Category: Personal

I just found out how much my bike is gonna cost to fix.

I just got back from Razzi Hospital. Turned out Mubarek Hospital messed up my hand cast and my fingers ended up swelling. The doctor today also told me I didn’t have a fracture which is very good news. He had yesterdays cast removed and they put me another better one instead. He told me to come back next week to have it removed. Now I just need to find out when my bike will be ready. Thanks to all the well wishers. My First Crash post didn’t get more comments then the Shark of Kuwait post but never the less it was close enough.

Oh and they finally gave me some pain killers!

Today I met up with Marzouq again to go riding. We met in front of Galleria 2000 like yesterday and we headed off onto the Gulf road. As we were getting onto the gulf road from Salmiya I fucked up and ended up crashing onto the ground and sliding towards the curb.

I am still not sure exactly what happened. I have played the scene over and over in my head and my current conclusion is I was taking the curb at a speed faster than I was comfortable with and I stupidly pulled the brakes too hard and locked up the front wheel making it slide under me. I crashed on to the ground and me and the bike both slid towards the curb.

It all happened really fast except one part felt like it was in slow motion. The view suddenly shifted to inside the helmet and I was on the floor sliding towards the black and yellow curb and I can very clearly see my helmet visor getting scratched and finally I stopped.

I got up, and looked around to see if any cars were coming. I saw Marzouq had already stopped his bike behind me so that the cars could drive around us. I then proceeded to lift my bike up when Marzouq came and took over and told me to go sit down. He asked me if I was hurt and I looked down and saw my jeans had torn at my knees and I was bleeding. I went sat down, took out my camera and started taking pictures of Marzouq moving my bike and then of my injuries.

My left knee was scraped, the left side of my waist also, I had a tiny scrape on my left elbow and another scratch on my right leg. Finally my left wrist was hurting me a bit.

We parked the bike and noticed the left foot rest had brkoen off so we called TriStar to come pick up the bike. They told us they already had found out about the crash and the bike truck was on its way. Talk about excellent customer service. Marzouq wanted to take me to the hospital but I told him to pass by my place first so I could change and take Nats car.

I got home, took off my watch (knew I needed to take it off for the xtray), got into shorts and a tshirt and left again with Nat and Marzouq. We got to the hospital and two hours later I left with bandages everywhere and my left hand in a cast. Yes, I have been typing this post with one hand, its a pain!

I am back home now. I am disappointed my hand is in a cast because it means I won’t be riding for a while. My favorite jeans are ripped which totally messed up my wardrobe. But, I am glad I came out of the fall with minor injuries. If I was an unsafe rider wearing shorts, tshirt and no helmet you can bet I wouldn’t be here typing this post. I regret not having gotten biking jeans. I was actually gonna post about Draggin Jeans the other day. If I was wearing them me knee wouldn’t have gotten messed up.

Here are some pictures, the ones marked GRAPHIC are you guessed it, graphic pictures.

Marzouq moving my bike
My busted knee (GRAPHIC)
My waist (GRAPHIC)
My leg (GRAPHIC)
My elbow (GRAPHIC)
My scratched helmet
Me waiting to have my cast put on

I have to end this post with a special thanks to Marzouq who was a true friend today. Thanks dude!

Last year I posted pictures of the old Apple Store in Kuwait City. Their were three banners in the display from Apple’s old ad campaign called Think Different which I really wanted. I tried my best to get them and even offered to buy them but the Apple dealer (AlSane Group) refused. Finally I gave up and forgot about them.

A few days ago I was at Starbucks with the Mac&More store owner, I had met him a few years back when I had purchased his Twentieth Anniversary Mac. We were talking about Macs in the pre-ipod days and I told him about the posters I had wanted from the other Apple Dealer. He told me he would check and see if he had any left in their warehouse and would call me. Well turns out he found 3 banners and the 3 banners he found are exactly the same 3 banners I had wanted from the other dealer!

The posters are dusty but other then that they are in excellent shape. I can’t wait to put them up and once I do will take more pictures.

On a side note, I just noticed if you do a google search for Apple Kuwait the first few links are all related to me. Can’t get any cooler then that…

At 4PM today I met up with Marzouq in front of Galleria 2000. I was talking to him online at around 3:30 and he asked me if I wanted to go riding and I was like fine. I hadn’t really been out on the roads yet, only twice around my block but that was it. I was nervous but excited at the same time. I quickly got dressed and took my bike and rode down to Galleria 2000.

Once I got to Galleria Marzouq was already there waiting for me, he told me to follow him and off we went out onto the Gulf Road. Originally I was hoping my first time out on the Gulf Road would be when it was empty, like a Friday morning or something. At 4PM today the Gulf Road wasn’t empty as I was hoping instead it was kinda packed. We rode on the Gulf Road from Salmiya all the way to Shuwaikh. At first I was a really nervous but once we hit TGIF I had gotten the hang of driving in traffic and was weaving through it with no problems. After we passed Kuwait Towers I started to feel even more comfortable on the road. The road also had less cars by then and we were zooming by really fast.

