2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003

Was at Virgin 2 days ago, they had some new mac products. They had the Mac Mini which they were selling for around KD220 and the Apple iSight. They also had the Griffin Technology iCurve and the Griffin PodPod. Whats funny is the PodPod costs $9 on amazon but KD9 in Virgin.

Over lunch me and Tivo-Guy were talking about Amazon and how the perfect business would be to have an online store where you never have to update and it would bring you some money in. So when lunch was over I came back to the office and did a bit of searching and I found a free software that sets up an Amazon store on your server that works with your own associate account. I showed it to Tivo-Guy and with his help we got my store running on https://248am.com/store

Check it out, everything on amazon is in my store. You can search, browse, and read reviews. Just like you were on amazon. Now the plan is to fix up the site, get it looking good, and then I will get a good catchy domain name and setup my own store. I love this!!!!!!!!!

I was placing some orders on Amazon today when I decided to get an Amazon Prime account. What is that? Basically for $79 a year I get unlimited 2 day shipping on anything I purchase on their site. I calculated how much I spent on shipping last year and it was in the hundreds so $79 is a good deal. Now whats cooler is that Amazon Prime allows you to invite 4 other household members to use this account. Doesn’t sound interesting.. until you realize ALL of us Aramex users are counted as living in the same household since we all have the same address. So I sent an invite out to Tivo Guy and Nibaq since they’re my best friends. If this works then we are going to have so much fun buying stuff of Amazon. Also if you need anything delivered overnight, as an Amazon Prime member you only have to pay $3.99 to have any of your items shipped overnight. Amazon just keeps getting better.

I have a G4 733mhz PowerMac at home and its really starting to show its age. I have been wanting to get a G4 1.4GHz upgrade chip for a while now so today I was checking amazon and to my surprise they now have a 1.7Ghz upgrade chip! But the problem is I don’t know if I should pay $500 and upgrade my mac or pay more and just get a new one.

I don’t like the current PowerMac G5’s. I have a Dual 2GHz G5 here at work and I just think it lacks personality. Nat and my Brother both have 12inch PowerBooks and I don’t like those also. They seem very fragile and look very normal. My favorite Macs at the moment are the iMacs and the iBooks. I used to have an iBook before but it died. I think they are a really good steal. For $999 you get a gorgeous 12inch iBook with a CD-Writer, Wifi, Bluetooth, and a 1.2Ghz chip. I also like the 20inch iMac’s because they are so fucking huge yet so small at the same time.

So I guess if I had a lot of money I would turn my current mac into a server and I would get a 20inch iMac and a 12inch iBook.

If anyone is interested in checking out the 1.7Ghz upgrade for the mac here is the amazon link.

“Bidding has ended for this item at US $158.50. You were outbid.” My max bid was $151 $156, I would have gone to 160 if I had know it would end there. I hate bidding on ebay, this is why I usually use the buy it now option OR, I use a software called Jbidder to snipe a bid before the time ends. That means I can tell the software to check the bid 10 seconds before the bidding ends and bid over the highest bid. Anyway I was bidding on an excellent condition all black Nikon FE2. Sucks! [Link]

Update: Just realized my max bid was actually $156 not $151!

I was just browsing Amazon and I just realized they now are selling PSP’s for only $249. Good deal, check it out.

I overheard my sister and mum talk about this wanting to know what happened. Well surprisingly CNN has an article on why Hisham Abdel Rahman the guy who won Star Acadamy this year got detained in Saudi. Turns out all he did was greet some fans who had spotted him at a shopping mall and the religous police didn’t think they way he greeted them was appropriate and so asked him to leave the mall. When he refused they arrested him. [Link]

I feel like getting a 35mm camera. Yeah, people are moving away from film to digital but film does have one major advantage, it allows me to think 10 times before I take the shot, and when I do I would make sure its perfectly framed. Unlike digital cameras, each shot you take costs you money with film so, this will help me make sure the shot I take is the shot I want. With my previous digital camera I would go for a shoot and come back home with 200 pictures with maybe only 10 good ones. When I got my Nikon I told myself that from now on I would think about each shot before I take it and only take it if I know I would want it. In general this new way of shooting has worked, and I have changed my ways, but, I still am careless when it comes to framing. Hopefully getting a 35mm camera will help me get back down to the basics.

