Category: Personal

I go to Macaroni Grill quite often and mostly because of their garden salad with sweet Italian dressing and the grilled salmon dish.

Although I started going there because of their 2,430 calories spaghetti and meatballs dish, the grilled salmon quickly became my favorite dish. The fillet is covered with a savory honey glaze (which rocks!) and is usually served with orzo pasta but I have them swap it out with mashed potatoes instead.

Macaroni Grill is located at the Avenues, outside near Chili’s.

Update: I recently got food poisoning from Macaroni Grill (from the fish according to them) and so have completely stopped eating there.

I just had my endoscopy procedure. My appointment was at 7PM at the International Clinic. At 7:20 I finally go in and got prepared for the procedure. By 7:45PM the doctor was still not there and I had been waiting on the bed with a needle in my arm and I was getting fed up. I told the nurse if in 5 minutes the doctor doesn’t come remove the needle and other stuff connected to me cuz I wanted to leave. Its not like its an exciting procedure that I really want to get done and I can go do it anywhere else. Finally doctor came in and I don’t remember much after that. I ended up going to sleep and waking up a short while later with Nataly and a friend next to me. I was told the procedure didn’t work because the salad I had for lunch was blocking the way. Now I have to go back tomorrow and do the procedure again.

Now I tweeted the whole process with pictures on my twitter account. I only couldn’t tweet after I fell asleep but the before and after is all there for your viewing pleasure. Check it out on https://www.twitter.com/mark248am

It seems my eating habits have caught up to me because it turns out I’ve been diagnosed with acid reflux. What this basically means is I have to change my eating habits and the biggest change will be no fatty or fried foods which currently makes the big chunk of my diet.

This doesn’t mean I won’t have burgers anymore, it just means I need to cut down on my daily intake of junk food. Now thing is I don’t like a lot of dishes and the dishes I do like aren’t usually healthy and I am sure many of you will relate to that. But, I’ve decided to try my best and work on a new healthier lifestyle and with that I am going to start looking for alternatives that hopefully won’t be breaking my bank. Kei for lunch is healthy but if I am going to have it everyday its going to be one expensive lifestyle.

As a start to this new lifestyle I passed by Salad Creations for lunch. I passed by before and had a chicken wrap but I didn’t like it simply because I find cold chicken gross. Today I had the Turkey BLT wrap and combined with the thousand island dressing it wasn’t that bad. I still would prefer a quarter pounder with cheese over it but that wasn’t really an option. Salad Creations has a bunch of ready to order salads and wraps but you can also create your own. They are located in Baitak Tower which is in the same building as KFH and X-Cite Electronics in Kuwait City.

From now on every time I find a new tasty healthier alternative to my regular junk food lunches and dinners I will post about it here in hopes that other people will benefit from my post. I like flavor and sauces and I am not trying to lose any weight here but just trying not to have the common fast food meals. Recommendations for me to try out are welcomed of course!

I have a confession to make, when I see a KFC ad on the street I feel like having KFC, when I see a Hardees flier in the newspaper I feel like having Hardees, when I read about food I want to have whatever I am reading about and thats what happened to me earlier tonight. Although I had a Smoke House burger for lunch, I was reading my favorite hamburger blog called Hamburger America when I read about how ketchup in burgers is for kids and how mustard is the way to go. I am a big fan of ketchup in my burgers but I wanted to try it with just mustard so I decided to pass by Johnny Rockets and ordered a cheese burger with just mustard. Turned out it was really good and I think I might be having my burgers like this more often. No lettuce, no tomato, no onions, just cheese and mustard. If you’re a burger fan check out Hamburger America, he’s got tons of nice burger shots all over the blog. [Link]

I passed by the Salmiya clinic in the morning to get the H1N1 flu paper I got from the airport signed. It was my first time there and I have to say the place is disgusting. Can’t believe that’s actually a medical center, it looks more like a big kitchen or bathroom. I even found a big dead bug on a dirty and stained floor, gross!

Anyway went to the proper department where this woman with a really large book took down my name and travel information. She asked me if I was sick, I told her no so she told me to come back on Sunday and that was it.

Got this camera for only KD2.5 from Amsterdam. Its a waterproof 35mm camera which I thought would be perfect to take while jet skiing this summer.

I’ve been checking out FREITAG bags since 2006 and I finally got one today. Since every single bag is a unique design I always had a hard time finding one I liked. Today I decided it was now or never and ended up getting one that should match everything I wear. If you don’t know what FREITAG bags are click [Here]

Is it only me or does anyone else also think are there a lot of mosquitoes this year?

There was a small fire in the basement of my office building and I managed to capture the whole excitement live on my twitter account. You can check out all the posts by clicking [Here] to go to my twitter account or click on the direct links below:

There is smoke!
More smoke it’s getting worse
Fire truck is here!
Firemen seem to be taking their time
Cops r here now
Lots of shouting fireman getting ready to go in
They just went in
I think the fire is nearly out
The crowd watching
More crowds
The cause of the fire, cigarette in the trash bin
Smoke still coming out
Soaking the garbage bin with water
More cops arrived

Note: Once you follow the links you will need to follow the image links on those pages to see the pictures.

I am going to Amsterdam with Nat at the end of the week and was wondering if anyone had any recommendations on things to do and places to visit. I am going to be there on Queens Day which is cool and I already have an idea of some cafe’s I want to pass by (thank you Cannabis Cup 2008), and maybe go bungee jumping or take a wetland safari but what else can I do or see? No museums please!

