Category: Personal

So yesterday I finally decided I was gonna get a Mohawk. I went to my Pakistani barber and shared with him my idea expecting him to crack up and call in his buddies to share the laughter with. That didn’t happen, I guess my barber is a real pro because he had no reaction, to him a haircut is a haircut I guess no matter how extreme. So before he started cutting my hair I double checked to make sure he knew what a Mohawk was, I used a lot of hand gestures and a lot of pointing to my hair so there wouldn’t be any miscommunication.

My barber started trimming my hair but he started from the sides and then the back. I was thinking in my head wouldn’t it be better if he started from the front. Five minutes later my Mohawk was done, what a catastrophe. I was right he should have started trimming from the front because now my Mohawk started in the center in the back but by the time it reached the front of my head it had shifted off to the right. My Mohawk was not centered!!

Anyway I looked at it carefully, I knew that my Mohawk was fucked but I wanted to see if it was working or not. Sadly even if he had centered my Mohawk correctly I don’t think it would have worked out since my hair was to short. I think I need my hair to be at least 4cm in length for my Mohawk to work. So now I am thinking of growing my hair till December and when I travel to New York or Montreal I will get my Mohawk done there. At least I had the balls to try it.

Update: Incase it wasn’t clear, I told the barber to remove the mohawk since he had messed it up…

Yesterday I got my Nintendo DS which I had ordered from Amazon.com. I had ordered the bundle which included the Spiderman 2 game, Metroid Prime demo game and the Pro Gamers Kit. The Pro Gamers Kit is basically an Aluminum Case, Games Case, Earphones, Car adapter Screen Lenses and Neck Strap all in 1 package. The aluminum case looks like those bags in the movies where the drug dealers carry their cocaine in. First thing I did once I picked up my stuff was pass by Rihab Complex to exchange the Spiderman game for Super Mario. I hate Spiderman 2 but it came for free with the bundle and I figured I could exchange it for a game I would enjoy more. I found a store in Rihab that was willing to exchange spiderman for mario if I paid him KD3 which was a fair deal and I went ahead with the trade.

When I got home I took out the DS from the package and started playing with it. First thing I noticed was that its huge. Compared to my PSP the DS feels larger and heavier, Nat felt this the most since her hands are smaller then mine. I played Mario for a while and then played the mini games that came with the game and it wasn’t bad. I actually prefer the mario mini games to the actual game, they were more fun and faster. I really like the touch screen, I hate the stylus and thumb strap though, I prefer using my thumbs to click and rub the screen. I later played the Metroid Prime demo and that also made use of the touch screen, using my thumbs to click on screen buttons is very practical and easy. The reason I purchased the DS was so I could play the game Nintendogs which I ordered with the DS but which I still haven’t received so I am kinda disappointed about that.

The graphics of the DS compared to the PSP suck of course. This is why if I am going to buy games for the DS they won’t be realistic looking games. I would get 2D games or 3D games with a cartoony look, like Mario and Nintendogs. When it comes to realistically rendered games the PSP will always win. In October Castlevania is going to be released on the DS and it will be in 2D which is exactly the way I like it, so that will be the next game I will probably get. Nat is enjoying Mario a lot at the moment so I think she will be hogging the DS until I get Nintendogs at the end of this week.

So in conclusion, my first impressions of the DS is that its big, bulky, heavy and the graphics suck. BUT, it does have 2 things going for it, the touch screen and some cool games (like Nintendogs & Castlevania). I personally believe a system is worth purchasing if there is 1 great game you want on it, having 2 games I want is a bonus.

Click here to see the Nintnedo DS with the Pro Gamers Kit.

