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Reign Over Me
The movie was slow paced but it never got dull and the soundtrack and the whole mood of the movie was very indie which made it feel less mainstream and more artsy. I don’t usually like Adam Sandlers non-comedic roles but in Reign Over Me it suited him and Don Cheadle was also a great supporting actor.

The Good German
I love war movies and I was really looking forward to this one since it was filmed to look like an old black and white film. Problem is the story turned out to be weak. I still enjoyed watching it but not enough to recommend it. The movie stars George Clooney and Tobey Maguire. If you feel like watching a black and white movie get Vertigo.

Disturbia
A guy witnesses a murder and the killer finds out the guy saw him so he tries to kill the guy. A very cliché storyline and one that I hate.

Ocean’s Thirteen
This movie was wayyy better than the previous one. While Ocean’s Twelve was boring and starred Catherine Zeta-Jones, Thirteen stars Al Pacino and the whole story is based in fast paced Vegas. Lots of funny moments and the all star team of actors are all back minus the women thankfully.

The Bourne Ultimatum
Too many chase scenes, is that a problem? I know its weird but I found it exhausting to watch. I can’t imagine anyone but Matt Damon playing the role of Jason Bourne, he’s got this cold neutral robotic look that suits the part perfectly. On the other hand I could think of at least 20 other women who could play the part of Julia Stiles. Has anyone seen her in The Prince & Me? I have no clue why they couldn’t find anyone else…

Year of the Dog
How could they go wrong with a movie staring John C. Reilly???

Fast Track (originally The Ex)
Starring Zach Braff, Jason Bateman and Donal Logue, three very funny comedians from three different very funny shows (Scrubs, Arrested Development and Grounded for Life) so I was expecting this movie to be extremely funny. It wasn’t. The funniest parts I had already seen in the trailer and what was left wasn’t good enough. REALLY disappointing.

Last month while coming back from London my favorite pair of traveling earphones, my Shure E2’s stopped working properly. They lasted me for three years and I guess it was time I got a new pair. Following that trip I tried flying with another pair of headphones but they just weren’t the same. My AKG 81’s were too big and bulky while my PX100’s barely isolate any sound. I needed to get another pair of in-earphones and after a lot of research I decided to go with the Ultimate Ears Super.fi 5 Pro (really long name).

Why and what are in-earphones?
Unlike the regular earphones that come with the iPod, in-earphones actually go into your ear canal, they don’t just sit on the outside. Some people find it strange and uncomfortable having something placed inside the ear but I never had that problem. If you want to know how they feel just take two fingers and place one in each ear. First thing you will notice is how they isolate sound and thats one of my favorite things about in-earphones. It makes them perfect for traveling since they block out the plane engine noise and anything else inside the plane. With music playing loudly you could have someone standing in front of you and screaming at the top of their lungs and you wouldn’t hear them.

The reason I went with the Super.fi’s and not another model is mostly because of the price to performance ratio. I didn’t want to pay over $200 for my earphones and I didn’t want something under $100. In my price range the Super.fi’s had the best performance according to numerous reviews online. In fact it sometimes even outperformed more expensive models.

USWS delivered my Super.fi’s two days ago and the first thing I noticed when I took them out of the box were how much lighter and smaller they were compared to my older Shures. When I put them on I also noticed they fit a lot better into my ear compared to the Shures and since they were lighter after a few minutes it felt like they weren’t there. I was really impressed at the build quality and the snug fit and I still hadn’t experimented with the other rubber sleeve sizes included in the pack or my usual favorite foam ones. Sound wise I also noticed a big difference. The Super.fi’s ran louder than my Shures at the same volume and they also sounded a lot more clearer. My old Shures had a single driver for every ear which handled the lows, mids and highs all alone. The Super.fi’s on the other hand have dual drivers for every ear, one to handle the lows and one to handle the mids and highs. The much more expensive Triple.fi 10 have three drivers for every ear, one for every range.

So far I am really impressed with the Super.fi’s. I only listened to them for a few minutes but it was instantly obvious how much better they performed compared to my Shures. Currently I am burning in my Super.fi’s, they’ve been playing music non stop for around 48 hours and they still have another 48 to go before they are ready to start using.

What is burning in?
You know how when you buy new jeans or shoes they are not very comfortable the first few times you wear them? Then the more you wear them the more comfortable they get? Well the same with earphones/headphones. When you first buy them they are stiff and over time the diaphragms loosens up. Since I don’t want to wait a weeks for them to loosen up I just plug them to my stereo and leave them running for nearly 100 hours. You can find more info [Here]

Anyway, once I get back from London later this month I will post a full review on the Super.fi’s. I got my black ones from Amazon for $169, they also come in red, white and clear. [Amazon]

I was just checking the Alshaya website for info on their new Italian restaurant when I found an article on the first Starbucks that opened up in Moscow last month. It was a joint venture between M.H. Alshaya Co. and Starbucks Coffee International. I thought that was pretty cool. [Link]

Still can’t find any info though on their new restaurant. A friend told me they opened up an Italian restaurant in The Avenues and supposedly its really good.

