My GPRS was working fine a few days ago, but now it says “Subrscribe to Packet Data” and I knew this was going to happen thanks to KtheKuwaiti‘s and nibaq‘s comments on my previous problems with MTC gprs and MMS settings! And now its not working on my normal phone to work on my imate. So im just going to wait until they finish with all their updates.

But Wataniya is looking very apetizing right now with their HSDPA and Edge coverage of Kuwait!

And a side note for people who have two or more lines with MTC. I have over paid my lines before when I travel, because they disconnect whenever they can. So there is a line I havent used for a while and it has a balance which could pay the other line, but MTC says you can pay for both as one, but you can’t transfer a surplus payment from one to the other!

Unused Line: + 142KD

Used Line: -94KD

And you cant use the other balance! Now thats annoying!

Well I think some of you guys get the picture here! I decided to make my own U-turn the other day, because I was pissed off at traffic!!! no no no.. just kidding! Well that was what was going through my mind, but after my little incident I wish I did! Here goes.

I had to go pickup come clients from Crowne Plaza in Farwaniya, and I was on the 5th Ring Road, and Yarmouk is on my right so I take the exit. And I wanted to make a left, but I knew there was construction and no light so you are forced to exit right, which I did. And the first time I went through I didnt know about the construction so I went over the first side walk on my left that I could (thank god for the land cruiser) because I was in a hurry and I was going to be late for a meeting! And I hate being late! I like to set an example, even if my driving was slightly maniacal. Anyways the first time I did it I got away with it, and their was no police in sight. Did I mention that I had an older co-worker with me who was screaming his head off and asking for the help of God, but to me that is just background noise! hehehehehe!

Back to my story! So this is the second time I enter this road so I had previous knowledge so I thought I would go to the right and make the U-turn since there was no U-turn. I was on the airport road, Yarmook on my right, and Shuweikh on my left with the 4th Ring Road in front of me. I get to the light after two different light changes, I made it on the 3rd light change. And I made the U-turn, I see a police car as I am driving down the road on the right just after making the U-turn that has pulled another car over. I really didnt care I just wanted to make it to the Crowne Plaza and I knew I was making good time. So as I passed the police car he had his lights on from before, and he pulled out a few cars behind me and he just kept his lights on. I get to the 5th Ring Road, and he still behind me. So after a little while I exit to take the road to the Crowne Plaza, and he starts flying behind me to pull me over for some reason. Then he tells me to pull over so I do. Then I get out to talk to him, and he tells me to give him my license and registration. I really had no clue what was up, but then he said that he was told by his boss to take my license and registration, and he told me its because he saw me going opposite traffic. I was confused, because the first time I decided not to go over the middle partion I was told that I was going opposite traffic! Then he told I made an ilegal U-turn, but the light was green and there was rusted sign on it. So after arguing and convincing him to talk to his higher up, he said he had to act my license or regstration. So I told him to take my license since the Landcruiser wasnt in my name, and I feel responsible for it, but I was pissed and I had a meeting to go. To make the U-turn I had to go completely under the bridge and then make a U-turn! But at the next bridge you can make a U-turn at the light, and at the Damascus Street, and 4th ring road intersection you can make the U-turn at the light. So his boss was just being a dick, and the guy followed me for 1.5Km! He had nothing better to do. He was nice and was being nice towards him, he told me he would have let me go if it wasnt for his boss seeing me. So I asked for the name of his boss but he didnt want to give that up. And I didnt want to give the guy a hard time, so I told him give me the ticket, and give me the registration keep my license. He told me I can pick up my license that day on tuesday 11th of July. But my license wasnt available for pick up until Monday 17th of July! I went a couple of times to check I had the mandoob from the office to go check. And this all for a 15KD fine! I would have been fine with a ticket for the illegal U-turn, but taking my license was just plain stupid!

Also lessons for people to learn:

• Be nice only if the person is nice in front of you
• DO NOT! I MEAN DO NOT ever give them your car keys! Even they tell you! Tell them you will follow them, but nobody is driving your car but you. They will thrash your car, and you wont know what happened to it!
• And if worst comes to worse just drive home! But DO NOT give them your car keys!

All this mess was stupid and completely unreasonable! Next I want to see the cop try to chase me when Im on the bike!

I just saw this on Mark’s Blog!

FastTelco unblocked Flickr!

