25 February, 2007

Attack on Iran: We are toast.

I don't like toast. I prefer to have my bread un-toasted, thank you. With that in mind, I didn't ever think that I'd become one.
Today's Akhbar Alkhaleej headline "Israel requests an air passage over Iraq to attack Iran", is not something that I want to read while eating my daily un-toasted sandwich. I have nothing to do with both countries. However, I am stuck in the middle, sandwiched by the two (hence the toast analogy).
Another very good reason for the analogy is the Nukes, which, if deployed, will do the actual toasting of my physical existence.
The U.S. are not doing me any favours by this. Granting Israel their wish will at best increase shipping rates to astronomical figures (shippers will declare a premium for "war zones") and then my wallet will be toasted. All prices will just rocket along with the actual rockets.
Most reasonable people are against such escalation, including a good number of US Generals, who the Times reported, said they'll quit if Bush orders the attack. Lets hope that the rest of the forces feel as strongly.

22 February, 2007

Spring of Culture 2007

This March & April Bahrain will host the 2007 Spring of Culture event. If you like the arts, then this is a great time to be. The full calendar of events is in their website. my fiance and I am planning to go to several of them. I'm quite int rested in the Sculpture symposium, the Caracalla Dance Theater from Lebanon, Youssou N'Dour & the Super Etoile, Brasil Brasiliero from er... Brazil, and of course my favorite: Osaka Dadada-dan Tenko! The Japanese Tenko (Drum) band. I love Tenko drumming and these guys are simply amazing. Here is a preview of what you might expect of them:


21 February, 2007

Waste MORE time HERE!


Another addictive game. Its sole reason to exist is to waste corporate time. Knock yourselves out!

18 February, 2007

PS3 Mistakes: Update



Well, some Sony supporters were quite upset with my post here, and called me a Nintendo fanboy. I do try to be fair, and they have to realize its a post about PS3's weaknesses. I'm not flaming Sony but this is what the topic is about!

In the intrest of fairness, there were some points that needs to be clarified:



1: Shortages: the shortages I meant were at launch. That problem has since been resolved.





2: Price: Compare console to console not HD player to another. Currently the price is like so: PS3>X360>Wii





4: Joypad motor: The motor I'm talking about is the "vibration" motor





6 & 7: Backwards compatible means people will sell or exchange their PS2 consoles to get the PS3, then they will be stuck or unsatisfied. as I said; Problem 7 has been rectified.





8: Corruption of saves. There is little ground for this, and is yet to be confirmed en masse. you may elect to drop it off the list.





9: "Stupid PR" is a matter of opinion. At one point in my life, PR was my livelihood, and from what I see, I can't say they're doing a good job. You are free to think otherwise, this point is not fact.





10: The difference between the 20GB & the 60GB models are slight and will not affect the market greatly as both units will run the same disks. Its Sony's Kutaragi's comments here that make me take notice. Read it if you didn't. He says that the PS3 is a computer and not a console and wants to upgrade it.

Hope you feel better now. Tea anyone? :)

15 February, 2007

The playstation3's biggest mistakes

Last November I predicted that Nintendo's Wii is what I think will win the next war.




I however gave allot of credit to Sony. I did not expect them to suck so badly.




When PSM (an American Playstation only independent magazine) starts to show screen shots of Nintendo games in articles and running features about the "worst launch in history", and when EGM comes up with a cover with a PS3 thrown with tomatoes, and when "wired" pick Wii clearly over the PS3, then my friend I can tell you Sony is going down.

Sony is going so down its not even funny. This will be a case study in future college textbooks.


Nintendo, was as foxy as I anticipated, it is to be expected of a company that lived so long and endured so many videogame generation, more than anybody. However, despite Nintendo's intelligence, That's not the reason why Sony is losing. Sony is losing because of their own sheer stupidity!


Sony DID become arrogant, like Nintendo was just as I predicted. That led to some horrific blunders. like:



1- Unit Shortages:


The PS2 was released in 2000 and had a huge success and instant shortages. So, why on Earth did Sony, after 7 years, with all that experience and market GROWTH, how can they expect to release the next gen PS3 with FEWER quantity than last time? That caused riots, stupidly high ebay prices and several shootings and robberies. Yeah, buy a system, fear for your life. Great selling point.

2- High Price:


I'm sorry, I've been gaming since before primary school. On an old Toshiba home PC with two colours on it (white & light blue only). The concept was always to "sell a cheap console". Why? because everyone will buy it and there you go: instant user base. Why do you think magazines are so cheap to subscribe to? yes, building user base (good for advertising revenue you see). Selling a console at a high price (a price never achieved in the history of consoles I might add) will certainly mean a smaller user base, which won't be to attractive to third party developers.



3- Stealing & lying too:

Sony came up with a lame ass boomerang controller that just screams "I HAVE NO IDEA ABOUT VIDEOGAMES", did they not learn anything from PS1 & PS2? Anything at all? Along came Nintendo and tought the world again some new tricks with their Wiimote. What does Sony do? I think someone yelled:"lets go back to the Dual Shock 2 design. Hell no, we don't have time to R&D a new shape, just use the old shape with bluetooth. I WANT MOTION SENSING AT ALL COSTS YOU HEA.. Sixaxis? OK. Just sign them. HURRY!"


So we get the current PS3 joypad, the "Sixaxis". Not as sophisticated as the Wiimote by far, but at least it does have it.


