Search: “sti”

Have you guys tried Habbo Hotel before? I used to be addicted to it back when I was still in university. Habbo Hotel is basically an online community and its based in a hotel. You create your own character and you wonder around the hotel meeting people. You can hang out at the bar, or at the club or even in the lobby. The whole thing has a Sims feel to it although Habbo Hotel was around long before The Sims was released. If you guys never tried it before it is worth the experience. [Link]

This has to be the longest lasting April Fools prank of the year. On April 1st Maynard Keenan the lead frontman for one my favorite bands Tool sent an email saying he found Jesus. This was an obvious attempt to mock Brian Welch from Korn who a few months earlier decided to leave Korn because “he had found god“. Surprisingly though many people didn’t get joke and till today people still don’t it was just a joke. Even Nibaq was telling me the other day that if I knew Maynard had found Jesus. Here is a link with details on this April Fools prank, something like a detailed history of it.

By the way, now that I think about it, Keenan sounds like a Lebanese family name pronounced Kin-3an. Interesting…

Yesterday while chatting with Tivo Guy over lunch about my DSL options, he mentioned UCC. I was like UCC? Never heard of them. Turns out UCC is Gulfnet which is Kuwait.net. I thought they had died a few years but turns out they are still alive. So later on in the evening I got to Shownet to cancel my account (finally got it over with) and the guy there was tells me that they have a new DSL only service in collaboration with.. UCC. Interesting how when you hear about something for the first time and then suddenly hear it again. Turns out Shownet is an official GulfNet DSL distributer and they are packaging showtime packages with Gulfnets DSL offerings. I ofcourse refused to have anything to do with Shownet anymore and said no thank you. So UCC is United Cable Company which is GulfNet which is Kuwait.net.

After I left the office yesterday I went home and picked up Nat. I told her we are going to Aramex to pick up the PSP. She was like didn’t they say 8AM tomorrow? I was like whatever, they get the packages tonight, we camp at Aramex till they get them. I was like worse case we have a bunch of magazines that arrived at Aramex last week, we pick those up and read them while we wait. So we get to Aramex at 7PM and right as I am about to open the door of the car, Aramex call me. They tell me my package arrived and I can pick it up. I was like thanks, I am right outside! We pick up the PSP, park on the side of the road and we start tearing up the boxes. Luckily our PSP came with a starter kit which included a car power adapter.

We switch on the PSP, and first thing I start looking for are dead pixels (dots on the screen which don’t change color). There was a speckle of dust on the screen I tried to remove with my finger when I realized that the tiny speckle was a dead pixel. I was like this is it? For some reason I expected it to be bigger, but because the PSP screens pixels are very fine, a dead pixel is barely noticeable even when the whole screen is black. I ended up finding 2 dead pixels, one on the first row and one in the middle right of the screen. Both not noticeable even when looking for them.

We got the Spider Man 2 movie with the PSP so that was the first thing we played. I was totally blown away, the image was extremely clear, sharp and the colors very accurate. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I am no stranger to technology but the screen was like nothing I had seen before. I then put the game WipeOut Pure and let Nataly play till we got home. Once home we were able to try out the other games and get a better feel of the PSP.

My only disappointment is in the sound department. The built in PSP speakers are not good enough. I don’t know what I was expecting but I know I wasnt expecting speakers you would find on a gameboy. With the earphones on though you get totally immersed in the game.

The good things about the PSP? The screen definetly is the coolest thing, when lying in bed at night watching SpiderMan 2, for a brief moment with all the lights off you would think you lived in the future. Its like having a plasma screen that fit into your hand. The load times of the games were unnoticeable. On paper 10 seconds feels a lot but in reality its hardly noticeable, except for the game Tony Hawk were load times were longer then 10 seconds. The battery life was high, I spent 2 hours atleast playing with the PSP and then put the system on standby and today morning I checked and it was still at 90% charge. Also incase you have a spare battery swapping them is very easy.

In conclusion, as I mentioned on Miskan, there is no PSP vs DS war. The war is over. There really wasn’t a war to begin with. While the Nintendo DS is catering for under 18s the PSP is catering for people aged over 18. They are two different machines for two different groups. I will probably definitely get a DS but like my gamecube it will probably gather dust in the cupboard. Click here for a picture of my PSP with my PDA and phone.

Nibaq just got me the coolest thing. Its a toy based on the only website 20Q. Basically it can guess what you are thinking about. Its easy to play, just think of something, and 20Q will try to guess it in less then 20 questions. It really works try it.

