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This is a video of the fire that happened on Thursday in Shuwaikh. I passed by the area today and it looks like the fire damaged around 4 stores on the ground floor and burned across the whole top floors. [YouTube]

After building the amazing Tamiya 502x last week I got back into the RC cars mood again. So, over the weekend I decided to get another car to build and passed by Pro Hobbies and purchased the Xray 808e. I’ve had my eye on the Xray 808 since 2009 but back then they only came in nitro versions until last year when Xray released the electric version of the same car and called it the 808e. Xray is a high-end radio controlled car company and they’re sometimes called the Rolls Royce of RC cars. As soon as I opened the box I understood why, everything looked just incredible and felt top notch. From the thick plastic bags the parts are placed in to the glossy fully colored manual and the “authenticity certificate” it comes with. Makes the whole package feel more expensive than what I paid for it.

[YouTube]

One of the main reasons I wanted the Xray 808e is because it’s a 1/8 scale car which means I will finally be able to take it to the Radio Control Car Club of Kuwait (RCCCK) off-road track near 360 Mall. It’s one of the largest tracks in the world and it would be a real shame not to take advantage of it. You can watch the video above of the track which I shot last year.

Usually when I start building these cars I zone out and ignore everything around me (including the blog) but this time I am going to take my time by dedicated only 2 or 3 hours a day to work on the car. Hopefully it will be ready sometime next month before it gets too hot. Still need to think of a color scheme, the wheels are white and the spoiler is white so not sure what color I am going to paint the body yet.

As you guys know I spend the whole week on a very strict diet and then Friday get to have whatever I want. This month it’s been extra difficult since my diet has been extremely boring and tough so this Friday I had a plan in mind. Basil, the owner of OFK had been posting pictures on twitter of various burgers he was experimenting with. So when I spotted the Cheeseburger Eggsplosion on the blog A Hamburger Today (yeah I am religious follower of that blog) I sent him a message telling him he should try making that as well. He told me he’d make it if I ate it so I set a date to have lunch at OFK today on my cheat day. I spent the last 2 days thinking about the Eggsplosion and another burger he had been working on called the Manhattan. When I got to OFK though I found out I was actually going to be having those 2 burgers in addition to 2 more! So below are the 4 burgers I had for lunch today in the order listed below.

This was the first burger I had called the Manhattan. Supposedly the most popular of the four but for me it came in third place.

This is the Cheeseburger Eggsplosion, it looks innocent until you take a bite and the egg bursts as you can see in the picture below.

Super delicious, I ranked this burger my second favorite from the four.

This burger was my least favorite, it was a double patty burger with chopped onions, lettuce, pickles, cheese and a yellow mustard sauce. Ranked last out of the four I tried.

Now this burger was the last burger I tried and I was originally planning to only have one bite since I wanted to leave room for dessert but ended up eating it all. It’s a very thick burger that just crumbled when I took a bite. My favorite of the bunch and I ended up eating it all. It just has caramelized onions inside but I personally think all it needs is cheese since the beef patty just tasted so good. The last burger I tried today and I ranked it #1 from the four.

I ate all the burgers above except for the double patty burger which I ate just half of. I then had a chocolate brownie pudding for dessert since I was looking forward to it all week. Good lunch but now I’ve got to walk indefinitely until I burn all these calories off. These burgers are still not on the menu since they are still in the testing phase. Full disclosure I didn’t end up paying for the burgers just the drinks and dessert. OFK is short for Open Flame Kitchen and they’re located at 360 Mall.

GulfRun, along with HuperOptik Kuwait and Abdulmohsen Abdulaziz Al-Babtain Co., have sponsored Mubarak Al-Rumaidhi’s Nissan 350Z to participate in the Red Bull Car Park drift tomorrow. The car has been fixed, modded and tuned to burn some serious rubber. Make sure to be there tomorrow at 3:30pm at the Kuwait International Fair in Meshrif to watch the event. We hope the best of luck for Mubarak and all of the contestants. See you there.

I know the guy and he’s basically going to kick everyone’s ass tomorrow. [Link]

There is a huge blaze right now in the Shuwaikh industrial area, I can actually see it from my office window in Kuwait City. A friend of mine sent me the two pictures attached to this post.

If you have better pictures [send it in]

Just a reminder, the Red Bull car park drift is going to be held this Friday. I’m going to pass by after lunch and take pictures so hopefully the weather is going to be clear.

Location: Kuwait International Fair
Date: Friday April 22, 2011
Time: 3:30pm

I was just checking the blog ArtKuwait when I found out that there was an article on Art in Kuwait yesterday in The Economist. Turns out there is an artist who currently has his work exhibited on four billboards in Hawalli (who would have thought) and they’re going to be up there until the end of the month (check pic above). Here are some excerpts from the article:

ABOVE a busy roundabout in Hawalli, a suburb of Kuwait, loom four giant but subtle photographs about Arab identity and placelessness by Tarek Al-Ghoussein. A Palestinian photographer originally from Kuwait, Mr Al-Ghoussein has exhibited widely, but this is the first time his work has been seen in the country of his birth. Kuwaitis and Palestinians have a chequered past. Decades of relative harmony between the two peoples were soured when Yasser Arafat, as head of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, applauded Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Since then, the Palestinian population in Kuwait has dwindled from nearly half a million to around 40,000.

