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Do you know who originally created the iPod? If you guessed Steve Jobs then you are absolutely wrong. The father of the ipod is an engineer called Tony Fadell. Another interesting fact is that Tony Fadell is a Lebanese citizen. I contacted Tony Fadell last year and I had a nice chat with him via email. He turned out to be a very cool guy. I asked him if I could send him my iPod mini so that he could autograph it for me. He told me I didn’t need to and then fedexed me an autographed blue ipod mini skeleton. So anyway thought I would showoff share a picture of my autographed blue mini with you.

From the superficial: “Quentin Tarantino has signed on to direct the May 19th season finale of CBS’s “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation”. Tarantino also came up with the episode’s storyline, which will put one of the key members of the CSI team in danger. Details are sketchy, but it might also involve a bunch of guys in suits doing a lot of shooting and maybe a kung fu master doing kung fu. And a sodomy scene. There’ll definitely be a sodomy scene.”

OK, I left the office with everyone else around 10:30AM and got to the marina near the Sultan Center restaurant at around 10:45AM. I saw the yacht and it was pretty big. But I also noticed that while the boat was parked inside the marina in very calm waters it was still bouncing up and down and sideways. So I decided not to get on the yacht. No way you know. If it was bouncing while parked I am sure it was gonna be bouncing a lot more out in the open sea. So now I am back at the office, I am the only one here and I am gonna catch up on some work. I would rather be stuck here in the office then be out at sea.

I was reading Puss-In-Boots blog and she said she loves to collect rare stuff. But she didn’t say what stuff she collected. I know Nibaq likes to collect toy figurines, but what else does everyone collect? I personally collect 2 things. Wired Magazines (I have every issue since 5.01 and my oldest is 3.12), and also videogame systems. So since today is cleaning Firday, I decided to take out and shoot all my systems and then wipe the dust off before I put them back into the cabinets. Below is a list of all the systems I currently own and they link to their pictures.

Atari Jaguar
Atari Lynx
Coleco Vision
Commodore 64
Commodore VIC 20
Dingoo A320
Game & Watch – Chef
Game & Watch – Donkey Kong Jr.
Game & Watch – Mario Bros.
Microsoft Xbox
Microsoft Xbox 360
MSX2 (Sakhr)
NEO-GEO AES
Nintendo 64
Nintendo DS
Nintendo DS Lite
Nintendo Gameboy SP
Nintendo Gamecube
Nintendo Wii
Panasonic 3DO
Sega Dreamcast
Sega Gamegear
Sony Playstation 1
Sony Playstation 2
Sony Playstation 3
Sony PSP
Speak & Spell
Super Nintendo
Super Simon

I still have a couple of systems I would like to own, mainly a Nintendo Virtual Boy, a Sega Nomad and a Sega Saturn.

Before I got married and moved into my own apartment, I didn’t have any room to display the stuff in my old room so I had them all under my bed. Now though since I have my own place I have them all displayed in my cabinet (1,2) with the boxes and some accessories in the drawers and closests (1,2,3,4).

So what do you guys collect?

Passed by Salmiya’s Jewels (Jawharet Salmiya) yesterday night for dinner. Its a Shawerma place I frequent often because of the lack of other decent Shawerma places in the area. The Shawerma place is located on a corner of the building next to the Lime Light boutique in Salem Al Mubarek street. Its not a big place but the Shawerma guy is very friendly and nice. They don’t have meat Shawerma only chicken. They give you two options for the bread, you can either have a hot dog bun which is my favorite or the regular bread. Price of the Shawerma is 250fils and they sell cans of softdrinks for 100fils. They have Shani available. The garlic is pretty good and strong and be-worn, it will leave your breath stinky for the next couple of hours unless taken care of. The place although doesnt look it, is pretty safe and clean to eat at. I have eaten there numerous of times and never gotten sick. There is a small seating place outside but its not very comfortable. The place doesnt have much competition around if any. The closest Shawerma places to him are Kurdo which is down the road towards McDonalds, and this other unknown place in an alley accross the street from Marina Mall. Over all the place gets a 3 out of 5. Its a decent score for a shawerma place in this range.

Here are two pictures of the place:
Picture 1
Picture 2

Thanks to BusyNow for the heads up. Amazon.com is now allowing you to preorder your Sony PSP value pack for a price of $250 (KD73). The value pack includes a 32MB Memory Stick Duo, headphones with a remote control, a battery pack, and a movie/music/video game sample UMD. Sony is also tossing in a special UMD-version of the film Spider-Man 2 with the first one million PSP Value Packs sold. So preorder your PSP now, this is the link.

This is my order:
1 of Sony Playstation Portable (PSP) Value Pack
Sony Computer Entertainment; @ $249.99 each

1 of PSP Ridge Racer
Namco; @ $39.99 each

——-
Item(s) Subtotal: $289.98
Shipping & Handling: $5.48
Total Before Tax: $295.46
Tax: $25.48

TOTAL: $320.94

Update: Amazon has stopped the preordering. It seems the first batch of PSPs on Amazon have already been preordered.

How could I forget to post about this. Apple announced new iPods today as expected. The new iPods include:

iPod Mini
– New 6GB Model. $249
– 4GB Model. $199
– Up to 18hrs Battery Life
– 4 Colors. No more gold, and the pink, blue and green are still there but they are now more vibrant. Silver still the same.

iPod Photo
– 30GB. $349
– 60GB. $449

20GB iPods ($299) remain. The 40GB iPod appears to have been discontinued.

