Category: Kuwait

I had some time to kill last night so me and Nat decided to pass by The Video Club in Salmiya. I used to go there a lot when I was in highschool and buy atleast 1 music tape a week. It used to be the best music shop, they used to get all the cool alternative bands and all the tapes were original. So I passed by yesterday to show Nataly my old favorite music shop but the place at the moment is just a sad story, I don’t know how they fucked up (don’t blame Virgin). On the bright side for us consumers, they have a huge selection of KD1 CDs. I found Pearl Jam’s No Code album (one of my favs) for only KD1 and I found a large collection of Sound Garden’s Down in the upside album also for KD1. Ofcourse there is a lot of crap like Captain Hollywood or Mr President but thats to be expected. I wasn’t able to browse through all the CDs since I didn’t have that much time to kill but I probably will pass by tonight to continue the search.

So I was walking around Muthana Complex during lunch hour thinking about how its such a great place to chill out and relax when I decided to sit down up on the mezzanine floor on one of the benches and play some Lumines on my PSP.

Two minutes into the game and a security guard comes up to me and tells me I can’t sit there. I was like what the fuck are you talking about? He was like the mall is closed you can’t sit here. I was like the mall is open, the doors are open and I just came in earlier had lunch and now I want to chill for 10 minutes before I get back to work. He told me the shops are closed and I can’t sit here but if I want I can sit on another bench on the ground floor. I was like you can’t tell me I can’t sit here but I can sit there, thats bullshit, I am not moving. So he goes and calls the head of the security. The head of security comes and gives me the same bullshit story, but he was polite and explained to me that although its a dumb rule the managers deduct KD5 off them every time there is a problem. I felt sorry for the guy and decided to leave and come back to work.

We walked together down to the ground floor and on the way I asked him why they closed the escalators during lunch hour. I told him its a pain walking up the escalators from Burger King after lunch and many people are always complaining. He then told me that I could actually turn on the escalators with any key and proceeded to show me how. He then started telling me about himself a bit and how he used to work at an offshore oil rig before and how he had to leave because he became too old. He was a nice guy, and now I know how to turn on the escalators so thats going to be fun.

This is another Healthy Choice I will be reviewing. This meal looked special, it didn’t feel like a casual dinner meal but more of a special occasion one. Its Boneless Beef with Classic BBQ Sauce, Seasoned Potatoes and Vegetables.

Cooking the meal was extremely easy and quick, the aroma that was coming out of the microwave while it was cooking was very tantalizing. Nataly even came down to the kitchen to see what I was cooking.

Once the meal was done I took it out of the microwave and took a picture. The meal surprisingly looked good and expensive. Nice large chunks of beef covered in BBQ sauce, I couldn’t wait to eat it. It tasted pretty good for a microwave meal. The chunks of beef were tender and juicy, the BBQ sauce was fairly heavy in flavor, the fries were yummy, and the vegetables as usual always end up tasting really good. But, the portion was really small and I am not really that big a fan of BBQ sauce specially when its heavily flavored like this. Now I have started to accept the small portions of microwavable meals but I have also accepted the fact that they don’t cost that much anyway. This meal cost KD1.5 which is more expensive then most other meals. But as I said earlier on, this is more of a special occasion dinner. The final score is 3.5 out of 5.

This is todays B-Side from the airport. Photographers and reporters were swarming around this chick in a cap who seemed to be someone famous. Click here to view the orignal post on Miskan.

After lunch when I came back to the office I saw a police car blocking the road to JW Marriott Hotel. Fadibou just told me its because there was a bomb threat, and they evacuated the building. Employees were also advised not to go back to work tomorrow.

Since I installed the Xbox Media Center I started downloading movies from the web again. I stopped downloading movies along time ago because it was a pain watching them on my computer. Now with the Xbox Media Center I stream all the movies onto my TV in the living room. I downloaded 7 movies this weekend, Sin City, The Jacket, Monthy Python and the Holy Grail, The Ring Two, Napoleon Dynamite and Anchorman. I only managed to watch 3 movies though.

Sin City turned out to be great. I had totally forgotten how the actual comics were made up of short stories so I was glad to see this got transferred into the movies. Mickey Rourke was the best thing about the movie, I am glad his career is back on track now.

The Jacket was so so. My brother thought it was an amazing movie so I was expecting it to be so, but I found it un-eventual and slow. They could have done so much more with this movie. Adrien Brody is a good actor though, I like him.

Napoleon Dynamite was hilarious. I have never seen such sad looking characters in my whole life, they are the most incredibly dorky and geeky people you could ever meet, and they fucking kicked ass. Pedro is like the man!

Tonight I am probably going to watch Anchorman. I am also downloading the A-Team season 1, hopefully that will turn out to be as good as I remember it.

Overall the quality of the movies were really good, like DVD quality and all were actually DVD rips not in movie recordings. The only downside is that from all the movies I downloaded non of them have Dolby Digital so I am stuck watching all the movies in Stereo mode only.

A few days ago I was at McDonalds and I ordered the Fillet-O-Fish combo with a Quarter Pounder Sandwich. which was supposed to come up to a total of KD1.650 according to the “McDonalds Pricing Bug“. But suddenly the McDonalds chick was asking for KD1.850! I thought I must have miscalculated and had my lunch.

