Search: “sti”

King Abdullah is an acknowledged fan of Star Trek. In 1995, while he was still Prince, he appeared as an extra in the Star Trek: Voyager episode “Investigations.” Abdullah’s role was not given any speaking lines because he was not a member of the Screen Actors Guild.

[source wikipedia]

(thank you Sakta for this info)

There is a new mall opening near AUK in Salmiya called Symphony Mall. A friend of mine was telling me today that its supposed to be the most luxurious mall in Kuwait. According to what he heard they will have the worlds most expensive bathroom at this mall. Woman would be able to get foot massages in the bathroom. There will also be a water bar at the mall with a whole variety of bottled water from around the globe. Carrying your own bags will also be a thing of the past, Symphony Mall will provide shoppers with their own slave personal assitant who will carry the bags for them.

Should turn out to be an interesting place..

So its been like 3 months now since I got my Motorola V3x. People ask me what I think about the phone and its hard to give them a direct answer. I personally love the phone but I don’t understand why. There are so many things that are wrong with it I don’t know why I haven’t gotten rid of it yet.

The phone is stupid. When I first got the phone and I tried sending a picture via bluetooth I couldn’t get it to work. I would select the image, click on “options” and then “send to” but it would only give me the option to send by MMS. I was like what the fuck is this crap and I just left it at that. Then one day I was telling a friend of mine who also owns a Motorola about how I can’t send pictures with bluetooth and he tells me I can. Basically what you have to do is select the image, click on “options” then click on “manage” and then click on “copy” and then choose the bluetooth device you want to send the picture to. I was like shocked, what idiot came up with this incredibly unnatural method of sending a picture by bluetooth? By default if people want to send a picture to another phone they will click on “send” not “manage” then “copy”.

The phone is riddled with strange shit like that. Sending an SMS is a pain because the T9 dictionary keeps forgetting words I teach it. The word “fuck” which I use a lot never even gets saved in the dictionary for some unknown reason. Other words, mostly names of people I know seem to be forgotten by the dictionary after a certain amount of time. Its just really weird.

The worst thing has to be that sometimes people on the other end of the line don’t hear me clearly. People have reported strange beeping sounds, crackles and white noise. It doesn’t happen when I am using the 3G network but sometimes when the 3G signal is low the phone swaps to the regular 2G and thats when the problems occur. I heard a firmware update solves this issue but I haven’t tried it.

With all this unlogical and unexplainable issues I still love the phone. Its fast, I hate it when machines can’t catch up to my needs. With the V3x in the 3 months I have owned the phone not once did I have to wait a single second for it to “think” or “act”. Everything is instant from canceling a call, to redialing, to exiting and entering menus. Never a lag, never a hiccup. The phone also has some nice features like if I don’t read a message or view a missed call, the phone vibrates and beeps once every 5 (or could be 10) minutes. The phone is also customizable, I can move menus around and assign every single button on the phone to perform an action different then what it was supposed to do. Its small little things like that which makes this phone a pleasure to use.

Overall though I wouldn’t recommend this phone to anyone, I wouldn’t recommend Motorola at all not just this phone. I love it and I am still not fully sure why, I mean it could be just because I think the phone looks cool but in general most people should hate it.

A week ago Z District reviewed the Seagate Portable HD and although I am a Seagate fan I thought the hard drive looked ugly and fragile. This is why I decided to put up a review of the drive that competes directly with the Seagate one, the Western Digital Passport.

I ordered the 120GB Western Digital Passport drive so I could use it to back my MP3s and personal work. I already have an external drive but I needed something much smaller and portable. Since I was going to use it for my most important data, the drive had to be reliable and durable. Thats why I went with the Passport drive, I have never had any problems with Western Digital hard drives and from the pictures the Passport drive looked like it could take a beating. Now that I have it sitting in front of me I can tell you that it can.

The Passport drive case is made from 2 materials, half of it is alluminum and the other half is rubber. The drive feels like its indestructable but still looks really slick and extremely cool. The other positive thing is you only need 1 USB slot to both power and run the drive unlike the Seagate which requires 2 USB slots.

I really am in love with the drive and can’t find a single flaw except for the fact that 120GB is the largest size available. I give it a 4.5 out of 5.

