2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003We found 5,101 results for your search.
This is the list for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region according to the Economist. I guess Kuwait is in a pretty good spot.
1. Israel 8.20
2. Lebanon 6.55
3. Morocco 5.20
4. Iraq 5.05
5. Palestine 5.05
6. Kuwait 4.90
7. Tunisia 4.60
8. Jordan 4.45
9. Qatar 4.45
10. Egypt 4.30
11. Sudan 4.30
12. Yemen 4.30
13. Algeria 4.15
14. Oman 4.00
15. Bahrain 3.85
16. Iran 3.85
17. UAE 3.70
18. Saudi Arabia 2.80
19. Syria 2.80
20. Libya 2.05
[Source]
Fucking Åmål
I watched two movies this weekend which were very good and thought I would share them with you. The first movie I watched was Fucking Åmål. Its a Swedish movie with nothing to do about fucking so don’t let the title fool you. They mean fucking as a sign of frustration. Here is the plot summary from IMDB:
Åmål is a small insignificant town where nothing ever happens, where the latest trends are out of date when they get there. Young Elin has a bit of a bad reputation when it comes to guys, but the fact is that she has never done *it*. Another girl in her school, Agnes, is in love with her but is too shy to do anything about it. For different reasons, Elin ends up at Agnes’ birthday party as the only guest. They have a girl’s night out together but after that Elin desperately avoids Agnes, refusing to even consider her own homosexuality.
Fucking Åmål is one of the best movies I watched this year. There is no nudity, there is no violence, there is no sex and there are not hot Swedish blonds, but nevertheless it was a great movie to watch and it never felt slow or dull. The story was very well written and watching Agnes go from sad and lonely confused girl to a confident and happy lesbian was somehow exciting to watch. I guess the fact that she was Swedish AND lesbian could have made things more interesting but I think it had to do more with the fact that the movie is Swedish and so it was interesting to watch the lifestyle of their high school students. If this was an American movie I don’t think I would have enjoyed it as much. Anyway watch it if you can, I am giving it a 4.5 out of 5.
The second movie I watched was Koroshiya 1, (Ichi the Killer). I had had this movie on my wish list for over 2 years now and I was finally able to watch it. The reviews I had read about the movie said this was one of the most violent movies ever made and I have to agree with them. I don’t think I am going to go to Japan anytime soon after watching this movie since I no longer think of them as quiet polite people but more like psychotic violent killers (I am joking here don’t send me hate mail). Here is the plot summary from IMDB:
Yakuza boss Anjo disappears with three million yens. His loyal gang members, lead by the masochist Kakihara, start a search, but their aggressive and gory methods worry the other yakuza gangs. Kakiharas most scary counterpart is the mysterious Ichi, a psychopathic killer with a dark childhood secret, who is controlled by a retired cop.
If the site of blood makes you queasy, if torture scenes make you feel sick and if watching internal organs get splattered all over the wall makes you puke then I would not recommend you watch this movie. You will see allot of everything I just mentioned and more. The director Takashi Miike is one sick mother fucker and I think thats why his movies are so incredible and like nothing else out there. Quentin Tarantino’s movies look like a school girl dressed in pink carrying a Hello Kitty backpack when compared to Takashi’s movies. The torture scenes are extremely gruesome and even if you cover up your eyes theres no escape since the sound is just as horrifying. Ichi the Killer with all the violence and blood had a good plot and the star, Ichi is just really fucked in the head. The whole movie was fucked in the head and thats why I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen for a single moment. It took me a while to get a hold of this movie but I am really glad I was able to since it was really worth watching. I am soo watching more of Takashi’s movies now..
Last month I purchased an old 300mhz Apple clamshell iBook. It had 32MB of RAM and was running OS 9.2 slowly. So I ordered a Kingston 256MB RAM stick for my iBook and it arrived earlier in the week. The first thing I did once I installed it was to replace OS 9.2 with Linux. The reason simply was I needed to be able to browse on the iBook and Firefox wasn’t available for OS 9.2 and I had heard OS X would run very slow on my Mac. So Linux was my only option and after over 1 hour of installing the OS I tried it out and was very disappointed. Although it was very responsive and it did have Firefox, I wasn’t very comfortable using it and I decided to give OS X a shot. If OS X turned out to be very slow then I would come back to Linux as my last option.
I formated the drives and proceeded to install Panther (OS 10.3) onto my ibook. Installation was brisk and in less then 30 minutes it was done installing and rebooting. When the OS launched again I played around with it a bit and I was shocked. Panther was pretty responsive and very very usable. It was not slow, there was no lag and I wasn’t even bothered by the 800×600 screen resolution. I was simply amazed at how well everything was running. I quickly copied Firefox and Adium from my main mac at home and proceeded to set things up importing my bookmarks and setting up my system preferences, everything ran extremely smooth and I even managed to install OS 9.2 in case I ever needed it.
