Author: Mark

Marzouq posted the other day about how slow Aramex has been lately. Well I wanted to share my experience with USWS which for some reason I thought would also be slow. On Friday morning my package arrived in my US mailbox. Late Friday night I get an SMS telling me my package shipped. Today morning I arrived to find my package on my desk. Turned out it was delivered to my office yesterday after I left work. It took 3 days from the US to Kuwait. Thats fast.

My item was a Western Digital 500GB hard drive. Its my first USB 2.0 drive (other then my passport drive). All my main external drives are firewire but since I ran out of firewire ports and the USB 2.0 version is much cheaper I decided to get it. The drive cost me $170 from Amazon and Marzouq has a review on it. The drive arrived just in time because I only had 4GB of space left. Now the total of my hard drives add up to 1.7TB.

I just got back from the Mercedes SUV experience awhile ago. The event is being held near the ice skating rink parking lot.

So I am parking my car and I spot a Mercedes G-Class doing a climb decent. I was thinking wow they actually have the G-Class here. For those of you who don’t know, my favorite SUV is the G-Class and my favorite SUV list actually goes something like this (notice they are all boxy):

1- Mercedes G-Class
2- Land Rover Defender
3- Land Rover LR3
4- Jeep Wrangler

So I get into the main tent and sign up for a ride in the G-Class and then head over to the car. Once I got close I realized this wasn’t the regular G-Class, this was the freakin 500HP AMG version! This was like the motherload. Sadly I wasn’t able to drive the car today because they had professional drivers taking the guests around the track BUT, I was promised by my Mercedes contact that once the event was over and the car cleaned up I would be able to have it for a test drive. When that happens be sure I will post about it here.

A while back I posted about a good web space provider and today I decide d I would post about a good domain name provider. Although most hosts nowadays provide you with a free domain once you sign up, I for example have around 30 domains for a whole bunch of various sites of mine so I need a good domain provider where I could manage my domains and not pay an arm and a leg every time a domain renewal comes up.

For the longest time I had been using Directnic for my domain management and purchases. I started using them back in 2000 when they first launched. They were one of the first companies to offer domains for only $15 a year (before that domains cost a lot more). I never had any kind of problem with them but they also never really expanded their services. Six years later there are now many other sites that offer domains for much cheaper then $15 a year and with more features, so I decided to find another domain manager.

My first two options that came up were Joker.com and GoDaddy.com. For some reason I always had a negative impression about Joker plus they sell domains at 12$ a year while GoDaddy is $9 a year, so I went with GoDaddy. After transferring one domain name to them I realized GoDaddy really sucked. Their domain management interface was just awful and unintuitive. Not only that but whatever you wanted to do, buy a new domain name, transfer an old domain name, whatever you want to do they always seem to be trying to sell you stuff. I really hated how pushy they were.

I hated my experience with GoDaddy and I had only one domain there, I started looking for another domain provider and I found NameCheap. I have now been using NameCheap for a few months and I have transferred nearly all my domains there. The interface is fast, simple and practical to use. Their prices are also cheap, they sell domains for $8.88 and they have had this offer now for a couple of months where if you register or transfer a domain name they give you WhoisGuard for free. WhoisGuard keeps your domains anonymous which is pretty handy.

My experience with Directnic was great and I never had any bad experience with them. Customer service was always prompt and helpful but in the end of the day they weren’t offering me much for my money. The WhoisGuard option isn’t even available with them. GoDaddy was just a total diaster and I would never recommend them to anyone. NameCheap is now my new domain manager and I really like them a lot. I haven’t contacted customer service yet about any issues so I don’t know if that department is any good but everything else has just been working out flawlessly and the site is the quickest of the bunch to load. I would definitely recommend them.

“Harrison Ford has threatened to leave the new Indiana Jones movie unless he gets to use a real whip. ” [Link]

Me and a friend at work both purchased some pimped out RC cars from Fantasy World. I got the Mercedes G-Class and he got the Dodge Charger. We built like a makeshift ramp in the office and we were flying the cars off it. The cars although costing only KD8 are pretty responsive and fast.. for their size. My G-Class out performed the Charger in everything except when it came to making donuts but thats because the Charger has a longer wheelbase.

I got this in my email today:

We’ve experienced some turbulence. Now you can fly comfortably for less. British Airways is offering dramatic price reductions on flights to the UK and North America. Book now and secure a great deal, on us! Travel in World Traveller to the UK from as little as KD 90* or to North America from KD155*. What’s more you can also get 15% off hotels and car hire at https://ba.com/middleeastoffers Book online now at https://ba.com/middleeastoffers to secure great deals before someone else does. Offer ends 23 February 2007. Alternatively contact British Airways Kuwait 802 777.

Yours sincerely
Shaun Davis
Executive Club Director Asia & the Pacific

*This offer is subject to change without prior notice. Prices quoted are after discount and exclude tax, surcharges and service fees. This offer is valid for travel between 3 February 2007 and 12 June 2007. All flights are via London Heathrow. Tickets purchased online must be paid for immediately. British Airways Holidays discount are only available online at ba.com. Further terms and conditions apply. For a list of destinations and terms and conditions log on to https://ba.com/middleeastoffers

Just saw the new license plates live, it looks kinda boring.

