Categories
Events Things to do

Things to do in Kuwait this Long Weekend

Right now it doesn’t look like there is a lot going on this long weekend but I’ll keep looking for events and adding them to the list. For now below is everything I could find, if I missed anything let me know.

Thursday
Exhibition: RE_USE
New Waves in Contemporary Egyptian Art
Exhibition: Suhaila Al Najdi and Mahmoud Maghraby
Kuwait International Speed Racing Championship Drag Race
From AlKout to Kuwait
Festival of Lights
Japanese Cultural Week: Movie Night

Friday
Exhibition: RE_USE
New Waves in Contemporary Egyptian Art
Kuwait International Speed Racing Championship Drag Race
From AlKout to Kuwait
Festival of Lights
The Meeting Point Food Festival
Murouj Market
Pro Truck Food Festival
Friday Morning Run
Yoga With Fatheya
Locals Day at Bunka

Saturday
Exhibition: RE_USE
New Waves in Contemporary Egyptian Art
Exhibition: Suhaila Al Najdi and Mahmoud Maghraby
From AlKout to Kuwait
Festival of Lights
The Meeting Point Food Festival
Murouj Market
Pro Truck Food Festival
Locals Day at Bunka
Movies at the Park: ET

Sunday
Exhibition: RE_USE
New Waves in Contemporary Egyptian Art
Exhibition: Suhaila Al Najdi and Mahmoud Maghraby
From AlKout to Kuwait
Festival of Lights
The Meeting Point Food Festival
Pro Truck Food Festival

Monday
Exhibition: RE_USE
New Waves in Contemporary Egyptian Art
Exhibition: Suhaila Al Najdi and Mahmoud Maghraby
From AlKout to Kuwait
Festival of Lights
Pro Truck Food Festival

Tuesday
Exhibition: RE_USE
New Waves in Contemporary Egyptian Art
Exhibition: Suhaila Al Najdi and Mahmoud Maghraby
From AlKout to Kuwait
Festival of Lights

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 always double-check with the organizers.




Categories
Information

Ear Molds for Custom Earphone Sleeves

If you’ve ever researched high-end music earphones or maybe you’ve purchased a pair before, you’d know that you can get custom sleeves for them. Earphones (the type you stick inside your ear) come with different sized rubber sleeves, usually similar to the ones below. These are made to fit the majority of ears but aren’t a perfect fit.

With high-end earphones, you can get custom silicon sleeves made to fit your unique ear canal shape offering your better sound isolation and a perfect fit. To get these custom sleeves done, you need to send the manufacturer an impression of your ear. A few days ago someone on Reddit asked where to get this done in Kuwait, so I figured I’d post that information here.

International Optics have a Hearing Center at their location in Central Plaza in Salmiya. At the hearing center they can take an impression of your ear and have your mold ready all within 15 minutes. Once they give you the mold you could then mail that to the silicon sleeve manufacturer abroad to create the custom sleeve for you. The cost for two earmolds (left and right) is KD15.

So if you’re ever looking to get molds done, that’s a place you can go to. Their phone number is 25714573 or 97234752 and they’re located [Here]




Categories
Blog Info Personal

something something Blog Anniversary something something

Today is my blogs 14th anniversary (maybe 15?) and around a week back it was my 16th anniversary (or was it 17th?) since I first started blogging. 2018 might have been the most stress-free year for me blogging-wise. I decided to kinda take a very chill approach to the blog, and not pressure myself as much where I have to post 2 or 3 times every day. If I have something to post I’ll post, if not I won’t. I know it sucks for you but I really am getting too old for this 😅.

I’ve mentioned this before but it is a lot of pressure having to constantly try and find stuff to write about every day, it’s also really difficult to do when I have a job, a social life and a lot of days where I just want to sit on my couch, watch a TV show and not leave the house.

Last month I started a new job and it’s taking up so much of my time so I don’t know how 2019 is going to turn out. I’m trying to wake up at 7AM every day to get the posting out of the way, and so far it seems like its working. Surprisingly (to me), this is probably the first time in a while where I’m not considering stopping the blog. I realized that the blog helps me stay current and active, so even with my busy work schedule, I’ll keep finding time for it especially now that I’m putting less pressure on myself.

Anyway, that’s all.




