With all this free time now that Ramadan has started I was able to watch a few movies the past two days. I watched Cinderella Man first and I didn’t like it. It was too long and it starts off very sad and doesn’t really turn into a happy movie by the end. Million Dollar Baby was way better. I watched Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy second, I had never read the book but the movie was pretty cool. I mean any movie where earth gets blown up in the first 5 minutes must be cool. The movie was filled with a variety of weird and strange characters so it was very odd and entertaining. Finally I watched Land of the Dead yesterday night. This was fun to watch. Its not as scary as Dawn of the Dead or 28 Days Later but it was interesting none the less and it did play from a different perspective. This is the only zombie movie I have watched where the movie makes you side with the zombies. It’s definetly worth watching.
El Maco
Hey how come we don’t get cool stuff like this El Maco Grande in Kuwait? Seriously McDonalds in Kuwait should come up with new products because I am fed up of the McArabia crap. Now this topic made me hungry and McDonalds doesn’t open till 5:30PM!! [Link]
PSP 1.5
Yesterday night I downgraded my PSP from version 2.0 to 1.5. The reason I did that was so I could play pirated PSP games and install Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis emulators.
The downgrade was a bit scary, whenever you play with a hardwares firmware you risk fucking it up so that it becomes useless. Luckily my downgrade went smoothly and my PSP is now version 1.5. Games like SOCOM which I received the other day need a software version 1.52 or higher, so I downloaded another software which makes the PSP think its another version, I made it think it was version 2.0 and I can now continue to play SOCOM online.
I ordered a 1GB Sandisk Ultra II memorystick duo from Amazon so I could install the PSP games on. I ordered the Ultra II version since its faster then the regular memorystick and will help when it comes to loading the games faster.
Until the 1GB stick arrives I am using my 128MB memorystick which won’t fit any downloaded pirated PSP games but will fit a ton of emulators and Roms. I installed a Super Nintendo emulator with the following games: Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat II, NBA JAM Tournament Edition, Super Metroid, Super Mario World and Star Wars Empire Strikes Back. They all run very nicely on the PSP and I spent most of my time flipping between Mortal Kombat and NBA JAM, my two favorite games ever. I still need to download NHL 94 which is one of my favorite sports games also.
Using thepiratebay.org I was able to find around 30 PSP games which I managed to download. A 512MB memorystick would be enough to run most of them but if you are planning to install more then 1 game on a memory stick it would be a lot better to get a 1GB stick. Some games like Collin McRae take up 975MB of space which won’t even fit on a 512MB stick.
So if you have a PSP and want to downgrade and install emulators and downloaded games, here are some links to help you out.
Downgrading from 2.0 to 1.5 Guide
PSP Version Changer (WAB)
PSP Emulators
PSP Torrents
I have 1.5 now what?
What are your Ramadan working hours?
Mine is Saturday to Wednesday, 9AM to 3PM.
Thursdays its 9AM to 1PM.
Nataly is the same except her agency get Thursdays off!
If You Break Fast
Citizens and expatriates, who eat or drink in public places during the Holy month of Ramadan, will face a penalty of upto 100 dinars ($342) and/or a 30-day jail term.
You are warned.
Kate Moss & Snow White
French Connection, the fashion retailer, is scaling back the use of its controversial Fcuk slogan after a slump in sales. The acronym for French Connection United Kingdom has been splashed across the company’s clothing and advertising campaigns since its creation in 1997. But with sales down 10 per cent in the first half of 2005, the company has decided that the brand has tired and will be taken off its clothing and billboards. [More]
I think fcuk was cool when it first came out but I have to agree that I think it has been abused and is just lame now. When fcuk became popular the word fuck was still a bad word, now though you could have fuck on your tshirt and no one would look twice.
Made-up words in The Simpsons
Panaphonics
Panaphonics is a fictional brand of electronics referred to in a 1996 episode of The Simpsons, entitled “Scenes from the Class Struggle in Springfield.” It is a parody of the Panasonic brand.
In that episode, Homer goes to the television outlet in Ogdenville to shop for a new television, and his son, Bart tells him that the televisions being sold there are knockoff brands. Homer then showcases his trademark ignorance by saying: “I know a genuine Panaphonics when I see it. And look, there’s Magnetbox and Sorny!” (which are parodies of the well-known Magnavox and Sony brands, respectively)
Just like other catch-phrases from The Simpsons, it is beginning to catch on in Internet usage, just like the Yakov Smirnoff jokes several years ago. The term is now used as a slang by some online to describe derivative or poor-quality electronics. See also the script for Scenes from the Class Struggle in Springfield.
