29 January, 2008

This will never happen in Bahrain


The picture you see above is of a traffic warden giving a Bugatti Veyron a parking ticket.
For the un-informed, The Bugatti Veyron is a very expensive beast. 16 cylinders, 8 Liter engine, 4 Turbos, 4 Wheel Drive, 1001 Horse Power and only two seats. It goes from 0 - 100 KPH in about 2.5 seconds and costs BD 643000 (around US$ 1,700,000).
And it got a parking ticket. As you can see, crowds of people were surrounding the car which was parked in a no parking zone. And everyone cheered and clapped as the warden wrote the ticket for the millionaire owner, the daily SUN reported.
Do you think it will be treated the same way in Bahrain? Or be able to kill little children and get away with it?

27 January, 2008

My little Wii boy grows up


Everyone is on Nintendo's case saying that it is a kiddie company. In part, Nintendo brought it on itself, what with the fake blood in SNES's Mortal Kombat (If you don't remember, you're too young). Nintendo throws loads of fluffy coloured themes of Mario, Zelda and Pokemon. Even Metroid which is more serious than the rest is rather clean.
Nintendo, being wise and learn from mistakes, saw what the Playstation did and acknowledged that gamers did indeed grow up (I for one am 30). We did see Resident Evil 4 come up on Wii. I did pick up that and it was amazing. But it was merely a rehash of an old PS2 game. No biggie, huh?
In come Ubisoft with their soon to be released "No More Heroes".
Think Grand Theft Auto but with lots of combat in it. This game is basically about a killer that enters a killers competition to deter main who's the best killer. By Killing them.
Have a look at the Video preview. Looks like something to keep an eye on.

Windows Vista: Friend or Foe? You can't make up your mind!

There was a small poll to the right for a few weeks. It asked what you thought of Microsoft's new Windows Vista. Your responses shows a huge split in opinion:

Windows Vista is:

Amazing. Rock solid
3 (20%)
Good, with flaws
5 (33%)
Same as previous versions
0 (0%)
Bad, worse than previous versions
2 (13%)
Useless! Completely naff
5 (33%)



Of the 15 individuals participating, 53% thought Vista was better than before or great, while 46% though it was worse than before or useless.
Absolutely no one thought it performed similarly to previous windows installments.

How can this happen? is it good or is it bad? It seems that the disappointed ones were really very disappointed, while the impressed ones werent impressed as strongly. This poll is too simple to get a good idea of the situation with these numbers. Maybe a full survey? Then again, why should I? I'm not getting paid for this! Just leave a comment and everyone becomes happier somehow.

19 January, 2008

The 5 Most Horrifying Bugs in the World

There are about 10,000,000,000,000,000,000 insects on earth at any given moment. Seriously, that's a real number. For every one of us, there are 1.5 billion bugs. But some of them are so horrifying, just one is too many. Here are five you want to avoid at all costs.

read more | digg story

18 January, 2008

SEGA is in Dubai!


I can't believe my eyes! SEGA will be coming to Dubai!
DUBAI, Jan 17 (Reuters) - Dubai's Emaar Properties EMAR.DU and Japan's Sega Corp have agreed to develop theme parks in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia, Emaar said on Thursday.

They will first start to develop one in Dubai Mall next to Burg Dubai (that monstrous skyscraper). Is this a comeback for the long extinct Arcade?
I used to frequent Arcades back in the golden days of the Fighters Genre. Spent hundreds of Dinars in Sindbad (now closed) on Street Fighter 2 back in '92. Later on King of Fighters series and Tekken in Ardh al sighar. Met friends and created rivals. Arcades was very much like..um.. a Gahwa of competing Carrom & playing cards players, but for this generation. A more complex and tech savvy one.
Arcades are all but dead now. The Playsttation, Xbox & Wii are doing a great job of providing quality gaming and letting people interact cyberly. What would the Emarati SEGA theme park be like? Will it bring Arcades to its next Golden Age or will it be reduced to simple kiddie rides?
Time will tell, but for now, I am ecstatic.

17 January, 2008

Smash Brothers gets a Perfect Score


Super Smash Bros. Brawl, the highly anticipated Wii game recently got a perfect 40 score by Famitsu Magazine. Famitsu is a Japanese videogames publication that has pretty much accurate scores. 4 editors rate out of 10 and their ratings are added up to form the final score. In its lifetime, Famitsu gave 7 games only a perfect score. SSBB is their Eighth.
I hear good news of it and I read only good things. This game will be fully online, which is a major turn-on on its own. It is visited by then Nintendo enemy, Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog. Oh how the mighty have fallen. Time passes and I see Sonic next to Mario on a Nintendo machine. The shame.
Another Guest is Solid Snake of the Metal Gear Solid series that Konami produces. If anything, it means that several third parties are working with Nintendo in sort of like a "handshake". I reckon we will see more offerings from them in the future.
The video shown is Solid Snake using his codec. Snake usually talks to HQ in his Metal Gear Solid games, where they brief him and he reports back. But when he sees Wario, this is what happens.
More Codec movies can be found on the Smash Bros. DOJO!

