Search: “sti”

Last week just before Eid I was able to get a hold of the new Audi A1 from the dealership to test drive over the holiday. I had been nagging them for a test drive since June but since I wanted the car for more than a day I wasn’t able to get my hands on it until now. I’ve always had a thing for hatchbacks but I also got interested in Audi’s recently and even more so after watching Truth in 24 which is a need to watch movie if you love cars.

The car a fuel efficient 2.0l engine pumping out 122hp which doesn’t sound like much on paper but in reality I found the car pretty zippy. That probably has a lot to do with the 7-speed automatic gearbox that comes standard with the car. The first day I drove the A1 I was actually pretty annoyed with the gearbox since whenever I stepped on the gas pedal for just a bit more power the car would dramatically drop down 3 or 4 gears which I thought was overkill. But, by the second day I had gotten used to it and started appreciating the gearbox a lot more. It’s very smooth and really does make the engine power more readily available which is why the car felt zippy. Still 8 gears is a lot of gears and if you use the paddle shift then you’ll be doing quite a lot of clicking.

I’m around 6 feet tall and found the car cozy with a very adjustable seat and steering column. It was actually pretty comfortable… that is as long as you’re sitting in the front. The car is a 2-door and I tried sitting in the backseat and found it too claustrophobic for my size. I wouldn’t mind sitting in the back for a 5 or 10 minute ride but I definitely wouldn’t want to sit there for a trip down to Bnaider. The trunk is also pretty small, you could fit one large travel bag but barely. But since it’s a hatchback the back seats fold down and you end up with a much larger carrying capacity.

Tech wise the car I drove came with LED lights which I think helps give the car an eye catching look. The car I drove didn’t have navigation (it’s an extra option) but it did have a popup screen and a pretty good sound system which comes with two SD card slots to use for MP3s. You could also purchase an iPod cable or even stream music from your iPhone to the car using Bluetooth which is what I was doing most of the time.

Overall I had a lot of fun with the car. I drove it all the way to the junkyards at the end of the 6th ring road and even through Bin Khaldoun Street traffic so I managed to experience a wide variety of environments. It’s easy to maneuver as a hatchback should be but the car also feels really well built with a nice thick steering wheel and great feeling buttons and nobs. Most importantly the car looks great which at the end of the days is probably the most important thing. The starting price of the Audi A1 is KD6,995 but the car I drove costs KD8,995. If you’re interested you can call them up for more information on 1811118.

Just a quick update on the attempt by Kuwait’s Al Farsi family to break the record for the worlds largest kite. After yesterdays failed attempt they were supposed to try breaking the record today but they had to call it off since it was too windy.

It’s now not know when they will try to break the record again. [Link]

Yesterday I posted about the attempt by Kuwait’s Al Farsi family to break the record for the worlds largest kite. They already hold the record but they’re trying to re-break it with an even larger kite. Sadly, the kite ended up getting ripped today and so they couldn’t continue with the record attempt. They are currently working overnight to try and repair the kite and will hopefully be flying it again tomorrow. The BBC website has more information on this as well as a video from today’s flight. [Link]

I first saw the brotips website a month or two ago when one of the sites I frequent linked to it and I thought it was a cute idea. Then, a few days ago I found out the website belongs to a young 16 year old Kuwaiti called Yousef Khraibu and thought that was pretty unexpected.

Because of his dads job, Yousef ended up moving from Kuwait to Morocco to England and eventually landing in Canada where he’s currently living. He was always interested in entrepreneurship so he decided to drop out of school to focus on one of his projects when he ended up meeting his current partner Dominique. Together they came up with the idea of packaging commonsense in a pretty way and they ended up with brotips. Their website has gotten pretty popular and they’re now close to signing a book deal.

It’s an interesting story which I thought was worth sharing. If you haven’t checked out brotips just click [Here]

Around 6 years ago I posted about these amazing baseball fields off the 6th Ring Road right before 360 Mall (pictured above). There were two fields stuck next to each other and they both stuck out like an oasis in the desert. Well for some odd reason the fields are not there anymore. Below is how the baseball field currently looks like, it’s depressing.

It’s like they were never there! Luckily I took a few pictures of the baseball field back then and you can check them out [Here]

This is a short clip from a really old show from the late 70s staring George Clooney. Whats interesting here is that in the clip George Clooney’s character gets a Kuwait Times newspaper delivered to him and he talks about his experience living in Kuwait. Just press play above and it should start at the right moment. [YouTube]

Thanks Hish

Update: The episode above is from 1985

Kuwait’s Al Farsi family already holds the record for the world’s largest kite but it seems like they’ll be trying to break their own record in the next two days with their new Manta Ray kite at the Bristol International Kite Festival. In case you didn’t know the current world’s large kite is actually in the design of the Kuwaiti flag (pictured above). Here is a link with some more details on their new record attempt. [Link]

Contrary to the rumors, Kei hasn’t shutdown and moved out of Marina Crescent. What’s happened is they’ve just reduced the size of the place by half and sold the other half to Caribou Coffee. I think that’s actually a good move since their Marina Crescent branch was fairly over-sized and I like my sushi places small and cozy. There is no opening date yet but for your Kei fix you can still visit their JW Marriott location.