Categories
50s to 90s

History: The Kuwait National Museum

In May 1960, an international competition was held for the architectural project for this state museum to be located in the cultural district of the 1952 Master Plan. The rules of the competition organized the museum into four thematic areas: “Land of Kuwait”, which illustrated the natural geography of Kuwait; “Man of Kuwait”, which focused on the traditional Kuwaiti vernacular language; and “Kuwait of Today and Tomorrow”, which showed Kuwaiti technological advances. In addition, there was a section for temporary exhibitions.

The winner of the competition was the project of Michel Écochard, author of the Museum of Antioch and the Cité horizontale in Casablanca. Michel Écochard was also a follower of modern premises, and an important member of ATBAT-Afrique, a subsidiary group of CIAM. Écochard organized the museum into four brick buildings with a concrete roof. This allowed the visitors to choose the order of their visit to the contents of the museum. The buildings were connected by raised corridors, and a planetarium completed the whole. [Source]

AGI Architects published a very interesting article on the history of Kuwait National Museum. Sadly, the article doesn’t mention anything about the current plan, just that in 2014 it was decided to reactivate the National Museum. When I drove by the museum this past weekend, the exterior renovations look mostly done. But, I’m curious on what the current plan is and when are they expecting it to be completed. So if you have any information on this, please share it in the comments.




Categories
First Impression Internet

Zain Beam – First Impression

Around ten days back I asked if anyone had tried the Zain Beam internet service and a few of you responded with high praise for the service. Zain also read my post and got in touch with me with an offer to try the service for a month, so I jumped on the opportunity and yesterday they installed Beam at my place.

The installation process is supposed to be fairly simple, they install an antenna on your balcony or the roof of your building, and then run an ethernet cable to your apartment where they hook it up to an LTE modem. In my case the installation process was slightly more complicated and took around an hour and a half because they were having trouble finding a strong signal. My building which back in the 90s was the tallest in the neighborhood is now surrounded by much taller buildings and so it was difficult to find a good signal. Thankfully, just as I was about to give up hope, they found a spot on my roof with ample signal and then ran the ethernet cable from it down to my apartment.

First impression? It’s fast! I asked for the 20Mbps connection and I’m getting around 30Mbps which is similar to what other people are reporting. What’s also great is my upload speed is between 10-20Mbps.

This right now is the fastest connection I’ve ever had at home and it feels strange because I’m so not used to having a fast and stable connection at home. YouTube videos play instantly as well as HBO, Amazon, Hulu and Netflix. The video quality from the streaming services also looks to have improved because of my now faster connection. I also managed to update all the apps on my two ipads plus two macs really quickly. I know all this sounds very normal, but you have to keep in mind, my connection for the past year or so has been terrible and I now finally feel like I have fast internet like a normal person.

For those of you who are gonna leave a comment saying I should get LTE or B Wireless or whatever, those services might be great where you are, but not where I am. I’ve had B Wireless for the past 7 years but you need a direct line of sight to their tower for it to work properly. A few months ago I lost what little line of sight I had which is why I had to look for a B Wireless alternative. Regular internet services from telecoms also doesn’t work properly where I live. Zain Bolt which can easily hit 60-70Mbps at the office barely gets 12Mbps at my place and spends most of the time hovering at around 5Mbps. So I understand you might have super fast mobile or fiber optics internet at your place, at mine it’s a different story.

Its too soon to tell if the Zain Beam speed will remain consistent, but I’m optimistic since Zain are limiting the amount of Beams they install per area. A friend of mine also told me these antennas can be upgraded in the future to work with 5G, so Zain could potentially end up providing much faster internet than their current two options (20Mbps or 40Mbps). Personally, if the connection continues like this for a the next few days I’m not even going to wait for my one month trial period to finish, I’m going to sign up right away.

The cost of the service is KD25 a month for 20Mbps, and KD40 for 40Mbps. With both options you need to commit to 24 months which is a tough pill to swallow. But with no better option, I’m willing to commit. If you guys have any questions about Zain Beam or want me to try anything let me know in the comments below.




Categories
Food & Drinks

What’s Your Impression on Deliveroo?

Just over a week ago Deliveroo went live and since then I’ve only managed to use them once. Not because I had a bad experience or anything, my food actually got delivered ahead of time. But the reason I’ve used them only once is because only one of the restaurants I frequently order from are on Deliveroo while the rest are still only Carriage.

