Boozing your life away!

Certain people might shoot me down for this one, but quite frankly I couldn't give a damn! A nasty little cycle that I've noticed over the last couple of years is the tragedy of people revolving their lives around alcohol, where they can get it, how smashed they can get and then how bad they feel afterwards.

In recent times it's become an annoyance for me, as I try to organise weekend outdoor activities, which people initially seem keen on - but then oh wait, they've a big night planned and know they'll be hung over to hell the next day. With the endless events, free booze offers for girls, brunches etc it would seem that some people seem to live their lives from one drink to the next. I do wonder what would happen if they got invited to something where alcohol wasn't available. Are they capable of having a good time without the sauce? I have my doubts.

In my college days I was very often DES, the designated driver, no problem, didn't bother me in the slightest as I'm perfectly capable of going to a club, dancing the night away and having a good time without the slightest drop of a drink. I'd challenge many people to have a go at that and see if they could actually do it - I suspect it would end up in a 99.9999999999% fail rate.

My other pet peeve is people bragging on twitter or facebook about their mammoth nights out and just how rancid they feel the next day. Hey wake up! It's not big or clever and nobody really cares! It's your own fault, self inflicted, so why on earth should anyone take pity on you? Hey I'm no angel, been there, done that, bought the T-shirt, but I'm not going to brag about my stupidity.

I guess I feel sad for these people, because I'd hate them to one day finally wake up and have them feel regret at what they missed on because of the need for a drink. In my book that's an absolute tragedy. So maybe give it a rest for a while hey, look at the world through a clear head and realise what you could be missing out on.

Good workout technique, be more effective and prevent injury

If there's one thing that really winds me up at the gym, it's seeing people using bad techniques during their workouts. Not only does not doing things properly make your workout less effective, but it also leaves you prone to injuring yourself.

A couple of classic examples today. A girl on the treadmill next to me made her workout much less effective by doing what I call the 'looking pretty run'. Basically instead of moving forwards with the momentum, all she did was pretty much bob up and down in a light jog and hardly work anything. Doing a power walk with long, extended strides on a slight incline would have been more effective.

I always cringe when I go through the weights sections of gyms, seeing people flex their backs to flick weights upwards - in a few years they'll be suffering from terrible back pain. If you're having to flex your body to life, then the weights are too heavy, it's really as simple as that. I also still see people putting their hands behind their heads whilst doing sit ups! All that happens when you do this, is you put strain on your neck, keeping your hands either side of your head is much better and your neck shouldn't bend.

The thing that gets me the most is the so called Personal Trainers and Experts wandering around, who don't correct peoples techniques. I'm no expert, but having done many competitive sports in my younger years and also sadly having back issues it's something that I make sure I do properly.

Lack of respect for relationships

Just a short blog update and more of a rambling thought.

I don't know why, but one thing I notice with many people in the UAE or Dubai in particular is the lack of respect for the relationships of others. I'm talking about the girls who actively take on the challenge of trying to go after an attached man, or the guys who'll message you for a booty call knowing full well that you're seeing someone. Relationships can be hard work, especially if your partner works away for certain periods of time and that seems to give others the green light to try and tempt you away, but why would you? Unless of course there's something wrong in your relationship.

But you've spent the time and effort to get to know someone, you're happy together, you see it going somewhere, so why do certain people not respect that fact? I see it time and time again and have to wonder about the mentality of a person, that would actively try to encourage someone to cheat on their partner. Is it seen as a challenge? Do they have issues meeting people? Are they relationship failures? Or is it something more sinister? Whatever the reason, it's still not acceptable.

A show of support!

As a show of support to fellow blogger Mark Makhoul, who has had a lawsuit filed against him by the manager of Benihana Kuwait (Mike Servo) for $18,000 I am reposting Mark's blog entry with a link to it.

