Search: “mis”

There are many occasions when I need Dummy Text for my work. I might be working on a layout or an ad and I need some text to work as place holders until the final text is ready. So, instead of typing gibrish or using InDesign’s lipsum “Fill with placeholder text” option, I use an online real text generator. You tell it how many paragraphs you need and it will give the amount back. Here is the link.

Nibaq yesterday left his Nintendo DS over at my place.. deliberately. He is trying to get me to like the DS and convince me that its a much better system then the PSP (yeah right). I tried playing wario ware on it yesterday, I found the fact that you could blow on the DS for some of the mini games interesting and original but other then that I wasn’t impressed. I find the second screen useless as it serves really no purpose and the touch screen is so uncreative since I have had it for ages on my PDA and the only good thing its for is clicking links on and not controlling a car. If anything the two screens actually make me a bit dizzy. So since my first experience with the DS, I haven’t gone back to playing with it again, neither has nataly who is busy playing Metroid Zero Mission on the Gameboy SP. Will I crave the DS today? We will see but I doubt. So far, it really sucks.

From Engadget: Damn, it’s only been a week since the Sony dropped the PlayStation Portable on us and people already pieced together a ton of different hacks and how-tos for the new game console. We’ve thrown together this list of all the hacks and how-tos we could find, we’ve probably missed a couple, so let us know and we’ll add ‘em to the list:

How to use non-Duo Memory Sticks on your PSP
How to browse the web with your PSP
How to get TiVoToGo shows onto your PSP
How to get e-books on your PSP
How to read web comics on your PSP
How to get manga on your PSP
Creating Sony Thumbnail files
PSP dead pixel checker
How to use your Mac to play PSP games over the web
How to take apart your PSP
Reading RSS feeds on your PSP
How to get videos and DVDs onto your PSP

For those of you who follow my Miskan posts, here are the pictures I promised of the paper pack samples. [Link]

Today I found a spelling error in a CNN.com article. The first time nataly found a spelling mistake she posted about it so I decided to post this to. CNN wrote stable instead of label in the following paragraph:

Knight founded the label now known as Tha Row Inc. in 1992, signing some of the world’s biggest rap artists, including Tupac Shakur, Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg. His stable dominated rap music for much of the 1990s.

[Link]

Update: My mistake, one of the definitions of stable is “A group, as of athletes or entertainers, under common management: a stable of prizefighters”

You might be a syrian in lebanon if

10. you spent the last two months hiding in ‘jall mowz ‘ on the outskirts of saida

9. you hang out at the termoss unemployment line with 5000 other guys like you

8. the market for skekeen matbakh in dbayyeh burst like the internet bubble in 2001

7. the syrian you were watching who was watching a lebnese was sent back home

6. you’ve spent the last couple of months training to say “keefak “and “mish heyk?”

5. the last time you remember being so scared, you were still in syria

4. you painted your yellow chevrolet 1956 taxi “cedar green”

3. you get free bus rides from homs to beirut if you agree to carry a lebanese flag

2. the big wasta you had from your sisters husband from korda7a who is a colonel in the syrian airforce is only good to get you a seat on a bus back to sham

1. the last time you earned money was when you showed up at Hizballahs PROSYRIA demonstration in beirut

By Naycola

Have you guys seen the knew BKME logo? Its depressing. How can a bank like BKME be so stupid I don’t know. I don’t blame the designer. The designer is crap, I am sure he knows that already. I blame the people at BKME who accepted such tragic work. My god, its a disaster! Firstly, before I start talking about the logo, lets talk about the 4×3 Mega’s on the road where the logo is on. You DO NOT use yellow type on a white background. Its very unreadable. They not only used yellow type on a white background, they used it on their outdoor ads!! If you are driving up to the ad on the street you will not see “Al Awsat” written in yellow until you slam into the ad. Its impossible to read when its in a newspaper yet alone an ad on the street 50 meters away while you are zooming buy in you car at 100km/h. Thats their first mistake. Lets talk about the logo. Is that a pearl? Come on, who was the genius who thought of that? Very creative. I am sure no one ever thought about it before (Note: I am being sarcastic here). Even Gulf Bank uses the pearl for their Dana account. Anyway, whatever, fine, go with the pearl, but at-least be a bit more creative about it. It looks like a shop that sells marbles for kids. Their logo really pisses me off.

