Category: Personal

So I passed by the Hawally Traffic Department in Jabriya tonight because the guy yesterday told me to come back today. I got there 5:50PM and waited in line to have my picture taken. After waiting around 20 minutes I finally sat down to have my picture taken when the guy tells me they already have my picture and I need to take my papers to window #6. So I go up to the window and the employee is busy talking on the phone, he signals me with his hand to give him my paper and I do and then I go sit down waiting for my name to be called out so I could collect my license. 6:30PM exactly a guy comes out from the printing room and announces to everyone that the printer stopped working and to come back Saturday. All the employees got up and started leaving.

Now I need to pass by on Saturday. If its Ramadan I should pass by between 1 and 4. If its a regular day I have to pass by between 4 and 7. It will be my forth visit and all I am trying to do is get my license renewed!

Today as you can tell from the posts below is just not my day. I have to put all the blame on traffic. Not just any traffic but Shuwaikh traffic specifically. Shuwaikh traffic has got to be the worst traffic of its kind. The other day on my way to IKEA I got stuck 20 minutes at the intersection just before IKEA. In the end I just parked my car on the side and walked to IKEA.

My motorbike lessons take place in Shuwaikh and the place I take the lessons is also right next to IKEA. Once I am done with my lessons at around 6:30 I have to drive back to Salmiya. The first day I drove back via the 4th Ring Road and the drive back took over an hour. Then I started taking the long way round which is going to Kuwait City and then towards Fahaheel Expressway and that drive takes around 40 minutes.

Getting in and out of Jabriya at that time is also hell as I experienced today. Its like everywhere I went today it was just really packed. Traffic really stresses me out and I tend to snap at the tiniest thing. Anyway enough complaining for tonight.

My driving license is expiring in a few days, so on Sunday I passed by the Hawally Traffic Department in Jabriya. Regular readers might remember I had passed by the same place two weeks earlier when getting my motorbike learners permit. So once again I got my papers typed out in the typing room and then headed towards window #1.

When I got there it turned out to be the same person who had given me trouble the last time. Previously when I went to get my riding learners permit he had told me to come back the next day just like that for no reason. In the end a nice high ranking officer helped me and Nat out and I was able to get the paper work done in the same day. Anyway I went up to him with all my papers this time, he looked at them and then gave them back and told me to come back in the evening. I was like why? He was like from 4 to 7pm its for renewals. I was like fine whatever and left. On my way out I saw the nice cop from last time standing not doing anything. I was like cool, he will help me out again.

I go up to the high ranking cop and go hey remember me? Me and my wife came here 2 weeks ago and you helped us out and stuff. He told coldly replied no, and then rudely turned around and walked away. I was like thinking to myself what the fuck just happened here? This guy was like super friendly to us last time and he was kidding around with Nat and he was telling her about the dangers of riding and how he wouldn’t advise her to ride and stuff and then he went and finished up all our papers. Now its like he never met me before. I was like doesn’t matter, whatever, I followed the cop back to his office the whole time going excuse me in Arabic wanting him to turn around. Finally just before he got into his office he turned and was like what? I was like I want to renew my papers but that guy said I should come in the evening. He told me then come in the evening and walked away. I was like fuck it and left the place.

Tonight I passed by at 6:30pm to finish up my papers. I go in and the place was empty except for 2 guys sitting next to each other at 2 adjacent windows. I go up to one guy and without saying a word I give him my papers. Since my papers say I am Canadian I figured I would get better treatment like that, and it works most of the time. The guy signs my papers and places a stamp then the guy next to him tells him in Arabic “Tell him to come back tomorrow”. The guy continues to sign the papers then hands them back to me and tells me come back tomorrow. So I replied back in Arabic why? I came already before and you told me come back between 4 and 7, now I am here you are telling me come back tomorrow. The guy was like yes, no one is here now come back tomorrow at 5. I was like yeah buy I have work. He is like I finished everything for you, all you need to do is come back tomorrow have your picture taken here and get your license. I was like ok why can’t I do that now? He was like come back tomorrow.

So with no chance of reasoning with the guy and no wasta available I had to leave the place without getting my driving license renewed. Now I need to go back for the third fucking time just to get my license renewed. Three visits just for a renewel!

I know I said I will stop complaining but I can’t when there are companies like Fonz that still exist.

