2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003

I posted before that my favorite phone I ever owned was an Ericsson 337 and 388. They both looked the same except the biggest difference was that the 337 had a metal front cover while the 388 had a plastic one. Also the 388 allowed me to send SMS while with the 337 I could only accept.

Anyway thanks to Jens a blog reader I now have in my possession an excellent condition Ericsson 388 with a perfectly working battery and home charger. Its gorgeous. Back when I had it the phone looked really tiny since its main competitor back then was the bulky Nokia 2110. Now the phone looks big compared to current phones. I still love the way the phone looks like and I love the green back light and the blinking green light on top of the phone telling me I have signal. Its all very retro.

The phone does lack some things. It doesn’t have a camera, no bluetooth, no infrared, no mp3 ringtones, no colored screen and no 3G. But I can make and receive phone calls and I can also send and receive SMS.

The Ericsson 388 is replacing my Motorola V3x which I have been hating more and more every day. Now I need to go and enter all my phone numbers manually into my phone. Its going to be a long night.

Note: To access the 388 service menu press right then * then left left * and left * one more time.

Just passed the House of Parliament today morning and noticed high fences were placed alongside the roads in front of the parliament building plus there were a ton of cops parked and walking about. Riot trucks and buses were also parked including the large one that fires water and has a huge pole with a camera mounted on top. I couldn’t see any demonstrators though, I guess they are planning on coming by later.

Check out #5, can’t believe people actually walk on these planks. [Link] #

Really weird people, I only knew about Yokoi and Mehran. [Link]

My Jack Bauer bag is here, the color turned out cooler then I expected.

Here is a video from the demonstration today again outside the House of Parliament. The demonstrators are requesting that every Kuwaitis debts be dropped. Today around twenty percent of the demonstrators were woman. The last demonstration it was around twenty percent high school kids. [Video]

Sounds like gunfire, should be fireworks but I couldn’t find any trace in the sky. Anybody here or see anything?

There is a link on Digg to an eBay auction where an unopened SNES got sold for $265 on eBay. I got my unopened SNES from a store in the old souk in Kuwait City for $50. The guy also had unopened original first generation Gameboys for $25. Some times you can find some really good deals here in Kuwait.

Anyone remember this Japanese TV show that they used to play every Friday morning on KTV1? It used to be called Al-7esn and the Arabic voice over was done by a guy called Ryadh Shararah. Here is a site with more pictures, info on all the characters and details of all the games. [Link]

The games are over and there was one thing about it that pissed me off and its the fact that Qatar nationalized so many athletes, over 30 in fact. I think that was a very cheap and unfair move. I think there should be rules to forbid such actions. The Olympic and Asian games is a sport, not a business. Nationalized players should not be allowed to take part in the games. I have been meaning to post about this for a while but Kuwitism’s post just reminded me about it.

When paying with a credit card or Knet card at Sultan Center you might have noticed that once the transaction goes through the employee swipes your card into their computer and your credit card number and other information gets dumped into their system. Cajie a reader of the blog sent them an email complaining about this, here is what he sent them:

I have been a frequent shopper of Sultan Center for quiet some time. However, I have become increasingly concerned about your procedure of scanning and storing customer’s credit card numbers in your sales system. This is a highly risky and unacceptable IT process, especially for such a leading retailer such as Sultan Center. Other leading merchants store only the last 4 digits of the credit card for verification purpose, which is just fine. It is my strong recommendation that your systems be reconfigured not to store sensitive customer data – especially in these days of increase rise in electronic fraud.

To his surprise the MIS manager at Sultan Center called him on the phone and assured him they made changes in their system to protect the customers financial data. After the phone call they sent him the following email with more details:

It was a pleasure talking to you over the phone, and we are really glad to have your comments and suggestions which will help us service our customers better. I would like to assure you that our Point of Sales system doesn’t hold or store the Full Credit card details, in fact this was rectified longtime back based on our Internal Audit department report. Now the transactions which are stored in our systems will only carry the last four digits of the credit card number XXXX XXXX XXXX 9021.

I hope that you are satisfied with this and Please don’t hesitate to contact us or me directly for any further queries. Wish you a very pleasant time in our stores and everywhere else.

It still doesn’t make me comfortable having them scan my card but at least now I know the information they do keep from the scan is very minimal.

Its like 3 seconds on my 1.8ghz Macbook. Thats super fast. [Video]

I want this!! [Link]

I have been using Adobe Photoshop CS3 for a couple of months now and its fucking amazing. Its wayyy better then CS2. If you are looking for the Adobe Photoshop CS3 crack which I had posted here well its not here anymore. I am sorry but the crack has been removed.

This is what happened to Geo when I left him with my mother and sister for the evening. [Link]