You know what the problem is? People think being a designer is easy. People think anyone can be a designer. People think that if they take a course in Adobe Photoshop at some trashy institute in Salmiya they automatically are designers. Thats bullshit. If thats true then what did I do for 4 years at university? Why do designers go get their masters then their PhDs? Taking a course in Photoshop at an institute just means you now know how to use 5% of Photoshops capabilities. Thats all. We spend the first two years of university not being allowed to use any computers in our design work. They teach us that the computer is just a tool, its just a means to get what you have in your head onto paper. Thats all. So they spend the first 2 years teaching us about other tools like drawing, painting, silk screen printing, sculpturing, stencils and tons more stuff. Not only that but as a designer you need to be creative, and have taste, both things which many people lack. Why is GianFranco Ferre designing clothes and you aren’t? Why is Philip Starck designing everything from hotel rooms to sneakers and you aren’t? They got it you don’t, its that simple.

Anyway it doesn’t matter. BKME is the one losing here. The new Osoul logo even has a readability problem. Osoul in arabic can be read as Osoul or Osoud. The reason for that is the L in the end is not shaped correctly. The L could look like an L or a D. It goes both ways. Fine the majority will read it as an L but the fact that it might be read as a D is a problem. Now the logo is out and I am sure Osoul is getting comments about it. It could have been so easy to fix but it wasn’t. Below is just a mockup I did in 2 minutes of what could have been done to avoid this Osoul/Osoud mix up.

Osoul Logo

Osoul Logo Fixed

But anyway this post has become to long so I will stop. Its just very frustrating for me because these bad designers give us all a bad reputation and image. The client needs to be able to trust us and bad designers make this trust harder to form.

I actually started 2:48AM so I can post pictures that didn’t make the cut on Miskan.com. This picture is from yesterday but I decided to go with the visually more attractive Caution sign. This fire is from near my house. A garbadge bin was set on fire and there were 2 cops standing near it waiting for the fire trucks to come. One of the cops saw me take a picture and called me over. When I went to him he asked me if I was a journalist. I told him no. He was like why are you taking a picture? I told him because its something interesting. I asked him if fire trucks were gonna come, he replied saying they were. Then he asked me if I want to take a picture of them. I told him I couldn’t since I had to leave. I said thank you and left. [large pic link]

So I am checking my stats today for Miskan.com and I notice that a lot of people are coming from Josh Rubin’s Cool Hunting blog. So I go to his site and to my surprise there it was, a post about Miskan!!! FUCKING COOL! Here is the link.

Today I found the old Pizza Hut logo and I realized how much I missed it. I don’t like the new logo, never did. I don’t like the new shop designs also. I used to really like the Pizza Hut in the old Salmiya where it was right next to Hungry Bunny. The place had carpet floors which I love in restaurants and it was also dimly lit. Now with the current logo and interior design the place looks really cheap.

I am pro Sony PSP. I definetly think its a way cooler machine then the GameBoy DS which is big and clunky. The Sony PSP games are way cooler and the connectivity features of the PSP are also a lot cooler. In a recent comparison in WIRED magazine between the PSP and DS, the PSP ofcourse came out on top. But today I read an argument about the PSP that I found interesting. The PSP is better then the DS, we know that, but how much better it could have been is the issue here.

Here is the rant I read taken from Joystiq:

The PSP’s battery is a topic of huge debate. Depending on use, a single charge can last anywhere between 6 hours all the way down to 1.5, depending on which features the handheld utilizes. Why is this?

I seriously ask, should you as a consumer and gamer, have to juggle volume and brightness to eke out a bit more play time? Should game developers be asked to manage the battery consumption or should that be an issue for the developer of the system? Basically, shouldn’t the system, when used at maximum capacity, have a reasonable battery life?

If Sony hadn’t tried to force an optical drive in the PSP, there would be much more room in the system for a larger capacity battery. Load times would be nonexistent. The system would be less fragile and prone to breaking due to mechanical failure. The system wouldn’t have the shuriken UMD ‘feature’. Overall, it would be a much better system. Sony’s reliance on the optical disc has resulted in a worse product than could have otherwise been built.

Why? Why did Sony insist on putting an optical drive in the PSP when it had to compromise on so many other issues? Simple, Sony wants to sell you movies and music on the UMD. They want you to buy a UMD movie for $20. That UMD movie has 1/3 the resolution of a similar priced DVD. That UMD movie can’t be played back on a TV. That UMD movie does not have additional DVD features, menus, subtitles or other cool things you may find on a DVD. Sony makes nearly 100% profit on movies and music.

Sony sacrificed the PSP in order to make money off of movies.

Now, before you start calling names, I’m not laying hate on the PSP. Nice screen. Sleek, shiny case. Good graphics. Nice.