While at the airport the other day, my dad saw the Nokia N73 for the first time and he liked it. Today while flipping through the papers I found an ad for Fonz where they were selling the N73 for KD89 plus they were giving free stuff with it like a phone line, 6 months ART subscription and something else. So, I decided I would pass by and get him it as an early birthday present.

I went to the Fonz branch in front of Marina Mall next to Eastpak around 7pm. I went in and told the employee I wanted the N73. He replied telling its been out of stock for a couple of days. I was like yeah but I just saw the ad today in the paper. How could you advertise something you don’t have? I was like can you check on your computer and see if any of your other branches have it. He was like I can’t do that. I was like what the fuck, who can I call and complain about this? He told me the head office, he picked up the phone and called them up and handed me the phone.

A guy answers, I asked him if this was the head office. He was like why? I was like because I have a complaint. He was like about what? I told him that I saw an ad in the paper for a phone and I came in to buy it and the employee told me it was out of stock. When I asked him to check and see which other branch of Fonz had the phone he told me he couldn’t. The guy replied telling me they sometimes run out of stock. I was like fine, I understand that, but could you please tell me which other branch has the phone in stock? He replied telling me that he could give me the numbers of all their branches in Kuwait and I could call them all up and see which one still has it. I was like what the fuck? I am telling you I want the phone, and you are telling me go look for it, go try your luck and call every Fonz store in Kuwait? I told him YOU guys should be trying to find ME the phone because I am the customer and I want to buy it. YOU guys should be able to tell me which branch still carries the phone and YOU guys should make the phone calls if there are any to be made. He was like I am not free at the moment to do that. I shut the phone on his face, gave it back to the employee in the store and walked out.

How does a place that does business like that manage to survive? Am I asking for too much here, having the actual store find me a phone in one other their other branches? It can’t be too much to ask.

I have been having lunch at IKEA for the past 3 days. I grew tired of food court food and so I wanted to try something new and thats when I decided to try IKEA. Other then the set menu they have daily specials. On Saturday they had Fish done manchurian style with steamed rice, yesterday they had veal steak with mushroom sauce, potato wedges and steamed vegetables and today they buttered chicken with steamed rice. The price is pretty good, the fish cost KD2.450 but the steak and chicken cost KD2.250. The daily special comes with your choice of tea or coffee. Its currently my favorite place and everything I have had has just been really delicious. If one they have a daily special I won’t like, I could just have swedish meatballs or a club sandwich. Then on the way out if I can’t resist the smell of the bakery downstairs I might pick up an eclair or chocolate croissant. Hmmm, now I am hungry.

Today was pretty straight forward. Just drove around the parking lot for an hour. Its was pretty uneventful until I had my first fall. Don’t think its counted as a fall since the bike fell while I was still left standing. I was turning a curve slowly, I think a bit too slowly and the bike just fell down right under me. Luckily it was dark so it wasn’t that embarrassing…

Today I had my second riding lesson and it went really well, much better then I imagined it would go. Yesterday I was stalling on the bike a lot except near the end of the lesson where I finally managed to get things right. Today I managed to start off exactly where I left off yesterday which was really good. I was taking off without stalling and I even started shifting. Everything just got wayyy easier today and I was having a lot of fun just driving around the parking lot stopping and going, just getting the hand of riding. The hardest part of my lesson today was actually learning how to use the turn signals, it just made my life mor confusing.

Anyway at this rate by the end of the week I should be ready to take the driving test next week. I actually think I could pass the test now since I heard the test is easy, but, I would rather get as much riding as possible in this parking lot before I go out into the streets. Tomorrow is my third lesson.

Today I had my first riding lesson. It was really cool because I got there and there were two training motorbikes, two mechanics, this cool American biker called Kevin AND Jafar Behbahani, the owner of TriStar where I got my bike from. I had heard a lot about him and how cool a guy he was so meeting him was like really great. He spent the first half of the course teaching me how to ride but then had to leave for a meeting but Kevin continued in his place.

My lesson didn’t go that bad. I was stalling a lot in the beginning but near the end of my lesson I started getting the hang of it. My left hand and right hand can not coordinate together which is what made my lesson difficult. Its hard for me to do one thing with one hand and a different thing with my other hand, but they told me with practice I will get the hang of it and I can’t wait till that day comes. My second lesson is tomorrow, I am going to try to finish up all my lessons very quickly so I can get my license ASAP.

