Category: Kuwait

On my way to work yesterday I saw some blue banners and something like a stage outside the House of Parliament. Thanks to a reader in the forum (RJV) I found out there was a demonstration yesterday asking for football reform in Kuwait. The full article is available on Kuwait Times if anyone wants to read it. [Article]

I personally haven’t watched that many soccer matches after 1990. Most of the games I watched were all pre-1990 and my favorites then were whenever Kuwait played against Saudi Arabia. Since I play the goal keeper position my favorite player then was Samir Saeed which is why I am now a big fan of Mr Baker (he owns it). I feel like playing football now.

Anyway in case you missed it, here is my post on
Haydoo, Kuwait’s lovely camel. [Link]

Diesel has 50% off on nearly all their items. That means a 100KD jeans is now available for 50KD which I still find too expensive for jeans. I get my Hurley and Billabong jeans from SWELL.com for like 18KD and they are neither torn, wrinkled nor rusted thank you.

During my lunch break I headed over to Infiniti to pick up the M45. Its going to be with me until Wednesday evening. I wasn’t really looking forward to it that much because I was expecting it to be slow and heavy but luckily they gave me the V8 362HP version which so far seems to be as fast as the G35 I drove last week. Styling wise the G35 wins hands down. The G35 looks sportier and sleeker but thats probably because the M45 is targeting a different more mature group. The M45 is a bigger car and its noticeable from the larger interior but they still try to make it look sporty by giving it 18inch 19inch wheels and 4 exhaust tips at the back. I didn’t have time to take a picture yet, just took this one from their website.

From Naharnet today:

Kuwait issued a decision Sunday banning men from working in shops selling “private” women’s garments like lingerie.

The decision, issued by the ministry of social affairs and labor, gave businesses until April 7 to implement the ban or face a fine of up to 700 dollars for each violating worker.

It said that special inspectors from the ministry would enforce the ban.

The ministry also ordered its labor departments to stop recruiting male migrant laborers for employment in women’s lingerie shops.

I didn’t know men WERE allowed to sell lingerie in the first place…

Thanks Shak

Anyone heard of or been to Burger Company? I first heard about it 10 days ago in the forum but today someone else mentioned it to me. Its supposed to be a 24 hour diner, the first in Kuwait. The place is located in Hawalli opposite “the college of business studies”.

Picture by vampire

In my W-net review I mentioned that W-net at full speed was only available in some locations. Over the weekend Wataniya sent me a list of the locations that have 3G. If you want to know if it works in your area or not download the file and see if your area is listed. [PDF]

Just got back from my ride today morning. I first cruised around Salmiya for a little bit and then headed off to Marina Crescent to see if their were any bikers there I knew. I ended up finding Marzouq who earlier in the morning had been out biking with Nat. We decided we would ride to Green Island where a bunch of Ducati and BMW bikers were gathering up for a ride out to the desert which was organized by TriStar.

As we were approaching the gathering area I spotted the new Ducati 1098s from far. There was no way to miss it, it was parked away from the rest of the bikers and it was sparkling under the sun. We parked our bikes, said hi to some friends and then me and Marzouq went over to the 1098. Its a really tiny and light bike weighing around 170KG and producing around 160HP! Thats nearly one horse power for every kilogram.

Anyway we hung out for a little while and then headed out for a ride. One thing I did today was go back to the intersection I had my first crash in and take the same route I took that day. Might not sound like much but after I had my accident I went through the whole incident in my head over and over and then I kept visiting that route with my car just to go over the spot and try to figure out how I messed up. So today I decided I couldn’t avoid that intersection for ever and I took it with my bike. I think going through the turn gave me a boost of confidence which is what I needed.

One issue I realized I had today was accelerating from a traffic light while I am with Marzouq. I usually know how much throttle to give and how much clutch to let go of using the sound of my bikes engine. But the problem is Marzouqs bike is bigger and much louder and so when I am with him I can’t hear my bikes engine anymore. I swear I think I messed up at like 6 traffic lights today, it made me feel like such a newbie. This is why I decided I am going to either upgrade the mufflers with some really cool louder ones by Termignoni or, try and convince Nat I “need” a Ducati 749.

I have gotten a lot of things to try out because of my blog but I don’t think I have ever gotten anything like this… water. I came in today morning to find a box of OGO Oxygen Water on my desk. At first I thought it was a new client of ours but then I found out that a company who imports OGO to Kuwait wanted me to try it out and get my feedback on it.

