Category: Personal

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.

I am going to be in Thailand next week for work and there isn’t much I am looking forward to except for this burger I read about once that costs like KD50. Someone had a posted a link to it under my Slider Station burger review and ever since then I’ve been wanting to try it. So I was just checking online to see what place that burger was available in and to my surprise it turned out this special burger was being served at Trader Vic’s which is located in MY HOTEL! From all places in Bangkok that I could have stayed in I ended up staying at the exact same hotel where one of the most expensive burgers in the world is served. If that’s not a sign I don’t know what is.

Why is the burger so expensive? Well here is a run down of its ingredients:

Matsusaka beef (KD52 per KG)
Morel Mushroom (KD107 per KG)
Black Truffle (KD70 per KG)
Foie Gras (KD15 per KG)
Gold Leaf (KD2)

Only thing I am worried about is that I am a fast eater so paying KD50 for a burger I am going to gulp down in 5 minutes is a bit too much. Maybe this week I should start training myself to eat slower… [Link]

Update: I just called the hotel, the burger now costs around KD55. I guess even this burger is effected by inflation. I was also told I need to book the burger ahead of time which makes sense.

I used to find Lexus and Infiniti pretty boring but not anymore. My experience with the G37s was short and slightly confusing. I was expecting it to be an aggressive loud sports car but it wasn’t. I was expecting it to be ridiculously fast but it also wasn’t. The thing is the car has 330hp which is nearly as much as the previous generation BMW M3 and that was a brutal car. But the G37 is completely different, its a quiet fast car. Its the kind of car in which you’ll accidentally hit 160km/h on the Gulf Road while thinking you’re doing 40. Its fast but you just don’t feel it.

The interior of the car is very cozy and its probably my favorite thing about the car. I found the seats Lazy Boy comfortable but thats because my Z4 has hard tight sport seats while my Wrangler, well its a Wrangler. I also really liked the the black leather interior but I would have done without the wooden trimming. But again thats because I keep thinking it’s a sports car and not a very comfortable luxury coupe that can go fast. The car also has all the goodies like iPod inputs, navigation system, reverse camera, key less entry and a start button. The car I drove had a bright red exterior but if I was to get it I would probably go with a silver or dark grey color.

The G37s costs around KD14,000 while the non “s” version goes for around KD13,000. The G37s costs around KD13,750 fully loaded. I think the price is very reasonable and the car really doesn’t have any competition in that price range. The Audi TT costs nearly the same but the new TT is pretty dull and its also much smaller while the new Audi A5 coupe costs like KD18,000. The BMW 3 series is also more expensive, the Mercedes CLK is getting a redesign soon and Lexus don’t even have a model that competes with this. Thats why I think the G37 is going to do really well. Its a great Japanese car and you can’t go wrong with it.

I am at the BMW dealer getting an oil change but something is strange. The service is actually good and instead of expecting to wait 3 hours for a simple oil change they told me it should take less than an hour. Something is wrong here… this is BIZARRO WORLD!

I passed by Saso Lounge yesterday for lunch. They are going to be placing a banner on my blog soon so I figured I would pass by and check the place out. The place is located in a strategic location, during lunch while I was there the place was full of business people since its close to many offices. The food was also pretty good and very reasonably priced. Its an Italian Asian menu which although sounds strange made perfect sense to me since while I was in Lebanon I had a habit of ordering Sushi and Pizza for dinner. The dish pictured above is the Shrimp n’ Hammour which was great and a dish I would order again. Check out their website for more details and their location. If you work in Kuwait City you should pass and try it out for lunch. [Link]

Just picked up my Wrangler, it looks really great and I love how it turned out. Now I need to go do some steering alignment in Shuwaikh!

I dropped off my Jeep at Auto Tech yesterday night so they could start installing my lift early today morning. I just passed by after work and they had practically finished the installation. They only have the motor mount spacers to install, a spare tire bracket to tweak and a test drive to make sure everything is fine. So I will passing by again tomorrow to pick up the Wrangler and then take better pictures. I managed to take a few shots now but there wasn’t much room to maneuver. They will also be flipping the tires inside out so that the white markings are facing the inside, that way the tires will be totally black matching the black rims.

I am not really a “lets save the world” type of guy but I don’t mind helping out by using less energy as long as it isn’t a hassle for me. With not enough electricity in Kuwait for everyone its even more important to try and save energy just so we don’t end up stuck in a 50 degree heat wave with no AC. Thats why I decided to finally try energy saving light bulbs. I used to hate them because I thought they all emitted white light which I don’t like but I just recently found out their are versions that emit warm colored light which matches regular light bulbs we are all used to. So, I passed by Ace Hardware today and picked up two 20w bulbs to try out. At KD1.050 a pop they are around 10 times more expensive than regular bulbs but they last 6 times longer and use around 4 times less energy. A 20watt energy saving light bulb is equivalent to an 85w Tungsten bulb.