So MTC updated their network about two or three weeks back now. Because I remember them sending a text message that we will be getting a text message with all the new settings and to enter 1234 as the password.

Well like usual I didnt get the text message, and from that day onwards MMS, and GPRS/EDGE stopped working on both phones. One phone I have for myself is a Nokia 6280, and the other phone is an imate JasJar for work. Well the Nokia is simple enough to do the settings, but the imate is hell to configure even if they do give you the right settings. And it was going to be annoying to drive to the city to the distributer to have them set it up.

Well I called MTC to have them send me the settings for my Nokia, and then they tell me that I dont have MMS. Well I have been sending MMS up until that point a few weeks ago. Then the guy tells me he doesnt see it, I said fine add it, here is my information and send me the settings. That took about 20 mins, because he wasnt sure of the difference between GPRS and MMS so I was dealing with a genius. After that came the imate, and I know it has everything as well, and I have it on paper, because I recently got the number for work. And I had the paperwork for when I signed up. And when I called he told me that I never had MMS, but I had EDGE signed up. So I told him that I have an MTC paper in front of me with all the options selected so how come MMS was removed from my options. Then he told me he doesnt see anything, and I though it would be futile to argue with this person because he seemed clueless as well. When I told him to add it, and he asked what phone I had I told him the imate. I know how to setup the network settings for that phone, and so I told him to give me the information by phone, he said he doesnt have it but he could have it faxed. I said fine, fax it and I asked him how many pages. He told me about 2-3 pages. I went out and came back after a few hours and I went to the fax and saw a huge stack of papers. Turned out those 2-3 pages were 43 pages of the GPRS and MMS settings with the normal line and ezee line instructions, which didnt work, and my black ink ran out! I was pissed, and all I could do was take the papers to work and recycle them! Now these are the geniuses from MTC, and imate still doesnt connect. So I still have to go to the distributer to have him check the settings. The GPRS works, but the MMS doesnt. And if I try to use the MMS it will somehow make the GPRS stop working! Thank you MTC.

I read this article about solutions to the last mile problem in the US. And the idea that is being proposed is very practical, but it has its ramifications as mentioned in the article. And i thought it would be fantastic if the Co-ops in Kuwait would think about this idea. Because the Co-ops in Kuwait make a gigantic amount of money. If they would take it upon themselves to upgrade the fiber-optic network in each of their respective areas then we wouldnt have to deal with the ministery of information’s crap.

The way they would get the revenue back is by taking a fee from the ISP for usage of their fiberoptic for each user on the network. So 0.500KD per user on a monthly basis, and this would be consistent income and a rising consistent income. They would get their money back in no time. And that way every area would be independent of the other, we wouldnt have to wait for one area or the other. I think that would be a fantastic idea. But I know this really wouldnt happen in Kuwait, because there are too many complications and then too many people would want a piece of the pie who wouldnt have anything to do with it. But in reality this would help solve a lot of problems! Its just a reworked idea to fit Kuwait from the article.

Link: ArsTechnica

I couldnt sleep last night because of the boost of energy I got from the game last night..

And then calling the people who were supporting France took sometime, and also the craziness that was going on in the streets. It was as if it was 8pm not 12:30am.

And on top of that my voice is slightly gone, it sucks to be at work right now. hahahaha!

Im drinking 4 glasses of water an hour just to get my voice back! hehehe!

But still Viva La Italia!

So its been getting hot as hell in Kuwait and my 15 KD tint was just not doing the job! So i decided that I needed to upgrade the tint on my Landcruiser to something that can do the job and keep me cool to a certain degree. My SUV is sitting in the sun all day long, at work there is no covered parking, and its parked outside at home so you can imagine how “toasty” the steering wheel and gear stick feel like. And its takes a little bit for the car to cool off, about half the driver to anywhere! hehe! So I decided a few weeks back to go ahead and get a real tint which stops the heat and keeps the car a few degrees cooler. And there are four places in Kuwait, and here is there information

I was asking about two things a full tint for all the windows, because it doesnt matter what degree. You can have it clear or a little dark, or completely dark. And I was also asking about frontal protection, they put a layer of plastic across the front of your car which keeps it from getting scratched. This is really useful, beca

Sun-Less (Its still under construction, but some info is there)
4828834
150 KD For full tint (time: 4 hours) (Lifetime Warranty)
140KD Frontal Protection (time: 4 hours)

Zibart
4834099
150 KD Tint (time:6 hours) (Lifetime Warranty)
130KD Frontal Protection (time: 1 Day)

Lumar
4835522,
160 KD Tint (time: 4 hours) (10 year warranty)
140 KD Frontal Protection (time: 2-3 Days)

V-Kool
(I couldnt get a hold of them, there number with Kuwait Yellow pages was incorrect number)

All three of them have very clean garages, so you pretty much go by the small price difference or by the attitude of the people working there. Most the people were very nice and explained all the details. And they explained why they needed the long times, which I understand if they are going to do good work.