When we got to the end of the Gulf Road in Shuwaikh, we parked our bikes and started taking pictures when another blogger, iDip happened to be passing by. He parked his car and we had a little bloggers meetup before he took off again. Marzouq and I finished taking pictures and then headed back to Salmiya. The ride back was pretty cool. There was a lot of traffic but I wasn’t nervous anymore. Its not that bad riding in traffic, as long as you don’t get an asshole on your tail blinking and honking wanting you to get out of the way. I think the max speed I hit was 130km/h. I know Marzouq hit like 160 with his bike.

It was a lot of fun and I can’t wait to go back out tomorrow. There shouldn’t be any traffic in the morning so the ride should be even more fun.

A video of Geo (my dog) fetching a tennis ball. [Video]

I have this bad habit of miscalculating how much food I can eat during Ramadan. I spend the whole day without food and when its finally time to eat I over order. Today for example I had lunch at 6:30PM and I ended up going to Burger Boutique with Nat. We ordered 4 mushroom+swiss sliders, 4 midnight sliders, 4 west coast sliders and 1 street style pommes noisettes. Nat ended up eating two sliders, I had 7 and there were still 3 left. I actually should have stopped eating after 5 sliders but I didn’t and now I feel like I am going to blow up. I really should learn from my mistakes but I never seem to do so.

Yesterday was my last riding lesson. After a total of 10 lessons I am now ready to take the riding test so I went today morning to get an appointment. I was expecting the guy to give me an appointment for sometime this week or worst case an appointment for sometime next week. The guy took my learners permit and started stamping it and writing down my riding test date when I saw him write in Arabic 12 October. So I told the guy nicely could you please make it earlier then the 12th, the guy looked at me and said this is the 21st of October not the 12th. I was like shit, ok could you make it earlier then that, he replied no and gave me back my papers.

Now I have to wait 3 weeks before I can get my license. I was really hoping to get it now so I could use the month of Ramadan to practice on the streets. The Gulf Road is deserted at around 6PM which would be perfect for a newbie like me. By the time I get my license now, Ramadan would be over.

I passed by TriStar today again since a friend of mine wanted to buy a jacket from them. Nat was with us and I wanted to show her “my dream bike” which I posted about yesterday but turns out it got sold on Thursday night right after I left the place. It was originally parked between the red and yellow Ducati’s in the picture above.

Ok, I still don’t have my riding license yet and I know I haven’t even ridden my bike yet but already I am dreaming of my next bike, the Ducati 749. I was at TriStar yesterday and I saw a black one and it was really really really cool. It was matt black so it looked really aggressive and the front end is just super sick. The bike reminds me of Airwolf for some reason. The price was around KD4,700 but they would probably drop it to KD4,500.

Whats cool about bikes is that for KD5,000 you could get something really amazing but if you were buying a car you would end up with some low end shit like my Wrangler. Anyway everytime I pass by the dealership I fall in love with a different bike. Its crazy, now I understand why Brad Pitt has so many bikes, he probably buys one everytime he visits the dealership.

I just came back from riding my bike around Salmiya. What a big difference from last week. Last week it felt the bike was in control while this week I was in control.

My ride tonight was really fun and I didn’t want to come back home. I took the bike for a cruise around old Salmiya and then got onto Amman Street where there was a hand full of cars for me to maneuver around, I wanted to get a feel of riding around cars and I managed to do a bit of that. I then drove back and fort around my neighborhood a few times but then decided to come back home. I didn’t want to but I don’t have my license yet and didn’t want to get stopped by a cop which I doubt would have happened since it was around 6:15PM and the streets were nearly empty.

Surprisingly the biggest challenge for me tonight was getting used to the different seating position. The bike I have been riding all week in my lessons is a lot taller and the seating position is more upright, my Ducati on the other hand is much more lower and the seating position is tilted to the front, sports-bike like. That was my only issue tonight which means I think I am ready to get my riding license and start legally riding in public. I can’t wait!

Yesterday night Choowy Goowy sent me a whole bunch of cookies.

Firstly they now have 3 new flavors:
1- Choowy Light: Choowy Original Cookies but with 50% reduced fat
2- Toffee Choowies: Choowy toffee chips
3- Choowy Solo: Plain Choowy Cookie

The second thing they now have is something called Treat-X. Treat-X is a luxurious box filled with 50 small pieces of cookies of different flavors. When I first got it I was like in shock, it looks really fucking cool and totally unexpected. The whole presentation looks very classy and its filled with sooo many cookies inside and they are like bite size and it had 5 different flavors!

