Search: “kuwait”

My Sony PSP has shipped, it should arrive in my US mailbox on the 4th via UPS and hopefully arrive in Kuwait by Thursday.

Nibaq yesterday left his Nintendo DS over at my place.. deliberately. He is trying to get me to like the DS and convince me that its a much better system then the PSP (yeah right). I tried playing wario ware on it yesterday, I found the fact that you could blow on the DS for some of the mini games interesting and original but other then that I wasn’t impressed. I find the second screen useless as it serves really no purpose and the touch screen is so uncreative since I have had it for ages on my PDA and the only good thing its for is clicking links on and not controlling a car. If anything the two screens actually make me a bit dizzy. So since my first experience with the DS, I haven’t gone back to playing with it again, neither has nataly who is busy playing Metroid Zero Mission on the Gameboy SP. Will I crave the DS today? We will see but I doubt. So far, it really sucks.

Since my post the other day on the new BKME logo I have heard two definitions for the sphere. The first is that its not a pearl its the moon. The second definition is that its a crystal ball. Both sources for these answers were BKME employees. So I decided I will contact BKME myself and find out. I sent them an email 2 days ago and I didn’t get a reply. I called them up last night and believe it or not their customer support line works only during regular working hours! So since today morning I have been trying to contact them on 812000 but no one is picking up. If I was planning on being a new customer I would have moved on and looked elsewhere by now. I will keep trying to call and will post when I find out anything.

Update: turns out its a pearl

I don’t know why I hadn’t heard of this until today but I just found out about the coolest fucking thing ever, the Sinclair C5. It was released back in 1985 and it was supposed to be the Segway of that era. The C5 worked on rechargeable battery that would last up to 30KM, if the battery finished you could pedal your way back home. Best of all it cost only 150KD. But, the Sinclair C5 was a commercial disaster. It got very negative media coverage and in the end only 12,000 C5s were produced and the project was killed off.

I really want one now, I checked eBay and they are selling for like 100KD only. Imagine me driving one down to Sultan Center or something. Its amazing!! Now I just need to find someone who would be willing to ship one from England to Kuwait.

Here are some links:
Sinclair C5 Enthusiasts
Sinclair C5 on eBay

My favorite orange drink since highschool has been Sunkist. I started drinking it back in highschool because it was cheap at only 50fils. Since then, Sunkist has become the only orange juice I drink. For some reason though I always thought Sunkist was a 100% local product. But just now I was reading the label and it said “Under license from Sunkist Growers Inc; USA”. So I googled Sunkist and quickly found www.sunkist.com. Then I found this which I found funny:

Sunkist products have a long history in several Persian Gulf States. Besides being a major juice brand, Sunkist is the market leader in juice drink cups in the Kuwaiti market.

Ofcourse they are gonna be the market leader, their are no other juice drink cups in the market! hehe, anyway, Sunkist still rules!

A while back, me and Nibaq were talking about the days of Qhate. We were talking about the different roles each of us played in that blog and how those days seemed so far away. Then I realized something, Qhate was me, him and rampurple. Each one of us now has his and her own blog. We have all gone solo and each has his own separate project going on. We have become like the group New Edition. What if 3 of us decided to come back together into 1 blog?

I met with Nibaq awhile ago for lunch. He had been walking around Muthana complex trying to kill time until it was time for me to have lunch. While walking around he found a new Apple store that was still being worked on. The place is called Solize and is not connected to any of the other local dealers. We spoke to the guy incharge who was busy displaying mac hardware and he seemed like a nice person ALTHOUGH when Nibaq asked him if he supplied RAM for the powerbooks the guy asked is it Apple? Like duh… Anyway the store had two cool things. First they had second hand macs for sale although not cheap. One was a Graphite G4 500mhz powermac for 300KD. The second was a Dual 800mhz Quicksilver powermac for around 430KD. He also told me he had a Dual 1GHZ mirrored door powermac inside, but I didn’t see it nor did I ask its price. Another good thing he had although once again not cheap was Sonnet Encore CPU upgrades for older powermacs. A G4 1.4ghz upgrade would set you back 190KD at solize compared to the 450$ on amazon. The store will be completed within a week. I personally think this store will NOT succeed due to the terrible location. Its in Muthana Complex, Mezzanine 1, right in the back behind Steps and near the Asus and As Seen on TV dealers. Impossible to find and even if it was located at the main entrance, I doubt the people who frequent Muthana are potential Apple users..

Here are some pictures I took

Over the weekend, Rami (Tivo Guy) was able to setup One TV for us on the Tivo. Now we can record The Contender and other cool shows like The West Wing and Judge Judy. So yesterday night while watching a recorded episode of The West Wing I noticed something strange. I felt as if some of the scenes were being.. cut. So near the end of the episode there was a scene in which the woman tells the guy, “I am gonna kiss you now”, the guy says “ok”, then when she moves in to kiss, the scene changes. I was shocked. They censor kisses??? I thought only KTV did that. It really sucks.