But, I have been hearing a lot of good stuff about them, mostly about how their customer service is so great. I think Carriage’s biggest weakness is their customer service which is why Deliveroo might be focusing so much on it. People have been getting Deliveroo credit for late orders, some people have gotten hand written apology notes and I personally had a good experience when I posted the photo above of one of their drivers looking super dope and asked for the jacket. They actually sent me one the next day and it’s actually a very cool jacket.

So what has your experience been like?




Categories
Information Kuwait

The ASCC Museums – 1 Year Later

The Abdullah Al-Salem Cultural Centre (ASCC) opened nearly a year ago and since then I’ve visited it nearly a dozen times. It’s right down the street from my place and so it’s really convenient for me to drop by whenever I want. One of the things I was concerned about when the museums first opened up was how it would hold up to the abuse.

Well I’ve got good news, all six museums are still pretty much intact. I passed by on Thursday and went through all the exhibits and I could count the number of exhibits that were out-of-order on my hand. Not only that but since my last visit a few months ago, new cafes have opened up and a couple of new exhibits were added.

Best part about the museum is that there rarely is anyone ever there. For example I passed by Thursday evening and there were barely any people which is great if you don’t like crowds.

If you haven’t been to the museums yet then I’d highly recommend you do so, it’s just a cool place to walk around and chill with loads of outdoor spaces to explore as well as the actual museums themselves. For more information click [Here]




Categories
Internet

Do you have Zain Beam?

Now that Zain’s Beam internet service has been out for a few months I’m wondering if any of my readers have tried it. I’ve been using B Wirless (Wimd) for the past 6 years but recently I’ve been having a lot of issues and barely getting 10Mbps. It’s not B Wireless’s fault, it’s just there is now a new building blocking the line of sight needed between my building and the B Wirless tower, so my connection is no longer stable.

I’ve considered getting an LTE connection from one of the telecoms but with the testing I’ve done, the speed can vary from as low as 2Mbps up to around 12Mbps. My only other alternative is Beam, but I haven’t heard of anyone using it. So if you have Beam installed, let us know what you think of it.




Categories
Automotive Reviews

The Ferrari 812 Superfast

I wish my review for this car could be just a 😳 because really that’s all I need to describe it. The Ferrari 812 Superfast is the ultimate Ferrari you can buy excluding the limited edition models, and it was the only Ferrari model left from their current lineup that I hadn’t driven yet. It lies on top of the Ferrari foodchain with an engine that is considered to be the most powerful naturally aspirated engine on a production car ever made. It has 789hp which is freakin’ insane!

I can’t emphasize enough how batshit crazy this car is when the roads are dry but I picked it up when it had just started raining. A 789hp rear wheel drive car in the rain in my hands could have turned into something messy really quick. Thankfully, the rain didn’t last long and I survived to tell the tale. And you know what’s bizarre? The 812 is meant to be a daily driver! I have no idea who needs 800 horsepower on a racetrack let alone to drive to the office or the supermarket, but I love it! It’s overkill of course but you kinda have to be nowadays to stick out next to the likes of the McLaren 720s and the Lamborghini Aventador.

But, what I liked about the 812 is that Ferrari allows you to choose the character you play in the car. Are you going to be the successful CEO driving like a normal adult on the way to an important meeting? Or are you going to be a complete moron with the car and try to kill yourself? I’m the second option for sure but the important thing here is you have the choice. Although it has nearly 800hp, if you want to drive the 812 like a normal human being you can absolutely do that. In normal driving conditions, the car engine and exhaust sound are fairly subdued, and with the windows rolled up you can barely hear the outside world. Add to that the ride quality is also incredibly good even when driving over our pothole-ridden roads. I swear I kept forgetting I was in a supercar because of how good the ride quality was. If there is just one thing I wished my Lotus had from this Ferrari, it wouldn’t be the power or the beautiful interior, it would just be the suspension. I keep mentioning this in all my Ferrari reviews but it’s unreal how good the ride quality is on their cars.

So yeah, the Ferrari can be “normal”, in the same way Bruce Banner is also a normal guy.

As soon as you downshift a few gears and step on the gas, things change incredibly fast. I’ve never been so scared to put my foot down as much as I was in the 812. Clearly, the name Superfast was given to the car after one of their test drivers took the car out for the first time because that’s exactly how I’d describe it. Once you step on it the car suddenly starts screaming like an F1 car right as the shift-lights on the steering wheel start lighting up like a Christmas tree. I don’t think I was able to keep my foot down for longer than 3 seconds at any point during the 2 days I had the car.