I got an email today from Hilton Kuwait Resort inviting me and Nat to a a live “chocolate show” done by one of the world most famous chocolatier, Pierre Marcolini on February 11th. The day will start off at 12PM with lunch at the Teatro Restaurant, this will then be followed by a live chocolate presentation by chef Pierre Marcolini at 2:00PM in the Song Bird Cafe where we can eat all the chocolate that we can eat.

The live chocolate presentation is open to the public and you will be able to buy and try a variety of chocolates. I have never been to a chocolate event so it should be interesting. You can view the ad for the event by clicking [Here]

I started a diet early last month, a no junk food diet. By junk food I meant I would no longer eat at the following place: Hardees, McDonalds, Burger King, KFC, Texas Chicken and any other similar place. Since I started that diet I gained 2KG because I ended up replacing burgers and fries with chicken and rice, a lot of rice.

So, I decided to try the no carb diet because it sounded easy. I am now on the second day of the diet and its killing me. I am like fantasizing about eating bread, thats how lame I am at the moment. I really feel like having a huge ass burger right now…

update: I learned today the following items have carbs:
– Chocolate Milk
– Hardees Apple Pie
– Baskin Robbins ice cream
– Chocolate Cheese Cake
– Nuts
and that sugar = carbs

update2: I have a MAJOR headache!

A funny commercial I got in my mail today.

I was on the Gulf Road yesterday driving towards Salmiya when I saw a bright flash light go off around a 100 meters in front of me. The speed camera just before the gas station and Texas Chicken was installed again over the weekend…

A friend of mine just told he saw an ad for KEMS (Zajil) in the newspaper saying that you can get an 8MB DSL connection for only 8KD. For more details you have to visit their stand at InfoConnect. Anyone know anything about this???

update: I just called Zajil and this is there offer.

Now until February 9th they have a special 3 in 1 deal. When you sign up for their DSL connection you get a free dial up connection AND access to all their hotspots in Kuwait. Here are their prices:

256KB DSL + Dial up + Zajil Hotspots = KD96 a year (KD8 per month)
512KB DSL + Dial up + Zajil Hotspots = KD179 a year (KD15 per month)
1MB DSL + Dial up + Zajil Hotspots = KD349 a year (KD29 per month)

You can get more info by calling them on 820820

I think the 1MB connection for KD29 is a really good deal and add to that free access to the hotspots and it makes things a lot more interesting. I am really tempted to swap over from Qualitynet to Zajil now.

note: The Zajil Hotspots can hit up to 8MB thats why they are saying 8KD for 8MB.

When you are going to permanently mark government property at least get the spelling and grammar right.

Today I had to wake up at 5AM because I had a photo shoot at 6 in the morning. Once the shoot was done and after having a quick breakfast at Krispy Kreme, me and a friend decided to head to the Friday market.

Last time I went there was over a year ago and things have changed condierably since then. The place is cleaner and more organized then before. They seriously sell the strangest stuff there, you can find anything including used deodorant cans.

After walking around for around 40 minutes I spotted a guy with a ton of vintage video game systems. He had a ton of video games for the SNES, NES, Megadrive and MegaCD. He also had some video game consoles, Sega Genesis, Sega 32x, Sega MegaCD, Sega Saturn, Atari Jaguars, NES systems, a Panasonic 3DO and a NeoGeo. They weren’t all in the best of shape plus I had most of them so I wasn’t really interested in any of them for my collection. Then I spotted a NeoGeo game. The guy noticed I was interested and told me he had more pointing to under the table. I looked down and was like fuuucccckkkkk…. There were around 15 NeoGeo games just pilled up there.

A quick history on the NeoGeo. It was released in 1990 and back then it was priced at $650. It was one of the most expensive video game consoles and each game used to cost over $200 and most of the time over $300. Finding a brand new NeoGeo console today is very difficult, the last time I saw a brand new one online they were selling for $1200. Luckily a few years ago I got my brand new NeoGeo for less then $300.

So back to my story. The guy wanted KD5 for every game. I told him the prices were too expensive but he then pointed to the original price tags on the games.. KD75, KD60, KD65 etc.. I told him yeah they cost this much back in the 90s. I offered to give him KD10 for the 15 games. He said no and so I left. 30 minutes later I came back and decided to haggle with him. In the end I ended up getting 11 NeoGeo games (I had the other 4), a NeoGeo joypad and 2 Atari Jaguar consoles all for KD14. I have an Atari Jaguar but I accidentally ruined it a while back and needed a replacement. He didn’t know if the 2 systems he had worked so I decided to take both of them.

When I came back home I quickly started checking the NeoStore for prices of the games plus checked the price guide and it turns out I walked away with over $700 worth of NeoGeo games, the most expensive being Aggressors of Dark Kombat which is selling for $149 at the moment.