Search: “mis”

Red Bull sent us the results of the Flugtag and we weren’t last we actually came in 17th place! Pretty cool.

1 THE FLYING STARS
2 OPTICAL BOYS
3 BLACK PEARL
4 MISHAAL AL NAJADI
5 AMZN
6 THE PHOENIX
7 eL ¼
8 THE RED CARPET TEAM
9 THE FLYING PIRATES
10 NISSAN ZEPPELINS
11 DRAGON FLY
12 CIRQUE DU SULTAN
13 HUNGER 7
14 BLIZZARD
15 BUTTER FLY
16 THE FLYING MUMMY
17 IMPERIAL 27
18 HKM 3
19 DIET CENTER
20 B-TUNES
21 FLYING ANGELS
22 DREAM TEAM
23 BENQEEZ
24 FLYING LOGISTICS
25 DIVAS TEAM
26 4TH RING
27 PIRATES OF THE ARABIAN
28 AUTO TECH

Probably the only exhibition at Mishref that is worth going to and its going to be held from November 28th till December 4th. One automotive event I am surprised they haven’t repeated again is the 4×4 one that was held at Marina Crescent like 2 years ago. [Link]

I just found out the Nokia N810 got released. I saw pictures of it previously but I thought it was going to come out some time next year, guess I misread. The N810 has built in wifi, GPS and a keyboard (finally). I always disliked the earlier models because the lack of a keyboard so its cool they finally installed one. The tablet is selling on Amazon for $459. [Amazon Link]

I just got the following email which I found strange since not only is the event in a few hours but its also being held nearly at the same time as the premier of the movie Sharq.

Dear Lovers of cinema,

The Embassy of the Republic of Poland, in cooperation with the Kuwait Cine Club, has the pleasure to invite You to the screening of the film “In the name of” directed by Beata Hughes.

The event will take place at the premises of the Kuwait Cine Club (map enclosed) on Sunday, November 18th at 7 p.m.

The film tells a story of three women and their struggles on the path to fulfillment and happiness. Its aim is to indicate that every human being has a potential that can develop into a passion, individual’s fight against the odds and standing up to mediocrity. One can also give up one’s dreams and follow the crowd’s expectations.

The film could be described as minimalist, with hidden meanings, surreal and open for interpretation.

During the event a discussion with film’s director and cameraman are planned.

Hope to see You on Sunday evening,

Best regards,

Watch the trailer [Here]

Just a reminder, don’t forget to check www.itsthefastestever.com at 9PM tonight for the launch of Zain’s new product. The site will be up only from 9PM to 10PM so don’t miss it.

I just got back from a late night ride. I hadn’t ridden since the beginning of summer and ever since TriStar had picked up my bike and serviced it last week my bike has been begging to be taken out. Tonight was his lucky night.

I was walking Geo and noticed the weather was just amazing so when I got home I suited up and went out for a ride. Salmiya was deserted and I had all the streets to myself so I took full advantage and rode up and down at my pace enjoying my time. I was a bit rusty so I felt a lot more comfortable riding alone with no traffic just in case I made a mistake.

One thing I realized, the weather is a lot nicer in shorts and a tshirt. My full bike gear which includes thick riding pants and a thick riding jacket kinda made things hot but it still felt great riding. I think I will do this every night, its very peaceful and mind clearing.

I just found an article by mistake on the Kuwait Times website on the demise of the orange taxi’s. Although I’ve never used them before I’ve always been intrigued by them. According to the article though they might not be around for much longer, with no help from the government and a lot more competition, the orange taxi’s are quickly losing ground to buses and jawal taxis. [Link]

Picture by mahooya

We decided to pass by the London Zoo today since its in Camden Town close to where we wanted to do some shopping. The zoo is larger than the Kuwait Zoo (duh) but much smaller than the San Diego Zoo. They have an incredible gorilla exhibit surprisingly with around 3 gorillas. The zoo looks like it was built in a forest, the whole area around the zoo is a huge green park with hills and trees and the inside of the zoo is the same. The zoo is actually split in two with a canal passing through, you need to cross a bridge to get to the other side, very cool. There are a couple of more pictures if you click on continue.

We left Paris today and got back to London but not without going on one hell of a ride.

We got to the Eurostar train station in Paris around 5PM which was around an hour before our train was set to leave. When we got to the automatic check in the machine rejected our tickets. I couldn’t understand why until an employee there arrived to help us and explained to us the problem. Our train had left over an hour earlier!

I am not one to make a lot of mistakes, I am usually the extremely reliable guy who plays it really safe and always tries to arrive earlier than the recommended time. Somehow, for some fucked up reason, I read our London arrival time as our Paris departure time. I can’t understand how that happened, looking at my non refundable non exchangeable ticket now I can’t imagine how I mixed up the departure and arrival times. Its right up on my list of dumbest things I have done in my life. We had missed our train out of Paris and that was just the beginning of our adventure.

