2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003

I just started watching the movie Top Gun. Never watched it before and hopefully its pretty good. So far the intro of the movie feels dejavu but I guess thats because I have watched the movie “Hot Shots” a ton of times and its basically a spoof to Top Gun.

Update: what the hell, Tom Cruises partner “Goose” is the dorky Dr. Mark Greene from ER! He had hair! I also just saw Val Kilmer, didn’t know he was in this movie. The sherif from Picket Fences is also in this movie.

Update 2: Just finished watching the movie, it turned out to be pretty good. I am glad I finally watched it. Now I feel like watching Men At Work for some reason..

Susan, a regular reader of the blog just passed by and gave me a copy of the newly released Kuwait Explorer “The Complete Residents Guide”. I have been skimming through the book and at first glance it looks really clean and very nicely organized. I am going to spend the next few days reading it and then give my review on it but so far it looks like it going to kick Kuwait Pocket Guide’s ass. You should be able to find the book at Virgin and the Kuwait BookShop in Muthana Complex. Here is link to the book on Amazon UK. [Link]

Back in September I posted on Miskan my weight which was 90.6KG. As some of you who know me since “Moblogging from Kuwait“, I used to be a fast food junkie. I used to have McDonalds nearly daily and if I wasn’t having McDonalds I was having Burger King, Hardees or some other burger place. Anyway back in September I decided to cut back on the junk and start eating better. Well I got on the scale yesterday and I am now 84KG. Since September I have had McDonalds only a handful of times, Hardees only twice and Burger King also twice. I still eat food from the food court but I don’t have any burgers and I rarely have french fries or anything fried. My diet has been a success!

Someone really has a problem with spelling. Notice how opening is also spelt wrong. [source Q8techdrive]

Look at what Ananyah is sending me! [Link]

When I was in Lebanon over Christmas someone who does some work for this famous sandwich place in Lebanon called Malak Al Taouk told me they were going to open up a branch in Kuwait soon. “Malak Al” means king of in Arabic while “Taouk” is a Lebanese word for marinated chicken cubes which are usually grilled on an oven or BBQ. The taouk sandwich at Malak Al Taouk (their specialty) is really really huge and very cheap costing around 650 fils. The ingredients of the sandwich are: lots of taouk, lots of French fries, lots of coleslaw and lots of ketchup. On my last trip to Lebanon I took some pictures of the sandwich to share with everyone and I totally forgot about them until yesterday. The sandwich I took pictures of though is their “super” taouk sandwich which comes with cheese and ham as extra. As you can see from the pictures the sandwich is wider then a 330ml can of Pepsi.

Picture next to Pepsi can
Close up shot of whats inside

This is hard to believe but Pizza Hut’s management currently are ranked very high in my best customer service list. I just got a phone call this time from the Pizza Hut district manager who once again apologized for what happened. He told me that Pizza Hut owed me one and to take down his number and next time I feel like having pizza to call him and tell him which branch I would like to go to and he would make sure I would be taken care of. If I didn’t want to go out they would send dinner over to my place. I thanked him again and told him everything is OK now. I still can’t believe this is Pizza Hut I am dealing with, I never expected them to care this much about their customers. Pretty cool.

Today we finally got over 100 users signed up in the forum. So far the forum has been exceeding my original expectations. As of this post there are 878 posts and 81 topics in the forum and on average there are 41 new posts a day. If you haven’t already checked the forum please do by clicking on the forum link on the top of the page or following this [Link]

I had to take Geo to the vet again today. Since he has been using his injured hand as a weapon, hitting everything in his way with it, the plastic stick inside (the spoon) shifted positions and I got worried this would disturb the healing process. So, I went to the vet, I took the BMW this time since driving all the way there in the Wrangler is a very slow process and takes around 25 minutes. In the BMW, I was driving an average speed of around 140-160 and even managed to hit 190km/h in one place so I got to the vet in 15 minutes from Salmiya. It doesn’t feel like a long trip anymore. The vet fixed his leg again and now I have to keep an eye on him to make sure he stops hitting stuff with it.

Today in Al-Qabas newspaper they had an article on the Al-Rifai car crash which I posted about yesterday. The difference is Al-Qabas is stating that the woman of the car was driving on the road normally when her brakes failed and she veered out of control into the Al-Rifai store. I find that hard to believe for a couple of reasons, first she was driving a new Toyota Prado, not a 10 year old Hyundai. When was the last time you heard the brakes on a new car failing? I doubt it ever happens anymore. Secondly the street is tiny, she would have had to make a 90 degree turn to be able to drive into the store. If she had lost control like the newspaper is stating then she would have veered off the road diagonally, not at a right-angle. This looks like a cover up!