I have a few camera’s I am currently looking at:
Leica CM – fixed 40mm lens compact 35mm camera with titanium body and fully manual controls. Price is around $850
Leica Minilux – fixed 40mm lens compact 35mm camera with titanium body but it can’t go manual. Price is around $700
Nikon FM3A – A mechanical SLR (meaning it can work without batteries) with metal body, fully manual controls. Price is around $550 without lens.
Nikon FE2 – A mechanical SLR with metal body, fully manual controls but they stopped making it in the late 80s. Price is around $150 to $200 with lens on ebay.

I am currently leaning towards the FE2 since my parents had the older FE model. Its a very nice compact SLR and its very affordable. The Leica’s though are very tempting but just so damn expensive..

I was having a discusion with K about the stuff we carry around with us all the time. He was telling me how if the PSP came with a 60GB drive we could drop the iPod. I went ahead and mentioned if the PSP also had PDA abilities I could drop my PDA. Basically it turns out we both carry a lot of gadgets with us. He carries the following with him: laptop / pda / phone / psp / ipod.

I carry the following with me always: camera / phone / psp / ipod / moleskine / 3 types of pens / swissarmy knife / keys / wallet / hand sanitizer / fresh mouth spray

What do you carry with you?

I am in such a bad mood now. I had an argument with 2 other creatives at the office. I was trying to explain to them that arabic typography is difficult and they wouldn’t get it. I have 3 logos I need to create arabic type for, they want it today. I explained to them that this isn’t an easy thing. It needs time. One of the creative insisted its an easy thing and doesn’t need time at all. I went ahead and explained to them that 2 of the 3 english logo-types I need to convert are located in a box. This causes problems with the arabic since the arabic typeface will have the letter “Ya” which will have dots that will fall below the baseline. This means the hight of the arabic type will be higher then the english. I can’t change the size of the box so that will be a problem. The guy wouldn’t listen and told me he would do it. I of-course refused since I am the best guy for this job and I would be afraid anyone else who attempts it will end up killing the logos. I really hate it when people don’t get it.

PSP Magazines is a site that enables you to download magazine snippets and load them on your PSP. You can currently download snippets from the following magazines:

BLENDER Magazine
Car & Driver
FHM Magazine
Gamespot.com
MAXIM Magazine
Mountain Bike Magazine
Road & Track
Rolling Stone Magazine
Snowboard Magazine
STUFF Magazine
Sports Illustrated
SYNC Magazine
WIRED Magazine

All this is for free, here is the link.

I need to try this, get an empty coke can, smear some chocolate on the bottom and start polishing using the chocolate wrapper. 30 minutes later you will have a mirror like surface. Then hold a twig infront of the mirror under the sun and a few seconds laters you will start a fire. More details and pictures after the jump. [Link]

via BoingBoing

This weekend passed by so fucking quickly! I hate sundays also. I am at work now and I am still half asleep although I went to be at 11PM last night. Sucks.

All I want is a 20cm Tefal frying pan from the Privilege line and I can’t find it. I know I saw it at Sultan Center before but when I went and checked today it wasn’t there. I went to 2 Sultan’s, the Salmiya and Souk Sharq plus City Center Salmiya and this other store that had a large collection of Tefal pans and none have the pan I want. Nat kept bugging me to buy any pan that its all the same, but I told her no. They are NOT all the same. Here are the specs of the Privilege line:

– A cool yet stylish dark exterior, made from PTFE, is tough, durable and easy to clean
– 5.5mm thick induction base for perfect heat distribution
– Stylish glass lids with stainless steel rims and adjustable steam vents
– Pouring lip on all pieces for safety and ease of use

In summary, it looks good, its affordable and I can’t find it.. here is the link with more info.

Today was the coolest, I did something I never did before, I spray painted in broad daylight. I woke up early today like 10ish. Nat went out shopping so I was home alone. So to pass the time I decided to cut out a new stencil so I could spray paint it. I decided to do one related to Samir Geagea since its currently Samir Geagea week in Lebanon. When I was done with my stencil around an hour and a half later I decided to just go out and try it. I didnt have anything else to do so I was like fuck it lets just go. I went to the regular construction site I usually spray paint at and tagged the walls. When I was done I drove around trying to find another construction site when I spotted something. You know the huge sewage system they are installing all over Salmiya? Well they have these huge concrete stuff laid out all over the place so I started tagging them. I must have tagged atleast 20 different ones all over Salmiya. It was really cool plus they are gonna burry the things later so no harm done. I did learn one thing today, don’t spray paint against the wind..