There was another train leaving to London in around 2 hours so we headed to the really long cue queue to buy tickets and waited. While in line I tried calling NBK on 801801 to try and move money onto my credit card. I didn’t know how much I had left on the card and I didn’t know how much the tickets would cost so I figured I would play it safe and move some more money onto my visa. I spent 15 minutes trying to call Kuwait without any luck when suddenly I got through and got a hold of the NBK operator and explained to her that I wanted to move money onto my card. After 10 minutes of trying the NBK operator told me there was a problem with the NBK automated system and I should call back in 15 minutes.

We got up to the ticket counter and we asked for 2 one way tickets out of Paris. The employee told us we could get on the next train, price was 236 Euros per person which amounted to a total of 472 for the two of us. That was more than DOUBLE what I had paid for 3 weeks ago for our two way tickets! We didn’t have any other option so we asked for the tickets but when we tried paying for them both my credit card and Nat’s got rejected. Our cards were maxed out, it just wasn’t our luck.

Now you are probably thinking why didn’t I just withdraw money from an ATM machine and pay for the tickets with cash? Well the problem is when I travel I don’t keep a lot of money in my ATM card account so that just in case I get mugged at an ATM machine I can only withdraw a certain amount of money (I watch a lot of movies). It’s never been a problem before because I always use my credit card for my purchases and if I needed more money than whats available on my ATM card I just transfer more onto it.

So here was the situation, my Macbook had no battery and I didn’t have the charger so I couldn’t connect to a wifi network at the train station. There was also no Internet cafe at the station but even if there was I didn’t want to access my bank account from a public computer. I couldn’t get a hold of NBK, the answering machine never came on it just kept ringing and no one was picking up. Since I couldn’t connect to my NBK account I couldn’t use my credit card and I couldn’t withdraw any money so I was pretty much fucked.

I decided to call my sister and have her log into my NBK account and transfer money, problem was she wasn’t at home and the line kept breaking up. I then started calling my friends one by one to see if they were near an Internet connection including Bader, Marzouq and Khalid but no one was near a computer. It was just freaking frustrating. I had the money to buy the fucking tickets to get the hell out of Paris but I just couldn’t get that money onto my ATM or credit card! Time was running out by now and I needed to buy the tickets.

We decided to leave the station and head out around town looking for a place to get Internet access. After around 30 minutes of exploring and asking people we finally found an Internet cafe. I asked the guy if I could connect with my macbook but he told me it wouldn’t be possible. I looked at his computers, they had Windows XP on it… I had no clue if there were any trojans or softwares that would read and store my bank account info and passwords on the machines but I didn’t have an option, I was desperate and I just needed Internet. In literally 2 minutes I had logged into my bank account, transferred money onto my ATM and credit card and was out of the cafe. Thats all I needed, 2 fucking minutes of Internet to change the direction of my life.

We ran back to the train station with 45 minutes to spare but now we were back in the cue queue to buy tickets. 30 minutes later we purchased the tickets. The employee told us something about how our seats would be pull down seats but we didn’t care we just wanted to get on the train. We checked in, passed through passport and security check which luckily was empty and ran towards our train. If we had just been 1 minute late we would have missed the train again.

When we finally got on the train and the doors shut and we started moving, it was just the most amazing feeling of relief. Our fold down seats were these tiny seats located between the carriage cars (pictures above). They weren’t really that bad, it was kinda cozy sitting in between the carriage cars alone.

I can’t believe how an average day turned into such a mess. First thing I did when I got to my hotel room here in London was log on to the internet and change my NBK online banking password. Also when I get back to Kuwait I am going to take out another credit card and keep it aside just in case of emergencies like today. Finally Nat is going to be taking care of our traveling from now on, I am losing it!

I thought I sent a post earlier in the day from my phone saying I was in Paris but I just checked and it didn’t get posted. We arrived here today morning and we will be leaving tomorrow night. Its kinda like speed shopping/tourism. Being here makes me miss the London Underground. The Metro here in Paris is moldy and fugly.

A friend of mine passed me his two iPhones today to unlock. He purchased them around the same time I purchased my last iPhone except his arrived with the 1.1.1 firmware while mine luckily arrived with the 1.0.2 one. Yesterday an updated version of AnySIM got released which I posted about and which supposedly unlocked the 1.1.1 iPhones but I tried it and it didn’t work.

The steps to unlocking a 1.1.1 iPhone are fairly easy, its just one tiny extra step compared to unlocking the 1.0.2 phones.