I just tried the Ancho Ribs Slider this weekend at Slider Station and now I’m addicted to it. Its by far my favorite slider at the moment. I just had it again for lunch awhile ago and now I can’t wait to have it again. One thing I notice while having lunch was that the place was packed… with girls. Me and my friend were the only guys there which I thought was interesting since I always regarded burgers more of a guy thing than a girl thing.

I passed by Pizza Rustica tonight at the Avenues after reading some positive reviews about it on a couple of blogs. Supposedly they have the best pizza in Kuwait but I don’t think that’s true. Firstly I had a hard time finding a pizza I liked, my usual favorite is ham (veal) with olives and mushrooms but I managed to kinda solve that by ordering a mushroom pizza and asking for olives as an extra topping. Well the pizza turned out to be fairly decent but nothing close to being the best pizza in Kuwait. I didn’t like the taste of the tomato sauce and the cheese was also not that great. Pizza Rustica is owned by Alshaya who also own Pizza Express and Al Forno both of which make better pizzas I think. The service on the other hand was pretty good but that’s not enough to take me back. Want a good pizza while at the Avenues? Then pass by Al Forno instead or even Le Notre.

I love mangos but I have no clue how to choose the good ones. I have a pretty terrible hit rate with 3 out of 5 mangos I get turning out to be crap. Buzberry had a post on mangos and I posted a comment asking for tips on choosing the best mango and a reader called Alvaro they replied with the following:

Well u should pick the ones which are a bit greenish, since they’re gona stay in ur fridge for a day or so until they turn yellow.. When mangos r yellow and slightly redish – they’re perfect! Remember avoid the ones which are easily squeezed and never get ones that have black patches or whatever that dirty stuff is.. Bon apetit!

So I went to Sultan Center Sharq and picked out what I thought were the four best mangos on the shelf but then I noticed a Sultan Center employee bringing in new boxes of mangos. So I went up to him and showed him my mangos and asked him if they were any good. He took one look at them, took them off me and told me to go get him a new bag. So I went got a plastic bag and when I got back he had 4 mangos waiting for me. He put them in my bag I said thank you and left.

How did they turn out? Unbelievably good! I just had all 4 of them now and they had to be the best mangos I’ve ever had. I am now going to go back to Sultan Center tomorrow and look for the guy again since he is now officially my mango guy. All I need to do now is find a melon guy.

Picture from Buzberry

I don’t know where to start this review because I’ve got a ton of good things to say about the Archos 7 but an equal amount of bad things. I guess I will start with the bad things.

The Archos 7 is extremely buggy plus I think I have a problem with mine. There are three brightness settings on my A7, low, medium and high. When I put the brightness on high the back light flickers between low and high constantly. I checked online and some people faced this issue when the screen was set on low brightness but I am the first to report this issue with the brightness set on high. Luckily for me I don’t have any problems when the brightness is set on low or medium, the two settings I will be using most while traveling. I read this issue could get fixed with a firmware update but so far since I got the device over a week ago there’s been two firmware updates and both haven’t solved the flickering issue.

As I mentioned earlier the device is also buggy. I haven’t used the A7 much but so far its crashed with me while watching a movie once. At times it just crashes while getting charged or while its on sleep and I need to reboot it, a quick process but nevertheless it shouldn’t do that. I had it connected to my Mac for over a day now and it was working fine until awhile ago I tried to turn it on and it wouldn’t. For some reason it wasn’t charging over USB which it should have been and the battery got completely drained. URGH! The last negative thing I have to say is that the Archos is pretty heavy. I love using my iPhone after I am done with the A7 since it makes my iphone seem tiny and ultra light. Oh and one more thing, I can’t seem to remove the battery, its like jammed or something!

Yeah there are A LOT of issues but… I still love the Archos 7! I love the screen, the battery life, the ability to just drag and drop my movie folders onto it, the way it plays ALL my files without needing to convert them, the touch screen, the browser, the web TV, web Radio, the stupid flash games, the little stand on the back of the device, the way Archos keeps improving the device with firmware upgrades and finally the fact that I can stream videos off my main server at home over wifi and watch them on my Archos from anywhere at home. When I bought the device I didn’t know I could do that but it turns out I can and easily. I just browse my home network from the Archos, find a video file, double click it and it starts playing instantly.

When I purchased the Archos 7 it was because I thought it was the best portable video player on the market but now I know it is. As of this post I am not aware of any other device on the market that has the same features and abilities as the Archos 7 and thats why I have no regrets. Final score is a 3.5 out of 5. Yeah it has a TON of issues but at the end of the day all it needs to do is play movies for a very long time without running out of battery and that it does perfectly. Of course I am hoping Archos will work out whatever bugs I have with the next firmware update.

160GB Archos 7 is for $272. [Amazon Link]
320GB Archos 7 is for $412. [Amazon Link]

By the way there is also a smaller version called the Archos 5 which sells for $280. Its the same as the Archos 7 in every way except the screen is a 5inch and the battery lasts around 5 hours. [Amazon Link]

I’ve had my Wrangler for 4 years now exactly and I’ve noticed an interesting trend with my dealership after they merged with Al Mulla who are renowned for their terrible service centers.

– An oil and filter change originally used to cost me KD8. I would pop into the quick service center and come out 30 minutes later. It was still called Behbehani Motor Company here.

– An oil and filter change later became KD12. I would pop into the quick service center and come out an hour later. This is after Behbehani Motor Company and Al Mulla merged.

– An oil and filter change now costs me KD16. I now pop into the quick service center and come out two and a half hours later.