience podcast and he had Mark Sisson on who is a fitness author and blogger, and a former distance runner, triathlete and Ironman competitor (video of podcast above). During the show he started talking about the ketogenic diet and by the end of the show I think everyone who listened to the podcast wanted to try it out just because it sounded so absurd.

So this is how I understood ketogenics, basically your body right now uses carbs for energy, with ketogenics your body uses fat for energy which is a better fuel. To transform your body to burn fat instead of carbs it takes just 21 days. During these 21 days you need to completely phase out carbs from your diet (good ones and bad ones), so no grains like wheat and rice, no high carb veggies like sweet potato or corn and no more sugar. You’ll instead have to limit your carb intake to just 15g a day. Secondly your diet will have to consist of 75% fat and 25% protein. By fat they don’t mean just good fats like avocado but any fat like butter and fatty meats. So what happens is your body looks for carbs for energy, doesn’t find any carbs anymore so it starts looking for an alternative source of energy, and it then sees all this fat coming in so it starts burning the fat for fuel.

As of this post I’ve been on the keto diet for exactly 104 days (3 months and 2 weeks). Not only have I lost a lot of body fat but its the first diet where I’m really not craving any food I can’t have. Three months ago I went and had my body fat percentage measured using the BodPod and I ended up with a BF% of 24. It was really surprising and upsetting because it was the highest I had been in years. Fast forward to last week, I got my body fat measured again and I was now down to 17%. The only thing that changed was my diet. I was still going to the gym 3 times a week, I wasn’t doing extra cardio or anything of the sort, it’s just the food that I’ve been eating that has been different.

Now I know what you’re thinking, if I get on any strict diet I’ll lose weight and thats true but I’ll also most likely be just having grilled chicken with steamed veggies and hating my life while craving all this delicious food I can’t have. But if you look at what I have been eating the past three months its ridiculous, I love the food I’ve been eating. Foods I use to stay away from like kebabs, butter with my eggs, cheeses, ice cream etc.. are all now part of my keto diet. I now make delicious fat bombs which are high fat, no sugar and very low carb ice creams at home to help me keep my fat intake high. My chocolate chunk avocado ice cream is my favorite but I also make an incredible butter roasted pecan ice cream. In the past 3 months I only cheated three times, and all three times I cheated it wasn’t because I was craving certain foods but because I was with friends and we just ended up at Elevation or Shake Shack. In all the previous diets I had tried, I always had at least one cheat meal a week and now I don’t.

So not only have I lost fat because of ketogenics, but I’m also loving the food I’ve been eating.

One more thing I wanted to talk about before I ended this post is the Ketonix breathalyzer. When your body is burning fat for energy it goes into a state of ketosis. So to know if you’re in ketosis or not (ie if you’re eating properly) you need to measure it and there are three ways to do that. The most accurate way is with a blood prick test but it’s also the most expensive while the least accurate and cheapest way is with urine test trips. The third option is not as accurate as a blood test but much more accurate than a urine test and it’s using a ketone breathalyzer. It’s also the most affordable in the long run since you can test your breath as many times as you want without having to get refills or anything. I ordered mine from Ketonix (pictured above) for $150 and it really helped me in the beginning keep me on track. So if you’re looking to try keto then I’d recommend ordering one.

The ketogenics diet works. My friends keep asking me how long I’m going to do this for as if its a temporary thing but right now I don’t have an issue staying on this till whenever. I’m enjoying all the food I’m eating, I’m burning body fat without even trying and I feel good. I’m now aiming to get my body fat down to 12% within the next 3 months but I’m also going to be adding cardio two or three times a week. Now keep in mind, I’m not a dietician, so if you’re interested in trying keto watch or listen to the podcast I’ve posted on top and then read up on it.

A few months ago I found out that the Oula gas station near the Jawazat roundabout in Salmiya had a 24/7 car wash. Even since I’ve been wanting to just randomly drop by like 2AM or something to try it out but haven’t had the time to until last night. My Datsun had been at the mechanic for the past two weeks getting a number of things installed (will post about it separately) and last night I dropped by around 11PM to pick up the car. There were still some minor things that he was working on and he ended up finishing at around 3AM. So after leaving the garage, I decided to drop by the car wash on my way home to test it out.

