Search: “ace”

A face moisturiser made out of semen has been launched in Mexico. Porn star Lyn May, who is in her sixties, is behind the company producing the cream. Mrs May swears that the Semen moisturizer is capable of erasing wrinkles and leaves skin soft. She told Las Ultimas Noticias: “I select attractive young man and pay them for their semen that is mixed with honey and oats to create the moisturiser.” [via]

Yesterday I had dinner at Fuddruckers with Nataly. I usually order the burger but yesterday I realized they had a Chilidog sandwich, so I went ahead and ordered that. I am not a super freak chili dog fan or anything, but I do occasionally enjoy having one whenever I need to divert off my burger diet. My favorite chili dog place used to be A&W where I experienced my first chili dog with them as a kid and continued to have and enjoy even after I grew up. My second favorite place is Hardees which at the moment is actually my favorite since A&W closed down in Kuwait.

So how did the Fudds chili dog turn out? Well the first thing you will notice is thats its mother fucking huge! In the picture you might think the hotdog bun is actually small and the hotdog big but in reality the hotdog bun is big and the hotdog is huge! I didn’t know you could get hotdogs that big. The chilidog was a bit awkward to eat but not as awkward as I was expecting and in the end didn’t really get that much chili all over my hands. The hotdog bun was soft and delicious, definitely my favorite part of the meal. The hotdog meat itself tasted good and wasn’t very soft like the Hardees hotdog, which is a good thing. The chili on the other hand was the disappointing part. It was just very so so. Firstly the chili sauce had beans in it which I wasn’t expecting. Secondly the chili flavor was very bland. I really wasn’t tasting that much chili when I was eating the hotdog. The dish came with the Fudds traditional fries and a terrible cup of coleslaw. The cost of the dish was KD2.500 which is pretty decent but doesn’t really compete to the 400fils chilidog at Hardees.. not that I am comparing the two. Hardees is a fast food joint while Fudds is more of a restaurant. But personally I prefer the Hardees chilidog over the Fudds and thats why this gets a score of 3.5 out of 5.

update: Since I wrote this review a year ago I have had this chilidog a lot. If was to review it again I would have to give it a 4 out of 5. I finally figured out how to eat it for one thing.. I now use a fork and knife, its the easiest and least messiest way. Also I think I now prefer it over Hardees, although Hardees still has the prive advantage in its favor.

This photo was taken with a hidden camera at Moyie Springs, Northern Idaho. The owner of property noticed foot tracks some weeks earlier and set camera up in tree along path of tracks. This picture was taken from that camera mounted in the tree. It seems that the Bigfoot took a bite of the red fir tree bark. In the original that I have you can clearly see a piece of bark in the air. I circled the bark in the photo.

This is the only close up photo of Bigfoot that I have ever seen. Very large body and face. The original shows the face and teeth in great detail. Very large mouth and teeth. Not sure of the date. I was told a few years ago. There have been many sighting of Bigfoot in the Northern Idaho area near the Canadian border. Very rugged landscape with many mountains. [via]

No celebrity blogger attended the monthly blogger meetup. The idea of a celebrity blogger was made up to create hype and attract people to the meeting. There is no celebrity blogger and thats why no one is saying who it was. The hype worked though, 4 people attended the meeting this time!

Interesting quotes from the bloggers who attended the meeting:

Forzaq8: “and the mystery blogger , who is way too scared about privicy , i have no idea how he agreed to come”

Purgatory72: “Now, the mystery blogger showed up somewhere around 6.45 pm. I was surprised to see him, I thought it was a hoax, but turned out to be true. The guy was very nice and articulate and was also famous. Now because of private matters related to the person himself, I cannot say anything more on how he looks like, which blog is his blog”

Here is a conversation between me and Nibaq:
Me: So who was the celebrity blogger?
Nibaq: Can’t tell you
Me: Ok, I figured it out, will post about it
Nibaq: what you going to post? a CSI type thing?

