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Screenshot from Skin

The movies below are now showing at Cinescape, Grand Cinemas and VOX:

Advanced Booking:
Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw

New This Weekend:
Axel 2: Adventures of the Spacekids (6.9)
Lying and Stealing (5.1)
River Runs Red (4.9)
Skin (6.6)

Other Movies Showing Now:
Aladdin (6.5)
Annabelle Comes Home (7.0)
Avengers: Endgame (9.2)
Crawl (7.1)
Escape Plan: The Extractors (4.4)
Finding Steve McQueen (6.3)
Spider-Man: Far from Home (8.2)
Stuber (5.7)
The Lion King (6.2)
Toy Story 4 (9.0)

The movies below are also now showing at the Scientific Center IMAX theater:

Amazon Adventure 3D (6.6)
Fly Me to the Moon (4.5)
Galapagos 3D (8.6)
The Lion King – 1994 (8.5)
Oceans: Our Blue Planet (7.4)
Volcanoes 3D (6.6)

Numbers in brackets refer to the IMDB rating at time of publishing.

Last month I posted about how I was going to be switching to MyUS from Posta Plus’s MyBox service because based on the MyUS online rate calculator, I would be saving a ton of money.

Spoiler: That didn’t happen.

In fact not only did I not save any money by switching (I ended up paying a lot more), but the whole experience has caused me a lot of frustration. Not even sure where to begin because I’ve basically had issues and unexplained costs with 4 out the 5 packages I’ve shipped with them. Firstly for those of you who don’t know what MyUS or MyBox is, they’re both US mail forwarding companies. This means they provide you with a US mailbox and you can ship stuff to it and they’ll then ship the items to you here in Kuwait.

Since the start of the month, I’ve used MyUS five times. The service has been pretty quick, the package would arrive to the MyUS facilities in the States and then within a day it’s shipped to me in Kuwait. The problem is with all the hidden costs, the inaccurate “Shipping Rate Calculator” and how all my packages were being repackaged into heavier boxes to increase their shipping weight.

According to MyUS, when a package first arrives they weigh it and list the weight in your account. Then before shipping, they re-weigh the package and then charge you for that weight. This is where the problem occurs.

Weight According to UPS: 1.1 lbs.
Weight According to MyUS on Arrival: 1.3 lbs.
Weight According to MyUS on Departure: 2.5 lbs.

I confronted MyUS about this. How did my 1.1 lbs. package go from weighing 1.1 to 2.5. They denied any wrongdoing and sent me a photo of the shipping label from UPS which states it weighs 2 lbs (pic below).

I was like ok great so will you be refunding me the 0.5 lbs. difference I was charged? They responded with the following:

Thank you for contacting us. It is not an error. If you see the photos the indicated weight of your package with UPS Tracking #: 1ZE617090393761544 is 2 lbs when we received it from your merchant. And all packages arrives in our facility undergo re-weigh. So the final weight for this package with AWB# 100044466726 is 2.50 lb.

That email actually contradicts them because inside my account it shows that when they received it from the merchant the package weighed 1.3 lbs. (screenshot below). But in any case, how did a re-weigh increase the package weight? And where did the 1.3 lbs weight come from? Nobody knows…

But that actually summarizes my experience with MyUS. They’re definitely more expensive than MyBox for sure but that’s only half the problem. Their biggest issue is that nothing is ever clear. I had one package that had an unexplained charge of $18.5, when I asked them about it turned out because inside my package was a small bottle of cleaning fluid and that’s considered hazardous and requires special handling. Ok fine at least let me know ahead of time or at least after charging me that amount let me know what it’s for. Why do I have to email and ask about it?

My MacBook Air was shipped with the option “FedEx Economy” instead of “Budget Economy” which is the preference I have in my mailbox settings. When I asked them why they told me any item with a battery can’t be shipped with “Budget Economy”. That would be understandable except the option “Budget Economy” actually uses “FedEx Economy” as the carrier to ship. They’re over-complicated and have a lot of holes in their system.

Overall they just felt sleazy and I really don’t like that. I asked people on Reddit if they faced similar issues and turns out I wasn’t the only.

On a positive note, they seem to be good to use on very heavy packages. The only issue I didn’t have with them was with 1 package and that package weighed 18.48 lbs. It cost me around KD28 to ship with them which was that only time their online shipping calculator had quoted me accurately. That same package would have cost me at least KD35 with PostaPlus.

