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Its been a while since I had a major complaint about anything but my latest incident with the Pirelli dealer in Kuwait is just unbelievable. Its probably the worst experience I have ever had with any dealership in Kuwait.

Two month ago Nataly got a flat tire with the Z4 on her way to work. Since the car doesn’t come with a spare tire I had to leave work and meet up with her on the side of the road and then call a tow truck to take the car to Shuwaikh. I spend a lot of time traveling on work related trips and this incident made me realize its better if I fit the car with run-flat tires so that just in case she does get a flat she could at least drive back home instead of having to pull over in the middle of no where and try to find help.

So I get into the tow truck and instruct the driver to take me to Canada Dry street. We park outside the Pirelli dealer there and go inside and meet a salesman called Usman Ali who gave me the prices of their run-flat tires. I then walk across to the other side of the street and get the prices of the Michellin run-flats. Since Pirelli was having an offer their prices turned out to be much cheaper and I decided to fit run-flats from them. They had two tire threads to choose from and I chose the more expensive sportier ones, the P-Zero’s. After fitting the tires and before I left the place I asked the salesman how fast I could drive when I get a flat, he replies telling me the max speed is 80km/h. That was two months ago.

A few days ago after leaving her gym Nat falls into a deep pothole and gets a flat. She calls me up and I tell she can continue to drive home but she shouldn’t exceed the speed 80km/h.

Today I took my Wrangler and headed out to Canada Dry to buy a new tire for her car. I went to the Pirelli dealer and I gave them my tire size and model and the guy tells me those aren’t run-flats. I am like what do you mean? He was like just wait a few moments until the salesman comes back. When the salesman came back I recognized him as the guy who sold me my tires. So I tell him I need a tire for my car and I give him the size and he tells me they have them in stock. I was like yeah but the other guy said they are not run-flats. The salesman (Usman Ali) tells me they have the same power as run-flats. I was like that doesn’t make any sense you think I am an idiot?? I came in 2 months ago asking for run flats and you sold me 4 tires and I paid over KD400 for them and today I find out you lied to me and sold me regular tires not run-flats. He asks me why I waited 2 months to come in and complain and not 2 or 3 days after I had installed them. I was like are you serious?? What you wanted me to drive to Michellin after installing my tires and have them double check to make sure you installed run-flats for me??? My wife had a flat tire 2 days ago and thats how I found out you lied to me.

After around 20 minutes of the guy trying to convince me that I hadn’t asked for run-flats and he hadn’t told me they were run-flats I realized nothing was going to come out of this and I left. Now I am home trying to figure out what to do about this. I feel cheated! This isn’t a small lie. I told Nat she could drive her car with the flat at a speed of 80km/h which is dangerous with regular flat tires. Not only did the guy put Nat at risk but you could also damage the car and rims driving that fast with a flat. The only thing I can think of doing now is sending out emails to Pirelli and hoping someone in management will try and solve this problem for me. Will post an update once something happens.

Update: Just got a call from the Pirelli manager, I will be passing by them tomorrow to solve the problem.

Update2: Problem solved! [Link]

Aramex just delivered my D90 camera. I ordered it once it got released late last month as a replacement for my Nikon D70 which had started showing its age. I originally purchased the D70 for my Miskan project back in November 2004 to replace my aging Sony F717. I still love my D70 and it still performs really great but its developed a problem that’s common to the D70’s where it has trouble reading the memory card. Although I hate zoom lenses I ordered the D90 with the kit lens. Since I will be trying to shoot short movies I figured a zoom lens would definitely come in handy. I still have my eyes on the Nikon 20mm f2.8 lens and the Nikon 85mm 1.8f lens. Maybe for Christmas…

Note: The Nikon D90 w/ kit lens is available on Amazon for KD350 [Link]

It seems there are rumors that Hashi is going to be closing down soon. I’ve only been there a few times and although the place isn’t my favorite sushi place I do like the interior a lot and their food is actually good. I would hate to see the place get shutdown and replaced by another Chili’s or something. As a sign of support to Hashi some people have started a Facebook group called Keep Hashi Alive. Here is the link in case you also want to join the group. [Facebook Group]

A friend of mine called me up yesterday, he purchased Salmon eggs from Sultan Center and while eating them he noticed they tasted strange. He took a look at the expiry date and it turned out the eggs had expired over a month ago on August 18th! Sultan Center is the only supermarket I shop at so its really frustrating that something like this keeps happening over and over. From now on I am literally going to be checking the expiry date on every product I purchase.

My friend has now started a Facebook group so people can voice their concerns on this issue and he is also planning on releasing it in the papers this week specially after the fact that when he went to Sultan to complain they took the matter very lightly and told him to come back next week. Hopefully by shinning the spotlight on this issue Sultan Center will be forced to take action in stopping this from happening again. [Facebook Group]

I took my MSI Wind to Munich with me as my travel laptop and it turned out to be a really practical alternative to lugging my MacBook around. Its much more lighter than my MacBook and its also thinner and smaller so it fit easily into my small carry on travel bag and it also wasn’t a pain to carry around. My biggest problem with the Wind is the fact that it runs Windows XP which I hate.

That problem is going to get solved very soon though. It turns out I can install Apple’s Mac OS X onto it which is what I am going to be doing very soon. I ordered a new Dell wifi card from eBay for $15 with shipping to replace the standard one that comes with the MSI Wind. The Dell wifi card works with OSX while the standard card doesn’t. I am also going to be upgrading the battery to a 6-cell which will make it last twice as long. Finally I am going to be upgrading the RAM from 1GB to 2GB, not because I really need to but because it costs only KD7 to do. I am now just waiting for the wifi card to arrive in the mail and once it does I will do the install and post my feedback on how the MSI Wind runs with OSX.