Then someone removes the vibrating function, "say what?" everyone asks then Sony responds "It will mess up the motionsensing capabilities and we'd rather put in a new input method rather than a feedback method".


A lie that PSM themselves uncovered (imagine, a PS3 magazine doing that to the PS3) where they showed an old PS2 controller with motion sensing AND vibration for the PS2 with absolutely no problems. Great, your thieves and liers too. So, why removing the vibration? it must be:


4- Cheap skate tactics 1 - still joypad:

No motor in the joypad means its cheaper (for them to make, not for people to buy). This greedy concept extends to:


5- Cheap skate tactics 2 -HD Not-Ready:
in the spirit of greed & cockyness, Sony claimed HD capabilities. But... You won't be able to bask in the glory of your new HD TV just yet because: Sony won't give you HD cables. You have to go buy them yourselves. that way it will cost YOU extra, not them. Just like selling a car without tires. It doesn't stop there...


6- Cheap skate tactics 3 - Not Fully Compatible 1:

While the PS3 is being touted as fully PS2 backwards compatible, there is no where on the machine to stick in your memory card. Why? Because in the same said spirit, you have to BUY an adaptor for that. Not only is it ugly, they are charging you $15 for something that could cost $2-3 to manufacture built in.

7- Not fully compatible 2:






The PS3 rendered PS2 games actually WORSE than they are! God, I remember the comparisons between PS1 & PS2 and how 2 made everything just better (world peace must be near now!). In the interest of fairness, this issue has been resolved in system update 1.5


8- Not fully compatible 3 - Destroyer of legends:

It seems that it corrupts data saves for PS2. Careful now.


9- Stupid, Stupid PR:

Who's their PR agency? Seriously? They suck! All these press releases makes me think that they do not believe they are talking to smart people. When the people asked about the lack of vibration they told them it couldn't be done. And we know it WAS done. That is sad. The the president of SCEA comes out and dares anyone to find a PS3 on the shelves promising those who do with $1200.

Ladies and gentlemen, if this person managed to be president, we all have hope to become one, one day.

First of all, when you have a system which had severe, and I mean severe shortages at launch, you cannot "brag" about how successful it is by daring people to find one! Was he on something at the time?

So, penny arcade took him up on that offer successfully proving that the PS3 is freely available (making prez a liar or completely clueless) and holding him up on his dare. (click the image on the right for a bigger picture)


10- You can't rule by division:

A console means an affordable standard to play games on. PCs aren't "standard" because each one is different, that's why pc games look and feel and sometimes play different. That's why there are some games you can't buy because it's not compatible or its too demanding.

A console gets rid of a~ll the headache. except if its a PS3, mind. different versions will eventually mean different spec. Specially if Sony's plans to be able to upgrade playstation 3 to new hardware comes to life. This will cut them off the casual gamer market instantly, as "casuals" will not bother to verify "specs".

So, what do you think? I can't believe that PSM ran an article about the "Worst launch in History" Sony is losing their own preachers.
That's not the only thing their losing, they are slowly losing third party developers. They are looking at castle Mario now, Solid Snake is guest starring in Nintendo's Wii Smash brothers while Square Enix are releasing a Final Fantasy XII spinoff on the Nintendo DS. In the business world, these companies are saying to Nintendo: "Hello. *shake hands* how are you? Were still friends right? cool!". Third parties are paving an emergency exit road so they can easily jump ship if things turn sour.

The charts are not in Sony's favour at all. It's not a problem of hardware or games. This is mostly just very bad management, something unfamiliar with a Japanese company. They should seriously do something before too late.

11 February, 2007

10 February, 2007

Gentelmen: Unzip your flys!



This is the biggest wet dream for all double X chromosome humans.



This is the Sharp 108-inch LCD TV.



Did you read that? No, your eyes are fine. Its 108 inches big!

It's 93.9 inches high, 52.9 inches wide and 107.8 inches on the diagonal, and is 2.07 million pixels (1,920 x 1,080) bright. needless to say its Hi-Def ready.

This thing is 7.8 feet high (meaning it is definitely taller than YOU, whoever you are).

I am this close to crying! It's not fair!

Forget Ferraris, this is the reason to become rich!

Just imagine full HD power of Xbox or PS3, not to mention HD DVD & Bluray movies!

Excuse me while I go sit in a corner and weep.

Dana Cinema: calling for a boycott!


Every one in Bahrain can feel prices rising in everything. Potatoes, a chillies steak, clothes. Its ridiculous.

Dana Cinema decided that they will not only jack prices up, they will also RIP YOU OFF!

I went yesterday and bought 2 balcony tickets, which used to cost BD 3/- each. It now costs BD 4/-. fine no complaints.

But go to the snack stand and try to buy popcorn. You get only one size, guess which size is that? YUP, it's LARGE.

I said I don't want large.

They said we are out of normal size cups.

I said fine, give me the large bucket and don't fill it up.

They said (this is nice) "The large tub is BD 1/500 whether its full or half-full. If I give it to you empty it will still cost 1/500."

Oh really? So what I heard was "You want popcorn? Screw you. Get the large one or F*** off"

Dana must be really having some tough times to resort to stupid stunts like this.


I hereby ask you to BOYCOTT DANA POPCORN.

I'm not getting ripped off & neither will you.


Please forward this to as many people as you can until they learn their lesson.