Remember the BumFights DVD I bought the other day off the street kid? Well turns out it came with a bonus. The DVD is actually 2 DVDs in 1! The DVD had BumFights AND World’s Wildest Street Fights Vol2. I watched a bit of BumFights but then went straight to World’s Wildest Street Fights and it was amazing! WWSF is 45 minutes of non stop videos of people fighting. Could be schools kids beating the fuck out of each other or two girls fighting at a BBQ party. Really amazing stuff, its all home made movies recorded by people at the fights. Very violent and interesting to watch, I loved it. I just wish it was much longer, 45 minutes flew by very quickly.

The other day I watched Terminator 3 and I was a bit surprised in one scene. The scene in question is when Arnold comes to the present time, goes into a bar, steals a strippers clothes and car keys, then goes out to the guys old beat up truck and drives off. Just before he drives off he puts on the strippers watch, an Offshore Audemars Piguet. I found that a bit odd since the watch cost A LOT more then the guys truck. A LOT more then the guy could ever make. It was total bullshit, no stripper working in a bar like that could make enough money to buy a watch like this. So I was kinda put off at the lack of realism in the scene. Anyway, yesterday I found out that this watch store I know in Kuwait has two special edition watches. An Audemars Piguet, Arnold Schwarzenegger edition AND a Montoya edition. So I did a bit of research turns out AP and Arnold have a pretty good relationship and they have worked together on many things from charities to movies.. I found this page that talks about the T3 movie tie in.

Now, lets talk about the coolest watch of the two, the Montoya edition. I didn’t even know such a watch existed. I am a great fan of Montoya since his Indy days and I am a bigger fan of Audemars Piguet watches. So combining the two is too extreme. Here is some info I was able to obtain about the Montoya watch:

Juan Pablo Montoya Royal Oak Offshore Chronograph
This watch was released in tribute to Formula 1 race car driver Juan Pablo Montoya. This watch features a 45mm titanium case with carbon fiber inlaid accents all over the top of the bezel and sized of the bezel and sides of the case. Every shape on this watch and every feature is designed to resemble a Formula 1 race car; The chronograph pushers are styled to look like air-intake cooling flaps, the Bezel screws are shaped like cylinder head screws, the winding crown resembles a wheel axle, the winding Rotor of the movement resembles a clutch disk and the strap resembles the racing suits of F1 racers. And of course, the watch is adorned with inlaid carbon fiber on the top and sides of the bezel. This is a very limited and near impossible to find watch, the Titanium model was released in only 1000 individually numbered pieces with current retail price as of March 15, 2005 of $19,500.

Here are some pictures of the Montoya watch.

So how much are they selling for in Kuwait? The Arnold version is going for KD7,000 while the Montoya version for KD12,000.

I went for a long walk in Salmiya tonight and found a kid selling some DVDs. I don’t usually buy of these street kids since the quality of the DVD recording is usually terrible. I still decided to check out the dvds though and to my surprise I found Bumfights volume 1. What is Bumfights? Well these guys went around paying homeless people to fight each other and do stupid pranks like set their hair on fire or pull their teeth out using pliers all on film. When the dvd first got released it caused some controversy and thats when I found out about it. Its not a major movie release or anything so I was surprised to find it here on the streets. Its amazing how you can find the strangest stuff in Kuwait sometimes.

Don’t shoot the messenger! I was listening to the radio today morning while taking a shower and Linda from the breakfast show was talking about how woman should stay at home with the kids and how that would help the economy by freeing up work for the men on welfare. She couldn’t have chosen a better day for her personal opinions. While today everyone is out in-front of the parliament demonstrating for more rights for woman, Linda wants all the woman to leave their jobs and stay home with the kid. I hope she gets a lot of hate mail and even fired for her stupid opinion. PLUS, she has kids yet she is working so that makes hers a hypocrite. On my way to work today I passed by the demonstration, I snapped a few pictures and I just put them online. Nibaq is there now and taking pictures so his should come out better.

Picture 1
Picture 2
Picture 3

Update: Here are nibaqs pictures

I passed by Souk Sharq today morning because I wanted to get some breakfast from Sultan Center. Most of the parking lot opposite Debenhams was closed because of construction. Souk Sharq is finally building car shades it seems. It took them how many years to realize that a shaded parking is important in Kuwait? If it wasn’t for the strong competition from Marina Mall I don’t think they would have bothered with the shades. I think they are doing too little too late. I think the Souk Sharq days are gone, Marina Mall is a much better place with better shops, a better food court and much better management. There are a couple of more large projects coming up, we will see if they will also turn out to be better then Souk Sharq.