So would I recommend MyUS? For regular shipments no I would not. I faced an issue with every single package except for one and four out of my five packages would have cost me less to ship with MyBox. The only time I’d recommend MyUS is if you have a really heavy shipment but other than that I’m personally heading back to MyBox for my day to day purchases and I’m going to continue to recommend them.

Update: Just got a shipment from MyUS today and it’s a total disaster. Firstly they charged me $18.50 extra for the shipment because they said my shipment contained flammable liquid, turns out the liquid isn’t flammable. Then they ripped open one of the packages inside and completely damaged one of the sleeves from a vinyl record. They’re a mess!

Google just made taking the bus a lot easier in Kuwait by integrating it into Google Maps. You can now plug in your location and destination and Google will guide you to the nearest bus stop and tell you which bus to take, how often that bus comes by and how long the ride will be. Try it out yourself!

via Reddit

Flying cars could be taking to the skies of Kuwait by 2021.

A memorandum of understanding (MoU) has been signed between Kuwait Airways Corporation (KAC) and the Dutch firm Personal Air Land Vehicle (PAL-V) flying cars company, where KAC will provide maintenance for the vehicles in the Middle East. Source

That’s one way of not having to deal with the crappy roads…

TASCHEN are mostly known for their architecture, art and design books and I usually pass by their stores when on vacation but rarely ever buy anything since their books are usually large and heavy. But, this weekend I found out that we now have a TASCHEN Books dealer in Kuwait.

The dealer is located in Life Center in Shuwaikh, the same complex that houses the Contemporary Art Platform. They have a main store on the top floor next to CAP and another pop-up store on the outside called Stall 78. According to the dealer, they’re trying to match Amazon’s prices as close as possible which is great for us. I picked up the book “Food & Drink Infographics.” for KD22 while the retail price in the US is around KD21 (although Amazon currently has it discounted at KD17).

If you want to check the place out, here is the location of Life Center on Google Maps.

Last week I was contacted by Chevrolet asking me if I’d be interested in test driving their fully electric car, the Chevrolet Bolt EV. Although I wasn’t interested in the Bolt specifically, I was interested in experiencing life with an electric car so I agreed to borrow the car for the weekend.

Right now I don’t think there is any other company in Kuwait that sells a fully electric car, I know both Toyota and BMW sell hybrids (a combination of regular petrol engines and electric motors) but can’t think of anybody else that sells a fully electric car so Chevrolet I guess are the first.

First, let’s talk about the elephant in the room, the Chevy Bolt isn’t a pretty looking car to put it nicely. If I’m driving around in an electric car I want it to look like an electric car and I guess by that I mean I want it to look futuristic with lots of things glowing blue and lots of sharp and angular shapes, like a car that wouldn’t look out of place on the set of Tron. The Bolt looks like an entry-level budget crossover vehicle and the car I picked up was a super boring white. But, I already knew that the Bolt wasn’t pretty, for me this was all going to be about the electric experience.

I picked up the car on Thursday and it was half-charged showing me I had a range of 161KM left till empty. That was fine since I only had a few errands to run and then I was heading home so I could charge the car there. There are no Chevy fast-charging stations around Kuwait, there is a Tesla fast-charging station at Al Shaheed Park but that isn’t compatible with the Chevy charge port.

If you want to charge the Bolt you need to use the charging cable that came with it which allows you to plug it into any regular power socket. My building’s underground parking lot has power sockets all around so when I got home I just plugged the car into one and headed upstairs. A few hours later I decided to check on the charge status and was surprised to see it barely charged. So I started playing around with the car settings and noticed the car had two charging options, 6Amps and 10Amps. According to the car infotainment screen, the car was currently charging at 6Amps (which is the default setting) and that the car would be fully charged by 1:15AM on Saturday. Keep in mind it was Thursday night at that point so 6Amps wasn’t gonna work for me so I switched the car to 10Amps charging. At 10Amps, the car would be fully charged by 1:45PM the next day. Not fast enough, but still a lot better than the original estimate I got.