So I get there and sure enough the car wash was open. I assumed they just had an exterior wash since no way they’d have staff available to clean the inside of the car after midnight but surprisingly, they had a full team on stand by. So I got my car washed in the middle of the night and it cost me just KD3 for an exterior and interior cleaning (without tip).

So if you ever want to wash your car in the middle of the night, this is the place to go. This carwash by the way uses a touch free automated system called the LaserWash which I posted about back in 2010. Here is the location of this car wash on [Google Maps]

We’re at the end of May and the weekend events are surprisingly still going strong. Check out the full list of events taking place this weekend below:

Thursday
Exhibition: What’s Your Location?
Japanese Modern Art Exhibition
Exhibition: Tensile Modulus By Omar Khouri
Exhibition: Manifestations of the Human Condition
ABBA Sing-Along
BeFit – Spinal Dance

Friday
Japanese Modern Art Exhibition
Exhibition: Manifestations of the Human Condition
ABBA Sing-Along
Yoga at the Park (Hatha Yoga)
Treasure of Talent Gala Concert

Saturday
Japanese Modern Art Exhibition
Exhibition: Manifestations of the Human Condition
Yoga with the 3
The Cardboard Character Workshop
Walks at the Park
Cross Cultural Diwaniya x WeOritu
Elevation Burger: Music & Burgers

If you’d like to share an event on the blog [Email Me]
For a full list of upcoming events click [Here]

Sometimes events get canceled or have details changed so double check info with organizers.

After a long break, Double Jump podcast is finally back. In this episode we discuss Doom, Uncharted 4, Overwatch, Pocket Jockey and a few other things. Since it’s been a long time let me re-introduce what Double Jump is. It’s a gaming podcast I co-created with Yaqoub Al- Hussaini who is one of the hosts of LuckyGG and we’re also joined by Abdullah Boushehri also from LuckyGG. The goal of Double Jump is to discuss games we’ve been playing, news that we find interesting and regional news that we feel our listeners would be interested in.

We’ll be recording episodes every other Tuesday and each episode will be around two hours in length. In between our group shows I’ll be recording a solo show on Mondays so there will be content coming out every week.

So hope you guys enjoy the show, feel free to give us some feedback and don’t forget to subscribe to our podcast.

iTunes | Android | Play in Browser | Download | RSS

Posted by Patrick

CityBus launched a new bus service that starts all the way in Fahaheel, passing
through Mangaf, Abu Halifa, Mahboula and Fintas before arriving at the final destination, the Kuwait airport. They’re calling it the X1 route and it costs just 500 fils to get to the airport from all the way in Fahaheel.

The service also runs 24/7 with a bus coming by every 30 minutes between 4AM to midnight and then every 60 minutes from midnight to 4AM. Not bad, and I’m guessing they’ll most likely be adding more routes to the airport to cover other areas as well. For more info including the bus stop location guide you can check out their Facebook page [Here]

Maybe he could let us know if we’re on track to becoming the world’s food capital by 2030.

Seriously though I think he might like it here. For local cuisine he could go to Freej, Dar Hamad and maybe somebodies diwaniya. Then we have a bunch of trendy places he could drop by like Cocoa Room for breakfast and Street by Al Makan for dinner. We have cool coffee places like Vol.1, a bunch of interesting Indian and Thai hole in the walls and most importantly, we have Sidekick Academy which is a great jiu jitsu facility so he could roll with some of our US Open champions.

If you’re wondering why your internet has been slow the past two days its because one of the main fiber cables providing internet to Kuwait was cut. No sharks were involved this time around since it was a terrestrial cable that was cut and not a marine one.

The cable was supposed to be repaired by the next day but MOC must have run into issues since it’s now been 2 days now and the issue still hasn’t been sorted. A redditor who works at one of the local internet providers has been posting updates over the past couple of days keeping us posted on the current status:

[23/5/2016 11:00am] So far its not resolved. MOC contractor is working on restoring the links. Hopefully within next 1-2 hours it should be restored. I will update you guys.

[23/5/2016 12:45pm] Links are up now. Cheers!!

[23/5/2016 2:00pm] Links came up for some time and went down again. Seems like they are still doing quality testing on the link. More update to follow.