After a week of using my iBook it has finally become my main Internet browsing portal. I am getting online from my living room while watching TV and I am really enjoying it. Sure I could be surfing from the living room with Nat’s powerbook but its not mine and even when I setup my own account on her powerbook it still always felt as if I was using HER powerbook. My previous Internet portal in the living room was my Audrey and I think I will have to find another place for it (maybe the bathroom) since because of my iBook I am no longer using it. This iBook is mine and I feel right at home with it… until the next generation of iBooks get released. So far its great and I even am posting from it right now. So in conclusion a Mac capable of running OSX smoothly cost me KD25 ($85) for the iBook and KD12 ($40) for the RAM. Unbelievable fucking cheap!
In case you haven’t heard, Jazeera Airways has an amazing offer, for the next 3 days you can purchase tickets to any of their 5 destinations for a price of KD5 (one way). I calculated a 2-way ticket to Lebanon including all the taxes and the total amount came to KD32 ($109) which is like wayyyy cheaper then anything else. It’s even cheaper then taking the bus or your own car. I tried to find the offer on their website but its not there, you can only see the price when you are trying to book. My friend recently travelled with them and he was very satisfied. [Link]
I found this via del.icio.us, its a thread at MacRumors.com discussing the iPod when it was first announced back in 2001. Its cracking me up reading the comments, my favorite one so far is “I still can’t believe this! All this hype for something so ridiculous! Who cares about an MP3 player? I want something new! I want them to think differently!
Why oh why would they do this?! It’s so wrong! It’s so stupid!” [Link]
My iPod Video doesn’t like phones post has been making its rounds around the web. Here is where its been mentioned so far:
The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)
Mac4Ever
Macfeber
Engadget
Slashphone
Macenstein
Macorama
iPod Fun
MacWorld (SE)
Sektori
Onliner
Cool, my post about how cell phones mess up the new ipods made it to engadget. My bandwidth though has hit 1.7GB already and thats from a 200KB file. Sucks. [Link]
Yesterday night I watched Coming to America. I watched it for the first time back in 1989 and really liked it so I figured I would watch it again since I had completely forgotten it.
Anyway the movie wasn’t bad the second time around but the coolest thing about the movie were the very famous actors who played very small roles in the movie because they were nobodys back then. For example it was the first movie Cuba Gooding Jr. acted in. Cuba played the role of a “Boy Getting Haircut”. He was an extra with no talking part or anything! It was really funny watching him in such a crappy role! Second cool actor was Samuel L. Jackson. Coming to America wasn’t his first movie but it was one of his early ones. In the movie Jackson plays the role of a “Hold-Up Man”. Again he didn’t have a name but at least he did have a talking part. Eriq La Salle who plays Dr. Peter Benton on the TV show ER had a major role in the movie playing the part of Daryl, the boyfriend of the chick Eddie Murphy gets a crush on. The final person who isn’t as famous but looked very familiar turned out to be Victoria Dillard (her pic). I checked her out on IMDB and turns out she used to be in the TV show Spin City. In the movie she played the role of a “bather”. She basically was topless in the bath tub bathing Eddie Murphy. Its really weird watching very famous actors act in movies were they were still very unfamous. I guess everyone does start as a nobody.
I just found a 12 page thread in a forum about new upcoming skyscrapers in Kuwait. A guy by the nickname of skoulikimou has 3D rendered images plus phone cam shots of the newest and under construction towers all over Kuwait City. Some interesting stuff, check all the pages. [Link]
Yesterday I posted some highlights, here are more:
– Ferrari F1 car on display
– Ford GT on display
– New Jaguar XK on display
– Audi RS4 on display
– Carrera GT on display
– Mazda RX8 on display
– Audi Q7 SUV on display (hidden in private room)
– Eleanor on display (Gone in 60 Seconds)
– Porsche Cayman on display
– New Subaru Impreza STI (Not for sale)
– Mitsubishi Evolution IX
– Renautl Megane Turbo
– Hummer H3
– BMW M5
If you have an iPod Video and you don’t want to spend time converting your movies to work on the ipod then just download them in the iPod format via torrents. You could try search sites such as torrentspy and thepiratebay for ipod videos but an easier way would be to go to Podtropolis, a 100% pure iPod Video tracker. Its a bit quiet there now since its still new but it should start getting more popular soon. [Link]
Update: Here is more ipodvideotorrents.com and videoipodder.com
Choosing the right headphone is very difficult. I have never used the iPod ear buds because they suck really bad, instead I have used my iPods with the following: Technics DJ1200, Bang & Olufsen A8’s and the Shure E2’s. The Technics made my ears sweat and they hurt after long use. The B&O A8’s sounded terrible with a complete lack of low frequency response (ie no bass). The Shure E2’s are the best earphones I have owned so far. They are canal phones which basically means you stick them deep inside your ear. They provided excellent sound quality and provide amazing isolation from the outside world. If you have them on with music playing at a decent volume you won’t be able to hear anything around you. I once made Nat scream at the top of her lungs right in my face with my E2’s on and I didn’t hear her at all. The downside though is they take like a minute to put on and in a working environment with lots of interruptions, they weren’t practical at all.
