2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003

I am going to be meeting Shark of Kuwait tomorrow night for coffee and I will be interviewing him for the blog. Anyone have any questions they want me to ask him?

K.thekuwaiti just posted about Virgin at Marina Mall and how they are overcharging by up to 9 times the actual price of some of their products. NINE TIMES! I am curious to know if they are even allowed to sell grey market products which they are currently doing. Check out his post by clicking [Here]

I had the best chocolate cheese cake ever today. I was at Lorenzo having lunch when I decided to try their dessert. I heard a lot of good stuff about their cakes but I am usually too full to have any. Today I still had room after I finished lunch so I decided to order the chocolate cheese cake.

Its the best chocolate cheese cake I have ever had. Its also not too expensive. The whole cake costs KD7.500 while a large slice costs I think KD1.750 but its sooo worth it. I mean I would easily pay KD10 for the whole cake without thinking twice.

I actually heard Lorenzo supplies cake to a lot of places in Kuwait. Starbucks for example get their oreo cheese cake from Lorenzo. Speaking of Starbucks, has anyone noticed how terrible their cookies taste a the moment? It seems they changed their cookie supplier and the new one just sucks.

Anyway back to the chocolate cheese cake, if you are a cheese cake fan you HAVE to try it. It easily gets a 5 out of 5 stars. Lorenzo is located across the street from Sheraton in Kuwait City but by end of the month they are moving to Salhiya near Johnny Rockets. You don’t have to have lunch there to have their dessert, if you go into the restaurant the cakes are located on the right hand side. They also have chocolate marble cheese cake and chocolate pie which I want to try the next time I go there.

Just got back from the bloggers meetup at Dunkin Donuts. It was pretty cool and lots of fun. Saw a lot of bloggers there including Nibaq, K.thekuwaiti, Forzaq8, Maze, Toxy, Deera guy, Blue Booze BloBoz, Stallion, iDip, Exzombie and more. All very cool people.

I am watching a really cool documentary which I downloaded on the Coke Vs Pepsi war from the beginning up till today. They were just talking about how Fanta was created and I found it very interesting so I thought I would share it. Here is some info taken from Wikipedia:

Fanta was invented during World War II in Nazi Germany by the German Coca Cola (GmbH) bottling company. Due to restrictions on shipping between Nazi Germany and the United States during hostilities, the German bottling plant could no longer get Coca Cola syrup. The CEO of the plant, Max Keith, needed to do something to keep the plant in operation and came up with a fruit flavored drink made from whatever he could find. Using apple fiber left over from cider presses and whey, a byproduct from cheese manufacture, Fanta was created and became quite popular.

The name ‘Fanta’ came during an employee contest to name the new beverage. Keith told them to let their Fantasie (German for imagination) run wild. On hearing that, salesman Joe Knipp spontaneously arrived upon the name Fanta.

I was laughing out loud while watching this. The dalmation is the funniest. [Video]

I just had the most expensive shawerma I have ever had in Kuwait. I tried this new shawerma place that opened near Restaurant Street (Share3 al Mata3em) called Shawermer. I had just left Sajj House because they were packed and was heading to get shawerma from Dodo when I saw this place and decided to try it out.

When I walked in I noticed they had two large shawerma skewers (one meat and one chicken) laid out horizontally over a charcoal grill. That grabbed my attention, I thought it was pretty original since I had never seen a shawerma skewer laid out like that. So I proceeded to order two chicken shawermas and a coke. The cashier then tells me he wants 900fils. I was like how much is one shawerma? He tells me 400fils. I was like “fuckin A” this is either going to be one really large sandwich or one unbelievably amazing shawerma.

So I stood by the horizontal shawerma skewers waiting to see how the chef was planning on cutting it up when I noticed some guy at the other side of the kitchen taking already cut up shawerma from a metal container and placing it into my sajj bread. I was like what the fuck? The shawerma isn’t even freshly cut!? I was like whatever, lets not judge anything before trying the shawerma. The guy finishes heating up my two shawermas and puts them in a bag and gives it to me with a small 250ml can of Pepsi (I really hate these cans!). I leave the place, go out into my car and decide to eat the shawermas there while they were still hot.

My first reaction was what the hell!? This shawerma had the worst tasting garlic ever. Like way worse than Kurdo’s garlic which I used to count as the lowest of the low when it came to garlic. Now out of the blue Shawermer was able to smash the charts with this absolutely horrendous tasting garlic. I didn’t know what it tasted closer to, cough medicine or tooth paste. Actually what am I saying, I would rather have cough medicine mixed with tooth paste and kitchen soap over a spoonful of this garlic.

So I finished up my two sandwiches and just sat in my car bewildered at what this place was thinking charging people 400fils for a shawerma that tasted like something you can find under your kitchen sink. Then I looked around and noticed the place didn’t look like it was doing any good which is a good thing. It was a Wednesday night and every other restaurant on the street was packed and this place was empty which put a smile on my face.

Final score, half a star out of a possible five. Like Shoo? Shawerma, it gets half a star because if there was a nuclear holocaust and all the food in the whole world got infected with radiation and Shawermer miraculously had radiation free shawermas, then I wouldn’t mind having one.

There will be a blogger meetup tomorrow at 5:30 since its the first Thursday of the month. The difference this month from other months is the meeting will be held at Dunkin Donuts in Salmiya. Thats a much cooler venue then the previous one which was Second Cup in Kuwait City plus its a lot closer to my house. Whoever changed the location a big thank you! I haven’t been to a bloggers meetup yet but I will tomorrow.

I just got off the phone with Nat, she has a new Apple 30inch display at her new work place! Thats so not fair…

update: ok, she also has a QUAD core 2.5ghz PowerMac with 8GB of RAM!

The weather in Kuwait actually feels colder then Lebanon although the temperature there is lower. I went to the beach yesterday with Geo and although I had a sweater and jacket on I still froze my ass off. Geo didn’t seem to care though, he was actually playing in the water most of the time.

Nat quit her job before we left on vacation, she starts her new job today. I think she will be posting about it in a bit or something. I start work again on Saturday so I need to take advantage of today and tomorrow. Maybe I will pass by the Zoo…

Here are 10 of the best opening credit sequences to movies including links to them on YouTube. I had seen them all before except for the Island of Dr. Moreau one. I haven’t watched that movie yet. [Link] #

Here are the statistics for 2006 but I am telling you from now, 2007 is going to be a lot more fun thats for sure. I already have a couple of cool things lined up including new sponsors and new stuff for the blog, one which I am hoping works out soon because it will involve me and a couple of super cars. Thank you everyone for being part of this blog either by contributing with the comments or even just by visiting. Thank you!

Total amount of unique visitors for 2006: 901,989
Total amount of page impressions for 2006: 7,863,277
Highest amount of unique visitors per month: December – 117,943
Highest amount of page impressions per month: November – 1,224,453

If you haven’t checked the Forum yet then you are missing out on a lot. With over 21,000 articles and 635 users its really an informative place. There is even a section for buying and selling stuff where people have sold things ranging from mobile phones and Nintendo Wii’s to laptops and cars. So pass by and check it out. [Forum]

A funny 90 second video on “How to Tell When a Relationship is Over”. [Link]

I was just loading up some pictures into iPhoto when I found these two shots. I took these two pictures up in Faraya, Lebanon on December 31st around 4PM. The weather was freezing cold at around -2 degrees. The ski slopes were also open and if I had known I might have gotten up there earlier in the day to do a bit of skiing.

I’m back in Kuwait. Happy new years everyone.