[23/5/2016 6:55pm] As per latest update, MOC contractor has stopped working. All links are still down. They will continue working tomorrow. Seriously don’t know why its taking soo much time. Normally terrestrial fiber cut are restored in few hours. 🙁

[24/5/2016 9:25am] Seems like the cut is in no man’s land between Saudi and Kuwait. As per fresh update, team is on site and have started the work. More update to follow.

[24/5/2016 12:30pm] Looks like the cables are severely damaged. Contractors are considering replacing the whole segment between the two manholes.. More to follow.

To stay posted on the latest status of the internet situation in Kuwait, keep checking the original reddit thread [Here]

Also here is an interesting tidbit he shared which might explain why my mobile phone connection is faster then my home one at the moment:

Whenever there is any cable cut in the region, these ISP will limit bandwidth for residential users in order to provide additional bandwidth to mobile companies since they pay more per MB bandwidth than residential users.

With more than 135 Merit Badges—from Archery and Art to Welding and Wilderness Survival—Scouting is the ultimate form of learning by doing. Boy Scouts explore their interests and improve their skills while working toward Scouting’s highest rank: Eagle. By first imagining, planning then doing their own service projects, Boy Scouts learn the value of hard work, and experience the thrill of seeing it pay off. Add in outdoor adventures, hiking and camping, and Scouting gives boys all the experience they need to become men.

I used to be a boy scout when I was a kid and loved it which is why I’m posting this. Boy Scout Troop 938 that are based out of ASK (American School of Kuwait) sent me a flyer to share on the blog. They’re recruiting members aged between 11-18 years old to join their troop. Here is the flyer with more information and contact details [Flyer]

InstaSalla is a new app that allows you to order groceries from your local co-op and have it delivered within 90 minutes. Based on my short experience with the app it seems they have ALL their products available online to purchase which means this might be more comprehensive than the likes of Taw9eel or the LuLu web store.

The app is mainly in Arabic although there is an English option (swipe left to reveal the sidebar). Sadly not everything was translated to English, if you try to order anything or even register an account you’ll be met with Arabic menus even if you had chosen English as the app’s language. Still, not bad for the first release.

InstaSalla is available on both [iOS] and [Android]

Thanks umterchia

On landing in Kuwait, immigration officials confiscated her documents, along with those of all the other women.

The moment the immigration officials saw that I had a domestic work visa, they took away my passport and I was taken to a room where dozens of other girls were locked up.

They spent the night without food, water or blankets amid the wintry temperatures. Though gravely uneasy, she tried to comfort herself with thoughts that things would be better in the morning.

I was released the following morning when a lady by the name Hanan who introduced herself as our employment agent came to pick us up.

A clickbait title and a story is one we’ve heard over and over, but one thing caught my interest in the article and it’s the paragraph above. Why are immigration officials confiscating the passports of domestic workers and then locking them up in rooms overnight without food and water? I find it disturbing because it gives the impressions that the local authorities condone this trade.

Here is a link to the article and full story [Link]

If you’re still a student or a fresh graduate and are looking for a job in Kuwait then the StudentHub website should be useful for you. StudentHub is a recruitment platform which helps students and fresh graduates find job opportunities in the local market. The kind of opportunities include part time jobs, full time jobs, internships and volunteer work.

The process of looking for a job and finding one seems simple plus they maintain a list of recently posted jobs which people could bookmark and check often. If you’re a student or fresh graduate and are looking for a job, then you might want to check out their [Website]

I’m a huge UFC fan so I was excited to find out that Claudio Silva, the head coach at the local training facility Combat Athletics will be fighting on the UFC 201 card this coming July. Claudio is currently on an 11 fight win streak with the last two wins taking place in the UFC. Due to a bit of bad luck last year (he broke both his feet), he had to take a break from fighting so that he could recover. Now that he’s healed up he’s heading back to the UFC and will be facing off against the tough Siyar Bahadurzada.

Claudio is currently in London until the end of the month before he heads to Miami for his 8 week fight camp with American Top Team. ATT is one of the top MMA camps that currently trains a bunch of popular fighters like current UFC Welterweight Champion Robbie Lawler as well as UFC fighters Hector Lombard, Junior Dos Santos and Glover Teixeira amongst a ton of others.

