Mario’s World

This video was forwarded to IT from the head of our military division with a clear and simple message… “Support us 24/7 … or else.”

I was planning on buying a Segway. Guess I’ll wait till this baby comes out. The Honda U3-X is way more compact and you don’t have to stand during the whole ride.

Well everyone is cribbing about the extra hot summer we are having here in Kuwait. The people sitting in my office probably complain the most. Primarily cause our air conditioning sucks and its not been rectified for ages. To add to that we are on the ground floor facing the main road and every time someone walks in (which is pretty often), they love to leave the door wide open.

We have had two portable air-conditioners lying here for a while now. We couldn’t set them up since they need an exhaust vent installed and we can’t do that without a ton of paperwork and running around. A few days back the heat got to me and I just plugged in one of the units and turned it on. Unfortunately it heated up the place even more since it gave out more heat from the back. After a few tries I managed to get the unit setup by leaving the door open. I put a small box in the way of the door and left the flexible exhaust vent on top of it to direct the heat outside. Our office looks like a mess with this setup, but hey, at least its cool in here.

“Changing the way you travel – one drink at a time”. Now that is a real catchy slogan from GoodToGo.

“The tugo^tm is a cup holder that keeps your drink suspended between the upright handles of your rolling bag. Its unique design keeps your cup level to prevent sloshing. Easily attached and removed, tugo collapses to fit in any pocket of your carry-on luggage.”

A lot of people can’t believe that  Egyptian (and some Iranian) laborers are so strong. I couldn’t get a clear picture of the guy carrying these boxes caz he just ran with them on his back. But that stack of boxes probably weighs a ton, or at least half a ton.

This moment reminded me of the time my folks moved back to India. It took just 2 Iranian guys to carry our piano (packed in a wooden crate) on their back from our first floor flat down to the truck. It took about 15 (or more) Indian guys to lift the same crate down from the truck and then drag it to the front door of our house.

What do these guys eat? And I doubt they work out at any gym. Maybe its the Hommus.

Picked up these rotis last night. The date on the bag read 15th June. But yesterday was 14th June. Maybe someone used a time machine to bring these back from the future!

I wonder if this is general practice since I hadn’t noticed this before. Looks more like they are bullshitting the buyers. Then again the rotis were great, so I’m not pressing any charges.

There seems to be a massive fire at the Sawaber complex here in Sharq. For the last 45 mins, fire trucks, ambulances and police have been driving by.

Hope no one was hurt.

The Nokia netbooklet 3G is the neatest looking netbook I’ve seen. Its also the most expensive @ KWD 259/-.

BIM received this unit from Nokia for testing and review and I went over to check it out. It’s got an amazing 12 hour batter life, a sim card slot for 3G net access, its got built-in GPS (which works only with a 3G sim) and a HDMI connector. Also, it runs Windows 7 premium so its a lot better than those XP netbooks. And best of all, its built into a sturdy aluminium frame. More or less like an Apple Powerbook.

The two main drawback I found were the keyboard and the screen. I just hate it when they put a “FN” key in front of the “CTRL”. Not good for fast “typers” like me. Also, the gap between the keys could be reduced for better typing on such a small keyboard. The screen could have been wider. There is a lot of “black edge” along the sides of the screen. For this price I would expect a multi-touch screen, but guess Nokia didn’t think so.

One missing feature was a virtual cell phone. This could be the best portable conferencing tool ever.

And thinking of  travel agents, this is an amazing piece of hardware for a mobile agent.

Overall a very posh netbook with GPS and internet. It would be a great grab if it was half the price and had a multi-touch screen.

Was at Souk Sharq for Lunch when I noticed this great looking display. A huge gift bag with a Porsche sticking out of it.

Tim swung by the office on Thursday carrying this hi-tech bag. Those shiny tiles on the front of the bag are solar panels. Seems the bag works great and he has his iPad and phone recharging off the internal battery. The bag is manufactured by Voltaic. They have other models including one called the Generator that will even recharge your laptop. This is a great bag for those travelling or camping. It’s a convenient way to recharge your phone, iPod,  GPS and any other small gadget you would carry around.

Wonder if anyone sells this in Kuwait.