Next morning I left the house early around 8AM and the car was around 80% charged showing me I had a 261km range. I later found out after reading the manual that it takes around 33 hours to fully charge with the 10Amp setting. That’s just too long although I guess if you’re charging the car every time you park it then it’s not so bad, but in my case, it was starting to give me anxiety. Friday I had a bunch of things I needed to do and by the time I got home that evening, I had around 60KM range left. Unlike with fuel, if you’re close to empty you can’t just fill up at any gas station, so once I saw my range drop to 60 I was like shit, I need to get home now. I really don’t need more anxiety in my life…

Other than the whole charging debacle the car felt like a normal car to drive. I liked the minimalist dash display which was the most electric thing about the car and it was a fairly comfy vehicle to drive. Although not a fast car, the electric motors made the car feel fast since acceleration from a standstill was fairly instant. You know, thinking about it now, I think the biggest issue I have with the car isn’t the looks, or the interior or the slow charging. I think the biggest issue I have with the Bolt is with the price which is causing me to set my expectations so high. The Chevy Bolt is selling for KD13,000 which might be considered affordable compared to other electric cars, but compared to what you’d get from a similarly priced petrol-engined car, it just feels overpriced.

If you’d like to test drive the car yourself or check it out you can do so by passing by the local Chevrolet dealer. They’re on instagram @chevroletalghanim

After closing down their original location near the Kuwait Towers, looks like Chili’s is reopening again on the Gulf Road but this time closer to Green Island. The place looks practically done and could open any day now and they’re also opening a Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf right next door. Here is the location on Google Maps.

This got me thinking if I should revisit all the old school restaurants of the 90s like Chili’s, TGIF, Johnny Carino’s, Nino’s, etc., and do some sort of nostalgic review? The best of the old school maybe? I don’t know, I need to think about this more.

In a bid to stop people from parking illegally the MOI have launched new “No Parking Vehicles” to drive around areas and ticket illegal parkers. The vehicles have cameras located on the outside to capture the license plate of violators automatically without having to leave the car making it really convenient.

Not sure how I feel about this, I think I preferred the previous method of removing license plates and towing cars since those were instant punishments that caused a lot of headache to the violators. I don’t think this new system will be as effective since violators will only know they got fined way after the incident.

In any case, not being pessimistic or anything but based on the history of MOI ideas, this won’t last long anyway before things go back to normal.

Thanks Meshari

Screenshot from Finding Steve McQueen

The movies below are now showing at Cinescape, Grand Cinemas and VOX:

New This Weekend:
A.M.I. (3.9)
Finding Steve McQueen (6.3)
The Kid (6.0)
The Lion King (6.2)
The Sonata (6.4)

Other Movies Showing Now:
Aladdin (6.5)
Anna (6.7)
Annabelle Comes Home (7.0)
Avengers: Endgame (9.2)
Crawl (7.1)
Escape Plan: The Extractors (4.4)
Spider-Man: Far from Home (8.2)
Stuber (5.7)
The Secret Life of Pets 2 (6.5)
Toy Story 4 (9.0)

The movies below are also now showing at the Scientific Center IMAX theater:

Amazon Adventure 3D (6.6)
Fly Me to the Moon (4.5)
Galapagos 3D (8.6)
Oceans: Our Blue Planet (7.4)
Volcanoes 3D (6.6)

Numbers in brackets refer to the IMDB rating at time of publishing.

When Kuwait Airways introduced their new fleet back in 2016 my initial impression of their business class was that it didn’t look premium and it felt overcrowded with their 2-2-2 seat configuration. My favorite business class configuration has always been the Qatar Airways 1-2-1 arrangement on their 787 Dreamliners and it looks like Kuwait Airways will be adopting a similar setup on their new planes.

According to a recent press release, Kuwait Airways will be installing B/E Aerospace Super Diamond seats on their upcoming A330-800neo which are the seats used on airlines like Qatar Airways and Virgin. The current seats in comparison are the regular B/E Aerospace Diamond seats so it’s going to be a really good upgrade.

Kuwait Airways is expecting to enter 8 A330-800neo aircraft into service in 2020.

