My friend and my roommate in college, who is a football fanatic, who made me cringe every time I hear the words ‘champions league,’ who hogged the TV every tuesday and wednesday to watch football matches, finally made the right decision and started a blog along with his friends dedicated solely to nothing else but.. Football!

For you all football fanatics Football Directa is the place to visit when you’re looking for news about your favorite team. Their site is very alive with updates around the hour with the kind of news you crave.

Drop by and check it out: FootBall Directa. It’ll be added to our blog roll as well.

Magic Planet just opened in the Avenues phase II. There are arcades section, a couple of rides, bowling isles, billiard tables, wall climbing “in a shape of palm trees”, many booths and stuff.

The place is big and spacious, but according to my friend, it’s a bit too spacious (empty) and it feels like they’re going to fill it with more rides and stuff.

Thanks HBZ

Zain Create have an offer for limited time, if you register before the 1st of april you’ll get KD 5.100 (thats 5 kds and a 100 fils) of credit to download songs off their music store. I went ahead an registered, it was an easy process and I got the promotional 5KDs credited to my Zain Create account. You should all register, there is no need to miss out on this one time deal.

Anyway, I looked around the site, then wanted to download something to try the service out. I went to the top 10 list and found that Fadhel Shaker’s new album is in the #1 spot (Not just that, He is #1 in the top songs, albums, and artists list!) so I went with Fadhel’s new album. I bought the album (10 tracks, each track costs 300fils. You can’t buy the whole album as of now, but it says in the FAQs section that the option will be available soon. It better be). I bought the album and am now listening to 2 of the songs.. the download rate is between 10kbps and 35kbps (I’m using ego 7.2).

I’m listening to Jowa Al Roh right now and the quality is superb. the song is 4:27 long, in MP3 format, 6.2MB, 192 Kbit/s. Obviously good quality. and comes with an ID3 tag with the picture of the album’s cover.

The whole site is very well designed and is easy to use. I love it.. but there is room for improvement. Hear me out if you have a say in this project:

1- I need to be able to tell which song is already downloaded. Like for example as I was downloading Fadhel’s songs, I lost track. There needs to be a sign or a label on the song which has been downloaded so i don’t download it again by mistake.

2- The lack of Mac software is not acceptable.

3- The song sampling is very fast, which I appreciate a lot, but sometimes the play button doesn’t work and I have to refresh a few times before I can start sampling the song.

4- I should be able to download the whole album as a package, coz it was a hassle downloading each track separately. I know it’s coming.. but still, it should be available from the start imo.

5- It says that once I download a song, I should receive an sms immediately, and yet, I downloaded 10 songs, wrote this post and still not a single sms.

I think the service is very good and that Zain did a great job with this whole thing.

Visit Zain Create and get the offer before it expires.

Update:

I was sent an email by Zain replying to the 5 points I wrote above. Here is their reply:

1-Noted will work on it you can check your downloads on my create section .

Finally , try out the streamed channels of Rotana( Audio & TV ) as well on the website & try to download the mobile application from web its compatible with Nokia & Sony Ericson symbian mobiles ,,, blackberry soon ….

Thanks Alia

We were invited to the premier of the film ‘Journey To Mecca’ showing on IMAX in the Kuwait scientific center. There weren’t a lot of people and the place looked beautiful as usual. (Side talk: I was thinking how it is funny when we want to talk up a place we always say machinnik bilKuwait “it’s like you’re not in Kuwait”.)

Anyway. The movie tells the story of Ibn Batuta and his journey from Tangier, Morocco, to Mecca to do the Haj ritual.

I didn’t know much about Ibn Batuta.. I mean I’ve been to the mall but didn’t really know anything about the person. Pretty interesting life he must’ve led back then. He Left his family in Morocco to go to Mecca, and returned 30+ years later.. I guess he just couldn’t resist riding passing by China and India on his way back to morocco.

The Journey To Mecca is now showing on IMAX in the scientific center of Kuwait, Gulf Road, Salmiya.

Thanks Hind

I started 5 books but finished none of them. There is no time for reading. When there is time for reading then there is time for sleeping! which to me is always a priority over reading..

The 5 books I’v started are:

• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
• Water for elephants (very good so far)
• Waiter Rant (A real waiter writes about his life as a waiter. Makes you think twice before calling a waiter ‘excuse me’)
• Secret lives of bees
• The Shinning

Saleh & Dawod AlKuwaiti were Jewish musicians who lived in Kuwait in the past. According to the article, they were ingenious musicians “”They even invented certain scales that didn’t exist at the time.” The Emir of Kuwait would go visit them in their house to listen to their music. They named one of their sons Sabah after the Emir’s family name. The Emir also attended his circumcision (6ohoor) and gave them a box full of gold coins as a present.