So many great looking sneakers, so little money and closet space! [Link]

Back in March I posted about how the blog was mentioned in the Brownbook Urban Guide Kuwait edition and since then I’ve been trying to get my hands on a copy of the book. I couldn’t find it in Kuwait and when I was in Lebanon a month ago I only found a box set that included a whole bunch of guides from around the region but I didn’t want to pony up $60 just so that I could check myself out. Finally a few days ago a friend of mine got me a copy of the Kuwait edition which she found by chance in another bookstore in Lebanon. The guide is pretty cool featuring most of the trendy places in Kuwait and a few other interesting places to visit. I need to buy a few of these guides and give them away to some friends (not cuz I am in it but because it makes Kuwait look cool) but I couldn’t find one copy yet a few!

FIVE60 are holding a Charity Ghabga event that will take place on September 17th to help raise money for Kuwait Association for the Care of Children in Hospitals – KACCH.

A lot of food and beverages vendors will be participating in the event so not only will you be enjoying fabulous food and drinks but it will also be for a good cause!

Venue: FIVE60
Address: Rawda, Block 5, Street 60, House # 4
Opposite Jamal Abdulnaser Park
Time: 9:00PM – 12:00AM

Note: Ghabga for those of you who don’t know is a Kuwaiti word. Its the meal eaten during Ramadan between Futoor and Suhoor (futoor is when you break your fast, and suhoor is your last meal before sunrise in preparation for fasting the next day).

More information on FIVE60
More information on the event

I was just at the Avenues (which was EXTREMELY overcrowded) when I spotted a new place that’s opening up called Obika Mozzarella Bar. I just checked their website and it looks like its going to be a cool and healthy place. They’ve got locations in Roma, Milano, London and Turin but they’re now opening up in Kuwait and New York (guess which is the odd one out). Can’t wait to try out them out. [Link]

Tonight I had dinner at what was Hitlers favorite Italian restaurant, Osteria Italiana. The place used to be called Osteria Bavaria and Hitler used to eat there so often that he had his own armored room in the middle of the restaurant which I got to see. The food was incredible, very authentic and delicious. I heard this story that supposedly happened recently about this girl who came to the restaurant daily in hopes of seeing Hitler. She came in daily for a month and when she got fed up of waiting she asked the waiter if he knew when Hitler would be coming. When the waiter told her Hitler was dead the girl went into a depression and tried to shoot herself. She ended up in a failed suicide attempt and it now paralyzed neck down. Pretty weird.

I am in Munich on a work related trip but this time around I’ve actually taken a few extra personal days before work starts so that I could try do as many things as I can here in Munich and visiting the BMW Museum is one of them. Last time I came to Munich the BMW Museum was closed for renovation which was very disappointing and I was really hoping this time around it would be open and luckily it was. The place is just incredible and I am glad I got to see it after the renovation because it just looks super futuristic. I got to see a ton of my favorite vintage BMW’s all in factory new condition and I also got to see the concept car Gina which looks better in person than it did in the videos online.

I am definitely going to come back to the museum one more time before I leave. To see some more pictures and videos I took click on continue reading below.

While having breakfast today I noticed the place I was in had Red Bull Cola which I first posted about back in March but still hadn’t had the chance to try. I have to say its the worst carbonated soft drink I have ever had. It tastes nothing like Coca Cola or Pepsi, it was just horrible. After two sips I just trashed it. It was really really terrible, REALLY terrible!

I noticed a ton of new places opened up at the Avenues food court, most of which I hadn’t heard of before, here are their names:

IZ Juice
Shanghai Express
Dondurma
Dippin’ Dots
Santoor
Rice
Sawah
Nolita Pizza
Meias

I think thats pretty cool, finally we have some new fast food places…

Earlier in the month I posted about how Carrefour started carrying the MSI Wind. Well I got a call a few days back from the MSI Wind dealer who wanted to give me an MSI Wind to keep and review for the blog. Of course I said YES and today I went and picked it up. I had three colors to choose from, the black, white and the pink and I decided to go for the black which I hadn’t seen before. Once I got back home and opened the box I was glad I went with black because it looks really great.

I’ve only had a few minutes to play with the Wind and so far I really like the size. When I had the 12inch iBook I hoped Apple would release a 10inch version but instead they ended up releasing the 13inch which although is great is pretty big to carry around. 10inch seems to be the right size for a portable laptop. Originally I had regretted getting the Eee when I found out about the Wind but now I have both which is perfect! I am going to Munich later this week so the MSI Wind came at a perfect time since I will be able to take it with me and try it out as a travel laptop. I am also interested to see how long the battery is going to last since it uses the new Intel Atom chip.

If anyone has any thing they want to know about the Wind or something you want me to compare to the Asus Eee 900 please leave your question in the comments below. A user in the forum was able to install Mac OS X on the Wind so thats something I will probably attempt to do once I get back from Munich.

According to the dealer the MSI Wind is sold at Alghanim, Electrozan, Carrefour, Lulu Hypermarket and Bin Khaldoun street for KD185. Actually it might be a bit cheaper at Bin Khaldoun street.

Update: I soooo hate Windows XP, how do you guys use it!

Update2: If you need to contact the dealer their number is 810810

Confashions from Kuwait has pictures of a new cafe that opened up in Marina Waves called Living Room Lounge. Based on the pictures it looks like a really cool place. Can’t wait to try it. [Link]