Category: Personal

Yesterday I passed by Adidas Originals near my hotel but found it closed since it turned out they were renovating and the reopening would be today (lucky me). I passed by a few hours ago to see if they still had anymore Adidas Diesel jeans and turns out they had just received the new seasons collection. I got a pair and will be going back again for another. I tried finding them online last time but they only sell them at Adidas stores and are a limited run so even finding new pairs on eBay isn’t easy.

Earlier in the month I posted about how Carrefour started carrying the MSI Wind. Well I got a call a few days back from the MSI Wind dealer who wanted to give me an MSI Wind to keep and review for the blog. Of course I said YES and today I went and picked it up. I had three colors to choose from, the black, white and the pink and I decided to go for the black which I hadn’t seen before. Once I got back home and opened the box I was glad I went with black because it looks really great.

I’ve only had a few minutes to play with the Wind and so far I really like the size. When I had the 12inch iBook I hoped Apple would release a 10inch version but instead they ended up releasing the 13inch which although is great is pretty big to carry around. 10inch seems to be the right size for a portable laptop. Originally I had regretted getting the Eee when I found out about the Wind but now I have both which is perfect! I am going to Munich later this week so the MSI Wind came at a perfect time since I will be able to take it with me and try it out as a travel laptop. I am also interested to see how long the battery is going to last since it uses the new Intel Atom chip.

If anyone has any thing they want to know about the Wind or something you want me to compare to the Asus Eee 900 please leave your question in the comments below. A user in the forum was able to install Mac OS X on the Wind so thats something I will probably attempt to do once I get back from Munich.

According to the dealer the MSI Wind is sold at Alghanim, Electrozan, Carrefour, Lulu Hypermarket and Bin Khaldoun street for KD185. Actually it might be a bit cheaper at Bin Khaldoun street.

Update: I soooo hate Windows XP, how do you guys use it!

Update2: If you need to contact the dealer their number is 810810

I will be in Beirut for the next 10 days on business but as usual I will continue to post from there.

Houston we have a problem! When I first started this burger challenge I thought it was going to be a pretty easy task but now that I am approaching the end I’ve realized I am going to have a difficult situation on my hands.. who to crown the winner. Originally at the start of the challenge I anticipated either Fuddruckers or Burger Boutique would win but as it stands both of them are out of the picture and its Burger Hub and Slider Station that are currently rated the highest. So I had my hopes in the Gaucho Grill burger to make my decision easier and it didn’t.

I’ve only been to Gaucho Grill during the evening but for the burger challenge I’ve been trying to have the burgers during the day so that I could have decent pictures to attach to the reviews. Gaucho Grill during the day is a completely different experience, its quieter, emptier and of course much more brighter. There was only another table occupied so finding a place near the window wasn’t a problem.

Once I got the menu I flipped through it till I got to the burger section and decided I would order the Gaucho Burger with Roasted Mushrooms and Cheese (medium well). I ordered a side order of baked potato but no appetizers since I have yet to try any appetizer at Gaucho Grill that I liked. The burger arrived soon after and my first impression was whats up with the bread? The bread didn’t look very appetizing and actually looked a bit burnt so that put me off. But, once I took a bite I realized the bread in fact wasn’t as bad as it looked and the beef patty was actually really good. The burger was very juicy and the thickness of the patty was perfect. The burger came with lettuce, tomatoes etc.. on the side and thats where I kept them because the burger really didn’t need them. The bread although as you can see in the picture was slightly burnt on the edges really didn’t bother me much and it was crunchy or anything of the sort. I do think though that if they had used a better kind of bread this burger could have been the winner.

While thinking of what to score this burger I considered the fact if I’ve been too hard with my ratings. I tried some incredible burgers and so far the highest score has been a 4 out of 5. I was actually starting to believe that I’ve been too hard until I realized there was one burger I had that I would have given a 4.5 but that burger isn’t in Kuwait sadly. While I was in Jordan back in April I had the most amazing burger at the Four Seasons hotel. I think it was one of the best burgers I’ve ever had. I truthfully don’t think I could give a burger a perfect 5 out of 5 but at least I know I could give a 4.5 rating if needed be. The Gaucho Burger although a great burger was let down by the bread and if it wasn’t for that I do think it could have gotten a higher score. The final score is another 4 out of 5. There are only two or three more places I still need to try out so there is still hope that a burger in Kuwait will get higher than a 4.

Gaucho Grill is located at The Palms
The cost of the Gaucho Burger with Roasted Mushrooms
and Cheese is KD6.750

I just started watching the new TV mini-series called House of Saddam and its actually pretty good. The show charts the rise and fall of Saddam Hussein and it focuses on his family and his relationship with his closest advisers. The mini-series is only four episodes long and I’ve already gone through two of them. It actually sucks that there are only four episodes because it is an interesting subject and there is a lot to cover but I guess four episodes are better than one. If you’re interested in watching the show its broadcasted on BBC or you can do what I did and just download the episode off of torrents. [Link]

My advertising agency (JWT) is currently looking to hire a Senior Art Director and a Kuwaiti Copywriter. If you’re interested send me an email and I will get back to you. [Email Me]

Has anyone by any chance seen a store still selling the original iPods? I suddenly have the urge to get one. I found one still shrink wrapped in the box on eBay but I think its going to end up selling for over $300 easily which is more than what I am willing to pay for one. If a store in Kuwait still has one though they might be willing to let it go for cheap. I remember back in the day Eureka was selling the 5GB one for KD220. I wonder if they still have them in stock somewhere gathering dust?