I really have to say I am extremely impressed with TriStar, Marzouq had told me before about how good they were and thats why he had recommended I get my bike from them but I didn’t think they would be this good. They are real professionals. If anyone is interested in a Ducati, KTM or BMW motorbikes, new or used then you should pass by them or give them a call. They are located in Kuwait City, at the end of the Istiklal freeway, opposite Al Khaleejiah Complex. You can call them on 2405194 (ask for Salem) or visit their website on tristarkw.com.

Tomorrow is my second lesson, should be really fun.

Today I finally have my first biking lesson. It really sucks having a bike and not being able to ride it and now I can’t wait till I finally get my license. Since I am going to the lesson right after work I have my helmet, gloves and jacket in the car. I am also wearing my biking boots which are the Alpinestars Stroke shoes. They are pretty cool and they don’t look half bad either. They also make me feel like a biker even though I still don’t know how to ride a bike which is pretty lame.

The weather is getting really better really quickly. I can’t wait till Ramadan starts since the roads would get deserted at around 5:30pm which would be perfect for a newbie biker since I can fuck up and not have to worry about getting run over.

I got the Crest White Strips Premium earlier in the month so I could try them out and post my experience. Thing is I never took a before picture so I could compare the color of my teeth before I used the strips. I should have done it because I really can’t see a difference in the color of my teeth although Nat thinks they are whiter now. Maybe they are whiter but not as white as I expected them to be.

Since I don’t have a picture of how my teeth was before I really can’t make a fair review of the product. But if I was to use my memory I would have to say the Crest White Strips didn’t do as much as I expected them to do. Maybe my expectations too high since I was expecting my teeth to be a brilliant movie star white after just 7 days but the result turned out a lot less glamorous.

Putting on the strips was a bit of a pain and once you do get them on you need to leave them on for 30 minutes. I can imagine people with small mouths might have a hard time trying to fit their fingers and the strips into their mouth. Once you put both the upper and lower strip on you suddenly start building up saliva in your mouth. You can’t swallow because the swallowing action might move the strips off your teeth. You can’t spit out the saliva for the same reason. You can’t talk at all and after 30 minutes your lips get really really dry because you can’t moisten them. I spent most of the time lying down on the couch with my head tilted back watching 30 minute sitcoms. Once the 30 minutes are up removing the strips are really easy and you just wash out your mouth with water.

Would I recommend the strips? Yes I would because they are only KD12.5 which is a small fraction of the cost if you wanted to do it professionally at the dentist. You can either pay 100KD or something of the sort and whiten your teeth at the evil dentist or, pay KD12.5 and test your luck out with these Crest strips on the comfort of your couch while watching a rerun of Seinfeld. And hey, if it doesn’t get as white as you were expecting them to get you can always buy another pack and go through the whole process again. Final score is a 4 out of 5, anything beats going to the dentist.

I complain too much, anyone who visits this site often will know that. I complain so much that its actually become part of my sites identity and thats not a good thing because I don’t want to be known as Mark, the guy who complains a lot. Not only that but my blog is also starting to get me in trouble.

So far in the past year my boss at work for example has been contacted four times by different companies I had complained about complaining to him about how I have been complaining about them. Luckily, my boss has been very understanding plus these issues just keep getting him more intrigued by this blog thing. But, I have also been pushing my luck.

For me, my blog world is a complete separate entity from my work world. But in reality they are not separate entities because I am not anonymous. I am the same person that goes to work every morning and also posts here at night. I chose not to be anonymous.

This is why I have decided I will no longer be complaining about large multimillion dollar corporations. You can call me a sell out, you can call me a chicken but in the end of the day you are not in my shoes. The blog is only a hobby and its not worth me losing my job, getting sued or getting arrested over. I just went through my blog and deleted a lot of posts which I believe at one point in the future can get me in trouble with the lawyers. So if anything is missing, now you know why.

Say hello to the new nicer me…

I am a big chocolate spread fan and the most common brands I get are Nutella, Crumpy and Hazella but mostly I just get the large Nutella jar. I tried the Galaxy chocolate spread but I just found it tooo sweet. So the other week I was at Sultan Center in Salmiya and I found a new brand of chocolate spread, the famous Neuhaus from Belgium. I was like gourmet chocolate spread? I have to try it! So, I went and purchased a jar of Neuhaus Chocolate Spread with Nuts and went back home to try it.