I am back to work today. Turns out I had food poisoning and thats why I was sick. Only thing I had eaten though on Friday was Fried Calamari and Fish Promodoro from Johnny Carinos and it was amazing. So its hard to imagine food so good put me in a 12 hour puke fest. Anything I drank or ate I puked from Friday evening to Saturday afternoon. Finally Saturday evening I decided to go eat something I knew my body could handle naturally, McDonalds. I went and had a Quarter Pounder Combo with an extra Cheese Burger sandwich and it was really good. Yesterday I also noticed I had red dots on my face around my eyes area, as if I got an allergie from the fish or something, today they are practically all gone so thats good. Now I am back in the office and I am feeling completely normal, I don’t think anyone in the office will believe I was sick yesterday, I think they will all think I just took an extra day off from work since I was enjoying my long weekend. Anyway thanks for the get well soon comments below, now I got to catch up on 3 days of Internet.

I am sick. I went to bed at 10PM feeling sick and I woke up now at 4:30 still as sick…

Yes I am on vacation and its my first since the winter of 2003. But, its only a 1 day vacation, I just took Thursday off and will be back to work on Saturday. So till then, I don’t think I will post anything on 2:48AM.

I found time recently to post more adsense banners in my other sites and so far the results have been pretty cool. So far in 9 days I have made $61. So thats around $6.5 per day on average which means $2372 a year. Not bad but not enough to get me to retire. Need to find a way to make a lot more then this.

Come October 1st I will sign up at the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) website. Its a cool project where people will have 30 days to write a novel. I will sign up in October because thats when they will allow people to actually sign up for the challenge. Then, at midnight, on November 1, I will have to begin writing my novel with everyone else. The goal is to write a 50,000-word novel by midnight, on November 30th. 30 days to write a 50,000 word novel. Sounds like an interesting challenge and from now till then I have lots of time to think of something to write about, maybe base my novel on a true to life experience.. will have to see. [Link]

While flipping through my old sites I found a colophone dated sometime in the late 90’s. Only thing I still have from all this is the Iomega Zip Drive:

My PC
Intel Pentium III 500MHZ
192MB SDRAM
TEAC 32X CD-Rom
Quantum Fireball 17.0GB Hard Disk
Quantum Fireball 6.4GB Hard Disk
Western Digital 6.4GB Hard Disk
100MB/PS Network card
Adaptec 1450H SCSI card
Creative Labs Sound Blaster 32AWE
Creative Labs Riva TNT2 ULTRA with 32MB RAM
US Robotics 56K internal modem

Output Devices
Hewlet Packard 5L Laser Jet
Hewlet Packard Deskjet 1100C
Epson 600 Colored Printer
Iomega 100 External Zip Drive
Kodak PCD Writer 225
Chuntex Electronics 17inch Monitor

Input Devices
Hewlet Packard ScanJet 6100C
Wacom ArtPADII

Software used:
Windows 98
Adobe Photoshop 5.5
Adobe Illustrator 8
Macromedia Dreamweaver
Notepad
Internet Explorer 5
Netscape Navigator 4.7

Web Space made availabe by:
The unex-t network.

Favorite music listened too during making of page:
Paul Oakenfold, Cygnus_X, Paul Van Dyk, Massive Attack, Dj Misjah, Dj Tim, Liquid Child, Keoki, Carl Cox and Clint Mansell.

Places I went to chill out during the making of page:
Dunkin Donuts, Armand Van Helden concert, McDonalds, One with the mountain, Tam Tam beach.

Favorite movies ever:
Brazil, Ronin, PI, Blade, The Lost Highway, Fearing and Loathing in Las Vegas, CRASH, 2001: Space Odyssey, Monthy Pyton and the Holy Grail, and The Prophecy I & II.

I watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Collateral yesterday. I really didn’t like Eternal Sunshine and I don’t understand how it was rated one of the best movies ever on IMDB. The movie just dragged too long and some of it was really cheesy. Collateral on the other hand was a really good movie. Tom Cruise was really great, I think this is one of his best roles ever, it really suited him. Jamie Foxx was also really cool, I still remember him from the days of In Living Color so its hard for me to accept he doesn’t have to be funny all the time, but in general I think he’s aged like some good old wine. He just keeps getting better.