1) I downloaded the latest version of INdependence
2) I ran it and clicked on the option to Enter DFU mode (this is the option that you didn’t have to do with 1.0.2)
3) I quit INdependence, ran iTunes and restored the phone to version 1.0.2
4) I quit iTunes and ran INdependence again
5) I clicked on Activate
6) I then clicked on Jailbreak
7) I then clicked on install SSH
8) I FTP’ed to the phone and copied AnySIM
9) I ran AnySIM

Thats all the steps required to activate and unlock the iPhone. I also installed AppTapp but that can be done later. Now my issue is everything went smoothly except for the AnySIM unlock. It ran and gave me an error at the end which is normal, but when I rebooted it still wouldn’t work with the local GSM network. I tried unlocking both iPhones and had the same issue. Everything else on the iPhone works except for the phone. I don’t know if this is happening with other people or if I missed a step somewhere but whatever the reason might be it’s too late at night to figure it out.

Pepsi wins!

INDIANA, Pa. (AP) — The long-standing rivalry between Coke and Pepsi took a physical turn Friday when a Pepsi deliveryman allegedly punched his Coke counterpart in the face at a western Pennsylvania Wal-Mart, state police said.

The two deliverymen were “apparently bickering back and forth” while unloading their wares at the Indiana County store, police said. When the Coke deliveryman left the store, his counterpart allegedly punched him in the face three times, breaking his nose and giving him a black eye, police said.

No charges have been filed, but police characterized the incident as a misdemeanor simple assault. [Source]

A reader in the forum reported seeing a meteor on the first day of Eid over Kuwait and managed to take some pictures. I’ve never seen one live before not even a shooting star so I am kinda pissed I missed out on this. You can see the rest of the pictures in the forum. [Link]

Update: And here is a video of it! [YouTube]

Thanks Fattboa and q8h2o

I know a lot of people will be traveling to Europe during the Eid so I just wanted to share some handy travel software that will work on Nokia phones and in some cases other smartphones, iPods and PDA’s.

I already previously posted about A-Z Maps which I purchased before I traveled to London for the first time last month. It was an incredibly easy to use software which allowed me to navigate London very easily as if I had been there before. The company has maps for other cities also including Paris, Barcelona and Helsinki. The map starts up instantly when you run it and then you just type the name of the street you are in and the software will show you where you are on the map. It’s also not expensive costing around KD10. More details on this software is available on the publishers website. https://www.lumisoft.net/

Another software I recently purchased in my preparation for my London trip later this month is Tube 2. When I was in Paris last month I had a hard time navigating the underground subway system and this software will be making my life a lot easier this time around. I purchased two versions of the software, the Tube 2 London and Tube 2 Paris. How it works is you type the name of the station you are in and then type the name of the station you want to go to and the software will visually show you your route on the underground map AND it will also give you step by step instructions. Here is an example of a trip from the Marble Arch to Waterloo station:

Marble Arch to Waterloo
Time: 13 minutes
Changes: 1

1. Marble Arch to Bond Street
Depart Marble Arch via the Central line (Eastbound) towards Epping for 1 stop.
Service runs every 5 minutes.

2. Bond Street to Waterloo
At Bond Street change to the Jubilee line (Southbound) towards Stratford for 3 stops.
Service runs every 5 minutes.

3. Waterloo
Arrive at Waterloo.

As you can see it makes things a lot easier. The software costs like KD3 and its available for the London, Paris and New York subway system. You can get more information from the software publishers website. They also have versions that work on iPods but they work differently. https://visualit.co.uk/

The good stuff:
– It’s pretty
– Excellent browser
– Everyone wants to touch your iphone
– It has an iPod built in
– Touch screen is amazing
– Decent camera
– It’s cheap, KD95 for 4GB and KD130 for 8GB (with shipping to Kuwait) prices the iPhone very competitively to other regular phones from Nokia and Sony Ericsson

The bad stuff:
– Once you have an iPhone you realize its just a phone
– If you have a lot of numbers its a real pain finding a contact
– Everyone wants to touch your iphone
– Typing on the iPhone is a joke
– Battery life is a bigger joke, barely lasts a day with below average use
– Adding a ringtone is a hassle
– Majority of headphones won’t work with it
– Not as useful or fun without a wireless internet or GPRS connection
– You have a lot of basic phone features missing like forwarding an SMS, turning off the predictive dictionary, different phone profiles, searching for contacts etc.. etc.. etc..

Would I recommend it?
If you aren’t a heavy phone user yes.
If you don’t send a lot of messages also yes.
For everyone else, no.

Final score, 3.5 out of 5. Nat loves it although she has issues with it. I personally could never have an iPhone as my primary phone.

Update: I now use the iPhone as my primary phone and can’t imagine life without it. The software 2.0 brought with it the app store which has made the iphone a lot more interesting for me.