Buy the 40GB WD Passport drive from Amazon
Buy the 80GB WD Passport drive from Amazon
Buy the 120GB WD Passport drive from Amazon

So the other day I get a call from a driver with some goodies for me. Someone had contacted me the day before asking me if I would like to try some brownies, muffins and cookies and I had happily accepted and now the driver was here with my stuff. I couldn’t wait, brownies, muffins and cookies, three of my favorite munchies for me to try out.

When I first opened the bag though I was disappointed, the muffins were Blue Berry muffins and I only eat chocolate muffins and the cookies were like chocolate with walnuts or something and I only eat chocolate chip. So 2 out of the 3 items I couldn’t eat which sucked. BUT, the brownies were regular chocolate brownies and I had no problem with those.

I had a blue plate in front of me with a dozen warm brownies on them and they looked really delicious. So I had one, then another followed by another. They were pretty good, they were soft and rich without being to sweet or heavy. Nat also tried them and really liked them to. I didn’t know how much they cost or what the place that made them was called since I didn’t get a menu neither did I get any kind of material with information on the place. So I sent an email to the guy who had contacted me and I asked him for some info and this is what I found out.

The service turned out is called The Daily Fresh. They launched less then 2 months ago and are still in the testing stage where they are still finalizing their menu with the different flavors and prices. Next month (September) they will have everything finalized including the menus and prices but for now you can order a dozen brownies for only KD3. Thats only 250fils per brownies which is a really good deal for what you are getting.

Currently the only other place I know of that delivers brownies is LoFat. Problem is LoFat’s brownies cost 500 fils each and are about half the size of the brownies from The Daily Fresh. They also taste just as good so there is no advantage except the low fat part but info on that is a bit abstract at the moment.

If you are interested in ordering some brownies all you need to do is call The Daily Fresh on 7702422.

Etisalat the only ISP in UAE has recently started blocking YouTube. I always thought UAE was more “open” than Kuwait with all the alcohol, prostitution and a lot more westerners yet the ISP seems more conservative then the Saudi Arabian government. Last year they blocked Flickr which was EXTREMLY popular with all the creative photographers in UAE and now they blocked YouTube. Etisalat just really sucks. [Link]

I have an Exabyte VXA-1 tape drive which I want to give away for free. It takes 33GB tapes and they are very very reliable. You could shove the tapes into a freezer or dump them into boiling coffee and you would still be able to retreive the information from them. The version of the tape drive I have is external and connects using Firewire. The price of this tape drive brand new is $1,099.

I am giving the drive away for free because I am having problems with it. I don’t know if its a software problem or hardware problem. I passed it to TivoGuy and he was able to get it working but when I tried using it on my Mac it would sometimes backup the data and sometimes it would give me an error. It could be from the backup tapes, it could be a software problem or it could be a hardware problem. I am not sure and I don’t care. If you want the tape drive just leave a comment below. You will get it without any tapes and without the firewire cable. If more then one person wants the drive then I will give it to the geekiest one.

For more info on the drive click [Here]

An interesting article that lists 10 points that help make a problogger. I personally have three points I follow: Post often, posts must be interesting, and posts must be short. [Link]

Just watched two funny commercials. One is for Energizer the other is for FedEx. Both won bronze at the Cannes Awards this year.

Energizer Beard
FedEx Stick

Hard Candy was one of the movies I was looking forward to watch this year but sadly it disappointed me. Going into the movie I really didn’t know what it was about. All I knew was what I got from the trailer and that is a young girl meets an old guy over the Internet and then they meet up and things go wrong. Based on what I knew and what I was expecting, fifteen minutes into the movie and the whole thing takes a surprising 180 degree turn which was probably the coolest part in the movie. After that things just dragged for me.

One thing I have to say, the movie is visually stunning. The colors and styling in the house where most of the story takes place is really cool. The movie on the other-hand I felt was too long although the ending was very short. The movie finished and I was still trying to figure out what had happened and making sure I understood things correctly. Anyway I really can’t say much about the movie because I wouldn’t want to ruin any surprises. I am also going to advise you NOT to read the plot summary or ask questions about the movie and just watch it knowing very little. That way you will be in for a nice shock. For me the movie didn’t live up to my expectations and thats why I am giving it a 3.5 out of 5.

I got a phonecall from the USWS owner yesterday asking my opinion on something. At the moment when you sign up with USWS they ask you if you want your mailbox checked once a week, twice a month or once a month. He wanted to know if we (USWS users) would rather have it this way..