So sadly, no extremely new colors for the ipod mini, and no color screen also. For more details visit Apple.com.

I passed by Mac & More today in Galleria 2000. The place was closed but the storefront is all glass so I could see what was inside. A couple of things grabbed my attention. First, the store has a large sign-age outside saying “Apple Center”. Then on the far right of that sign in small it says “Mac & More”. So ummm.. if the store is called Mac & More shouldn’t that be the largest and highlighted? Secondly the place does not match the official Apple Stores design. Thirdly they are using a red colored apple logo..?! Finally the place is tiny! Like ultra small. My pakistani barbershop is bigger.. and i am not being sarcastic here! I looked inside I could see 1 G5 powermac with an Apple display, 2 imacs, and a bunch of ipods on the shelves. I wasn’t able to see any powerbooks or ibooks nor any shuffles and mac mini’s. They seemed to have some accessories like the itrips and some skinz, but other then that nothing special. I was expecting “more” and didn’t get to see that. I am not a businessman or anything, but I personally think the store is gonna fail. It isn’t offering anything that the other retailers aren’t. If the store opened last year maybe it would have been better, but now that Apple products are being sold at Eureka and Virgin.. I don’t see how this store is gonna do any good. I have some pictures below which I quickly took from outside without the security catching me.

Mac & More 1
Mac & More 2
Mac & More 3

A bunch of people here at work are saying they heard an explosion today morning.. 5 minutes before I came in. That would mean the explosion happened around 9AM when I was in my car listening to Heart Shaped Box really loud. Anyone else heard this explosion?

PS: The sirens have been blasting for the past 10 minutes. They are test sirens… right?

This sucks soo much. My favorite MP3 download site Allofmp3.com is being investigated by the Russian police. This site is my favorite MP3 download site because its very cheap and they have a lot of cool and hard to find albums. Downloads cost 2 cents per megabyte, so usually a song will cost you 10 cents. Thats 10 times cheaper then iTunes music store! I hope the site doesnt get shut down..

Here is a link to a cnet article about the investigation:
MP3s for pennies? Russian cops say no

Microsoft’s Bill Gates discussed iPods at Microsoft with news anchor Peter Jennings of ABC News.

From the transcript:

JENNINGS: On the subject of music, I read somewhere that about 80 percent of Microsoft employees who have a music playing instrument or a music playing device use an iPod.

GATES: Well, I doubt that’s the case. Certainly, the iPod’s a great success.

JENNINGS: Do you have one?

GATES: No, I’m not an iPod user. I use the Creative Zen which is a fantastic product. That’s another space where, even what we have today, whether it’s iPod or the other things are only the start of what we’re gonna have in a few years. People are gonna want choices. These things are going to be smaller or better, cheaper. So, music has changed. The age of the CD is really coming to an end.

JENNINGS: The public likes this tension between you and the others as I’m sure you know. So people want to know do you have an iPod. You say you don’t have. Did iPod beat you in this issue?

GATES: Oh the iPod did a great job, but what Apple’s done there is typically what they do. It’s their, only their one music store, only their device. What we’re doing is providing choices. So it’s like the Apple computer versus the PC. With the PC you can buy from many companies so you get cheaper prices, you get more variety and here with music devices we’re coming in with the same. But they’re a strong leader in the space and I think as we gain share, people will be surprised.

Taken from Cult of Mac

I have been checking Amazon.com daily for the Sony PSP so I can preorder one for me. Today I just checked and their now is a listing for the Sony PSP on Amazon but you can’t preorder! I dont know if this will change or not, at the moment I have the Amazon PSP page as my browsers startup page so I will know once they start accepting preorders.

For those interested, this is the link.

Paris Hiltons T-Mobile Sidekick II was hacked awhile back. Now most of her private info is online. The Sidekick II is a phone with PDA like features and also has a camera built in. Today three of my favorite sites had links to places where you can see what was on her phone.

These sites might not be safe for work because they might contain Paris nudity.

Here are three links:
7 Pounds
HiltonHacked.com
Defamer.com

Update: I just read somewhere that the Secret Service is now also investigating the T-Mobile hacking. Sites hosting the Paris Hilton stuff are being shutdown 1 by 1 so the above links might not work anymore.

I just went to Sultan-Center.com to sign up for an Advantage Card. I found their application form a bit too nosy but most of the questions are optional to answer. The website is interesting, and seems regularly updated. They have a Just Ask section where you can ask for a product which isn’t available in Kuwait and they will order it for you. I asked for A&W Root Beer.. NON diet. For some reason they only get the diet version in Kuwait which sucks. They have a New Arrival section on the site which is cool and if regularly updated then thats really cool. The site is quick loading and easy to navigate. They have a carreers section for those of you looking for a job. So overall I think the website is actually pretty good. Shall we say… 4 out of 5?

I just finished working on the site’s template. I think I am nearly done. I created this blog as a B-Side to Miskan. Basically I sometimes I have little things I want to say and I can’t say them on Miskan because I can only post once a day there. With this site I can post whenever I want, about whatever I want and even post pictures which didnt make it to Miskan . As a bonus, my wife (nat) is also gonna start posting here. She never had a blog before so this will be her first time. I would also like to thank Tivo Guy for hosting this blog on his server. Thank you!