Update: More proof it was a fake. On forza’s blog he posts two pictures from the meetup, one of someone shaking hands with the mystery blogger and the other of the mystery blogger signing a book. He then says that after the handshake the mystery blogger signed the book. BUT, according to the pictures exif information, the first picture of the handshake was taken at 8.21pm while the second of the signing was taken at 8.18pm. Interesting..

Update 2: This is an enhanced crop taken from one of Forzaq8’s pictures. It supposingly the signature of the mystery blogger. Looks like gibrish to me.

Update 3: Further investigation has revealed the both of Forza’s pictures were taken with the exact same settings:

Yet one turned out ot be extremely blurry while the other was fine, as if when shooting the signature picture the camera was deliberately shaken. Also according to the pictures and my personal experience of the Second Cup branch in Kuwait City, the place inside isnt very dark and according to the shadows on the open book, there was a light source right above they area they were seated. So I believe if the Apreture was set to 2.8 instead of 5.2 (which the Sony P8 cam can handle) and the shutter speed increased then there would have been no chance of the picture coming out blurry, specially since the camera iso was set at 320. By default the camera would have changed the apreture to 2.8 when the shutter speed became very slow but they wanted the picture to come out blurry so they manually changed the settings.

I was chatting with Nibaq today and he mentioned that he might have read somewhere that Flickr was either banned in UAE or the ISP there is doing something to slow down the uploading of photos. So I decided to ask some UAE people on Flickr and this is what they had to say:

manaal says:
no idea….working fine with me.

w6an 3mry says:
it’s not banned but i think they are doing something to block some of the bad photos

Avish says:
:s inshAllah they don’t ban it totally coz i don’t know what i’ll do 🙁

7abo0ob el Emarat says:
la hopefully they wont cuz we all cant live without it 🙂

ZexySamurai says:
I can live without it! ‘_’ Hehehe, but I love it loads so I hope that’s not true…
P.S. the uploading speed is fine with me..

Eneas says:
what’s UAE?

Green Peace says:
it is working fine with me

Ok, in February if any of you remember, I placed an order on the Sultan Center website for A&W Root Beer. They were only getting the diet version here in Kuwait for some reason and it tasted like crap. So I asked them if they could bring me the regular version. Today I get a phone call, they got me regular A&W Root Beer! Carton contains 24 cans and it will cost me around KD4 per carton. Not cheap but better then nothing. I love root beer, when I was in Canada I never drank Pepsi or Coke, I always had a fridge full of just A&W Root Beer.

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.

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

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..

I didn’t know if this review should focus on their Shawerma or everything as a whole. So after a lot of consideration I decided I would focus more on the shawerma and just mention the other items. Sajj House has been around for a couple of years now. I first found out about it when I was in highschool I think, or first year of university. I started eating there though 3 years ago. In this time I was able to try many of their items, their shawerma, their Taouk sandwich, kofta, and a variety of sajj sandwiches. Everything I have ever had at Sajj House tasted incredibly good. Everything, from their Taouk to their Chocolate with Banana Sajj sandwich. Their prices are extremely reasonable and their service is very friendly.

Now that I have done introducing the place we can finally focus on their shawerma. I am not very picky with shawermas. I would and do eat shawermas from any place. It could be a small shawerma place in a backstreet of Hawalli, or it could be a shawerma place in Salmiya high street, if I feel like having shawerma I will head to the closest source. I have only had 2 bad experiences with shawermas through out my life, so in general I find most shawermas satisfying. But, I have never ever given a shawerma place a score of 5. So this brings us to a very important question. What shawerma would deserve a 5? Its very difficult since a 5 would mean this is the ultimate souper douper shawerma. You might have figured out where I am going with this review, if not I will tell you. On my way to Sajj House yesterday I was thinking about how I rate their shawerma. Is it a 4.5? or is it a 5? Could there ever be a place that would score a 5? Does a 5 mean a perfect shawerma? Then I realized something, Nataly had never had a shawerma at Sajj House, plus she is very picky when it comes to garlic. So I decided at the moment, if Nataly liked the shawerma that would mean it gets a 5. If she didn’t it would get a 4.5.