Instead of a set frequency, WE get to decide when we want our stuff shipped. Say you order a bunch of stuff from Amazon, they ship it to your USWS mailbox as 3 boxes. 2 boxes arrive today and the third is still on its way. Once the third package arrives (say the next day), you go to your USWS account, select the 3 packages and click on ship now. Your packages then get shipped the same day. Currently if you tell them to ship a package right now you pay $20, they will be removing that charge.

Another example, say a magazine arrived to your mailbox today but you are planning to order stuff from Amazon next week. You can decide to keep the magazine in your mailbox until your Amazon packages arrive and then you can have them shipped all together and that way you save on shipping.

Another example is say you have 5 packages in your mailbox, you can decide to ship 3 now and leave the other 2 there to be shipped later whenever you want.

Am I being clear here? Basically they will get rid of the shipping frequencies and the 20$ ship now fee. They will let you decide when YOU want your packages shipped and then ship it when you tell them to. I personally find this a lot cooler since its faster and more affordable for us. Instead of having them ship 1 magazine and have me pay KD2.5 for it, I would rather attach the magazine to another heavier package and save on shipping. I also love the idea of having my packages shipped the same day they arrive if I want and at no extra cost.

If you are a USWS account holder please leave your feedback below. Let them know if you prefer this method or prefer the older one.

Yesterday I was invited for another test drive by Alghanim Automotive. I was hoping they would give me some small crappy car so I could give it a bad review and show everyone that if the car sucked I would say it sucked. Sadly, that didn’t happen. Yesterday I took the new Cadillac BLS for a drive and it was far from being crappy.

I picked up a gorgeous silver top of the line BLS from the dealer and drove down to the Gulf Road. The BLS is the smallest car Cadillac makes and the one I drove came with a V6 2.8L Turbo engine pumping out 250HP so it was fast. As soon as I hit the Gulf Road I got a call from a friend who had spotted me. He asked me if I was turning into Jermey Clarkson and he then asked what car I was driving since it looked really cool. Now this came from someone who drives an M3 so you can imagine how good the car must look. Pictures actually don’t do justice to the hard edged geometrically cut car so you need to see it in person to really appreciate its beauty.

I closed the phone with my friend and blasted down the Gulf Road. The Cadillac BLS I was driving came with a 6-speed automatic and paddle shift. I am used to the F1 style paddle shift where you use your fingers to change gear but the Cadillac BLS is the one where you use your thumbs instead. It felt awkward at first but I quickly got the hang of it. The interior seems to follow the styling cues of the new Cadillac Escalade which is a really good thing since it means its very un-American. Everything felt very plush and sophisticated and I just love that in a car.

After a long drive I parked the car and took some shots of the exterior and interior. When I was done I drove back to the dealership and handed them the keys. Cadillac really have come a long way when it comes to aesthetics. There is no other car in the market that looks like a Cadillac, its got a style all on its own. The only downside I could think of with the BLS is the engine sound. I would have preferred a louder grunt from a 250HP engine but I guess many people would rather have a quiet engine than a loud one.

The price of the fully loaded Cadillac BLS is KD11,995 which makes its more affordable than a similarly specced BMW or Mercedes. Its a pretty cool car for a sedan.

Why is it nearly impossible for an expat to get the Kuwaiti citizenship? I am saying nearly impossible because I know of some Lebanese who were given the Kuwaiti nationality which means its not totally impossible.

I wasn’t born in Kuwait (my brother and sister were) but I did grow up here and my parents have been in Kuwait since the early 70s. So why is it I can’t become a Kuwaiti citizen? If I was living anywhere else for this long I would have already been a citizen of that country by now. Here on the other hand I still need a visa and a sponsor so I could just stay in Kuwait.

If today was July 24, 1990 and a week from now Iraq was going to invade I would stand ground and try to fight off the Iraqis alongside the Kuwaitis. I like Kuwait, I like NBK, I like KDD, I like oil, I like Entertainment City and I like Mama Aneesa, so why can’t I become a Kuwaiti? [Link]

update: There is now a further discussion taking place in the [Forum]

Re-cut trailers refers to a re-edited film trailer that is created by re-editing footage from that film, or possibly just from that film’s trailer. Re-cut trailers have become a popular internet phenomenon since fall of 2005. In almost all cases, these re-cut trailers derive their humor from casting the film’s plot in a different light- these fake trailers present the film as something that it is very much not. For instance, a film with a murderous plot is made to look like a light and happy film, or vice versa. [Link]

Interesting… [Link]