I passed by the junkyards earlier today to take some pictures and while I was there I noticed there were a ton of dogs. It’s not the first time I spot wild dogs at the junkyards but today I counted over 60 roaming around either alone or in packs. I started stalking a few and found them interesting to watch so I decided take pictures of many of them as I could so I could share on the blog

It wasn’t easy finding all the dogs and I’m positive I missed a lot since the whole area is full of streets and alleyways and unless I was planning to spend the whole day there I couldn’t go through each and everyone of them. I also only took pictures of the dogs that were on the streets but there must be a lot more in the actual junkyards or hiding in the cracks and crevices of old abandoned containers and cars.

I spent 2 hours driving around the junkyards looking for dogs and none of the ones I spotted seemed aggressive. Some looked sad and depressed while others seemed happy roaming around. One thing I noticed is the fact that none of the people in the area were afraid of the dogs. I spoke to a bunch of workers and from what they told me the dogs live and survive on their own without any help from humans. The workers in the area don’t feed or take care of the dogs but they also don’t mind them and none are afraid of them. It’s really sad but so interesting at the same time. Check out some pictures below.

Around 20 days ago I posted about my trip to the post office and how I sent a package to the States using EMS. It was a positive post that encouraged people to use the EMS service since it was easy to use, not expensive and packages would arrive to the States in under a week.

Well it’s been nearly 20 days since I mailed out my package and has yet to arrive to it’s destination. I also can’t track the package for some odd reason and so I have no idea where it currently is. Going to pass by the post office after Eid and see what they have to say about this.

Turns out in one of the leaked documents that were released by Wikileaks they talk about bloggers in Kuwait. This is from back in 2005 when we were only a few blogs but even if the information is outdated it still gives an interesting glimpse to how we were viewed. Nibaq from the now defunct KuwaitBlogs.com gets a mention as well.

The freaky thing is the fact that the US Government was spying on the bloggers. According to the leak, someone from the embassy attended a bloggers meet up to get more details on who the bloggers were. Makes you wonder if any other government spied on us as well or if the US government spied on us again after that meeting.

Check out the full document [Here]

via Kuwaitiful

Update: According to Talal (who was mentioned in the wiki), the officer from the US Embassy actually identified himself as being from the Embassy and also told them he was trying to get some information for the Cultural Affairs. So that’s not spying.

Just an update regarding the annoying SMS’s I was getting from the number 50122, I am no longer getting them and no one else is either. It just stopped overnight, my guess is someone saw my post and investigated the incident and shutdown the service. Pretty cool.

Just an update on whats going on with the Benihana lawsuit. Back in late April I posted about how I won the lawsuit against Benihana and how I thought it was a great victory since it reinforced the right for us bloggers in Kuwait to state our personal opinions. Well around a month after the victory Benihana appealed the courts decision which is their right to do and we headed to court once again. Except the second time it didn’t go so well.

Yesterday I found out that the court ruled in favor of Benihana and have ordered me to now pay them the sum of KD1,000. The court still hasn’t released their decision for this ruling and I have to wait around 2 weeks to find that out. I of course will be appealing the decision and be heading back to court to defend our right of freedom of expression. Once I have anymore updates will post them here.

If you have no idea what lawsuit I am talking about click [Here]

Even though I live 5 minutes away from the Jeita caves, for some odd reason I hadn’t been to them until yesterday. The caves are currently nominated as one of the new 7 wonders of nature but I’m still undecided if I like the place or not.

The cave are divided into two parts, the lower grotto and the upper grotto. The lower grotto consists of a ride on a little boat through the caves which sounds cool but out of the 7km depth the journey only takes you to the first 450 meters since the path becomes too tight for the boats. So it’s a really short trip that ends a few minutes after it starts.

The upper grotto is a walking path through the caves and I found it much more impressive than the lower grotto. The height of the ceiling is ridiculously high and the whole place is lit up very nicely. But my problem with the upper grotto is again the fact that it ends too quickly. Not as quickly as the lower caves but still, I just wish it was longer. Now this might sound strange but I honestly wished there was a Starbucks at the end of the path inside the cave. I would have loved to chill out on a couch eating my chocolate muffin while checking out and appreciating the caves around me.

If you’re coming to Lebanon I guess the caves are worth visiting, just don’t expect to spend the day there, the whole experience takes an hour or two. Also a point worth mentioning is that cameras and phones are NOT allowed inside the caves. Tickets for adults costs around KD3.5. Here is a link with more info [Link]

Turns out the bull/cow (we’re still undecided) I posted about the other day who was roaming the Gulf Road ended up going for a swim. [YouTube]