And my message to Mike Servo? Constructive criticism is a good thing! You do not know everything! People can always improve and if you're not willing to take feedback from your customers, then you're in the wrong business and I hope Benihana revoke your franchise, because you don't deserve to have it! Suing someone for having an opinion is nothing short of a joke! Would you do the same to a well known food critic that had a less that glowing review of your establishment published in a magazine, or would you sue them too?


YOU Mike Servo, yes YOU are responsible for the reputation of Benihana in Kuwait and if the food, service etc is not up to scratch then it's no one else's fault but YOURS!!!! The buck stops with you. So if people are less than satisfied, what are you going to do about it? Sue all of them for less than perfect comments on your feedback forms? There is only one person responsible for this mess and bringing the name of Benihana down and it's certainly NOT Mark Makhoul, who did nothing more than write an honest and frank account of his experience at your restaurant. What you should or any other normal, productive manager should have done, would be to take those precious words of feedback and learn from them! Learn how you could have improved the food, service, atmosphere etc to give your customers what they want.


But no, the ego got bruised and you thought you'd throw your toys out the pram in a big huff instead. I suggest you go back to school and learn a. how to take criticism, b. how to use it to benefit an establishment, c. management training  - as you certainly don't seem to have any.


Anyway enough of my venting.

Mark's blog entry:

My Benihana Experience .... by Mark Makhoul

A few days back I posted about Benihana opening up at the Avenues and yesterday night I decided to pass by with Nat and try it out. The service wasnít too bad for a restaurant thatís just been open for a few days and the staff were really friendly. The restaurant itself is made up of islands and bars with a grill in the middle of each one. You sit around the grill and the chef will come to your table and prepare the food right in front of you which makes things entertaining. Itís actually why I prefer sitting at the bar in Japanese restaurants in general, since you can talk to the chef and watch them put your dish together. The problem with my experience last night though was with the food, it was disappointing to say the least.

We ordered beef negimayaki for starters followed by an Orange Blossom maki and a Hibachi Chicken. The negimaki arrived looking good and was probably the best thing we had there even though I prefer Makiís negimaki which has a richer teriyaki sauce. The Orange Blossom was very ordinary, wouldnít order it again. Now the Hibachi chicken which is basically grilled chicken, that was the worst. The chicken was very chewy (I could swear it was undercooked if not raw) and tasted terrible. Even after I had the chef add some more teriyaki sauce in hopes of improving the taste it didnít work. I tried to dip it into the sauces that came with the chicken but it was hard to figure out if they were actually making things worse or not. Nat only ate one piece of chicken and left the rest while I needed my protein since Iím on a strict diet and forced myself to eat my whole plate (I can do that) but the after taste was really bad. Even the rice and the veggies that came with it tasted bad AND were under cooked. Once we left I considered picking up a frozen yogurt from Pinkberry even though I hate frozen yogurts but I just needed something to get rid of the aftertaste. A few moments later we ended up at Chocolate Bar ordering the gooey chocolate cake (bye bye diet).

I shot the two videos above of the chef preparing our meal. Benihana are known for the live shows they perform when preparing your dish so I was expecting to see [This] but ended up with the above . Would I go back to Benihana? No I wouldnít. Their sashimi and makiís are pretty cheap (KD1.5 for 5 pieces of Salmon sashimi for example) but there are two other Japanese restaurants at the Avenues, Wasabi and Maki, and I would prefer either one of those to Benihana.

http://www.248am.com/mark/kuwait/my-benihana-experience

Also please join this Facebook group calling for the boycott of Benihaha Kuwait

http://www.facebook.com/davecrane/posts/198787176799047?ref=notif&notif_t=feed_comment_reply

Valentine's Day - a chance to show true love?

Oh it's the day of the year that has most men shaking in their boots - February 14th - Valentine's Day! A tribute to St Valentine who defied the ruling Roman Emperor  who had cancelled all marriages, following soldiers refusing to fight in favour of staying with their families. St Valentine secretly married couples and became the saviour of love.