Now the cool part about all of this is that Claudio will be carrying the Kuwaiti flag with him at the weigh-ins and during his walkout to the cage on fight night. If he wins I’m assuming he’ll also have it on him during the winners announcement. Should be a great fight and I’m looking forward to seeing Claudio walkout with the Kuwaiti flag while Joe Rogan tries to guess which country it’s from. UFC 201 will be held on July 30th and I’ll be posting a reminder a day or two before. If you’d like to support Claudio you can do so by following him on instagram where he’ll be sharing pictures and videos from his fight camp @claudiohannibalsilva

Doom was one of those games that I wasn’t allowed to play when I was a kid but I did anyways. It was dark, atmospheric and kind of scary. The games were unique at that time and basically laid the foundation for future first person shooters. Since then Id software tried to recapture that magic with various other games like Doom 3 and RAGE but were never really were able to reach the heights of Doom I and II…until now.

There was some hesitation from fans when the new Doom was announced since the market was oversaturated with first person shooters and it would take something special for the new Doom to make a dent. The development history of the game was troublesome, Id Software had completed a Doom game, didn’t like what they had created and then restarted the development process from the beginning. So there were a lot of questions that needed answering, would the new developers be able to design levels as good as John Romero and co.? Would the new developers be able to create the same fast-paced action that were present in those original games? Would they try to create a more immersive narrative even though those older games didn’t really rely on one? Even then, would a first person shooter with a reliance on gameplay over narrative even succeed nowadays when narrative seems important to the consumer and the players?

I was able to get my hands on Doom a few days before its official release and even though the multiplayer beta was disappointing, I was really looking forward to the single player campaign. As the games release date got closer, it was revealed that no review copies were sent out to any of the major websites so many people were expecting the worst. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting when I put the game in, I hoped for the best though. Thankfully what I got was nothing short of incredible. The game has incredible visuals and art direction, the environments look great, the monsters look extremely detailed and the animation is top notch. The music and the sound design are also fantastic and suit the game perfectly. Another aspect of the game that adds to its value is it doesn’t take itself too seriously. The developers built a ridiculous and amusing lore surrounding Doom-guy. They took this generic guy and turned him into this legendary warrior that demons fear. He has a personality even though he doesn’t say a word, it’s all in his actions. The game plays fast, it’s brutal and the music accompanying the action is memorable. The way the game starts is brilliant and probably one of the most memorable introduction to any game I’ve played.

The developers were successful at modernizing Doom in a couple of ways. First off is you can now upgrade your weapons, thankfully it’s not convoluted. Each weapon has two upgrade paths and the manner in which they’re presented is simple and straight forward. Your armor can be upgraded as well and like your weapons, the process is simple. You can also upgrade the amount of health, armor and ammo you can carry. You’ll also come across demonic runes that present a challenge and if you complete the challenge you’ll unlock a rune that you can equip that will also help you out in some way.

Other ways the developers were able to modernize Doom is the games level design. The original Doom games had complex level designs that were maze like and contained plenty of secrets to discover. The developers were able to take that feel and successfully modernize it. Levels have a lot of verticality to them and you’ll be jumping around quite a bit. It sort of feels like a Metroidvania kind of game in some ways. You’ll get lost in the levels the same way players did in the original game. The levels have secrets and even when you know where they’re located, some secrets are still tricky and challenging to get to.

The game also features two other modes besides the single player campaign mode which are multiplayer and Snapmap modes. Multiplayer is self-explanatory and I haven’t really touched it since release because I’ve been spending all my time playing through the campaign while the Snapmap mode is where all the user-created content will be. Snapmap lets you create and share your own levels and challenges. I’m actually impressed by how much content Doom has to offer.

Its been a while since I’ve enjoyed a first person shooter as much as I’ve enjoyed Doom. It might just be the best single player first person shooter I’ve played. It’s memorable, it’s fun and it’s very violent. I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a fast-paced action game that doesn’t take itself very seriously. I’m relieved it turned out this good since I chose to play Doom before Uncharted 4. I don’t like giving out perfect scores (I’ve only given 5 games perfect scores), but Doom deserves it.

Score: ★★★★★

Post by Patrick