So since I ordered my new iPod Video, I wanted to order new headphones. I did allot of research and I finally brought down my options to two headphones, The Grado SR60’s and the Sennheiser PX100. Both are open air speakers which means my neighbors would hear what I was listening to but that wasn’t a concern. What I was looking for was good sound, portability, comfort and practicality. The Grado SR60’s are one of the best quality headphones you could buy and for their price ($69) they are a steal. Many audiophiles compare their quality to much more expensive headphones costing hundreds of dollars more. The Grado’s are handmade in Brooklyn and they have a retro look which you will either love or hate. I was about to get them when I realized they didn’t fit the specs I wanted. They were not comfortable, they were not portable and because they came with a really long cable they weren’t very practical. So my only option was the PX100.
I just got my PX100 over an hour ago and here is my first impression. The headphone case is amazing, the PX100 fold down to a very compact size and which you can then shove into this cool plastic case it came with. Sound wise they sound really good at the moment with very decent bass and very clear highs and mids. According to forums the sound will also get better once I break the headphones in over the weekend with a continuous 48 hours of non stop music playing through them (to help speed up the break-in period). The cable length is perfect and so far the headphones are very comfortable, so comfortable that I can’t actually feel them on my head! The downside of the PX100 so far is that it looks pretty cheap, but that’s expected since it cost me only $49. So far I really like them, once I get my iPod on Saturday and I finish breaking in the headphones I will post another better review so check back.
Update: I have had my PX100 on for 3 hours now and I had totally forgot they were on until I just tried to scratch my head. My neighbor can hear the music I am listening to but I made a deal with her, she now can play music through her computer speakers if she wants to while I am listening to my headphones, that way I don’t bother her.
Wired has a very cool and informative article on the worst software bugs in history. Some really interesting stuff. [Link]
I have been wanting to shoot with medium format film for like forever but I was never able to because the camera I wanted was too expensive. I wanted the Hasselblad 503CW which costs around KD1000 in Kuwait (like $3000) which is too much to pay for something I might end up not using that much. Even a second hand older Hasselblad 501 cost hundreds of dollars on eBay. So I put my dream of shooting 6×6 pictures aside until I found out about the Holga. The Holga I believe is the cheapest medium format camera you can buy, It is very cheaply built and takes 6×4.5cm or 6x6cm shots. The lens is made from cheap plastic the same way the whole camera body is also made of cheap plastic. There are also not allot of options on the camera either, it has a fixed shutter speed and a fixed aperture, the only thing you can control is the focus and even that has only 4 options. So how much does this camera cost? Believe it or not only $19 without flash and $29 with flash. Thats like super cheap. Now the coolest part of the Holga camera is the pictures. Because of the way the camera is cheaply built the effects you get on the pictures are amazing, they look like pictures that were shot by your parents back when Madonna was still a virgin and Michael Jackson still black. I already ordered mine from Amazon without flash of course since I don’t think I have ever used flash. Once I get it I will take a couple of pictures and post them on this site. Until then here are two galleries of pictures taken by the Holga camera.
I watched the horror movie Shutter the other day. It was my first Thai movie I had ever watched and it left me impressed. I don’t know why I keep watching these horror flicks, they freak the hell out of me, seriously.
Shutter is about this guy and girl who run over a girl one night while they were driving back home and then they leave her to die in the middle of the road. The guy and girl are both photographers and so the girl starts haunting them in their pictures. They start finding weird shadows and ghost like forms in all the pictures they take which start to freak them out. If that wasn’t enough they start seeing the dead girl in real life. It was a really freaky movie with allot of creative moments which I had never seen before in any other horror movie.
This movie also convinced me to make my own horror movie except mine will be realistic. In my movie when you see a dead girl come out of your sink in your photography dark room, you run away and you never step foot into that dark room again! Seriously I can barely watch scenes like this while the people in the movie seem to find it freaky for 5 minutes and then act like it never happened. There was one really cool scene in the movie where the guy would be sleeping and then wakes up to find someone at the end of the bed is slowly pulling away the cover, he looks down and sees the dead girl! I told Nat that was pretty cool and I might try it on her one day, she told me if I did it would also be the last day I see her! No sense of humor at all..
I don’t know how easy it is to find this movie in Kuwait and its also not available on Amazon but you could download it the way I did via torrentspy. Its a great horror flick with a really cool ending, something thats just really fucking freaky and just goes to show how creative this horror really is.