We went to Sajj house, we both ordered shawermas and then we drove off to our secluded spot (dead end next to the french school). We sat down, opened up the windows and started eating. She loved it. She didn’t mind the strong garlic which tastes really good, she loved the sajj bread they use to wrap the shawerma in and she loved the fact that the chicken wasn’t greasy at all. Thats when I knew, we hit the jackpot with Sajj House. They truly have the ultimate shawerma and its only for 350fils. What gives their shawerma a 5? Well as I mentioned above, they wrap the shawerma in sajj bread, which makes it very light, the garlic they use is perfectly blended and the chicken is not greasy at all. The chicken is actually grilled on coal flame not gas. To add to all this, Sajj House provides other items you can take with the shawerma. Say you want to have 1 shawerma and 1 zaatar sajj, when you order you know both of your items will taste incredible. This strong support from the other items on the menu helps push the score up. Their service is also very nice. Everyone from the Lebanese cashier to the Lebanese shawerma guy, they are very nice and clean. You also have 3 options of getting your shawerma, you can order delivery by phone, you can park your car outside and they will come to you, or you can go down and order it yourself. Their location also helps, they are located in Salmiya adjacent to the Restaurant Street but away from all the traffic (if you are heading towards platinum gym and restaurant street, if the cinema is to your right then you will come up to a small roundabout, if you go straight its platinum gym, if you take a left and continue going straight past the stadium on your left, you will find sajj house on your right). In conclusion, if I gave their shawerma a 5 you should know its really has to be something out of this world to get a 5, and the fact that Nat, an amateur picky shawerma eater loved it, then it just adds more credibility to my score.

update: Since I posted this review over a year ago I have to say the shawermas at Sajj House have become terrible. They have changed the recipe or something but I have now stopped eating there and my new favorite place is Badar Al Badoor. If I was to review Sajj House today I would give them a 2.5 or 3.

In reply to the previous post titled “Crackdown in Wonderland“, a regular reader Fadibou commented saying the following:

Hi Mark and all of you. I work in a software company here in Kuwait and its frustrating to see people supporting Piracy. Piracy is a nice word for stealing. Copying software and selling it without permission and without giving money back to its creator is pure theft. As for the crack down, it will increase and hopefully soon there will be no place to buy pirated(stolen) games and software. As for your remarks that a lot of games are not worth buying, well try getting evaluation copies or demos. They should cover your investment before you buy. As for Rihab, Can you please tell me which shop did help you get Doom 3?

Doom 3? I don’t know what you are talking about.. (starts whistling casually)..

Yesterday Adobe announced a merger with Macromedia. The largest issue I saw with the merger was that Freehand would be killed off. That didn’t matter to me since I prefer Adobe Illustrator but I know there are many designers who prefer Freehand. So I decided to do some research and this is what I found out.

It turns out that this is not the first time Adobe buys a company that owns competing products. Back in 1994, Adobe purchased the company Aldus which back then was releasing Freehand which it marketed under license from Altsys Corporation. Adobe also picked up Aldus’s PhotoStyler which was a competing product for Photoshop and Hitchcock which competed against Adobe Premier.

After the merger, Adobe killed both PhotoStyler and Hitchcock in-favor of its own stronger products Photoshop and Premier. Freehand was the biggest issue back then though. The merger between Aldus and Adobe came close to collapsing many times because Altsys Corporation who had licensed out FreeHand to Aldus claimed that it would be unfairly hampered by Adobe’s competing product Illustrator. To resolve this issue once the merger took place FreeHand was sold off to Macromedia. Now after yesterdays Adobe and Macromedia merger, Freehand is back with Adobe.

The biggest gain of the Adobe and Aldus merger was the software Pagemaker. Pagemaker was released in 1985 and is generally credited with creating the desktop publishing field.