Anyone here on a Windows PC having issues viewing this site? I was just checking it now using Virtual PC running Windows 2000 and IE5 and the site looks off. The right column with the search box and the sections seems squashed, plus the main buttons on top under the title also are not looking right. Anyone facing this same issue?

This is how the site should look like [Picture]

I went to work today to finish up a couple of jobs before starting my 10 day vacation. I was on my way back home when I spotted this strange accident. According to eye witnesses at the scene, there was a woman parked in front of the store and instead of hitting reverse she put the gear on drive and ended up climbing up 3 steps into the store.

Here is another angle
Here is also another angle

Update: The location of this Al-Rifai branch is in Baghdad Street, Salmiya.

Yesterday while walking around Muthana Complex I found this really cool Golf store called Golf Me. I hadn’t seen it before and I later found out that it had only been open for 2 weeks now. I went inside and spoke to the owner who was a very nice guy. The first thing I asked him was if there was a Golf course in Kuwait. He told me there was one in Ahmadi thats a sand course, I told him I knew about that but if there was a grass one. Surprisingly he told me there was, a place called the Sahara Golf & Country Club. I then started to get some details about the store and how much it would cost to golf in Kuwait and this is what I found out. Firstly they have this cool setup in the store where you can try golf clubs out and watch your swing replayed digitally on a TV screen. I also found out that they teach golf. For KD70 you get 10 courses and this includes the use of their golf clubs and time on the golf course. If later on you want to buy your own golf club set you can get one for as low as KD150. I forgot to ask how much it would cost to play golf in the Ahmadi course but I did ask about the Sahara Golf & Country club. The owner told me you need to be a member at the country club and its not cheap. Originally when they first opened membership was KD1300 a year, the price then went up to KD1500 and now the price is KD2000, KD500 of which is a one time setup fee. The course is managed by PGA and is 18 holes and 6,700 yards so its not your run of a mill golf course.

Anyway here are some links and pictures related to the above.
Sahara Golf & Country Club Website
Details on the country club
The Golf Me website
Golf Me from the outside
Golf Me from the inside
Golf Me from the inside 2

The Golf Me store is located on the Mezzanine floor of the Muthana Complex in Kuwait City. Their phone number is 2634660.

After stepping on Geo last night I was hoping by today morning he would be ok, well, he wasn’t. He was still limping in the morning so me and Nat decided to take him to the International Veterinary Hospital. We arrived there at 8:30AM to a beautiful sight of around a dozen dogs with a dozen handlers all lined up outside the place doing some training. We later found out these dogs were mostly used for narcotic and bomb detection, really cool. We continued going in and asked to see the Vet, after waiting for a while outside on the green grass we were called in. Our usual vet only comes in during the afternoon so today we had another Italian vet except this time it was a woman. She did some physical tests on Geo and recommended we take some Xrays just to be safe. Good thing we did because it turned out he fractured bones. Now geo has something like a cast around his leg and he is going to have to be in it for up to 3 weeks depending on how fast he will get healed. The vet was very nice and although Geo looks like a dork now with his one green leg I am really glad he is going to be ok. I am going to hopefully get 10 days off work so I could be with him at home. I feel really guilty for what I did and even though he loves to runaround and play its not going to be possible until his leg heals. The vet told us he is lucky he is still a puppy because they heal a lot quicker. She gave us some calcium pills and told us to give him a lot of cheese to help speed up the healing process. The whole thing cost us only KD34 which is pretty decent and now Geo is sleeping in the living room while I am watching the Discovery Channel. I am sorry Geo!!

As I mentioned yesterday I was going to send an email to Pizza Hut International about the cockroach I found walking on the table. Well they replied to my email and here is what they had to say:

Dear Mr . Mark,

Thank you for taking the time to contact our International Customer Services Hotline regarding your feedback.

As per the standard of Pizza Hut, we aim to provide and serve the highest quality product at all times. Your feedback and comments are very important to enable us further improve our service.

We do apologize for the inconvenience this situation may have caused you. By copy of this note, I am passing your comments to Mr. Louay Ghandour from Al Homaizi Foodstuff Co., our Pizza Hut Franchise partner in Kuwait and I am confident that Pizza Hut representative will contact you to address the points you raised.

Please do not hesitate to contact us again in the future.

Best regards,
Lanie Kadwani

A good reply but lets see how the local management will react.