2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003

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!

Yesterday I passed by Ruby Tuesday to try their burger after some friends had recommended I try it. First off I have to say that I don’t like Ruby Tuesday. I’ve maybe had a good experience there only once and I hadn’t been to the place for maybe a year or more. The place hasn’t changed much since then, the menu has been updated and it seems they make better burgers now.

When I got the menu I knew what I was going to order, the Triple Prime Cheddar Burger which consists of a “blend” of certified Angus beef, lettuce, tomatoes, cheddar cheese and garlic mayonnaise sauce. It comes with fries usually but I told them to swap it for baked potato which they had no problem with.

Since I was there early the place was empty so my burger arrived quickly. At first glance the burger looked pretty good but I quickly found out that the bread was a problem but I will get to that in just a second. The beef patty itself was tasty although I originally found the “blend” word a bit iffy. Its like the fast food place Great Steak and Potato Company who have a large sign that proudly says their burgers are 98% pure beef. Its like o…k.. and whats the other 2% exactly? So that aside lets move on to the biggest problem in this burger, the bun. It looked more like a croissant than a bun which is ok but it was falling apart in my hands and I also found it too thin. That combination resulted in a very messy burger to eat, not good!

Overall though it was a good burger, I wouldn’t mind going back to Ruby Tuesday just for the Triple Prime. The patty had good flavor and the garlic mayonnaise went well with it but their bun left a lot to be desired. Thats why the final score is a 3 out of 5. You have the bun and you have the patty, its simple yet many places can’t seem to get it right.

Ruby Tuesday is located on th Gulf Road, Salmiya and Abu Halifa.
The cost of the Triple Prime Cheddar Burger was KD2.950

Update: I went back to Ruby Tuesday a few days ago and ordered the same burger, this time it was horrible. Presentation wise, taste wise, everything was just terrible. New score is a 1.5 out of 5.

I wonder what happened to the guy! [Link]

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.

Some lucky guy in Kuwait has an actual size flight simulator in his home. From the short video it looks very real and very cool. [YouTube]

A while back I posted about how I purchased the Sony DSC-W300 from a store in Muthana Complex and how I got a free memory stick with it. Well I don’t know how many readers went and purchased the camera from that store (I know of at least 3) but I just wanted to inform you that there is a very high chance that you ended up with a fake memory stick just like I did.

I first noticed a problem when some photos were turning up distorted. At first I thought it was a defect from the camera and was going to return it for another one when I realized the memory stick was a fake. Here is a link with details on how you can tell its a fake, I found out mine was a fake from the way the packet was sealed.

Anyway another thing you should know is that the camera shutdown speed is effected by the type of memory card in the camera. The shutdown speed is calculated from the moment you press the off button till the lens retracts. I did a test using three different memory cards and here are the results:

Sony 2GB Memory Stick Pro-HG Duo
First try: 1.62
Second try: 1.68
Third try: 1.65
Average is 1.65 seconds to shutdown.

SanDisk 1 GB Ultra II Memory Stick
First try: 2.61
Second try: 2.5
Third try: 2.54
Average is 2.55 seconds to shutdown.

Fake Sony 1GB Memory Stick Duo
First try: 5.25
Second try: 4.67
Third try: 4.92
Average is 4.94 seconds to shutdown.

So if you purchased your camera from Digital World in Muthana Complex and you got a free memory stick my advice is to throw it away and get an original one. Other than the high risk that you might lose an important photo the performance of the camera also suffers greatly.

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

Hardees is selling ice cream cones for only 50fils. I tried it and although its not as good as McDonald’s 150fils ice cream cone, for 50fils its really great.

The other day I posted a video of kites being flown in the Kuwaiti desert. According to a reader the kites all belong to Al-Farsi Kites Team who also have the largest kite in the world. They have an official website and a flickr group with a lot of pictures including my favorites the Winnie Poo like bear and the squid like creatures. Here are the links:

Official Al-Farsi Kites Team Site
Al-Farsi Kites Flickr Pool

The beautiful picture above was taken by M.Ashkanani

If I had a garden I would definitely get a couple of these sculptures. [Link]

I passed by Eastpak earlier tonight to check out their bags. I have an Eastpak bag for every occasion but I needed a travel bag that is smaller than my backpack but larger than my shoulder camera bag. My small Eastpak camera bag is actually a great size specially since it fits my Asus Eee but once I start cramming in the rest of my stuff it gets pretty tight. Anyway it turns out Eastpak have a 50% discount on some of their bags so if anyone is looking for a new bag now is the perfect time to get one.

Naif have an offer now where you can get three chicken shawermas for only 500fils. Thats around 166fils per shawerma which I think is the cheapest in Kuwait or at least the cheapest I’ve ever seen.

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!