Update: Wow, found an old post on Gizmodo where there was a competition called “Show us your iPod”. I don’t remember this but it seems I submitted a photo of my iPod mini autographed by the iPod inventor Tony Fadell and it actually was a finalist in their giveaway competition. Don’t know how I missed that, its from back in 2006.

Update 2: While I am being all retro here. The picture above is of Nibaq taken back in November 2002. I took the picture so we could submit it to iLounge for their iPods around the world gallery. Back then they didn’t have any submission from Kuwait. [Link]

Lately I’ve been in the mood to watch a lot of old stuff. Currently I’m watching the old tv show called Newhart which I vaguely remember watching when I was a kid. For some reason I find the show very comforting to watch.

There are also a bunch of classics I’ve still haven’t watched which figured I’d get out of the way while I am at it:
Dr. Strangelove
Grease
Paths of Glory
Rain Man
Spartacus
Trading Places

I think whats pushed me to start watching old movies is the lack of decent movies nowadays. Nothing I’m watching is turning out to be anything extraordinary. Where is the Apocalypse Now of today? Thats what we’re missing.

Tonight I swapped out my Wranglers speedometer gear since the original stock one thats installed wasn’t working properly with my 33inch tires. My speedometer was off by around 10-20km/h and it was also effecting the transmission shift points. Installing the new speedo gear was pretty easy but it felt very claustrophobic under the Jeep. Now I need to figure out how to test the accuracy of my speedometer…

Nothing! I didn’t do anything on my to do list. No $200 burger, no midget kick boxing and no Death Museum! This is the first time I actually visit a new country and not get to see anything other than the hotel.

I am at the Bangkok airport waiting to board my Qatar Airways flight back to Kuwait. I slept in total only 4 hours in the past 3 days because of the workshops and last night when it was all done and over with I only managed to get 5 hours of sleep so I am still extremely tired. Once I get back to Kuwait posting should resume normally and I will also fix the serious problem with the forum.

It seems my posting will be sporadic in the next few days since I will be held up in all day workshops. I’ve been up since 7am and just got back to my room awhile ago (its 10:45PM now). I need to get some rest since the next two days the workshops are going to last past midnight which is going to be really exhausting.

On the bright side breakfast is great at the hotel and for dinner I showed everyone how much we eat back in Kuwait. I totally massacred what had to be the largest buffet I had ever laid my eyes on. Since the hotel is located on the river its like mosquito city and I am covered with bites all over.

Check safat.kuwaitblogs.com for other blogs while I am away since there is always something interesting to read there. You can also pass by the 248AM Forum and mingle with other readers or just sit back and read what others have to say.

My flight arrived to Bangkok yesterday night at 8:30PM which is around 3:30 Kuwait time so other than the fact I had a long 7 hour flight from Qatar I also ended up losing around 5 hours of my day because of the difference in timezones. Isn’t it supposed to be a 4 hours difference actually? I don’t know maybe. The point is by the time I got to my hotel I was exhausted with no sleep so I didn’t get to see much of Bangkok. Today is my day off to go explore but I just woke up now and its nearly 2PM so half of today is also gone. Its not raining so I guess thats a good thing. Quick notes about my trip. I flew Qatar Airways economy class. The plane was really great, decent legroom great entertainment system with video on demand and live news feeds. The food was also great. Qatar Airport on the other hand sucked. It was over crowded and once you get off the plane you need to do a security check even if you are going through transit, that took like 20 minutes of waiting in line. Also it seems you need to take a bus from and to all the planes. Bus ride to the plane seriously took 20 minutes also. Not a very nice airport..

I’m leaving to Bangkok in the middle of the night for a work related trip. I’ve got to be at the airport at 3:30AM which sucks. Its like the worst timing so I am going to try and go to sleep at 10PM so at least I would have some shut eye. Things I am looking forward to doing in Thailand:

1) The $200 burger
2) Midget Kick Boxing
3) Ride a scooter
4) Eat a deep fried bug
5) Forensic Museum (Museum of Death)
6) Sky Train

Any other fun things to do in Thailand?

Some people are reporting problems accessing the blog with Qualitynet. I have Qualitynet at home and haven’t had a problem but a handful of people have told me they haven’t been able to connect to the blog for over 24 hours. Anyone else having this issue?

update: According to someone at Qualitynet my server is “somehow responding with erroneous checksums on certain cache servers”. I don’t exactly know what that means but they are checking to see how to fix it.

Update 2: Qualitynet have fixed the problem and everything should be back to normal now.