I know a lot of people will be traveling to Europe during the Eid so I just wanted to share some handy travel software that will work on Nokia phones and in some cases other smartphones, iPods and PDA’s.

I already previously posted about A-Z Maps which I purchased before I traveled to London for the first time last month. It was an incredibly easy to use software which allowed me to navigate London very easily as if I had been there before. The company has maps for other cities also including Paris, Barcelona and Helsinki. The map starts up instantly when you run it and then you just type the name of the street you are in and the software will show you where you are on the map. It’s also not expensive costing around KD10. More details on this software is available on the publishers website. https://www.lumisoft.net/

Another software I recently purchased in my preparation for my London trip later this month is Tube 2. When I was in Paris last month I had a hard time navigating the underground subway system and this software will be making my life a lot easier this time around. I purchased two versions of the software, the Tube 2 London and Tube 2 Paris. How it works is you type the name of the station you are in and then type the name of the station you want to go to and the software will visually show you your route on the underground map AND it will also give you step by step instructions. Here is an example of a trip from the Marble Arch to Waterloo station:

Marble Arch to Waterloo
Time: 13 minutes
Changes: 1

1. Marble Arch to Bond Street
Depart Marble Arch via the Central line (Eastbound) towards Epping for 1 stop.
Service runs every 5 minutes.

2. Bond Street to Waterloo
At Bond Street change to the Jubilee line (Southbound) towards Stratford for 3 stops.
Service runs every 5 minutes.

3. Waterloo
Arrive at Waterloo.

As you can see it makes things a lot easier. The software costs like KD3 and its available for the London, Paris and New York subway system. You can get more information from the software publishers website. They also have versions that work on iPods but they work differently. https://visualit.co.uk/

I thought a lot of people knew about this already but I am still getting emails from people telling me they tried ordering an iPhone from the Apple Store but that its asking them for a US shipping address.

What you need to do to order an iPhone from the Apple Store or any electronic item from Amazon for that matter is to set up a US forwarding mailbox. Basically its a mailbox thats located in the States and anything that arrives in it will get forwarded to your address here in Kuwait.

There are four companies in Kuwait that offer this service and I’ve tried all four of them, my favorite and the one I use the most is U Shop We Ship. The main reason I prefer it over the competition is the fact that signing up to their service can be done online and all payments for the shipments can also be paid online. This makes things really practical. Items usually take 3 to 4 days to arrive to Kuwait once shipped from your US mailbox.

I know a lot of people have tried ordering iPhones from the Apple Store and have had their shipments canceled. I don’t know why thats happening and why it works with some people and not with others. I myself have ordered 3 iPhones with the last one around 10 days ago and I haven’t had any cancellations yet. I’ve also received the iPhones quickly without paying any custom fees. I don’t have any advice or tips on how to avoid getting your order canceled, I guess it could be random thing.

update: To find out what firmware you have on an un-activated iPhone do the following dial *3001#12345#* and then push “Call”

If you see 03.12.06_G then your firmware is 1.0.0
If you see 03.14.08_G then your firmware is 1.02
If you see 04.01.13_G then your firmware is 1.1.1

A friend emailed me while I was in Beirut asking if I could help him out with something. For awhile now he’s been pondering what Banak really is and what its called in English. He did a bit of research online and all he found was another blog that was asking the same question. So does anyone know the answer?

Picture taken from COLoriya

The good stuff:
– It’s pretty
– Excellent browser
– Everyone wants to touch your iphone
– It has an iPod built in
– Touch screen is amazing
– Decent camera
– It’s cheap, KD95 for 4GB and KD130 for 8GB (with shipping to Kuwait) prices the iPhone very competitively to other regular phones from Nokia and Sony Ericsson

The bad stuff:
– Once you have an iPhone you realize its just a phone
– If you have a lot of numbers its a real pain finding a contact
– Everyone wants to touch your iphone
– Typing on the iPhone is a joke
– Battery life is a bigger joke, barely lasts a day with below average use
– Adding a ringtone is a hassle
– Majority of headphones won’t work with it
– Not as useful or fun without a wireless internet or GPRS connection
– You have a lot of basic phone features missing like forwarding an SMS, turning off the predictive dictionary, different phone profiles, searching for contacts etc.. etc.. etc..

Would I recommend it?
If you aren’t a heavy phone user yes.
If you don’t send a lot of messages also yes.
For everyone else, no.

Final score, 3.5 out of 5. Nat loves it although she has issues with it. I personally could never have an iPhone as my primary phone.