Yesterday night I passed by McDonalds and I asked the manager if they had increased the prices. He told me they had, by 50fils. Thats not 100% accurate though. Some of the value meals like the Fillet-O-Fish combo and the Double Cheese Burger combo were priced at a super value price of KD1. Now they are priced at KD1.150 which is a 150fils more expensive! The breakfast menu seems to be intact and unchanged, the 100fils ice cream cone is still 100fils also. When I asked the manager why the prices had increased, he told me that its due to the increase in the price of the goods. So now Starbucks and Mcdonalds have increased their prices, whos next? I heard Chilis also increased their prices.

Feel the “voile bleue”, “edde sands” & “oceana” atmosphere…this Friday the 22nd at Shiik Flamingo resort in Salmiya. The event will include beach volley ball, street ball and mini football tournaments in addition to water activities, open air barbecue, kids playgrouds, beach party and other entertaining activities. [Link]

I saw this computer case today at the ASUS dealer and it sooo wanted me to get a PC. It looks really cool and aerodynamic plus it comes in 3 funky colors.

The case is called the Vento 3600 and its available on Amazon for only $149. At the dealer in Kuwait it costs KD100! And I thought only Mac dealers in Kuwait were expensive… [Link]

Asus Dealer Kuwait: 2477101 or 2477102

More microwave meal reviews on the way just as soon as I have time to write them. Todays review is for a cool cheese burger meal thats meant for kids. I saw it in the freezer and it looked good so I figured so what if its meant for kids I wouldn’t mind a cheese burger meal, so I got it. This “Kid Cuisine” consists of one cheese burger, some fries, corn, and fruit snacks.

Preparing the meal was interesting. Firstly you need to remove the fruit snacks, the burger bun and the slice of cheese from the tray. You then heat up the rest of the tray for a few minutes, when thats done you place the burger in the bun with the slice of cheese and you put it in the tray and continue heating up the meal. When its done you put the fruit snacks back in the tray and voila!

Now you know how the actual meal never ends up looking like the picture on the box, surprisingly this meal actually looked very similar. I love the blue tray, it looks really funky. The whole thing actually tastes pretty good also. The burger was juicy, I really loved the fries and the corn tasted like corn. The only thing I didn’t eat was the fruit snacks since Nataly finished them all so I guess those must have been good. The only problem I saw was that the burger was a mini burger which isn’t very filling. The price for the whole meal was also 950fils which basically put it head to head with a McDonalds kids meal except with McDonalds you get a bigger burger, a coke and a toy. I would love to give this meal a 4 out of 5 but the price brought it down to 3.5 out of 5.

An interesting photo pool on flickr on food that looks really gross to eat, some nasty stuff there. [Link]

Note: This is my favorite [pic]

According to an email from Moe, the movie House of Wax was removed from all theaters in Kuwait by KNCC due to heavy pressure from the Ministry of Information. I have no clue why they would do this since the movie was already heavily cut, maybe Paris HIlton is just banned in Kuwait.

Round 2 was a disaster, last week my team (Blue Team) lost but today we were pulverized.

Blue Team
Mark, Nibaq and Keltanen

Red Team
Ozy, Ripping Fabric and Ramsey

First Game
Red Team 50 Kills
Blue Team 9 Kills

Second Game
Red Team 50 Kills
Blue Team 8 Kills

Result
Red Team Win

The Healthy Choice, as soon as I saw this in the Freezer I had to get it. Microwavable food that is healthy? Great! This meal seemed like a perfect choice for vegetarians or cheese lovers, its Manicotti, which is Ricotta, Mozzarella, Parmesan and Romano cheese filled pasta in herbed tomato sauce.

I took it out of the pack for dinner and heated it up. Like most microwavable meals the process is usually a 2 step, you heat for a few minutes, take out your meal, stir it up a bit, then put it back in for a few more minutes. This meal was no different and after a few minutes in the microwave it was done.

The first thing that I noticed was the smell, for a few minutes my kitchen smelled as if my wife could cook. The second thing I noticed was the looks, I am never going to get over the fact at how pictures on packages differ from the actual product. It still amazes me every fucking time!! It once again looks absolutely nothing like in the picture, if this was a match the box to the meal game I would lose. I took a bite and I have to say, the sauce is pretty good, but the actual cheese roll was tasteless. It also only had 2 rolls inside and for the price it cost me KD1.250 I would expect at-least double that. In the end I had to give it a score of 2.5 out of 5. There is nothing special about it, its over priced and it didn’t look appetizing. I wouldn’t buy it again.

After Team Da Hui won the first round against me and Fadibou, this week they will be facing a new team made up of me, nibaq and a newcomer from all the way in Finland, Keltanen.

Team France (get it?)
Nibaq
Keltanen
Mark

Team Da Hui
Ozy
Ripping Fabric

Date: July 14th, 2005
Time: 6:00PM (+3GMT)
Prize: Winners will receive 2 Shani drinks
Setup: 2 TV’s, 2 Xboxs, 2 player split screen per team
Rules: 50 kills, two rounds, two levels, a third round if necessary, no time limit. Random starting weapons. One level chosen by Team France, one level chosen by Team Da Hui. If there is a third round, Nat will randomly choose it.