2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003

I have been shopping around like crazy for a new car but nothing had turned me on. Actually, every car dealer I went into I found a car I wanted. I wanted everything, a Toyota Prado, a Nissan 350Z, a Infiniti G35, an Armada, a BMW Z4, even a Citroen C2 (only KD3,850!!). Every car I looked at I wanted, thats when I realized I didn’t really want a new car, I just wanted to change my car. Its hard to explain but somehow somewhere I put it in my head that I needed to get a new car, so the past two weeks of shopping I wasn’t really looking for “The Car”, I was looking for “Any Car”.

So realizing that I decided to think about which car do I “really” want, which car would be “The Car” for me. With that I came out with 2 cars, the new Range Rovers, and the Hummer H2 SUT. The problem is both cars are out of my budget with the cheapest Ranger Rover I saw was KD14,000 and the cheapest H2 SUT I saw was for KD13,000. So since I couldn’t afford any of these cars at the moment I decided to just stick with my car until I could. So as simple as that, my quest for a new car is over. Now I just need to break the news to the guy who is supposed to be buying my car this week…

Passed by the dealer to check out the new Lexus GS series. They didn’t have any on display neither in stock. The prices? The GS300 is for KD15,000 while the GS430 is KD17,000. Both cars have the exact same features except the GS430 is a V8 not six plus it has different rims.

20 Countries With the Highest Piracy Rates
Vietnam 92%
Ukraine 91%
China 90%
Zimbabwe 90%
Indonesia 87%
Russia 87%
Nigeria 84%
Tunisia 84%
Algeria 83%
Kenya 83%
Paraguay 83%
Pakistan 82%
Bolivia 80%
El Salvador 80%
Nicaragua 80%
Thailand 79%
Venezuela 79%
Guatemala 78%
Dominican Republic 77%
Lebanon 75%

Kuwait has a rate of 68%, Saudi Arabia 52%, Bahrain 62%, Jordan 64%, Qatar 62% and UAE 34%,

20 Countries With the Lowest Piracy Rates
United States 21%
New Zealand 23%
Austria 25%
Sweden 26%
United Kingdom 27%
Denmark 27%
Switzerland 28%
Japan 28%
Finland 29%
Germany 29%
Belgium 29%
Netherlands 30%
Norway 31%
Australia 32%
Israel 33%
UAE 34%
Canada 36%
South Africa 37%
Ireland 38%
Portugal 40%

[via]

From Fadibou: https://www.yagoohoogle.com/
Search for something and the browser splits in half providing you with both Yahoo and Google results.

At lunch, a friend was telling me and Tivo-Guy about how the majority of current Windows systems, new and old are not going to be compatible with Windows Longhorn. He gave me a link with the the Graphics Hardware requirements as an example to check out since Longhorn also needs certain types of VGA cards to run. Here is the link but I warn you its geek zone. [Link]

I was googling “Kuwait Blog” and to my surprise our (Rampurple, nibaq and mine) old blog qHate came out as a first result. So I decided to google a variety of words and checked how qHate ranks, below are the results:

Kuwait Blog (Rank 1)
Kuwait Blogs (Rank 10)
Kuwaiti Blogs (Rank 15)
Kuwaiti Bloggers (Rank 3)
Blogs from Kuwait (Rank 12)
Kuwait war blog (Rank 2)
Rampurple Blog (Rank 2)
Nibaq Blog (Rank 5)
Mark Blog (Rank not in top 500)
Wolf Blitzer suspicious of six foot one Arab males (Rank 1)

I am thinking of asking management for a raise since recently my responsibilities and workload have increased considerably but I don’t know how to. There is no time that seems like a right time and even if the right time came along I am not sure how I would start the conversation. Any tips?

I have a couple of email accounts which I check on my Mac using Mail.app. The problem is like many I get a lof of spam through out the day. I already trained Mail.app to spot junk emails but its not perfect and so I decided to find a better solution. A while back I found a software called JunkMatcher. JunkMatcher is a software that integrates with Mail.app. It gives you a lot more junk mail options and it already comes built-in with a whole set of rules. With my upgrade to Tiger, JunkMatcher stopped working but recently they updated the software and now its Tiger compatible. So download it and try it, you won’t even notice its there. [Link]

Been showing this to everyone at the office since morning.. [Link]

A former Nazi graphic designer is suing Volkswagen, seeking credit for helping to design their famous logo. Nikolai Borg, 86, who now lives in Austria, says he has paperwork that can prove his involvement in the development of the VW logo 65 years ago. He doesn’t want any cash, says his lawyer—he just wants to live to see his work acknowledged. Volkswagen denies that Borg was involved in the design. The legal case begins next week in a Vienna court. [Link]

Ok, I need to cut down on junk food and start eating healthy. [Link]

www.q8car.com

Finally a new gadget for me to crave and dream of. Its been such a dry period with gadgets lately with the same crap over and over. Nothing has been grabbing my attention, the Palm LifeDrive caught my attention for a full 5 minutes, but then I found out it ran on the ancient Palm OS 5 (where is 6?!?!) and that it would actually be less responsive then my current 3 year old Tungsten | T. Then suddenly out of the blue, the Nokia 770 tablet came along.

From all the companies on this planet, Nokia was the last one I would have imagined would come up with a device like this. This is what the Sony Clie was supposed to be and what Apple should have introduced, a pda like device that allows you to surf the web.

The current tablets in the market are too big, bulky and expensive, the OQO is tiny and cool but too expenisve, and PDAs generally have just been lagging behind in technology. The new Nokia tablet on the other hand is a mixture of a pda and a tablet pc, its the best of both worlds, a perfect combination.

The new Nokia has wifi, bluetooth, a large 800×400 resolution touch screen display (which is perfect for web browsing) and it runs on linux. The price? Only $350. The MAJOR downside is that its coming out next fucking year in fall! Why did they even bother to show it to us now, its teasing us. This is what I like about Apple, they don’t show you or tell you anything, and then when they do show us something, its available on their store 30 minutes later for purchase…

For more information on the Nokia Tablet click here.

I just got this email today, amazing people, this is what I call customer service. Its good to know companies are starting to care about their customers!

Dear Mark,

Apologies for the bad experience you’ve had watching Star Wars Episode III at our theaters. As per the instructions of the General Manager, Mr. Alan Hall, and since you’ve already paid to watch Star Wars again, we have voided the transaction as per the attached proof.

In addition, we would like to grant you a 5-KD voucher – good for two tickets, available to you ONLINE. the next time you decide to go to our theaters. Instead of selecting K-NET like you did last time, just select Virtual Coupon when it comes to selecting your Payment Method.

Hope with this, we can make you forget about the bad experience you’ve had, and get you to go to our theaters more often.

In the future, should you face any further trouble, please feel free to contact us, and we’ll be more than glad to help.

Once again, we apologize for the unfortunate experience you’ve had and we thank you for bringing that up to us.

Regards,

Yaser Behbehani
IT Manager
KNCC

Today I had a tough time choosing my picture of the day. I was going to go for this one but decided to go for the more traditional fishing boat picture. This B-Side picture was taking inside the Kout Mall. This Nissan Armada was parked in the middle of the fountain I guess as a display or something.