It’s a monster underneath but so civil on the outside. It has a pretty large trunk and all the amenities of a luxury car like front and rear cameras, a dual-zone climate system, fully adjustable electric seats, an incredible sound system and lots of soft luxurious leather everywhere. But it’s a crazy freakin’ monster.

The car I drove had a retail price of around KD130,000 which makes it one of the most expensive Ferraris you can buy at the dealership. I was thinking to myself if it was worth it or not, as in if I had the money and was in the market for a Ferrari would I get the 812 Superfast? And the answer to that is no, my heart still belongs to the Ferrari GTC4Lusso. For a bit less than the price of an 812 Superfast, the GTC4Lusso for me is a more practical daily car with rear seats that also fold down like in a hatchback. But then again, this is such a first world problem to have trying to decide between the two. I actually just checked the Ferrari pre-owned cars list and the the 812 I borrowed is listed for sale at KD115,000. So if you want to check it out or at least check out more photos of the car then click [Here]




Categories
Design Food & Drinks

Copy or Homage?

At Qout Market this weekend, the local ice cream brand Moo Milk Bar had a very creative kiosk that resembled a sketch. It proved to be really popular with Instagrammers with lots of people taking photos of the kiosk and posting it on their accounts. But, word started spreading around that the creative kiosk idea was actually a copy of the work by the artist Joshua Vides. People started leaving comments that they had stolen the idea and Moo Milk Bar started deleting those comments.

Then yesterday, Moo Milk Bar posted that their kiosk was in fact a homage to Joshua Vides and not a copy. Thats clearly still causing controversy because it opens a lot of doors. Is it ok to copy something as long as you call it a homage? Some people think it is, others think it isn’t and I can understand the arguments for both sides, but I’m curious to what you think?

Here are more pictures to Moo Milk Bars kiosk [Link]
Here is a link to more of Joshua Vides work [Link]

[poll id=”8″]




Categories
Blog Info

Give me your opinion!

As many of you know I’ve been working on a blog redesign for sometime now. I don’t mind change, but I also like routine and when I’m used to a website being a certain way I don’t like it when they suddenly change things. With the redesign I tried to keep most of the things in the same place and just simplify the design a bit. I also had two issues I wanted to improve with the redesign:

1- I wanted the images and videos to be displayed larger on the blog
2- I wanted a mobile friendly version of the blog

I got the first issue sorted, with the redesign both the images and videos would now be embedded in a larger size. I did that by basically killing the middle column of the blog and integrating it into the sidebar.

What I haven’t been able to sort out is the mobile friendly version of the blog. My current theme can be adapted to become mobile friendly with a click of a button, and so can the new theme. But my issue isn’t with that, the problem I have is the fact there doesn’t seem to be a way to have the advertisement banners show while in the mobile friendly version of the blog. The banners are my only source of revenue for the blog and so have to be on the blog at all times. Right now if I turn on the mobile version of the blog, the banners get shoved down to the bottom of the page and that’s not good.

If anyone has any idea how to sort this out let me know, or if anyone has an idea on a different income model for the blog that doesn’t rely on banners also let me know. I’m open to suggestions.

If you want to give me your opinion on the new redesign, check out a live preview of the new design [Here]




Categories
Events Things to do

Things to do in Kuwait this Weekend

Below is this weekends list of events. As usual, if I missed anything, let me know.

Thursday
GulfRun Car Show
Exhibition: RE_USE
Al Hamra Coffee Festival
AMG Mozart Requiem
KRCS Charity Gala Concert

Friday
GulfRun Car Show
Exhibition: RE_USE
Red Bull Car Park Drift
The Cypher Effect
The Soundtracks Show

Saturday
GulfRun Car Show
Exhibition: RE_USE
Workshop: Introduction to Ceramics
Guided Tour: The Red Fort
Qout Market

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 always double-check with the organizers.




Categories
Music

Hear Galaxy Juices’ New EP, ‘Pantagonia’

Galaxy Juice, the local psychedelic indie band (and one of my favorite local bands) just released their latest EP, ‘Pantagonia’. Galaxy Juices’ style is influenced by the likes of Pink Floyd, Tame Impala, The Flaming Lips, Animal Collective and Radiohead but with an additional distinctive Middle Eastern touch. They describe their latest EP as being futuristic, weird and shimmering, and a pulsating and bright blast of Psychedelic Pop.