I look at the decisions made by Sony and I see decisions that are absolute trash for gamers but great for lining Sony’s pockets with money. I feel frustrated knowing the PSP could have been so much more if they would simply step up to the plate and decide to knock a home run out of the park instead of walking to first base on the back of movies and music. The missed potential for a system with an 8 hour battery, fully loaded with wi-fi on, makes me weep.

4 hours isn’t enough. 2 hours is a downright embarrassment. As gamers, we should demand more.

I found this link to a website with a very comprehensive guide on finding MP3s using google. Since AllofMp3.com is probably gonna get shut down soon and I hate using P2P software, this will be another way of finding some music. Oh how I miss the golden days of AudioGalaxy..

I was checking the top views for my pictures at my flickr account and the results are pretty strange, here is the top 5:

#1 Where Apple’s Go to Die 1325 views
#2 Fuck Me Boots 1261 views
#3 Incest 842 views
#4 The Red Light District 461 views
#5 I See Dead People 441 views

Recently you might have noticed these ads on some buses advertising this restaurant called Wildfire. Well yesterday evening me and nat decided to pass by and give it a try. The place is located in Kuwait City in Mubarak Al Kabeer Street opposite the “Blockat” shops and the Chamber of Commerce building. The first impression wasn’t very good. The signage outside was in lime green and looked very cheap. When we got closer we saw the inside from the large window next to the door and the place looked small and like a hotel lobby with a small bar and small tables. Once we went in though we realized that it WAS actually a lobby / coffee shop for the restaurant which is located upstairs. Once we went in we were greeted with very friendly faces and led to the restaurant upstairs. When we reached the top we were once again greeted with smiles and they asked if we would like a private cabin. We said yes.. the first mistake. The restaurant on the inside is much bigger then i expected. Its clean, dimly lit and the furniture all new as it should be expected since the place just opened at the end of ramadan. The private cabin though was claustrophobic. The table was long and very slim like an oversized ironing table and the benches were very uncomfortable. It was also getting stuffy inside so we decided to keep the cabin door open. Then they brought us the menu which was the biggest surprise of the evening. Wildfire has simply the largest menu I have ever seen in Kuwait with nearly 200 dishes to choose from. Their menu has everything from extravagant cocktails and milkshakes to all types of dishes from Indian, Chinese and even Fish & Chips and Club Sandwiches. They even have lobster and crab for sea food lovers. The menu has 20 pages of everything you could imagine. We decided to have shrimp spring-rolls, kindu prawns, mongolian chicken and egg fried rice. We decided to skip the soup because weren’t that hungry but they did have shark fin soup which is usually my favorite. The shrimp spring rolls arrived first. They were too crunchy, had green peppers and weren’t very tasty. I hate green pepper in my food so my vote shouldn’t count here but nat doesn’t mind them and she also thought the spring-rolls were bland. The main course arrived soon after we finished. When he first put the food on the table I noticed the mongolian chicken was bright red. Thats the first time I see it like that, usually its dark brown, the kindu prawns also looked like normal prawns with a bit of light brownish sauce, again its not supposed to look like that. The food tasted as good as they looked, not very good. My mongolian chicken was not spicy at all and its supposed to be very spicy. Natalys kindu prawns tasted like normal prawns, the kindu part of it was tasteless. The rice was one of the worst I have tried, very boring in flavor and dry. We were very disappointed. The large menu led us to believe that we would keep coming back to try different things but after our meal we knew this would be the last time we would ever come back. The bill turned out to be 8KD, that also included 1 coke and 2 bottles of water. We left a 1KD tip and left. The waiters asked us how good the food was and I lied and told them it was great.. I couldn’t be bothered to explain why I didn’t enjoy the whole meal. The final score for the place is 3 out of 5. I would have given it 2 but the extremely large menu and the very friendly service helped raise the score. Maybe the Indian menu is better then the Chinese, maybe our dishes were not their speciality, whatever the case is, we didn’t enjoy our meal and we will most probably never go back.

Their website is wildfirekwt.com but it wasn’t working when I tried it now. Their phone numbers are 2476886 and 2476996. Below are 2 pictures from the outside.

Picture 1
Picture 2

Rami (Tivo Guy) got his Mac Mini yesterday. He ordered it the day they got released but since he customized his, he had to wait a lot longer to get it. He promised me he will take pictures of his Mac Mini to share with us all. As soon as he puts them up I will link to them.

I will be out of the office all day today I think. At 11AM I have an appointment with a photographer. He is supposed to shoot 46 KDD icecream buckets I need to be there when he does that. 46 buckets and 4 angles for each shot.. its gonna take forever!

Update: Here are his pictures of the Mac Mini!!