I went with Lumar since I was happy with the person I was dealing with, and they do the tinting inside the showroom. So now that the Landcruiser is completely tinted it feels a lot better. The car feels a bit cooler inside and the seat isnt burning anymore like it used to. The steering wheel and shift stick are still hot, but I can hold on to it, but overall they did an amazing job. It looks as if there is nothing from the inside, but from the outside its seems its like its lightly dark. I dont like the tints where its pitch black, this is just a light tint overall for the whole car.

Tint:
The difference between the high quality tint and low quality tint is two important things. One the clarity of the tint itself, low quality tint you can see lines or scratches in the tint and its shows that its dark on both sides, meaning if you get a dark tint it will look dark from the inside. The high quality tint is clear so you dont see any scratches, and because of the higher quality it seems as if you have no tint or a light tint from the inside, but from the outside it shows a much darker hue. Also the most important part is that the higher quality tint protects your car from the heat, and that is something the low quality tint does not do.

I had to pick up some bed sheets, a duvet, pillows, and pillows cases for the shalaih. Basically everything needed for a bed, and IKEA seemed to be a good place to pick that up. Someone told me I would find all that stuff on the ground floor! So I decided to go last minute on Thursday before heading to the shalaih since I didnt have a chance all week.

One thing they have a problem with at IKEA is the lack of parking! Really very little parking what so ever! I know they are building a HUGE IKEA at the new mall the Avenues, but I hope they have covered parking included in the equation! So I was driving slowly just to give people time to get to their cars and just my luck when I turned the corner I managed to find a parking spot and parked! I know I pissed off a lot of people behind me because I was driving slow but I didnt care! hehe!

There are two primal urges that I have when I walk into IKEA! Two very strong urges which are hard to resist! One is to eat all the freshly made corn cobs! Damn it smells so good, if I was full I would suddenly become hungry! I dont know what they have in them but damn it smells amazing! Secondly I want to jump into that ball room with all this kids! I dont care! I want to dive in head first so that I could hide underneath all the balls while I wait in fear of someone who will jump on me or I could scare somebody half to death rising out of the lake of balls like a monster out of a lagoon! hehehehe!

When I got all my stuff I was happy find out that I could get a discount with my NBK card. This is how I found out. Cashier “Sir do you have an IKEA card” Me “No, but I think I could pay with my NBK card. hehehe” Cashier “Ok yes that can work also Sir, Thank you” Me “huh?”. Then I got the 6% discount after trying to be funny! hehehe!

And the bedsheets and all that I bought came out to be just right!

Note: Look for Black Suzuki Vitara parked on the side of the road.

I was driving back from the Shalaih in the Landcruiser going around 160Kph and I see someguy walking on the right shoulder just after Julai’a. I thought I would stop and help him if something is wrong. An extra pair of hands make a tire change quick. So I was looking at him then suddenly (CHICK) an orange flash went off! I was pissed! But then i pulled over after a bit and unscrewed my front license plate and kept cruising at 160kph, and none of the three stationary cameras took a picture!

Damn it! hehehe! Lesson Learned! hehe!

I went to Rihab on Thursday to pick up a memory card for my PS2. So while I was there I asked how much the XBox 360 was, and so these are the details that I got.

X-Box 360 :180 KD for the Premium

Premium includes:

• 1 Wireless Controller
• 20 Gig HD
• Headset
• Component Video & Normal
• Ehternet Cable for X-Box 360

Rihab Package (240 KD)

• 4 controller
• 2 games
• xbox 360 premium

X-Box 360 Games: 20 KD per game.

All this from Game Station on the first floor of Rihab Complex, and tell them this is what they told you on the phone, because they change every time someone talks to them. Tell them how cheap it is at Virgin Megastore in Marina Mall.