Update: I now use the iPhone as my primary phone and can’t imagine life without it. The software 2.0 brought with it the app store which has made the iphone a lot more interesting for me.

Remember the Dove ad of the woman morphing from something not very pretty to something very hot? Well this is the follow-up campaign. [YouTube]

Been up since 7:30 shooting. We are shooting outdoors today and for some stupid reason I didn’t get my shades. We are now at this really cool park that isn’t open to the public because the trees inside are still growing. Geo my dog would love this place. (Posted from my Nokia e61i)

I’ve been in the studio since morning shooting. It’s not as interesting as shooting outdoor since the studio feels very monotonus (no spell checker on my phone). Anyway I am no longer coming back to Kuwait on the 4th, I am now coming back on the 6th. This means slow posting till then unless I can find cheap Internet access somewhere. (Posted from my Nokia e61i)

I went and watched I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry tonight at the movies and I really wasn’t expecting it to be good. All the recent Adam Sandler movies have sucked, sucked in comparison to his best two movies, Billy Madison and Happy Gilmor. Still, I decided to watch this movie because of Kevin James from The King of Queens and I am glad I ended up watching this movie because its easily the funniest movie I’ve watched this year. This is actually the funniest Adam Sandler movie since Happy Gilmor.

First lets get something out of the way, you get to see Jessica Biel in her underwear in this movie and she is hot!

Now back to the guys in this movie and there are a ton of them. First you have the two main stars which are Adam Sandler and Kevin James. Then you have a few main supporting actors including Dan Aykroyd, Ving Rhames, Steve Buscemi, Nicholas Turturro and Nick Swardson. There are also kameo cameo appearances by David Spade, Rob Schnider and Rob Corddry from the TV show The Winner. The movie is just packed to the brim with all these comedians so its really non stop laughter from the beginning till the end. It’s easily the funniest movie I have watched in a really really long time and it’s going to get a full five out of five from me. I was going to give it a 4.5 because I would have loved to have seen more of David Spade and Rob Corddry and maybe even a kameo by Ricky Gervais but I guess nothing can be perfect.

I am in Lebanon now and the weather isn’t as cool as I hoped it would be. Its good enough to drive around in a convertible or on a motorbike but not cool enough for long walks. Its kinda humid, not Dubai kind of humidity but still enough to make you feel icky after a short walk. I can’t believe how hot it still is in Kuwait!

I will be leaving to Beirut today at 5pm on business and will come back October 4th. As usual I will try to post while I am away. If you have any information that you think my be interesting to my readers then email it to me using the contact us form.

Pearl, a fellow blogger sent an email to Jazeera Airways complaining about some problems she had with one of her flights. The response she got back from them was just unbelievable. The Jazeera Airways guy basically calls her a liar twice, accusing her of exaggerating and and making up facts.

I hope Pearl can post his email address and full name so someone at Jazeera can put some sense into him. [Link]

Update: Turns out I misread, someone left a comment on her blog on behalf of the airlines, it wasn’t a reply to her email which means there is no proof its from an actual Jazeera Airways employee. My mistake! [Link]

A while back Villa Fayrouz Express opened up on Baghdad Street in Salmiya. It’s a take-out version of their popular Lebanese restaurant of the same name minus the express. Since the place is in my neighborhood I had to try their chicken shawermas and I have to say I was surprised.

I was surprised because each chicken shawerma cost 750 fils! That officially makes it the most expensive shawerma I have ever reviewed and it also makes it the most expensive shawerma I know of in Kuwait. 750 fils, thats three times the price of a shawerma at Badar Al Badoor and more than double that of Dodo. So is it worth it?

It takes only one bite to realize why the shawerma is priced so expensive. Its the quality of chicken they use, it tastes fresh and healthy. From the chicken to the garlic its all just top notch quality. They also aren’t stingy, I can barely finish two sandwiches at Villa Fayrouz Express while at Dodo for example I could easily have three in addition to a side order of fries. The sandwich isn’t huge mind you, its fat and short but not huge.

So back to the main question, is it worth 750fils? No, I personally don’t think so. I mean I really don’t care where I eat shawerma (except for this one place next to my office) as long as it tastes good. I have now had shawermas ranging from 200 to 750 fils and I can confidently say that I would rather have Badar Al Badoor’s 250 fils shawerma over Villa Fayrouz Express. Not because for the price of one shawerma at Villa Fayrouz Express I can have two shawermas and a kofta sandwich at Badar Al Badoor, but I also felt Badar Al Badoor’s shawerma was more fun. Shawerma isn’t meant to be healthy or made from great quality, its supposed to just taste good and thats it. Still though for people who care about hygene and are looking for a good shawerma Villa Fayrouz Express is highly recommended. My final score is a 4 out of 5.