I don’t know if this review will be very fair since the place I am reviewing I have been visiting for 26 years now. Yeah that long, and my parents were visiting it before I was born. The place is called Caesars Restaurant and its located in Salmiya. Its one of my favorite chinese places ever.. worldwide. In-fact every time I have chinese food anywhere I have to compare it to Caesars. Caesars just recently moved to a new location since their old place got demolished recently. The new location is adjacent to their old building so regular customers can find it easily. The new location is larger, is better decorated and now contains a lot more private booths. All the waiters are extremely friendly. I spend the first 5 minutes of my arrival saying hello to all of them. Its good to see them all. Some have been around since I was a little kid and have actually watched me grow up. I love the new private booths, they are very comfortable and they dont feel claustrophobic at all. For appetizers I ALWAYS have crab soup and prawn spring rolls. As I said previously, every time I have chinese anywhere else I have to compare it to Caesars and when it comes to the starters, Caesars wins by a mile. Their crab soup is simply the best soup I have ever had and I dont mean best chinese soup I mean best soup.. ever! The spring rolls? You can ask Nataly about them. When we go we usually order 2 plates of prawn spring rolls, one for her and one for me. Each plate has 6 pieces and they all disappear very quickly. For the main course I always have the sweet & sour chicken. Ofcourse I have tried their other dishes like the popular sizzlers and noodles, but I just can’t get enough of their sweet & sour dishes. Nataly keeps trying new stuff, yesterday night she had the sweet & sour prawns but before she had the fish sizzler and before that chicken with mushroom and bamboo shoots. One more thing left to talk about and that is the rice. Once again Caesars have the best rice in the world. We always order the fish fried rice and its easily the best rice you can ever have anywhere. Now with all this excellent food you would think the prices are just out of the world. In reality, Caesars is a very affordable chinese restaurant. This is what we had last night:

1 Large bottle of water
1 Coke
1 Crab soup
2 Prawn spring rolls
1 Fish fried rice
1 Sweet & Sour Prawns
1 Sweet & Sour Chicken

Total Price: KD10.500

As you can see the price for a very filling chinese dinner for 2 is just ten dinars. and this included shrimps. Very affordable. The only thing stopping me giving the place a full 5 stars is consistency. Every now and then something might not taste the way its supposed to. Maybe its me, maybe I am too picky but this is a minor issue I have. Also the location, its not really the place to be in Kuwait. So for the final score I give it a 4.5 out of 5. For reservations or to get the exact directions, you can call them at 5732885 and 5733044.

Here is a picture from the outside.

Update: Seems I couldn’t even spell Caesars right. I fixed it now.

Recently you might have noticed these ads on some buses advertising this restaurant called Wildfire. Well yesterday evening me and nat decided to pass by and give it a try. The place is located in Kuwait City in Mubarak Al Kabeer Street opposite the “Blockat” shops and the Chamber of Commerce building. The first impression wasn’t very good. The signage outside was in lime green and looked very cheap. When we got closer we saw the inside from the large window next to the door and the place looked small and like a hotel lobby with a small bar and small tables. Once we went in though we realized that it WAS actually a lobby / coffee shop for the restaurant which is located upstairs. Once we went in we were greeted with very friendly faces and led to the restaurant upstairs. When we reached the top we were once again greeted with smiles and they asked if we would like a private cabin. We said yes.. the first mistake. The restaurant on the inside is much bigger then i expected. Its clean, dimly lit and the furniture all new as it should be expected since the place just opened at the end of ramadan. The private cabin though was claustrophobic. The table was long and very slim like an oversized ironing table and the benches were very uncomfortable. It was also getting stuffy inside so we decided to keep the cabin door open. Then they brought us the menu which was the biggest surprise of the evening. Wildfire has simply the largest menu I have ever seen in Kuwait with nearly 200 dishes to choose from. Their menu has everything from extravagant cocktails and milkshakes to all types of dishes from Indian, Chinese and even Fish & Chips and Club Sandwiches. They even have lobster and crab for sea food lovers. The menu has 20 pages of everything you could imagine. We decided to have shrimp spring-rolls, kindu prawns, mongolian chicken and egg fried rice. We decided to skip the soup because weren’t that hungry but they did have shark fin soup which is usually my favorite. The shrimp spring rolls arrived first. They were too crunchy, had green peppers and weren’t very tasty. I hate green pepper in my food so my vote shouldn’t count here but nat doesn’t mind them and she also thought the spring-rolls were bland. The main course arrived soon after we finished. When he first put the food on the table I noticed the mongolian chicken was bright red. Thats the first time I see it like that, usually its dark brown, the kindu prawns also looked like normal prawns with a bit of light brownish sauce, again its not supposed to look like that. The food tasted as good as they looked, not very good. My mongolian chicken was not spicy at all and its supposed to be very spicy. Natalys kindu prawns tasted like normal prawns, the kindu part of it was tasteless. The rice was one of the worst I have tried, very boring in flavor and dry. We were very disappointed. The large menu led us to believe that we would keep coming back to try different things but after our meal we knew this would be the last time we would ever come back. The bill turned out to be 8KD, that also included 1 coke and 2 bottles of water. We left a 1KD tip and left. The waiters asked us how good the food was and I lied and told them it was great.. I couldn’t be bothered to explain why I didn’t enjoy the whole meal. The final score for the place is 3 out of 5. I would have given it 2 but the extremely large menu and the very friendly service helped raise the score. Maybe the Indian menu is better then the Chinese, maybe our dishes were not their speciality, whatever the case is, we didn’t enjoy our meal and we will most probably never go back.

Their website is wildfirekwt.com but it wasn’t working when I tried it now. Their phone numbers are 2476886 and 2476996. Below are 2 pictures from the outside.

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