What not to eat: Alara everday gluten free organic delight

Ok, so maybe the “gluten free” should have scared me off. But really, why?– do the gluten-allergic (glutellergic?) not deserve good cereal? Anyway, the “deliciously crispy cereals with sweet apple, sultanas, nuts and seeds” sounded too good to pass up. It was a bit expensive, but I figure I should support organic, gluten-free delicious apple-sultana-nut-seed cereal. Although, truth be told, I had no idea what a sultana was. So all that meant I bought this lovely looking box:

The next day, hungry and without alternate food at 9pm, I thought I will have myself some healthy cereal and be happy before bed. I could have never anticipated the vile that waited me! The moment I opened the box, I realized the bag inside seemed altogether too light, and the foodstuff inside looked mainly like tiny packing peanuts with some dried raisins and some pale corn flakes inside! (I’ll have to get a pic of this). Thinking to myself that perhaps it will be better once in milk, I tried pouring the milk in. This made the tiny things float up to the top, and I realized on closer inspection they actually looked like the white bits of popped corn. As I ate it, they tasted like the white bits of popped corn! Really not something I look for in my cereal; and definitely not something I appreciated!

So, if you want pop-corn as cereal with little bits of corn flakes, a sprinkling of nuts, and a few raisins here and there, go ahead and get this stuff. In fact, please, let me know so I can give you this box!  If not, watch out for it!

-r-

finally bought an Alfa Romeo!

Edit : Sadly, I’ve sold this car as I’m leaving Kuwait. Happily, it now belongs to a friend of mine, who’ll be enjoy it’s awesome.
Added Photos.

I had always had a thing for Alfa Romeos. I remember when the then-new Alfa 156 was a wallpaper on my then-new computer in the late 90s. Of course, the classic ones are gorgeous and gorgeous, but I always wished we could get the newer also-beautiful cars in the US. But it has been just too many times that we have been disappointed in the US about Alfa’s return. It almost happened so many times that I really just have lost interest and will only pick up interest again about anything Fiat or Alfa if there are actually cars in the States. And no, the 200,000+ dollar 2C does not count. I mean, it is quite possibly the most beautiful car to come out in a good 20 years, but it’s just not a “return to America” kind of event. It’s more like “well, if you have enough money you probably could have figured out a way to get it to the States anyway!” car. To make certain that I might be interested in case the company did make a return, though, we rented a 159 JTD when we went to France for a vacation. My GOD what a great car! Everything was right about it– the seats, the acceleration, the handling, the torque from the quiet diesel. It was such a great car, we decided we would buy one for sure if they ever brought it to the States. Alas, it doesn’t look like that will happen. This design, anyway, will not be making it over it seems. Pity, that, given how beautiful the car is. Luckily for me, though, I found myself in Kuwait a few years later, and here there is a small smattering of Alfas available! So after almost a full year of looking for the right one–because it seems Alfa had only a half-hearted attempt here– I finally found something we fell in love with. Virginia was instantly in love, and I knew I liked it so much I was trying really hard to be rational and calculating etc. So we decided we’d give it a go, and bring her home. So here she is: our very own Alfa Romeo 147 It’s a dark dark grey metallic that almost looks black–called Graphite Grey. The car has the Selespeed transmission, developed by Magnetti Marelli, which is a “robotic manual” similar what Ferrari calls F1 that debuted in their F355 cars. It has one clutch, and the transmission is the same as the manual cars, but the clutch is automatic by hydraulics, instead of being operated manually by the driver. It also lets you put it in a fully automatic mode called “city mode,” but I like that it defaults to manual operation. The thing is great to drive– shift times are not quite as quick as VW’s DSG because it still has only one clutch, but that also means it feels more like a “standard” manual to drive. This is also similar in style to BMW’s SMG cars, but I haven’t driven one of those (or a Ferrari F1) so I can’t comment on them! The handling is quick and a lot of fun, and the 2.0 16v TwinSpark engine–with two spark plugs per cylinder– sounds so delicious in just stock mode that I’m thinking about an exhaust system just so I can hear it better! The other day I spent an entire day driving around all over Kuwait for various things that I didn’t want to do, and the whole time I was enjoying myself just because of this car! Jeremy Clarkson was saying one day that “every petrolhead needs to own an Alfa Romeo…”– and I see what he was on about. It’s really just that good.

From Alfa Romeo 147, posted by Ridwan Ahmed on 6/06/2011 (15 items)

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3G to Wifi: Wataniya Wnet wireless internet in Kuwait

This was supposed to be awesome. The promise of “up to 7.2Mb/s” wherever I had 3G signal (the coverage map looks really good in Kuwait) was really very exciting.  When I came home and saw the gorgeous looking little router I was further excited– I hadn’t even known routers could be this small–it is a bit smaller than an iPhone, made by a company called Huawei. It’s the model called E583C, featured here.

Wataniya Wnet Huawei "pocket" router with size 8 ring

Unfortunately, though, my initial service was terrible. My upload speeds didn’t even reach 0.1Mb/s and my downloads were at around 1.5 on a good day!  To put it in perspective, that means youtube videos take 15 mins. to load and even telephone calls are impossible, let alone video!
Recently, though, it seems Wataniya must have put up a tower somewhere nearby as my speeds have increased to about .75 and 3.5 Mb/s for up and downloads respectively (translation: “reasonably fast”). Now I can finally watch most youtube videos almost-instantly, and much more importantly videochat works!

What has been particularly enjoyable about 3G-wifi, though, has been it’s portability (obviously, I know). I’ve got a Pioneer headunit with an auxiliary input in the Benz, so we can hook up our laptop to that and have people’s voices come through the car’s speakers while we speak into the computer’s mic!  The laptop/router combo then becomes like a giant Bluetooth set and we can drive around Kuwait and speak to people back home as it were a simple mobile call! Totally fun.

I suppose like all technology, since this is still new there is going to be some exponential speed/size growth/decrease so I’ll be patient for now. It seems that Zain (competing provider) has started advertising some really cheap rates lately, so I’m expecting to see some price-drops soon too. But at this point, I’d rather just have a service increase–thanks, Wataniya.

Hope to talk to some of you soon; hit me up on FB for contact details.
-r-