…

Mr Al-Ghoussein’s billboards will be on view in Kuwait until the end of April. They are the second instalment in a series of four art projects by Palestinians that includes Khalil Rabah, Jack Persekian and Tarek Atoui. Instigated and underwritten by Rana Sadik, a collector and philanthropist of Palestinian descent, the series is arranged to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Kuwait’s independence and the 20th anniversary of its liberation from Iraq.

“The billboards are a way to remind people on both sides of the positive historical relationship between Palestinians and Kuwaitis,” said Abdulaziz Al-Mulla, a board member of the Kuwait Graduates Society, an organisation of some 5,000 members. Interestingly, the artist’s father was Ambassador to America in the 1960s and instrumental in getting Kuwait into the United Nations. So it is apposite that Mr Al-Ghoussein’s photographs have been given such a cordial diplomatic role.

You can read the full article on The Economist [Here]

via ArtKuwait

The Kuwait Heart Foundation (KHF) has mobile stations which they move around from one area to another offering to test your cholesterol and blood glucose for free (maybe other things as well). Currently they’re stationed outside the Khaldiya Co-op if anyone is interested. I tried to get more information regarding these mobile stations from the KHF website which although is fairly well designed compared to other local government websites… majority of the links don’t work. [Link]

Thanks AbdulRahman

Note: Just noticed the irony of the post coming right after the McGangbang

This month I’m on an incredibly strict diet so I’ve been craving a lot of random things including the McGangBang (pictured above and below). What is it? It’s when you take a chicken burger and shove it inside a double cheeseburger. I posted about it back in 2009 and from what I am remembering now it tasted pretty good.

Yesterday I posted a video taken at Flight Experience in 360 Mall, well there is another place that’s officially opening tomorrow (April 20th) that has a wider range of flight simulators available. The place is called Kuwait Flight Simulation Center and they are located in the basement of Discovery Mall in Kuwait City. I originally passed by them yesterday to take pictures but wasn’t allowed to since there was a miscommunication but the owner told me I could pass by today and take pictures which I did except I didn’t have my camera with me today just my iPhone 4 so apologies for the quality of the shots.

The place looks like a large plane fuselage from the outside. Once you walk in you have 7 simulation capsules on the right hand side, 3 combat stations on the left and right next to them you have a large enclosed room which is a proper full scale flight simulator similar in style to the one at 360 Mall. You also have a small coffee shop, a small shop that sells scale models and another shop that sells flight simulator accessories for PCs.

Today the place is open but it’s invite only, starting tomorrow though it should be open to the public. For more information you could visit their website [Here] or Facebook page [Here]

That’s how the inside of the capsule looks like

The 3 machines on the left are the fighter plane simulators

I think the fighter plane simulators actually move and give force feedback

Thats the inside of the full sized simulator

I’ve been meaning to update the Kuwait Blogs app for awhile now but due to the fact I do all the work on my iMac I haven’t been able to do so. My iMac had a problem with the screen and I sent it in to get repaired under warranty which took around a month to get done. I just finally picked up my iMac today so will most probably be working on an update for the app this weekend.

I’m aware that the current build of the app is unstable with iOS4.3 and it’s my priority fix. I already know whats wrong I just need to work on it. What I also want to do if I have time is update the blogs in the app. I can’t add any more apps since I’ve hit the limit, but I can swap out blogs that aren’t active anymore or aren’t as active as they used to be. So if you have any recommendation on what blog I should add to the app leave it as a comment below.

If you want to download the current app here is the [Link]

Last week I messed up my knee running on my treadmill and since I still wanted to do cardio I decided to walk instead. I plugged in my wireless Nike+ sensor into my sneakers, started the Nike+ app on my iPhone and started walking from the start of Salem Mubarek Street in Salmiya all the way down to Electrozan which is at the very end of it, picked up an iPod Shuffle and then walked back. I was walking at a moderately fast pace and once I got back home I ended my session on the Nike+ app and checked the results (screenshot posted above).

Now I’m not sure how accurate the Nike+ app is, I doubt it’s very accurate but it should be somewhat accurate and if it is then I burned around 600 calories walking for nearly 2 hours. I thought that was pretty cool since when I run on the treadmill at home I usually run just 30 minutes before getting bored and tired. By the end of the 30 minutes I would have burned around 200 calories if I’m lucky, most probably less than that even. Walking on the other hand I can do for much longer periods of time and without getting either tired or bored.

Since I live right on Salem Mubarek Street I’m going to start walking on my days when I don’t have gym instead of running on the treadmill. I should burn more calories that way and I prefer walking in Salmiya over running on a treadmill facing a wall. But since I’m not a fitness expert maybe if Fahad reads this post he can add more information on how accurate my Nike+ is and if walking actually burns that much calories.