The part in the article where it mentions their stay in Iraq is what caught my attention the most. It says that the AlKuwaiti brothers were responsible for inventing what we now call “Traditional Iraqi music.” The Iraqi government didn’t want Saleh and Dawod getting credit for the great music they were introducing and were labeling AlKuwaiti’s music as traditional/old iraqi music, as in ‘not originals’, and in some cases it was credited to other musicians by force.

They immigrated later to the newly occupied palestine. That was when they faced the biggest blow to their talents.. Not being able to play their music in concerts, where it belongs, but instead they played in family dinners and parties, “had to play weddings and barmitzvahs and family fiestas, with people eating and drinking… and not listening.”

Anyway. The article is an interesting one and you should read it. The video on top is of a song I’m currently in love with, produced by Saleh AlKuwaiti.

Thanks HKR & Hamad.

BBC ARTICLE

There is a new radio station, 94.9 fm, that specializes in Kuwaiti folklore music. I’m new to this whole genre of music and just beginning to get into the whole samri thing, and I’m loving how old some of the songs are and how some, now famous wedding songs, are covers of unrecognizable originals. If you’re a fan of old Kuwaiti songs then you should tune in

Thanks HBZ

Our friend Ansam from the blog next door is going to be on AlWatan TV today on Sabah Alwatan. The show is going to air from 8am to 11am, and then on Alwatan plus from 1pm to 4pm. She’ll be cooking some dishes, So don’t forget to tune in to catch some her recipes

Update:

The Airing of our friend’s segment was postponed. We’ll let you know once we know when they’re going to air it.

But the rest of you are exactly what he is not

Thanks 4am4ni

AlQabas reported the other day that the cause of Mehmas’ didn’t commit suicide as reported by all of our media outlets, but of a myocardial infarction (heart attack). His son, Khaled, who was the first to enter the late actor’s home, denied earlier reports of a suicide and said that he found his father dead in his living room in a sitting position. The forensics’ report is going to be out soon, and according to Mr. Khaled, they’re going to prove that his father did not commit suicide.

Thanks Alf Laila

SOURCE

Again this was one of our Bahrain trip stops. The exhibition is held in Moda Mall. Billboards and decorations outside the mall were all about the Om Kalthoom exhibition and the music inside the mall was all Om Kalthoom’s. The exhibition was surprisingly small and the items were very few (aside from her photos) considering all the signs and flyers we saw about the thing. However, to be there and seeing her stuff was worth it.
Read the rest of this entry »

According to Alwatan tv, Ahmad Awath, also known for his famous role as Mehmas in Soug Almegasees with Abdulh.usain Abdulredha, was found dead today. He was found hanged from the ceiling with a Ghetra/Chma’3. It’s not clear if He was killed or committed suicide.

SOURCE

I remember seeing a video just like this one on intlxpatr’s blog a while ago. It’s hilarious and so true

Link incase the video doesn’t work.

Thanks INM

AlQadsiya football club received an invitation to participate in a major tournament held in Spain this summer (The real madrid friendly tournament). Other participants include elite European teams like Real Madrid, Barcelona, Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool, Bayern Munich, Ajax, Lyon among others.

Mr. AlHassawy, The clubs vice president, said that choosing AlQadisiyah to participate in this tournament had to do with the club’s reputation and the fact that the team had won many titles in the last ten years across the region.

He also added that their acceptance of this invitation isn’t final as of yet and is pending Alqadsiya board’s approval.

*AlQadsiya is the first club in the region to be invited for this tournament.

Thanks Fawaz

SOURCE

I’m in love with these Japanese creations!

Never ever disagree with his highness.

Thanks Taymoor

Zain has donated KD30,000 to support our national team and is now renting a whole plane to send the fans to support our Kuwaiti national football team over in Oman. The plane expenses will be paid in full by Zain. The flight’s details will be revealed soon.

Click HERE to visit their official website.

Thanks Sulaiman

I received an email forward from my aunt yesterday, it was written in arabic and it went something like this:

Tommy Helfiger, the famous designer, is racist and he hates Arabs, Jews, Hispanics..etc, and that he wishes none of the aforementioned races would buy his clothes, And then the email went on to say that Tommy was hosted on the Oprah show and she asked him whether the rumor was true or not and He blatantly answered “Yes” as in the rumor is true, and then Oprah asked him to leave her show.

Naturally, after reading it I went to Youtube to see this victorious moment. And guess what? It turned out to be just a BIG Fat Lie. just another rumor that’s been circulating for years. Oprah had him on the show over a year ago and they talked about the rumor and set the record straight. I know a lot of people would fall for it coz I did for a moment there, so check the video yourself and stop this email from spreading. Watch the video HERE.

Who’s the winner in this case?