According to the label and website, OGO water contains up to 35 times more oxygen then regular bottled water. What I was more interested in was the actual bottle. It reminded me of the magic potions Asterix and Obelix used to carry around with them which is a cool thing.

Anyway, if anyone is interested you can place an order by phone. Minimum 5 boxes, each box holds twelve 330ml bottles and costs KD6. So thats 500fils per bottle. The number to call is 4341209 or 7242595.

www.OGOlife.com

Was just flipping through the Watan TV website and I found some interesting short video clips. The site is like a video blog, just a bunch of random clips related to Kuwait. [Link]

Dent Xpress have redesigned their website. It looks nicer and the gallery section works better. They also just launched a new promotion. For every KD20 spent at Dent Xpress you get a chance to enter a draw to win one 4GB iPod Nano every month. The promotion starts today and the first draw will be on Wednesday February 27th. Winner will be notified directly and also announced on 248AM and the Dent Xpress website. Here is a link to their website if you haven’t checked it yet. [Link]

K.TheKuwaiti sent me a note that the Gulf Run pictures are now all online. There are tons and tons of pictures and a lot of very hot cars but my favorite is the Noble of course. [Link]

I usually go out to lunch but on some occasions I stay and eat in at the office. One place I enjoy ordering from is a small restaurant near my office called Tourist Restaurant Co. It has a dumb name, it has an ugly menu and they even stole their logo from BigBoy but, the food is really good and cheap. I mostly order Butter Chicken or Chicken Curry with a side order of basmati rice and I haven’t been disappointed yet. The service is also extremely friendly and their serving portion is very filling. If you work in the city and are looking for some good Indian food (they have Chinese also but I haven’t tried it yet) then I would recommend Tourist Restaurant Co.

Here is their menu:
Side 1
Side 2

Their delivery numbers are:
2439574
2411702
7435485

I know a lot of people really hate the new Hardees “Thickburgers”. Mushroom & Swiss used to be my favorite until they ruined it by replacing the thin burger with the terrible tasting thickburger. Thats why I stopped ordering it at Hardee’s until recently when I found out I could still order the old “classic” mushroom & swiss.

When you place an order for the Mushroom & Swiss just tell the employee you want the old thin burger. They will still charge you the same as the thickburger except when they call it inside to the kitchen they yell out “one mushroom & swiss special”. Now you can enjoy the original Mushroom & Swiss again.

So I have had the 2007 Infiniti G35 for three days now and its really grown on me. There are a couple of things I like about it and a couple of things I dislike about it, here is my list so far:

– Key-less entry. I have a small key chain I keep in my pocket, once I touch the door handle the car gets unlocked. Whats cool is when I had the key chain in my jacket pocket and I kept my jacket in the car and I tried to lock the doors it wouldn’t lock, the car knew the key was inside the car not outside it. What I dislike is when I touch the door handle only the driver side door unlocks, I need to unlock the other doors using the door unlock button located inside the car.

– Reverse camera. I first saw this on the Infiniti Q45 two or three years ago and now its becoming standard on more and more cars. If only there was a way to activate it without going into reverse, it would be a cool way to spy on the people in the car behind during traffic.

– Sound system. Its Bose which I dislike but surprisingly its pretty beefy. Loads of speakers scattered all over the car and the bass isn’t lacking. Car also has video and audio RCA inputs so you can hook up your iPod Video and just watch videos or listen to music on the screen.

– Steering wheel. Its covered in thick hand stitched leather and it gives the car a very lush feel.

– Center console. Its a love hate relationship. It feels very Japanese which I dislike. I prefer the design of the Europeans. The interior of the Infiniti reminds me a lot of the Lexus which makes sense since its also a Japanese car.

– BLS or G35? Easily by far the G35. I think I will post a more detailed comparison later.

– Acceleration. 0 to 100km in just 5.3 seconds, do I need to say more?

I can’t believe I have to give this car back in a few days.

update: found a bunch of settings I can change using the settings button on the console. I figured out how to turn on the option that allows all the doors to open when I touch the door handle, I also found other nifty options like how dark should it be before the car lights automatically comes on and other little things like that.

As of 12:15AM, anyone who is on a Qualitynet connection at the moment can access ANY site they want without the Qualitynet block page appearing. Try it and see, nothing is blocked.

update: many readers are reporting that everything is still blocked so it could be area dependent or just my connection? Its 9AM now and nothing is blocked on my connection.