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Husain Ismail whom I’ve previously posted about when I shared his video of his drone flying higher than the Liberation Tower (pictured above) was recently interviewed on KTV about his hobby. In the interview Husain goes into details about how he started and how he’s modified his drone to fly over a kilometer in height. It’s an interesting interview to watch if you’ve been curious about this hobby. The interview is in Arabic and you can check it out below.

my interview with KTV.. 15.5.2014 —– مقابله في تلفزيون الكويت والحديث عن التصوير الج from husain_ on Vimeo.

Yesterday the Central Bank of Kuwait introduced the new banknotes at a press event and now the presentation that was shared at that event is available online for everyone to watch. The presentation is in Arabic and talks about the reasons why the new banknotes were introduced, the images that were chosen for each banknote and the new security features amongst other things. The new banknotes will be officially launched next month on June 29th. Check out the full presentation below.

[YouTube]

According to an invitation I received, Wataniya will launch the Ooredoo brand tomorrow night at a press event. They’ve already started rebranding their stores in preparation and I expect everyones phones display will start showing Ooredoo starting Thursday morning.

Ooredoo is a brand name that was introduced last year to replace the former name Qtel which is the Qatari telecom that owns Wataniya. Ooredoo currently has 95 million subscribers and they will grow overnight to 97 once Wataniya rebrands.

When it comes to companies that offer a US forwarding mailbox there are two companies I’ve been using over the past few years, Shop & Ship and Borderlinx. I don’t have a favorite since each has an advantage over the other, I use Shop & Ship for my non-rush shipments because they’re affordable but slow and I use Borderlinx for shipments I need fast (but they’re also a lot more expensive).

How much faster is Borderlinx? Around four times as fast based on my recent shipments. I had a package that shipped out from the US on Friday and I picked it up in Kuwait on Sunday. In comparison with Shop & Ship, the quickest I’ve received a package recently was 6 days but in most cases it takes a week to ten days.

If you’re looking for speed and money is not an object, Borderlinx is fast.

Blink are going to have a “crazy deal” on the new Sony PS4 this week where they’re going to offer up the 500GB US version of the PS4 for just KD99. Not sure how much quantity they will make available They’re going to make only 5 to 10 units available and you’re going to have to check their website on Monday or Wednesday at 10AM or 6PM to catch the deal. Check out their website for more information [Here]

via 248AM Gaming

The popular Egyptian restaurant Abou El Sid is opening soon in Kuwait right outside The Green Island entrance. I haven’t been to Abou El Sid before but I just checked their website and the interiors of the restaurants in Egypt look authentic yet chic so I’m hoping they carry that design over here as well. Even the music sounds very cool (based on whats playing on their website). No clue to the exact opening date though, will update this post once I find out. [Link]

Update: Even though it still says opening soon outside it turns out its actually open already. They’re currently opening from 5PM to 11:30PM and the official opening will be on June 1st.

TJC Films is back and he just uploaded his latest video shot last night at the Visual Therapy Montana Colors Pop-Up Shop event that was held at Artspace. This is what TJC had to say about the video:

Visual Therapy’s Shahad put on a show last night at Artspace here in Kuwait to demonstrate how great the MTN Spray Paints are. It was pretty amazing to watch Kuwait Street Artists Nizzy show how the different MTN paints and nozzles could be used to create sharp lines or shading to give pieces a 3 dimensional feel. It is nice to see artists and those who support them starting to gain more notoriety here in Kuwait and companies like Visual Therapy carrying the stuff they need to create their best possible work like Montana colors.

Music: Go Yama BMOYAMA (Go yama Lake flip from adventure time)

Check out the video of the event below.

[YouTube]

I’m not sure when this happened, but NBK have finally gotten around to redesigning the online banking website. I haven’t used the website in ages and instead use their iPhone App for pretty much everything. The only reason I actually ended up going to the website was because I needed to add a new transfer beneficiary which I can’t do via the iPhone App.

The new layout of the website is a lot cleaner and more up to date looking while still keeping the graphics low like the previous version. I love it. [Link]

Thursday
The Vault Fundraiser
Shakshooka Nomadic Farmers Market
Cinemagics: Short Term 12
Exhibition: 50 Years of Printmaking
Exhibition: Once Removed – Kevork Mourad
Exhibition: Nuwa Creations – Katia Al Tal
Exhibition: The Tour – Barry Iverson
Exhibition: Re-Cast

Friday
Mapping Meetup 9

Saturday
Food Revolution Day
Cinemagics: Trances
International Museum Day

If you’d like to share an event on the blog click [Here]

Update: Just added the International Museum Day event

My thanks to the businesses below for advertising on the blog this month, make sure you check them out.