The issue with Adobe’s GoLive webdesign software conflicting with the newly acquired Macromedia Dreamweaver software was also dealt with before. In 1999, Adobe acquired GoLives CyberStudio software and renamed it to Adobe GoLive. With that acquisition, Adobe killed its own webdesign software PageMill due to the superiority GoLive had.

In conclusion, although the merger between Adobe and Macromedia is a big thing, its also not the first time something like this has happened. Out of the previous mergers Adobe was able to improve its suite and benefit us all. But, monopolies never are a good thing either and if Adobe decides to slack off then we will all be in trouble. Many people are now expecting Adobe to purchase its major desktop publishing competitor Quark. But I believe that might not happen since all Adobe would gain is to kill off a competitor its already slowly but surely beating. So we will now have to wait and see what Adobe will do next.

Resources:
Aldus and Altys settle dispute over FreeHand
The Aldus Adobe Merger
Adobe kills Aldus PhotoStyler, Hitchcock
Aldus on Wiki
Adobe acquires Aldus
About Adobe, Premiere, and All That

Today I had a tough choice for the Miskan project. I had 2 good pictures but in the end I had to choose one. This one is the picture that lost the battle. I shot it today morning while dropping Nat at work. Its a trace from a fighter jet, we get them in Lebanon two at a time and usually accompanied with the breaking of the sound barrier.

I just found the coolest website, something I didn’t know existed in Kuwait. The site is actually a car talk forum but based in Kuwait. The members there discuss their latest car upgrades, or a recent car they spotted or which car they raced on what street. Its amazing stuff. Here are some examples of the topics they are discussing:

A8 Quattro Killed moi….. was worth it..
DB9 spotted (with pics)
Driftmaster accident (wallah maa testahel)
HaSsOnY Car Accident!! Gulf Road
SLR in Q8 (with pics)

There are tons more interesting topics and sections for all street racers or car modifiers in Kuwait. Very very interesting stuff and all this is in Kuwait! The website is Q8speed.com. The picture above of the Lamborgini’s is from a Q8 Speed gathering at AUK.

Its been a week now since I got my Sony PSP so, here is a review of my impressions.

The Screen
When we first got the PSP, both me and nat were completely surprised at how cool the screen was. It was stunning, nothing like anything we had seen before. Now, a week later, the screen still does look as good but of-course the shock and awe period is over. The colors and the contrast are really perfect. When one of us is playing the other one can still see the screen. The viewing angle didn’t seem to matter much, wherever the other person sits next to you, they will be able to see the screen. The 2 dead pixels are totally invisible. They are still there but they are so small you can’t see them, only when the screen is completely black you might be able to spot them, depending on how good your eyesight is. The screen is huge, and I am sure some people will manage to break it, and that makes me wonder, how much will a replacement screen cost and can it be replaced?

The Controls
The buttons are all laid out like the PS2 controller. The analog controller isn’t what I thought it would be. I was expecting it to be larger and more like the analog controllers on the ps2 and xbox joy-pads, but the one on the psp is smaller and slides in different directions and doesn’t tilt. Its awkward to use but maybe I could get used to it. Until I do though I am have been using the regular directional pad for 95% of the time. One major problem I have is the Power/Sleep button. Its located to the right of the device and sometimes when I get excited and press the R button on top hard, the whole device moves in my hand and that results in me accidently activating the power switch and putting my PSP to sleep. It hasn’t happened a lot but enough for me to mention it as a problem. Luckily they must have thought about this and there is a HOLD button which stops the PSP from accidently getting turned on or off. The start and select buttons are located under the screen next to the mute and brightness buttons. When the room is dark its hard to find the start button and you cant really feel your way to it since it isn’t extruding from the PSP that much. It would have been a lot cooler if the buttons under the screen had backlighting but then I guess it would be annoying when playing games.

The Handling
How does it feel holding the PSP? It’s not perfect but definitely feels better then holding the GameBoy SP. The gameboy SP was squarish and tiny, it never felt comfortable in my hands. The PSP on the other hand is much wider and so allows me to stretch my fingers completely underneath it. I would have preferred it if the PSP had more rounded edges but I am sure it would have made it look a lot uglier.

