whachamakallit's blog

Apple TV to be demoed in Dubai

nobody@vox.com(Mahmood Al-Yousif) — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 07:35:40 +0300

I've got an email from a friend in Dubai letting me know that the Mac User Group have organised an event there to demo the new Apple TV:

We're arranging an Apple TV Event on March 29, where an Apple engineer will demo Apple TV in Dubai. It's our first major event and we think it will be exciting!
For more information, please contact:
contact@emiratesmac.com
www.emiratesmac.com

Unfortunately I won't be able to attend as I shall be in Doha at the Al-Jazeera annual conference I have been invited to, but if you are in Dubai, check the event out, it should be great!

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I got my passport!

nobody@vox.com(Mahmood Al-Yousif) — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 17:38:59 +0300

Wdpassport

My laptop was wheezing lately, with only 500MB left over from the internal original disk of 75GB on my MacBook laptop. It was exhausting limiting myself in the number of pictures I take or the movies I want to edit (not many of the latter, but the thought is still there!) So I was extremely happy when I got to the office this afternoon to find this on my desk: all 160GB of it in a pocket size extremely light thing!

I connected it, the nifty little circular neon blue light came on, it got mounted on the desktop and the shoved across all my pictures and movies across. That was about 35GB of stuff!

I daren't delete the pictures yet before I confirm (and back them up) on another computer, but I deleted the movies and that immediately brought back about 15GB of space which is more than enough for my use at the moment.

I'll get home tonight and connect it to my MacMini and see if it is recognised there too. It should be okay, I've got maybe twice the amount of pictures on that one, housed at the moment on an external MaxStor drive which is bursting at the seems too! I don't mind if I don't use this disk other than backing up my media really, so I'll fill it up with my full media archive and probably just throw it in the safe until I need a picture on it, or, as it looks rather sexy sitting next to my laptop, I'll keep it connected and keep playing with it!

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Sick! I tell you, EVERYONE'S sick!

nobody@vox.com(Mahmood Al-Yousif) — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 13:16:34 +0300

This is the story of my household for a little more than a week now.. I've had an "incident" with a Segway that left me hospitalised for 5 days, am still in bed forced into bed-rest by the doctor to try to fix my damaged back but he insists that this will go away and I will make a good recovery if I follow instructions... I'm following instructions.

While I was in hospital, my eldest daughter Amna had a cold... which now developed into a secondary lung infection, so she's at home coughing and spluttering away.

Hanan, my second daughter, had a stomach bug 3 days ago and she was off school, she says that she thinks she's recovered now and she'll probably be able to go to school tomorrow.

Arif, my son, has whatever Amna had, but he seems to be the least affected, so he's designated care-taker for the moment.

Frances, my wife, had whatever Hanan has had, and she's in bed since last night!

Phoebe, the dog, seems to have scraped the side of her mouth somehow, and a friend is coming over this afternoon to take her to the vet.

I have no idea what's happening with our other dog, Gnasher...

The only person who seems to be relatively okay at the moment is our maid!

I don't believe in superstitions, but with what has been happening to us over the last couple of weeks, I should think that some wanker has put their evil eye on us. BEGONE you bastard. We didn't take food from YOUR table whoever the hell you are.

What a screwed up month so far.

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Gardening day...

nobody@vox.com(Mahmood Al-Yousif) — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 19:30:28 +0300

My front garden

We've been entertaining almost every night for the past week. If it's not entertaining, it's a business meeting at home which entails, well, some sort of entertaining (coffees, teas, drinks, chocolates, sweets, etc) till late hours, certainly later than I am used to. And it's not over yet. We've looking forward to entertain my sister and her friend tomorrow night...

BUT, today was MY day in the garden... after a business meeting which lasted all morning and ended up with a potentially good partnership. But after the gentleman has left, Frances and I attacked the garden centre and came back with more than 180 seasonal flowers! Geraniums, Allisums, Colliuses, Salvias, little purple fluffy things, Snapdragons and Alternanthera... so Arif and I went and planted all of these things in their respected places around the garden, watered them, tinkered some more in the garden till about 6pm.. it was tiring work to be sure, but it is that kind of tiredness that makes you feel that you actually accomplished something! So I won't complain about the gardening this afternoon. I enjoyed it a lot, and hope to do some more of it tomorrow.

For now, enjoy this picture I took through the Cassia (scrambled egg tree) looking into the front garden. Once I get my "proper" Canon camera (I hope!) I will take another picture from the same place and you should see the plethora of colour and texture that should have taken good hold.

The season has started!