There is this app called FaceApp which allows you to change your age, hair color, hairstyle and other features, but unlike other apps that do similar effects, this one is actually incredibly realistic. Like scary realistic. Been having fun with it all morning so if you haven’t tried it out yet it’s available on both iOS and Android devices. Link

There’s a new ice skating place at The Avenues called Below Zero. It’s located in the basement right below The Forum (the large dome in Phase 4 where Arabica and Baker & Spice are). Sadly the place is just for children up to 13 years of age which got me thinking. Wouldn’t it have been nice if the whole lower level of The Forum was a large circular ice skating rink? Currently, that space is empty with nothing there except for those open-air elevators and a large robot.

While at the National Library recently, I found a few newspaper clippings related to James Brown when he visited Kuwait back in 1978. I was hoping to find more coverage in the papers but I searched through 1 month worth of AlQabas newspapers and only found a few ads and one article. I’m gonna go back and try to look for more in other newspapers but for now, I’m gonna share the ones I found. One is on top and the rest are below. If only the library didn’t have the most impractical opening hours…

Screenshot from Crawl

The movies below are now showing at Cinescape, Grand Cinemas and VOX:

New This Weekend:
Coconut the Little Dragon 2 Into the Jungle (5.7)
Crawl (7.1)
Escape Plan: The Extractors (4.4)
Stuber (5.7)
We Have Always Lived in the Castle (5.5)

Other Movies Showing Now:
Aladdin (6.5)
Anna (6.7)
Annabelle Comes Home (7.0)
Asterix: The Secret of the Magic Potion (6.8)
Avengers: Endgame (9.2)
John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (8.1)
Men in Black: International (5.6)
Red Joan (6.3)
Spider-Man: Far from Home (8.2)
The Secret Life of Pets 2 (6.5)
Toy Story 4 (9.0)

The movies below are also now showing at the Scientific Center IMAX theater:

Amazon Adventure 3D (6.6)
Fly Me to the Moon (4.5)
Galapagos 3D (8.6)
Oceans: Our Blue Planet (7.4)
Volcanoes 3D (6.6)

Numbers in brackets refer to the IMDB rating at time of publishing.

So this is a funny story that recently happened that made me appreciate car detailing a lot more than I already did.

One of the guys in my WhatsApp group has an old 1995 Acura Integra which he’s turned into a track car. He’s upgraded the engine and brakes on it, stripped out the interior to reduce weight and he has a ton of fun with it on the race track. Since the end of last year though he’s had the car parked in a dirt lot outside another friends place gathering dust. Not that it was in good condition before he parked it, half the car was covered in ducktape while the rest of the car really needed a paint job.

Last week the guy whose house the car is parked outside of took the picture above and shared it on our whatsapp group. Right away we started teasing the car’s owner with jokes about how he should scrap the car and other silly stuff. As a joke I suggested he should get the car detailed which he replied to saying he was waiting for a sponsor. Within seconds one of the guys captured a screenshot of the conversation and sent it to another friend of ours who owns Al Falah Car Wash. Al Falah have a detailing service called Showshine which I’ve posted about on the blog before and after seeing the screenshot of the conversation, they responded with “bring it on” in full confidence not really knowing how bad the condition of the car was.

A week later they got to see the car in person after it was dropped off to them and I wish I was there to see their faces. They knew it was going to be a challenge, but they didn’t think the car was in this bad of a condition. They started posting pictures on their instagram account and started calling it the “Disaster Car Detail”.

One of my friends even joked that he would give them a trophy if they can get it just decent looking. I dropped by to take some before pictures of the car and when I saw it in person I thought it was a hopeless case. The car had no shine whatsoever, the paint was completely flat and patchy, it was truly a disaster car.

Over the next two days, Showshine worked hard on the car, they started off with a regular wash before moving it into their detailing department to start the difficult process. Finally, when they were done and pictures of the car started leaking into our group we couldn’t believe it. The car looked new and shiny! When I passed by and saw the car in person I couldn’t believe it was the same one. They did such an incredible job detailing the car and somehow managed to bring the color and shine back to life.

My friend who joked that he would give them a 🏆 also kept his word.

For the past couple of weeks, I had been thinking about giving my Datsun 240z which I recently purchased a paint job. But now after seeing what they could do with a disaster car, I’ve actually decided to get the car detailed instead. If they could bring back so much color and shine to my friend’s car, then it should be fairly easy with mine which is in so much better shape.

Thank you Al Falah for going along with this. If you want to get your car detailed their prices start from KD30 (depends on the size of the car). Al Falah are my favorite car wash and they’re on instagram @showshinealfalah.