Something is different about my voice today.

Anyone know anyone who works at Easa Husain Al-Yousifi and Sons co? ie. Panasonic. I need someone preferably in management. I need to contact them for something business related. Thanks

Nat and I are planning on going to New York for our vacation so I was checking up on hotels so I can reserve us a room but they are just too expensive. $200 a night for a 2 and half star hotel room, I would rather spend that on shopping. So, I have found a better solution, rent an apartment. I was checking Craigs List and there are some really good deals there from people who want to temporarily rent out their apartments. For example one guy was renting out his huge 3 bedroom apartment in a charming old building for only $500 a week. Thats way cheaper then a hotel and you get a lot more. I checked out the pictures of the place and it looks amazing.. just like New York apartments in the movies! [Link]

So I was walking around Muthana Complex during lunch hour thinking about how its such a great place to chill out and relax when I decided to sit down up on the mezzanine floor on one of the benches and play some Lumines on my PSP.

Two minutes into the game and a security guard comes up to me and tells me I can’t sit there. I was like what the fuck are you talking about? He was like the mall is closed you can’t sit here. I was like the mall is open, the doors are open and I just came in earlier had lunch and now I want to chill for 10 minutes before I get back to work. He told me the shops are closed and I can’t sit here but if I want I can sit on another bench on the ground floor. I was like you can’t tell me I can’t sit here but I can sit there, thats bullshit, I am not moving. So he goes and calls the head of the security. The head of security comes and gives me the same bullshit story, but he was polite and explained to me that although its a dumb rule the managers deduct KD5 off them every time there is a problem. I felt sorry for the guy and decided to leave and come back to work.

We walked together down to the ground floor and on the way I asked him why they closed the escalators during lunch hour. I told him its a pain walking up the escalators from Burger King after lunch and many people are always complaining. He then told me that I could actually turn on the escalators with any key and proceeded to show me how. He then started telling me about himself a bit and how he used to work at an offshore oil rig before and how he had to leave because he became too old. He was a nice guy, and now I know how to turn on the escalators so thats going to be fun.

I watched The Aviator yesterday and Sideways. I was really disappointed with both the movies. Sideways was long and slow, I spent the last hour just forwarding through the movie. The Aviator was also long and slow and I nearly fell asleep watching it, Nataly fell asleep watching it. After watching the amazing movie Crash the other night I doubt I will be able to find another movie that will top it. I have 3 more movies to watch now, The Longest Yard, Eternal Sunshing of the Spotless Mind and Million Dollar Baby. Hope they turn out to be good.

Since I installed the Xbox Media Center I started downloading movies from the web again. I stopped downloading movies along time ago because it was a pain watching them on my computer. Now with the Xbox Media Center I stream all the movies onto my TV in the living room. I downloaded 7 movies this weekend, Sin City, The Jacket, Monthy Python and the Holy Grail, The Ring Two, Napoleon Dynamite and Anchorman. I only managed to watch 3 movies though.

Sin City turned out to be great. I had totally forgotten how the actual comics were made up of short stories so I was glad to see this got transferred into the movies. Mickey Rourke was the best thing about the movie, I am glad his career is back on track now.

The Jacket was so so. My brother thought it was an amazing movie so I was expecting it to be so, but I found it un-eventual and slow. They could have done so much more with this movie. Adrien Brody is a good actor though, I like him.

Napoleon Dynamite was hilarious. I have never seen such sad looking characters in my whole life, they are the most incredibly dorky and geeky people you could ever meet, and they fucking kicked ass. Pedro is like the man!

Tonight I am probably going to watch Anchorman. I am also downloading the A-Team season 1, hopefully that will turn out to be as good as I remember it.

Overall the quality of the movies were really good, like DVD quality and all were actually DVD rips not in movie recordings. The only downside is that from all the movies I downloaded non of them have Dolby Digital so I am stuck watching all the movies in Stereo mode only.