I’m listening to ‘Pantagonia’ right now and really liking it, it’s super chill, check it out [Here]




Categories
Automotive

Small Car Plates Coming Soon?

Not really a reliable source but the local super cars account @super_cars posted the image above stating that we will soon be getting small car plates.

Not sure if many people are aware of this but a lot of super cars don’t have room for a license plate in front of the car. So super car owners end up putting their plates inside the car over the dash or somehow finding a place to stick the plates on the front bumper making the car look ugly.

Small plates are available for situations like this in some other countries like Dubai (pictured above) so it is believable we could also be getting them soon as well.




Categories
Automotive Reviews

Ferrari F12 Berlinetta

You’d think the most stressful part of reviewing a Ferrari would be the part where I take a Ferrari out that isn’t mine, on roads which are in terrible condition, surrounded by people who can’t drive yet are all too busy on their phones and then try and bring the car back to the dealer in one piece. Instead, what really stresses me out is trying to find a place to shoot the cars. It’s so hard finding a nice clean backdrop for a shoot which I haven’t abused already like my favorite strip of road in the desert or the rooftop across from Mayar Complex. I can’t keep taking pictures in the same spot so I don’t take out as many cars out as I’d like. With Ferraris, it’s even more difficult since instead of having the car for the weekend like with most brands, I have to instead pick up the car early morning and then drop it off in the evening before they close. Sounds like a first world problem but when car dealers lend me a car, they’re hoping to get nice photos taken in return and I want to keep getting nice cars so I need to keep taking nice shots. With the Ferrari F12, this was the first time I was allowed to keep the car overnight so I decided to try something new.

The Ferrari F12 Berlinetta I picked up is part of the Ferrari pre-owned collection. It’s a 2016 model and had done around 6,500km when I picked it up. It’s the model the preceded the new Ferrari 812 SuperFast which I’m hoping to pick up sometime this week. The F12 has a 6.3L V12 engine producing 730HP making it the fourth most powerful Ferrari road car produced to date. That sounds crazy except then you find out that the F12 is actually meant to be a daily driver and you’re like wtf?! It’s got an insane amount of power, too much power for our fairly short and unexciting roads, but it also has all the comforts and luxury features you’d find on a high-end luxury car plus a large trunk in case you need to drop a friend off to the airport or pick up a few items from IKEA. It’s really why I had my eye on the car a couple of years ago.

At one point before getting my Lotus I was actually checking out the F12’s in the secondhand market. I really wanted the 4 seater Ferrari FF since it would have been the perfect daily driver, but since there weren’t any used ones for sale I started looking at F12’s since they were also meant to be great daily drivers. For the short time I had the F12 last week, I did find it very comfortable and pretty quiet when the windows rolled up. Yup quiet, the exhaust sound on the F12 sounds fairly normal when driving around like a normal human being and the cars sound proofing really helps isolate you from all the sounds outside the car. It’s really only once you lower the windows and get aggressive with your driving does it start sounding like the fourth most powerful Ferrari road car ever produced. I always like that good and evil side to cars, it makes the car more bareable to live with over the long run. Another thing I really loved about the F12 is the minimal interior and the fact you can’t see the stereo. The stereo is usually one of the first things in a car that quickly gets outdated, by integrating the sound system into the main car interface which is in the drivers dashboard next to the large RPM dial, there isn’t anything anymore to get dated. Even the car’s interface graphics have been kept to a minimal I presume to keep the car looking good for a very long time. I think it works.

Since I was able to keep the F12 overnight, I decided I wanted to try some light painting for my photo. To light paint a car you need to take it to a fairly dark area, then take the photo with a very long shutter speed while you paint the car with a light source, in my case a flashlight. What this allows you to do is keep the location around the car dark and moody, but get your car nicely lit. I ended up driving around close to midnight looking for an interesting parking lot to shoot the car before settling on the spot above. I think the shot came out pretty good for my first try at light painting. I actually think I could have light painted the top of the car slightly more but I only noticed that later once I got home and it was too late to do anything about it. If you want you can check out the photo of the car normally exposed without any light painting, click [Here]

After spending time with the F12 I can’t wait to take out the Ferrari 812. Actually while writing this post I realized I really want to take out the Ferrari FF and I think they have one or two pre-owned ones available so I might ask Ferrari if I could do that. For now, if you’re interested in checking out their pre-owned collection, you can do so online by visiting the Al-Zayani website [Here]