DKNY – The Beat of New York [Link]

SEVENFRIDAY – Show me, don’t tell me [Link]

Elevation Burger – Elevating Kuwait’s food, one organically delicious burger at a time [Link]

Beidoun – Luxury shopping at your doorstep [Link]

IO Centers – Fully furnished and serviced offices [Link]

American Tourister – Hurry up! SALE on American Tourister travel bags [Link]

KNES – Kuwait National English School the best value in excellent education [Link]

The Rental Company – Event furnishings and party supplies [Link]

AbiDoc – Need a Doctor? Search, Learn, and Book Appointments with AbiDoc [Link]

Dent Xpress – Kuwait’s premier paintless dent repair facility since 2005. [Link]

It’s been two years since I started using WiMD for my internet and yesterday I went and renewed my connection for the third time. I have a 10Mbps WiMD connection which I love since I’ve rarely ran into problems with it and when I did they were usually fixed right away. My only other option for a reliable internet connection is DSL but my phone line can’t handle anything higher than 2Mbps. The issues I’ve ran into with WiMD are varied but the biggest one is when my connection speed dropped overnight from 10Mbps to under 1Mbps. After coming over and investigating it turned out that a new building had been constructed down the street from mine and blocked my direct line of sight to the WiMD tower. I was lucky enough to get my issued fixed just by moving my receiver on the roof higher up and further to the edge but I’m not sure what I would have done if I couldn’t do that.

Other than that issue my biggest issue with WiMD over the two years has been their prices. They were expensive. When I first subscribed with them it cost me KD523 for a year while the second year was slightly better costing me KD480. But, yesterday when I went to renew my connection it turned out they had lowered their prices substantially and I ended up paying a much more tolerable KD310 for 10Mbps.

KD310 signed me up for their 10Mbps connection with a 200GB download limit every month while the previous two years I had subscribed to their unlimited package. But according to WiMD’s records, the maximum I used the past year was 150GB a month so a 200GB limit was more than I needed. After two years I would still highly recommend WiMD as an alternative to DSL in areas where the DSL speed is severely limited by old infrastructure. You just need to make sure you have a direct line of sight to their tower.

I’ve been making an amazing smoothie recently and figured I would share my simple recipe here. It’s very easy to make and really tastes delicious, here is what you need:

– 2 scoops Whey Protein
– 1 large ripe banana
– 5 pieces of frozen strawberries
– 4 pieces of frozen blackberries
– 8 pieces of frozen blueberries
– a spoonful of honey
– 4 large ice cubes
– 150ml water

Put them all in a blender and blend. The smoothie comes out pretty thick and the quantity is enough for two people although I drink the whole thing myself. For the Whey Protein I use the strawberry flavored VPX SRO Zero Carb Protein which you can find locally at Health Planet. For the frozen fruits you can find them at Sultan Center and they’re pretty economically priced. Finally, you could replace the 150ml water with almond or soy milk but you really don’t need to.

For those of you with Gulfnet who were having difficulties accessing my site, everything seems to be back to normal again. I tried to contact them to figure out what was going on but their email form on the website kept giving an error so I contacted them on twitter and facebook but they ignored me and when I finally called them up to complain, the customer support rep told me he couldn’t file a complaint for me because I wasn’t a customer. So thanks to everyone who contacted them about this, my guess is my blog was blocked accidentally or they had some technical issue.

Over the weekend I finally got around to watching the movie ‘Saving Mr Banks’ and I have to say I was completely taken by surprise with how good it was. The movie is about the author P.L. Travers who wrote the Mary Poppins book and deals with her childhood as well as her dealings with Walt Disney who wanted to adapt her book into a movie. Because of the subject of the movie I was expecting it to feel like a Disney movie or a movie aimed towards children which is why I was taken aback when I realized it wasn’t.

The movie stars a ton of great actors including Tom Hanks, Emma Thompson, Colin Farrell, Paul Giamatti, B.J. Novak and Jason Schwartzman. Saving Mr Banks is an emotional roller coaster ride and never seems to slowdown or get boring in the full 2 hours of the movie. If you haven’t watched it yet you should do yourself a favor and get it and don’t worry if you’ve never watched the original Mary Poppins movie, you’ll still understand everything. [IMDB]

A couple of weeks back an announcement was made regarding a commission by the National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters on Kuwait’s pavilion at the 14th Venice International Architecture Biennale that will take place from June 7 until November 23, 2014. I was planning to go to the announcement and ended up missing it but luckily someone shot the whole thing on video and put it online.

Aqcuiring Modernity_Kuwait Pavilion from youraok on Vimeo.

Depending on if you’re interested in Kuwait’s history or not, this video can end up be very boring or very interesting to watch. I personally found it interesting which is why I am posting it here but I might be bit biased since I have friends who’re taking part in this project. If you want to get into the presentation right away just skip to the 3:25 minute mark.