This post is dedicated to Simply Stinni. BMW Films came out I think 2 to 3 years ago. They were short movies directed by famous people and starred famous people. For example the movie “Star” was directed by Guy Ritchie and starred Madonna. The budget was provided by BMW and each film had a different story then the other and different actors, except for one, Clive Owen. He played the same person in all the movies, a driver. Here is a summary of the movies from BMWfilms.com

Brace yourself for intricate plot twists, riveting car chases, and a dose of wit. All eight short films of The Hire, created by Hollywood’s finest talent, are available now for downloading and streaming.

These brilliantly produced films star Clive Owen as the driver. Hired for his superb driving skills and unshakable poise, the driver encounters unexpected obstacles that put his abilities to the test. Watch as each film reveals new depths of character, intrigue, and cinematography.

There are 8 movies in today. All free to download. Make sure you watch the Season 1 films.

[Link]

There is free wifi at Häagen Dazs at Souk Sharq according to a recent post by nibaq. Further investigation has revealed that this is just temporary. By next week the connection there will NOT be free. So take advantage and to those of you attending todays blog meetup, have fun.

Since my new phone does not have bluetooth or GPRS anymore, I am going selling my Sony Clie PDA. The model version is UX-40. It has a 480×320 resolution screen, a keyboard with backlight, bluetooth with an option of upgrading to wifi, a built in VGA camera to capture pictures of videos, an excellent web browser, you chat on msn, use ftp, telnet, vnc whatever you want, it takes memorysticks, you can watch movies on it, its basically like a tiny PC. Out of 10 I would give my PDA a condition of 7. I am considering selling it for KD70 which is fairly similar to how much they are selling for on ebay, actually I think mine is even cheaper. I still have the box and manuals all in excellent condition. If you are interested contact me. Here are some pictures.

This is a repost

Oh my god I really can’t believe this. So my internet hasn’t been working for over a month now and I they are still taking 50KD a month. No one can come fix my connection at home because they cant come after 5PM and I finish work at 5:30. So I just went to shownet now in Farwaniya to cancel my account and guess what. They fucking close at 6. There is no way I can make it from Kuwait City to Farwaniya in less then half an hour. I might but it I doubt if I get there at 5:55 anyone will be willing to help. So this means I dont have internet and I can’t cancel my account. unfucking believable!

Yesterday I purchased a Nokia 2600 as a gift to this guy who got us wasta for nats driving license papers. The phone cost KD29 (NEW) and it has a colored screen, polyphonic ringtones and even speakerphone. The guy rejected the gift! Not because he was nice but because he believed he deserved a better phone, he was hoping for a KD100+ kind of phone. Of-course I wasn’t going to get him one because the favor he did wasn’t that big. So now I am stuck with the phone, then while talking to nibaq we were discussing its features and I decided to turn the phone on. To my surprise the phone wasn’t half bad. It was quick, responsive and looks good. No bluetooth, no camera, no wap even. Still something about it just clicks with me. I keep telling people my favorite phone was the Siemens C55 which I purchased a few years ago for KD30. I guess this is like that phone except with a colored screen. So now I am keeping this phone. Nataly will be taking my Sony Ericsson T630 and we will be selling her T610. I will also be selling my Sony Clie UX40 PDA and using my Palm Tungsten instead. I will only store the numbers I use on the phone, like nats, nibaqs, tivo guy, parents etc.. All the other numbers I will still carry with me but they will be on my PDA. I am excited!

For those of you interested, Jeremy Clarkson the host of TopGear on BBC has car reviews online. I spent a whole day once reading them all. He is an excellent and very interesting writer. [Link]

Back in the days of the Sega Dreamcast, the coolest thing was the fact you could connect it to the internet and download game saves directly onto your memory card. Now with the Sony PSP I will be able to do the same. If you are fed up trying to beat the game or if you have problems trying to obtain money or a car in a Need for Speed for example, this way you will be able to download a save off the web, move it to your memorystick and use it on your PSP. You can download PSP saves from PSP-Vault.com.

update: Found another site with a ton of game saves also. GameFaqs.com, just click on the game you want and then on the link for gamesaves. [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.

Starting today the free wifi you have been using at places like Jamaica Blue, Haagen Daaz, Le Notre and Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf are not free anymore. Zajil wifi hotspots have gone commercial and are now charging KD1.5 per hour. The Zajil hotspots at the airport and on educational institutes will remain free.

Sony has the official PSP section of their iTunes-wannabe Connect music store up and running, its full of free video downloads, a tutorial for beginners on how to get content onto your PSP, and a help section to answer any questions you might have on making the most out of your PSP. They even have Speed Racer and its all for free! [Link]