16 January, 2008

Apollo Justice fully playable online Demo.


I suggested to you before that playing an Ace Attorney game on NDS is a great way to kill time in traffic jams. If you are unfamiliar with the Capcom's Ace Attorney series, here is a demo of the latest one.
The first three starred Phoenix Wright as an attorney. But this time, a new rookie, Apollo Justice, handles defense. This game is flash and you can play it directly from here. It is the entire first section of the first stage and is a full representation for the game which is due 18th Feb.
Enjoy!

15 January, 2008

Bush visits Dubai, all life ends.

Bush continues his "farewell tour" in the middle east. This time? he stops in Dubai, UAE. While us poor Bahrainis were forced to go to work and suffered all the way through; Dubai gave EVERYONE the day off. Bahraini roads were filled with endless traffic, but Dubai roads? well...



Where were all the Emaratis? looks like they were all driven away from the main roads:So, you tell me if I am crazy but If you need all that protection, you must be doing something wrong.

I can't wait until this bozo's term is over.

13 January, 2008

George screws up traffic, go figure!



This morning was the most catastrophic morning commutes in a long time. My work day starts at 8, and I usually leave home by 7:30 and get there on time or 5 minutes late, tops.
So today, I get in at 9:13.
Do you have any idea how long have I been behind the wheel for what is normally a 30 minute drive?
Reason one being that it rained lightly, and Bahrainis usually skate over wet roads rather than drive on them. So everyone was driving cautious like.
Second reason, the real reason? George W. Bush.
He is in Bahrain visiting, and of course, he needs to get around. When he does, members of his own security team, probably helped with members of his 5th fleet AND our Bahraini special guards and traffic men and policemen are all out on full alert. Helicopters flying and most importantly: Roads.
Roads were blocked all over, in an attempt (in my understanding) to funnel cars into limited routes for security reasons or to clear up certain roads for same the reasons.
Now that might work everywhere on earth, but Bahrain is... Bahrain is like TINY man!
It's "official" size is 662 squared KMs. And we are not using that all, almost everyone works in itsy bitsy Manama. Its what? like 30 squared Kilometers?
So imagine this, a whole country works in a radius of 30 square kilometers, we have no proper public transport and almost everyone uses cars.
George W simply Screwed up our day.
Its amazing, just by being here he can screw things up! It's like he has an aura around him or something!

Anyway, I suggest for such cases: A Nintendo DS. Get a good game that does not require timely responses (Phoenix Wright or Pokemon would do, since they are mostly turn based)and away you go. This method is also good for killing time quickly until Dubya's term is over.

08 January, 2008

You LOVE WINDOWS VISTA!


So, Bill Gates announced during the 2008 International CES that Microsoft have already conquered 100 Million PCs with Windows Vista.
100 Million. Read it like Dr. Evil from Austin Powers movies. 100 Million!

So, with all the complaining, nagging, jokes, PC mac commercials, Ubuntu uprising. They STILL go and conquer the world. Chances are you are reading this on a Vista PC right now.

For what its worth, I'm glad my current employer downgraded all PCs from Vista to XP. Else I strongly recommend using Linux Ubuntu. Vista wont be ready for a year or two.

07 January, 2008

Bahrain is cold again


Winter is back again after pretending to be summer for a bit. I asked my dad (who, again, is a meteorologist or um... weather specialist person) about this. He said that winds during the hot winter period came from a south eastern direction. From UAE. And in the area between the UAE and Qatar, you can find very shallow sea, like 3 meters deep. This shallowness absorbs heat quickly and evaporates, forming hot & humid weather going our way.
As for the cold, usually we get winds that originate from Siberia, Russia. They travel across Eastern Europe, Iraq & Iran before they get to us, so it picks some heat along the way. Siberia itself could reach -40 degrees.
The odd thing about this winter is, that the Siberian winds are taking a shortcut! They are heading straight over Iran and Directly onto Bahrain. Hence the temp. drop. And if you think this is cold, just you wait.
Weather.com predicts that Tuesday night will have a low of 5 degrees, while Wednesday's and Thursday will be coldest as the minimum temperature would reach a meager 4 degrees only.

The coldest Bahrain ever reached was 2.6 sometime in the 50s. So this is going to be one of your coldest in a long time.

02 January, 2008

Selling my Original Altima 05, 17" wheels


Also known as "Ringat" in Bahrain. I'm selling them through an ebay local knock off called Soogon. It is pretty pathetic, but hey, does the trick.
Anyone interested in buying them either bid through the auction or leave a comment.

Regards,