The Battery Life
When I first got the PSP I was expecting that I would face battery problems but I haven’t yet. The PSP is like a PDA or a phone, you use it through out the day at different intervals, then at night before you sleep you put it on charge. You can save battery life by dimming the screen a bit, it has 3 brightness settings, low, med and high. When the room is dark I have it on low since the high brightness is blinding, this also helps extend the battery life. You can actually keep it on the low setting all the time since really its not low at all and is very usable. Anyway basically I did not have any battery problems. Incase you will be traveling on a long flight, my advice is get an extra battery for $40. Its as easy as replacing the battery on your walkman.

Load Times
I was concerned with load time. I thought the load times would be a real pain. Well they are not. Since most of us own PS2s or Xbox’s then we are used to load times. But the PSP has one advantage over the PS2 and Xbox, sleep mode. With sleep mode you never have to load a game from start which is when most of the loading time goes. Instead, when you want to stop playing, you just hit the power switch and it puts the PSP to sleep. When you want to play again you hit the power switch again and it instantly comes on and you are back to where you left off. You can go to sleep at any point in the game, even in a middle of a race if you want. Its very practical. Load times from menu to game takes around 10 seconds, depending on the game but you don’t really notice it since we are already used to it from our xboxs and ps2s.

Connectivity
You can mount the PSP as an external hard-drive on your PSP by connecting it via USB. Thats if you have a memory-stick installed. Once you connect the PSP to your computer you can do many things. Mainly though you can copy movies, pictures and music onto the PSP. I got a software for my mac called iPSP, this software allows me to sync my PSP with iPhoto, iTunes and even converts any movie I have on my Mac so that it becomes viewable on the PSP. The biggest advantage of this USB connectivity is that you are now able to backup your game-saves AND most importantly, download other peoples saves from the web onto your PSP. Say for example you don’t have the time, skill or patience to open up all the cars in Need For Speed (cough cough like me cough cough) you can just download a 100% Complete save from the web and then copy it onto your PSP and just like that you now have all the cars and money you could ever dream of. Its all very easy. If you have wifi at home you can connect your PSP to the web to play multiplayer games or to download updates. It was very easy to connect the PSP to the local network and once I did it I was able to click the Download Content button in the game WipeOut Pure and the PSP opened up a web browser and took me to the WipeOut site. They didn’t have any content for me to download but when they will I would be able to get it. Once you are connected to the web there is a button in the main menu which checks and sees if your PSP has the latest software installed, if not, then it would download it for you and install it. In the near future you will be able to play games online against other people but at the moment no online multiplayer games exist.

The Games
I have WipeOut Fury, Tony Hawk and Need For Speed.

Tony Hawk – With Tony Hawk I was able to map my face onto a skater! I always wanted to do that. Basically what you do is you take your picture (I used my passport photo), and you save it as a 128×128 pixel jpg and you copy it onto your psp. Then in the game there is an option to download face, you click it, find your picture and press ok. Thats it, then you make minor adjustmants like skin tone and stuff and you are done. In the picture above I was trying to get my nose the right proportion. The game in general is basically exactly like the console versions. If you want a full review check out IGN.

WipeOut Pure – Wipeout is a showoff the system graphics game. Everytime I am showing off the PSP to someone I load Wipeout. Its fast, its 3D and its futuristic.

Need For Speed – This is currently the most game I play. Its extremely fast, and the graphics are also cool. Its my pick up and play anywhere game.

Conclusion
The PSP is definitely the coolest portable game system out there. The only competition is the Nintendo DS which pales in comparison. The PSP is not cheap but its not meant for kids either. The PSP is also not just a game system, its a portable entertainment center. Its a movie player, music player, picture viewer, videogame system and maybe in the future an internet browser. The system has a lot of potential and I am person waiting for MAME to be ported to the PSP, that would kick ass. Final score 4.5 out of 5.