But sadly what was one man's crusade to advocate romance and love, has become a huge commercial industry. Hotels offering wonderful stays, restaurants expensive dinners, florists giving you red roses by the dozens, chocolates, diamonds, expensive gifts, everything is there for the taking for people to prove their love to one another.

Is this really love? Not in my book it's not. Why do people only have one day where they feel obligated to show the special person in their life how they feel? Shouldn't we be doing that every day? Also it doesn't have to be grand or expensive gestures, for me it's the little things that let you know how a person feels. When you catch each others eyes, a brush of skin on skin giving you goose bumps, a soft then passionate kiss, snuggling up entwined in bed, silly little text messages, little love notes cooking dinner together and so much more.


I think men feel the pressure of Valentine's Day more than women as they seem expected to pull out all the stops, to prove their feelings for the woman in their life. On the flip side I think women's expectations have been blown out of proportion adding to that pressure.


So I say, no need to spend a fortune and celebrate your love on just one day of the year. Make  your loved one know how special they are everyday you are with them and it's the little things that count.

The meltdown

Inspired by a recent thread on an online forum about meltdowns, how many people have them and are they worse for people in this region - my answer to that question is a resounding YES! I'm not sure why, but people seem to lose the plot around here very very quickly.

Is it the fact that the majority are working longer hours? Many still on six day weeks? Also trying to keep up with a hectic social life? The stresses and strains of rubbish driving, bad customer service and things in general that are easy in many other countries, drive people to despair here. Probably all of the above. Is it any wonder that people explode and lose their tempers on a regular basis, throwing child like tantrums and crying to anyone who will listen.

But it is a worry when you find yourself surrounded by people who constantly seem to be PMSing all the time and it's not just the women!

That's why I'm a firm believer in regular breaks. We're fortunate that some wonderful, chilled out getaways are merely a few hours flight away. Even just taking time out for yourself is a good start, turn the phone off, disconnect the internet and just taking it easy for a few hours does wonders. This needs to be done before people reach burn out stage and just completely lose it. Did you know that mental illness is a huge issue these days? That's an entire blog all on its own and I'm not sure I'm brave enough to tackle it yet - but soon.

So for now, don't let things get to you, relax, take it easy or go and find a punch bag to take out your frustrations.

Customer service? Does it even exist?!

One topic that is guaranteed to get a reaction from most people in the UAE, is customer service - or lack there of! There really is only one word to describe it and that's 'appalling'.

So many times I've called a company and been greeted with a simple 'Hello!', so you end up asking if you've actually called a company or an individual. Why can't people answer with 'Hello, (company name) how can I help you?' is it really that hard? Or you can't actually get through to anyone on the phone and end up communicating via email forms, which can very easily be ignored or people take literally weeks to answer a simple query.

Either that or you get transferred around five or so different people, none of whom can assist you, so you give up in the end. When you're finally forced to head over to the office or so-called Customer Service Centre, you take your number, wait patiently to be called and then the person at the counter is either too busy yapping away on their mobile or to another person and reacts to you like you're a big waste of their time and interrupting something that they'd rather be doing! Anything but work!

Going shopping can be a miserable experience, the service staff either just don't care or follow you around like your own personal shadow. If there's something that's guaranteed to make me walk straight out of a store it's having someone follow me around like they expect me to steal something - if I want help, I'll ask for it. Then of course you go up to pay for your selected item and the cashier isn't interested in you at all. Very often I've found them chatting to other staff, refusing to look at their customers, slapping change on the counter - put it in my hand please, give me a smile and wish me a nice day!

So many times you can go into a shop and there are numerous staff just milling about doing nothing. You can't win!

As someone who has worked in many customer service sectors, yup I've worked as a receptionist, secretary, cashier, waitress, bar staff, it was always in my interest to help people and be happy as I go about it. So it leaves me cold that companies here just don't seem to care and they seriously need to invest in training their staff.

Simple things like a smile, making eye contact, a cheery disposition make all the difference and a pleasant experience for a customer and encourages them to come back.