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Nat and I work in Kuwait but unless noted otherwise, our posts are never related to our professional and confidential situations or linked to our employers in any way. This distinction must remain clear. This blog is intended to provide a semi-permanent point in time snapshot and manifestation of the various memes running around in our brains, and as such any thoughts and opinions expressed within out-of-date posts may not be the same, nor even similar, to those we may hold today. Feel free to challenge us, disagree with us, or tell us we’re completely nuts in the comments section of each blog entry, but we reserve the right to delete any comment for any reason whatsoever (abusive, profane, rude, or anonymous comments) – so keep it polite, please. If we post something here that you find helpful or interesting, then that’s great; but when push comes to shove, this is our personal blog. The views and opinions expressed on these pages are ours and ours alone and not those of our employer. We have absolutely no, zero, nada, intention to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, business, company, individual or anyone or thing, especially those with the ability and desire to fight back. Oh, and just in case, if we say something stupid in the future (and for which we humbly apologize in advance), it’s better to be able to point out that the stupidity is ours, and ours alone.

– Mark

A lot of new Lebanese restaurants have opened up in Kuwait and so far I’ve tried two and they both had good things about them.

The first one I tried which I could swear I thought I had posted about was Abdel Wahab, the Lebanese restaurant that opened up in place of Fuddruckers on the Gulf Road. The interior looks nice and their taouk is one of the best in Kuwait. Their prices aren’t bad, cheaper than Al Mayas and maybe a bit cheaper than Villa Fayrouz. The worst thing about sitting and eating at Abdel Wahab for me was the fact that the whole time I was expecting to pick up chocolate chip cookies on my way out, something I used to do when the place was Fuddruckers.

The second place I got to try today was Karam Cafe which is located at the Avenues. Although at first I was annoyed by the fact they had shisha indoors their kebab turned out to be really juicy and one that I would go back for again. Price wise their main courses were very cheap, taouk dish was like KD2.550 (but wasn’t as good as Abdel Wahab) while the Kebab dish was for KD2.500.

I still need to try Leil Nhar which is right next to Karam and Snowbar which opened up where Zorba used to be on the Gulf Road.

The Abdel Wahab picture above was taken by SOME contrast who has a ton more pictures [Here]

I passed by the Salmiya clinic in the morning to get the H1N1 flu paper I got from the airport signed. It was my first time there and I have to say the place is disgusting. Can’t believe that’s actually a medical center, it looks more like a big kitchen or bathroom. I even found a big dead bug on a dirty and stained floor, gross!

Anyway went to the proper department where this woman with a really large book took down my name and travel information. She asked me if I was sick, I told her no so she told me to come back on Sunday and that was it.

I tried the McKroket today after reading somebody’s comments. I didn’t ask what it was I just ordered it and even after I tried it I still have no clue what a kroket is. I am too lazy to google it at the moment but it tasted mostly of Dijon mustered mustard with something that might have been cheese, meat, fish, chicken, mashed vegetables or tofu… I couldn’t figure it out.

The sun goes down around 10PM here in Amsterdam so it always feels like its still early. The picture above was taken at 9:33PM.

I didn’t think I would find this video interesting but it is! The clip isn’t slowed down or anything, its in real time but the falling magnet creates an eddy current that exerts a damping force on the magnet. [YouTube]

There was a small fire in the basement of my office building and I managed to capture the whole excitement live on my twitter account. You can check out all the posts by clicking [Here] to go to my twitter account or click on the direct links below:

There is smoke!
More smoke it’s getting worse
Fire truck is here!
Firemen seem to be taking their time
Cops r here now
Lots of shouting fireman getting ready to go in
They just went in
I think the fire is nearly out
The crowd watching
More crowds
The cause of the fire, cigarette in the trash bin
Smoke still coming out
Soaking the garbage bin with water
More cops arrived

Note: Once you follow the links you will need to follow the image links on those pages to see the pictures.

I just tried the Ancho Ribs Slider this weekend at Slider Station and now I’m addicted to it. Its by far my favorite slider at the moment. I just had it again for lunch awhile ago and now I can’t wait to have it again. One thing I notice while having lunch was that the place was packed… with girls. Me and my friend were the only guys there which I thought was interesting since I always regarded burgers more of a guy thing than a girl thing.

As part of Earth Week celebration, Starbucks Salmiya will be screening “The Story of Stuff“. Here are the details they emailed me:

You like STUFF?
Want to know where STUFF comes from?
Where STUFF goes when it turns to trash?
And what it does along the way?

Come to the Starbucks Earth Week celebration to watch “The Story of Stuff”, an interesting English short film, and enjoy a very special coffee tasting.

Where: Starbucks Salem Al Mubarak St. (opp. Fanar Mall)
When: Monday April 27, 2009 6pm – 8pm

Seating is limited, so please confirm your attendance by return email: [email protected], or sign up at the store.