In real life, “no-brand” video cameras have been sold in tax-free areas in the far east under the name of “Panascanic”. In many parts of eastern Europe brands such as “Panasonix”, “Tonny Hilfiger”, “Eila”, “Fuma”, “Fike” and “Somy” can also be found.
I know everyone recently has been complaining about the traffic and I want to add something here. Today the traffic was the worst I had EVER seen in Kuwait EVER. Not even the great winter floods or the Thursday night Salmiya traffic could even come close to todays traffic. Everywhere I went, all my little traffic escape routes, every corner, intersection, road, everywhere was just packed with cars. There was traffic in places I couldn’t imagine their ever being traffic in! I got to the office nearly 30 minutes late so I hope this isn’t going to be like this everyday now…
Jazeera Airways Prices
Here are the prices for round trip tickets including all the taxes:
Kuwait – Amman – Kuwait: KD76
Kuwait – Bahrain – Kuwait: KD33
Kuwait – Beirut – Kuwait: KD82
Kuwait – Damascus – Kuwait: KD70
Kuwait – Dubai – Kuwait: KD66
A new Apple stored has recently opened up in Hawalli called ZMacShop. Its located in the basement of Al-Walla Complex, shop number 116. The store stocks regular iPods, iPod mini’s, shuffles, U2 Editions, mighty mice, shit loads of ipod covers, genuine and various ipod accessories, mac minis of various specs, iMacs and ibooks. Soon they will be getting iPod nano’s also.
Their prices are a bit cheaper then other Apple stores, here are some examples of their prices:
Shuffle 512 – KD37
Shuffle 1GB – KD55
iPod Mini 4GB – KD70
iPod Mini 6GB – KD76 KD86
Mac Mini 1.25Ghz/40Gb – KD180
Mac Mini 1.42Ghz/80Gb – KD210
Mac Mini 1.42Ghz/80Gb with SuperDrive and bluetooth – KD266
iBook G4 14″ – KD560
For more information you can call them after 5PM on 2617575.
Jazeera Airways seems to be all the buzz lately, I was a great fan of Kuwait Airways but it seems lately they have turned into trash (last time I used them was 4 years ago). So me and Nat were planning our trip to Lebanon on Christmas and I decided to give Jazeera Airways a shot, I was impressed.
I went to the Jazeera Airways website to check out the prices and stuff when I noticed a button to Book a flight. I clicked on it out of curiosity and started filling up some forms. 10 minutes later I had purchased two, two-way tickets to Lebanon. The whole process felt like I was ordering movie tickets online, it was too easy. The coolest part about the whole thing was I was actually able to book my seats on my flight to Lebanon and on my flight back to Kuwait. No one else had purchased or booked tickets for the two flights I was on so the whole plane was empty and I was able to get 2 seats on row 10 for the trip going and coming. When I was done paying for the tickets I received an email with all the details about my flight, my reservation number and my invoice, its like shopping on Amazon.
The booking and paying online, plus the fact I could reserve my seats ahead of time had already impressed me, but the biggest seller was the price. Two, two-way tickets to Lebanon cost only KD164 (with taxes and everything) during peak season. Kuwait Airways or Middle East Airlines would have cost around KD135 per ticket and they wouldn’t have allowed me to reserve my in flight seats ahead of time. So thats a total saving of over KD100 which I could now spend on 600 bottles of beer or 4 bottles of Jack Daniels at B018.
The only downside to Jazeera is that if you want to eat on the plane you have to pay for it. They serve cold sandwiches and drinks but they are not free which I don’t really think is a big problem anyway. For those of you who want to travel in style and not economy, for an extra KD26 per ticket per one way you can sit in first class. That would put the price similar to the Kuwait Airways or MEA regular economy ticket price though.
Finally, I called them up a few times on the phone (177) for details and info and the people I spoke to were very friendly and polite which made me feel more comfortable. Now the only thing left is to fly with them, my flight is in December so I will review it when I come back.
30GB Mail
Gmail not enough for you? How about 30GB worth of email space? [Link]
Type about:config in the address field
Then right-click and select New -> Interger
Type privacy.popups.disable_from_plugins and click on OK
Then type 2 in the next dialog and press ok and you are done.
MSN is not working yet according to Microsoft “All systems are stable and running.” [Link]
Update: MSN finally back up again.