First thing I did was try them out to see if the color of the light is fine and it is. It matches the color of regular light bulbs so I am now going to go back to Ace and buy a whole a bunch of these so I could start replacing all the bulbs in my house. If you’ve held back on buying these light bulbs there really isn’t a reason not to get them anymore unless its because of the price. But even the price shouldn’t be a factor, seriously how many bulbs do you have around the house? 10?

I passed by and picked up my Wranglers lift kit from DHL today. Yes they were open today, turns out they’re actually open 24 hours a day including Friday! My shipment got cleared from customs yesterday evening and I was planning on passing by them after leaving Marzouqs place but I was just really exhausted and actually ended up going to sleep at like 11. Anyway today morning I woke up and headed straight to DHL in my mums mini van. My shipment consisted of two large boxes weighing in total around 56KG. The total shipping cost came out to only KD125 which is around KD2.250 a KG which isn’t bad at all.

Now I am going to take an appointment with Auto Tech so that I can pass by them this week and install the lift on the Wrangler. They told me they would be able to finish it in a day if I bring them the Jeep early in the morning so I can’t wait! The picture above is of Geo posing next to all my parts which now include:

5 Hankook DynaPro 33×12.5 tires
5 steel Cragar wheels
4 Old Man Emu Coils
4 Old Man Emu Shocks
1 set of JKS disconnects
1 JKS 1.25″ Body Lift
1 JKS Motor Mount Spacers
1 JKS Adjustable Trackbar (front)
1 JKS Adjustable Trackbar (rear)
1 set of Old Man Emu bump stop spacers
1 set of bunp stop spacers (front and rear)
23 black power coated wheel nuts

I’ve had the E71 for a few hours now and so far compared to my previous phone the Nokia E61i, the E71 is better in every aspect. For those of you who own E61i’s you will be glad to know that the E71 is a much much faster phone, MUCH faster. Everything launches in a split second and moving from menu item to menu item and opening or closing an SMS is all instantaneous. The size of the device is also smaller, width wise its around 20% less fat and its also slightly less thick. The camera is finally usable and the keyboard although smaller than the E61i doesn’t feel cramped or strange in any way. I’ve also noticed the phone is a lot more customizable which is a plus and its also smarter. For example in the main screen if you no longer want to display SMS notifications, you just highlight it and press the delete button and it will ask you if you want to hide it from the main screen. The power button has now moved to the top which is a good idea since I had a bad habit of accidentally shutting the phone with my ear, not fun specially if you are in the middle of a conversation.

On the negative side the GPS seems extremely slow and unpractical. The phone also loves finger prints and smudges which is very iPhonish. The case also seems more fragile. I’ve dropped my E61i so many times and I am not sure the E71 can handle as much abuse. Overall though I am really impressed with the phone. I was expecting it to be better than the E61i and it has exceeded my expectation in every way so far. Oh and its no longer showing me MTC on the main screen, its finally showing me Zain KW!

I heard a lot of bad stuff about Toshiba hard drives yet somehow I ended up buying one. Back in February Nataly needed a larger drive for her MacBook and I ended up going to Red Star in Walla Complex in Hawalli to see what they had available. I usually buy my stuff from Red Star or SoftIsland across the street since they both usually give me the best prices. The largest drive they had in my budget was the 160GB Toshiba. I didn’t want to get it but the salesman there convinced me that unlike the old Toshiba drives that were made in China and were prone to failure, the new drives are now made in Philippines and were supposedly of much better quality. I bought into that and went ahead and purchased the drive.

Just before we sold her MacBook the drive ended up dying. Luckily she had everything backed up on her old drive and so was able to recover her work but the Toshiba drive was dead. I put it aside and forgot about it until a few days ago I accidentally found the original invoice. There in very clear hand writing it stated “6 months warranty”. I checked the date and realized it had only been 5 months since I bought the drive so I headed to Hawalli today and got the drive replaced. I wasn’t to sure if they would replace it for me or not since most of the places there are pretty shabby but Red Star were pretty cool and after testing it out told me I could come back tomorrow and get a replacement. Since I didn’t want to come back the next day and since I also didn’t want another Toshiba drive I ended up settling on a 120GB Seagate and a nice discount on a decent HDMI cable.

I just installed the drive in my PS3 and its working perfectly. I will never buy another Toshiba drive ever again and I would not recommend them to anyone. They are cheap which makes them tempting but you really should stay away from them.