A reader took the picture of the highway digital sign delivering a warning message and diverting traffic to the appropriate lane. According to him the signs got updated before the police arrived which means the sign was activated with the appropriate message from someone at the control center monitoring the road via highway cameras. If I still want to pick on the signs I would say they should have been twice as wide so that the font size would be much larger making it easier to read from a distance. Nevertheless it’s good to see these signs in action and not just telling time.

Thanks Mohammad

After spending a week building the car and then painting it, I was finally able to take it out for a spin. It’s a race buggy and I should have taken it to the Tamiya track to test out but since I wanted to try and capture some nice shots I decided to take it to an empty desert instead. I feel guilty for doing that to the car but I was careful not to bash it too hard since I have to give the car back once I was done with the review.

I don’t have that much experience with buggies since the only electric buggy I have is the Tamiya Frog and it would be really unfair to compare the two since the Frog is actually a design from 1983 while the 502x is a current generation carbon fiber framed racing buggy. But, I have taken a ton of RC cars and trucks out to bash in the dessert before and from all of them the 502x as expected handled the best. Usually when I take the cars out into the dessert to bash they spend a lot of time flipping onto their backs or over or under steering. With the 502x the car managed to flip only once onto it’s back and that’s an incredible achievement with me since I’m a really careless and abusive driver. It also handled incredibly well turning when I wanted it to turn and gripping the dirt and loose pebbles with great east. It also took all the jumps like a champ and whenever it was in the air time seemed to stop for a second and everything went in slow motion until it hit the ground again. That’s why my brother was able to capture so many air shots, the car just floats in the air.

It was really fun building and driving the car and it’s going to be really tough to give it back. But, last night I found out I won the 501x in the My Toy weekly draw so maybe they’ll let me keep the 502x instead. If you’re interested in Tamiya’s, the dealer is called My Toy and they’re located in Tilal Complex on top of In Living Color. It’s a huge store which I’ve posted about before [Here]. You could also participate in their weekly draw to win a 501x by visiting their Facebook group [Here]

The pictures above were taken by my brother but were post processed by myself. To see my brothers post processed photos click [Here]

A couple of days back the blog was listed with 9 others on CNN’s “Top ten must read blogs in the Middle East“. Automatically when that happened I went into red alert mode, I made sure the blogs cache plugins were up and running and I double checked my servers bandwidth and memory usage to make sure nothing was out of the ordinary so that once this large wave of visitors arrive, the blog wouldn’t crash and I wouldn’t lose or disappoint any potential new visitors. Imagine opening a restaurant and having enough food to serve 10 people but then 100 show up, I didn’t want that to happen to me. I was of course expecting it to be a temporary rush, my 15 seconds of fame before the majority of the new visitors disappear forever. So how much traffic came from that article?

I’m not really sure what to think about this. This was an article on CNN and so my expectations were high of course and I was predicting around 5,000 visitors to come in and easily 10,000+. But somehow I overshot my estimates by a considerable amount as you can see. I have a few theories on why this must be the case:

– Maybe the majority of their readers only read their main news and not other none news related articles
– Maybe their readers aren’t used to clicking links in their articles and so never thought about clicking any of the blog links mentioned
– Maybe no one was interested in finding out more about my blog
– Maybe majority of the people who read the article already knew my blog and didn’t see a reason to click it
– The article went up at the start of the weekend which is when based on my blogs stats the daily readership dwindles down considerably
– Maybe the article wasn’t publicized enough on CNN and so not many people ended up reading it
– Or maybe their readership base are serious businessmen or older people who don’t think blogs are interesting enough or even newsworthy

Those of course are just my theories and I’m sure CNN themselves have a better idea of who reads what on their site and why this article might not have transitioned into a large quantity of clicks. But this got me thinking… How much traffic did the Benihana lawsuit really send my way? I went digging for the numbers and here are the top referrers:

– Slashdot.org 4,957
– BoingBoing.net 757
– electrony.net 469
– fakeplasticsouks.blogspot.com 437
– AmericanBlog.com 303
– FastCompany.com 285
– Zagat.com 184
– eConsultancy.com 166
– techania.com 171
– LAWeekly.com 139
– TheNextWeb.com 127

By the looks of it that’s not a lot but at the peak of interest and because of the fact that it was picked up by a ton of bloggers and news sites (here is the full list) it was enough to bring in around 20,000 visitors in a single day which is slightly less than double what I usually get. On January 31st when the story first started picking up my readership for that day increased to 16,748 visitors followed by an increase to 19,610 on February 1st until going back down to 15,672 on February 2nd and then things went back to normal on February 3rd when it went back to 12,030 which is what the blog usually gets per day.

In comparison, on March 29th the rumor of Jackie Chan being dead started spreading again and a search for Jackie Chan is dead on that day resulted in my blog being one of the first results on Google so I got a sudden influx of over 10,000 visitors coming in to check out my old post on that rumor. That sudden surge actually brought down the blog a few times during that day which resulted in me permanently removing some memory intensive plugin as well as having the Super Cache plugin permanently on so that in the future no matter what happens the site can handle it.

Anyway I’ve never shared detailed numbers like this on the blog before so hopefully you found the above interesting, it’s just a small behind the scenes glimpse.