For more information, please call: 22581680

I am currently at the Zain partners exhibition launch and I am posting pics on my twitter account which you can check by clicking [Here]

Update: I am back in the office. I tried to find good phone deals to post here but most of the booths were still being set up since the exhibition wasn’t yet open to the public.

THE One has a pretty cool customer feedback system. Right next to the cashier there is a little device with buttons and statements like “The service was fast and efficient” and “I found the staff knowledgeable” etc.. and answers right next to them like “Absolutely” or “Sort of” or “Not really” etc… While waiting to pay for your item you can just give your feedback on your experience in a process that takes only a few seconds. No need to give your name, number, birthday, time of visit and all that other crap. I think more stores need to implement this very easy to use system since its a quick process and more fun than filling a card with 20 questions.

There was a website address on the machine www.cfs-me.net which takes you to the dealers of the device. On the site they have more pictures and information regarding this system. Pretty cool.

I love mangos but I have no clue how to choose the good ones. I have a pretty terrible hit rate with 3 out of 5 mangos I get turning out to be crap. Buzberry had a post on mangos and I posted a comment asking for tips on choosing the best mango and a reader called Alvaro they replied with the following:

Well u should pick the ones which are a bit greenish, since they’re gona stay in ur fridge for a day or so until they turn yellow.. When mangos r yellow and slightly redish – they’re perfect! Remember avoid the ones which are easily squeezed and never get ones that have black patches or whatever that dirty stuff is.. Bon apetit!

So I went to Sultan Center Sharq and picked out what I thought were the four best mangos on the shelf but then I noticed a Sultan Center employee bringing in new boxes of mangos. So I went up to him and showed him my mangos and asked him if they were any good. He took one look at them, took them off me and told me to go get him a new bag. So I went got a plastic bag and when I got back he had 4 mangos waiting for me. He put them in my bag I said thank you and left.

How did they turn out? Unbelievably good! I just had all 4 of them now and they had to be the best mangos I’ve ever had. I am now going to go back to Sultan Center tomorrow and look for the guy again since he is now officially my mango guy. All I need to do now is find a melon guy.

Picture from Buzberry

I can’t confirm if this actually did take place in Kuwait or not but supposedly it did. Either way its still sad to watch. [YouTube]

I was checking the blog 4th Ring Road today when I spotted their post on the new Electrozan offer so I decided to pass by them and pick up a BlackBerry Curve for Nat. When I got to the Electrozan showroom I found out the BlackBerry’s were sold out already. The employee told me they will be getting more tomorrow afternoon but I also found out why the Curve’s were being sold for cheap… they are T-Mobile branded. That automatically turned what sounded like a really good deal into a bad deal. Let me explain:

– An unlocked unbranded BlackBerry Curve costs KD135 on Amazon [Link]. With shipping to Kuwait via Aramex the total would amount to KD142. Sorry this was for the QWERTZ keyboard.

– An unlocked unbranded BlackBerry Curve costs KD145 on Amazon [Link]. After tax and shipping to Kuwait via Aramex the total would amount to KD165.

– Now on the other hand a new unlocked T-Mobile branded BlackBerry Curve from eBay costs KD124 [Link]. With shipping to Kuwait via Aramex the total would amount to KD129 which is KD30 cheaper than Electrozan.

So to summarize things, its still a much better deal to order a BlackBerry Curve online since a saving of KD30 is a pretty big chunk.

Update: Just picked up a Curve from Electrozan for Nat. Paypal locked up my account because I logged in and paid for something through my VPN and they assumed someone else got into my account. So now I can’t use eBay for awhile. The BlackBerry is T-Mobile branded and comes with T-Mobile literature. Employee said its officially unlocked so I can do the software updates. Comes with 6 months warranty so it will be interesting to see what exactly that means if something does go wrong from now to 6 months time. They’re out of Bolds at the moment.

Update 2: The Curve’s sold at Electrozan are from T-Mobile Germany which means the keyboard is a QWERTZ and not the regular QWERTY. Simply put, the locations of the letters Z and Y are swapped.

Choowy Goowy will be opening up at the Avenues hopefully this Wednesday. This will be Choowy Goowys first store and they’ve really come a long way since I first reviewed them over three years ago back in January 2006. They will be baking cookies at the Avenues store so you should be able to pick some up as they come out of the oven. The pictures above and below are just sneak peak shots of the store taken with a Nokia E71. They still haven’t removed the wooden paneling that currently surrounds the store so it was pretty hard to get anything wider than these shots.

Update: I just realized that a lot of readers might not be aware of the fact that Choowy Goowy have cookies called Mark&Nat. Back in November 2006 Nat and I were invited to Choowy Goowy to create our own cookies. After some experimenting and having some friends try out our creations, the oreo cookies were voted as being the best and so Choowy Goowy decided to make these cookies and call them Mark&Nat with jar labels matching our blog. You can read about our experience [Here]