Finally I also got an email from Choowy Goowy guy today telling me that their Booza Booza ice cream is now available on 6alabat.com.

Anyway for more information on Choowy Goowy you can visit their website on ChoowyGoowy.com. The picture above is from the inside of the Treat-X box.

Here are instructions on how to make my favorite Ramadan dessert, I call it Chocolate Crescents.

1- you need a jar of nutella and a packet of Katayef. I don’t know what Katayef is in English but you can find them at Sultan Center

2- you take an Katayef and you spread chocolate on the back side and then you fold it in half and squeeze the two edges together

3- there is no step three, you are done

I am practically done with my lessons, I think I might have one more left. I have learned nearly everything that needs to be learned, I no longer have any fears or problems. All of my problems got ironed out around 2 or 3 lessons ago and basically all I have been doing the past 3 lessons is just gaining more experience. It was getting kind of boring so today I got to try out some new things.

First thing I learned was how to climb over sidewalks, turned out to much easier then I expected. At first I thought it was going to be something like on a bicycle where you have to lift up the front wheel but in fact on a bike its much more easier.

Now the second thing I learned and really enjoyed a lot was driving on sand. The bike I am currently on is a road bike but it can go off road. Since there is a sand field next to the parking lot I spent sometime riding there. At first it was a bit scary because whenever I hit a deep patch of sand the bike would start swaying left and right. Then my trainer told me whenever that happens I should just give it some gas, watch the ass slide off a bit and then take off. After that the whole thing was just an incredible adrenaline rush.

Its basically a lot more fun to drive on the dirt then on the road. I now know my second bike has to be a dirt bike, I can imagine having a lot of fun with that.

Nat on the other hand is doing good, she had some problems yesterday where she dropped the bike like 5 or 6 times but today she didn’t drop it and never stalled so I think she has got the hang of it. Maybe she will post something about that.

I don’t eat at home since I don’t know how to cook nor do I want to learn how to cook. I know how to make the basics which are sandwiches, omelets, burgers and cookies and I don’t see a need to learn how to make other dishes.

Since its ramadan all restaurants are closed till like 5:30PM, this means when I am done with work at 3 I have over 2 hours before I eat. The thing is I can’t go out to eat at 5:30 because my riding lessons are from like 5 to 6:30. Thats why I have to eat at home.

Yesterday while shopping at Sultan Center in Salmiya I decided to pick up 2 packs of Kobe Burger, I have been wanting to try it for a long time now but since I don’t eat at home I found no need to get it. After picking up the burgers I picked up a packet of sliced American white cheese loaves, 1 white onion, a bottle of Heinz Ketchup and some burger buns. Nat didn’t want Kobe Burgers since she doesn’t like thick burgers so I picked up a packet of regular frozen burgers for her.

I have a Kenwood grill at home and I use it mainly to grill my burgers on and this is how I do it:

– I grill the burger for 5 minutes, flip it, let it grill for another 5 minutes, flip it, let it grill for another 5 minutes and finally I flip it one last time for a final 5 minutes.

– Once I am done I put a slice of cheese on the burger, leave it on the grill for another minute then I take the burger with cheese and place it on the bottom half of my bun.

– I then place it in the microwave for 10 seconds so the cheese can melt.

– I then put some ketchup on the burger and top it off with diced white onions

– I cover my burger with the top half of the bun and my burger is ready to eat.

I am sure Gastronomica is better at making burgers then me since if you check out his website you will notice all his meals are very gourmet like. Hopefully he will be nice enough to share a tip or two in the comments below but until he does this is how I make my burgers.

How did the burgers come out? Fanfrigintastic! I like my burgers well done and I was expecting this burger to come out dry but it didn’t. It was soft, juicy and tasted like something you would find at a posh restaurant or hotel room service. It was surprisingly very good and it turned out to be the best burger I ever made.

Now the biggest problem with the Kobe Burger is the price. Each patty costs KD1.250 which isn’t cheap if you compare it to other frozen burgers. BUT without getting into the taste or quality of meat please look at the picture above of the burgers on the grill. Do you notice the 2 large patties on the left? Do you notice the tiny patty on the top right? Guess which patty is your average everyday frozen one? These kobe burgers are big and thick. Kobe beef also comes from Wagyu cattle which are “renowned for its flavor, tenderness, and fatty well-marbled texture”. So yes KD1.250 is worth it specially if you have a passion for burgers.

From now on if I ever need to make burgers at home this is the only burger I will get. I can no longer have those crappy frozen burgers that come 8 in a pack. I have been spoilt. Final score is a 4.5 out of 5. I would have given it a 5 but they are a lot messier to cook then the regular burgers because these are bigger and juicier so they spray more grease. This means more cleaning for me which always sucks.