Was it any good? No question about it, the Neuhaus chocolate spread was the most flavored chocolate spread I have ever tried. Its thick and smells nutty plus the presentation of it is very minimal and elegant. Its really delicious. I never doubted the fact that it would taste really good, the only question is… is it worth it?

The 750-grams Nutella jar costs 915fils. The 200-grams Neuhaus jar costs KD2,780. That means the Neuhaus chocolate spread costs more then 11 times the price of Nutella, but is it 11 times better?

Simply no, it isn’t.

I can’t even imagine what Nutella times 11 would taste like but I am pretty sure it must be close to orgasmic and although the Neuhaus spread is really fucking good its no where near orgasmic. So would I recommend it? Yes I would, at-least to try it once. But I wouldn’t recommend it as a replacement to Nutella, its just not feasible, what you get is something better then Nutella but not something that deserves to be eleven times as expensive. This is why for the final rating it gets a 3.5 out of 5.

Yesterday after work I decided I would pass by Bader Al Badoor for a quick bite to eat. Once I got their though I changed my mind and decided I would try the other shawerma place opposite to it. A friend of mine told me they had better shawermas so I figured I would give it a shot and see.

After trying Al-Ghader and Badar Al Badoor’s shawerma, Burgan was a disappointment. First the place seems to be the least clean out of the three. The interior was very small and even though it wasn’t that packed I still found it difficult to get to the cashier who was tucked away in a corner behind a Pepsi fridge. The employees also didn’t seem the cleanest or the most organized compared to Al-Ghader and Bader Al Badoor. There was a brief argument for example that broke out with the shawerma guy and one of the employees, the employee originally told the shawerma guy 2 shawermas but then gave him a paper saying 6 shawermas because the customer had requested more. The shawerma guy didn’t read the paper and just went and did 2 shawermas. So they were arguing for like 5 minutes on whose fault it was while the customer was outside waiting in his car for his order.

After a brief wait I picked up my shawermas and a can of coke and headed to the car to eat. Its not hard to make a good shawerma, as long as its not greasy, you use good bread and you make sure the garlic doesnt taste like mayonnaise then you have yourself a good shawerma. But, from a good shawerma to a great shawerma it takes a lot more then that and this is where Burgan fails to deliver. While Badar Al Badoor and Al-Ghader both had neutral tasting chicken in their shawerma’s, Burgan trys to be different by giving the chicken some flavor. If you actually look closely at the chicken shawerma skewer you will notice the chicken has what looks like red spice on it. This is what gives Burgan’s chicken this extra touch of flavor but with me at-least this addition of theirs backfired because I didn’t like it. Its not so bad that I wouldn’t eat it, I don’t think I have ever come across a shawerma that I wouldn’t eat but it does make me prefer Badar Al Badoor which is just across the street from them.

Burgan’s quantity of chicken is good, they are not stingy, their Pepsi was also freezing cold but the chicken just tasted strange and the garlic wasn’t strong enough to cover the taste. The shawerma costs 250fils which is standard for a place like this. The final score is a 3 out of 5.

Need directions? Follow Badar Al Badoor’s [Link]

Dunkin Donuts is addictive and it should be banned!

My motorbike lessons don’t start until next week and I have had my bike for two weeks now and its really frustrating not being able to ride it. Since I know how to drive a manual stick car, and I also know how to ride a bicycle, I decided to go ahead and try to ride my bike since I figured it can’t be too different from driving a stick shift and balancing it can’t be too different from a bicycle.

So around 30 minutes ago I headed down to the parking lot and turned on my bike and tried to ride it. The first 6 times I tried to drive off I ended up stalling the bike. I was releasing the clutch too early I think because as soon as I gave it some gas and moved like a centimeter the bike would stall. Finally I got the hang of it and was able to release the clutch right and my bike took off! I drove the length of my parking the whole time expecting the bike to stall with me but it never did. Once I got to the end I did a u-turn and headed back and then started driving up to higher floors of the parking. It was really cool and I loved the accelaration.

I stayed in first gear the whole time and I was able to speed up a bit and then brake with my hand when I realized I was actually riding the motorbike as if I was riding my bicycle. I wasn’t using the foot brake which I am guessing I should have been using because my braking wasn’t very smooth, I also wasn’t changing gears because I didn’t know what would happen if the bike stalled while I was moving or if the brakes would continue to work with the bike off. For my first time riding (if I can call it that) I think I did pretty good. I think I will go back down later and try riding some more and maybe even try shifting. I am really having fun with this although I am not doing much.