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Just Bahraini!

nobody@vox.com(Mahmood Al-Yousif) — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 13:03:55 +0300

Just Bahraini

I am completely aggrieved, disgusted and bewildered at the rate of sectarian fires which have been eating up Bahraini society especially over the last 5 years or so. These sectarian feelings however have not come out of a vacuum, they must have been nurtured over several years, possibly over generations, if Bandargate is to be believed, and there is not reason whatsoever to disbelieve it, especially in the absence of objective denial by the authorities in Bahrain.

If you would like to help us surmount this threat, please consider adding a button to your blog.

Thanks very much, and read more about Bandargate that is consuming Bahrain now to learn what you can do to help.

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Phew! No problems mate!

nobody@vox.com(Mahmood Al-Yousif) — Mon, 02 Oct 2006 15:10:16 +0300

Ramadhan. It's almost 3pm and I can hear everyone outside on the highway doing 200kph to get home to snooze a bit before they wake up from their fasting stupor and stuff themselves silly. Me. I'll carry on in the office for a bit more before going home...

So what do you do if you're bored out of your wits in the office? Cruise of course!

First finish reading all the news, blogs, etc then what do you do? Flickr! The Explore feature is fantastic and it never ceases to amaze me to see the talent and eye for photography some people have. Then what? Well, the game I have is put any word that crosses my mind in the browser's address bar and see where it takes me!

No ED!

Today, I put "Viagra" in there and of course it took me to the famous Blue Pill site, and wouldn't you know it? The first thing you're faced with is another of those silly questionnaires... as there is nothing better to do, I thought I might as well answer 6 simple questions and see what happens. Sure enough I answered the 6 questions, and am absolutely happy to report that, yes, my virility, libedo and sex-drive are all a-okay, as you can see form the result bar above, but the proviso is:

Your answers show no signs of ED. Be sure to talk to your doctor if your condition changes. Your doctor can suggest effective treatment options like VIAGRA.

What changes for goodness sake?

I won't need these magic pills for quite a few years (I hope!), but it also reminded me of that time that I found THREE of these Male Ego Boosters in the safe of the Dubai hotel room as I was checking out!

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Backbreaking work

nobody@vox.com(Mahmood Al-Yousif) — Sun, 01 Oct 2006 15:44:43 +0300

and I'm not really complaining. In fact I'm enjoying the sense of pain! I know I know, but I'm no masochist really, it's just that contented feeling that you have worked hard and have given it your best and hope that things will turn out well, as I'm fairly certain they will, fingers crossed.

I spent the whole of Saturday in the garden, doing this:

The new border

This my friends is the new border I have created. If you want to know what it looked like before, then all you have to do is look at the other side... small, narrow and completely uninteresting. What I did is shape it as you see in the picture above, and stuffed it with petunias, probably 80 or so which I bought in four colours: white, red, purple and pink, and laid them out in a design which I hope to show you in a few weeks time. I've even got a white petunia in the jar in the middle, and the reason will (hopefully) be apparent when I post follow-up pictures.

Apart from the petunias, I've got tall grass which I placed at the apexes of the curves to provide backdrop.

Of course, I had to redo the complete drip system as well as move the sprinklers a bit inside. Unfortunately I have had ot cancel one which was right in the centre in front of the jar, but I'm sure it's not necessary as that patch is now serviced by 10 sprinklers so I should still get good coverage.

I've also planted some yellow and orange marigolds in other flower beds, but offset them with the shocking red and purple petunias. I hope the effect will look okay, if not, then I'll yank them out and put a different variety.. it's still very early in the season to do this!

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I don't want to go to sleep

nobody@vox.com(Mahmood Al-Yousif) — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 22:33:42 +0300

It's 31 minutes past my usual bed-time.

My bed-time is 10pm. And that's pushing it.

But it's Ramadhan. It's Thursday night. And it's the start of the weekend tomorrow with no plans whatsoever!

I don't want to sit here and stare at the screen any more...

I'm going to bed then.

Good night!

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Bloody Batelco's at it again

nobody@vox.com(Mahmood Al-Yousif) — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 17:04:09 +0300

Talk about quality of service.. the internet has been on the blink all day at the office and it's a hit or miss affair.

I had 3 people calling me today asking if "I was alright" and complaining that they couldn't access my blog today.

Thanks for the concern guys, now you really got me worried... maybe I should throttle back a bit?

Not a bloody chance!

But Batelco is to blame for this, and not the government. This time.

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Texting Teletubbie

nobody@vox.com(Mahmood Al-Yousif) — Mon, 25 Sep 2006 21:29:07 +0300

Texting Teletubbie

I detest those *hits more than a lot of the stupid children characters, and seeing this guy dressed as a Teletubbie, texting and holding balloons, I had to hold myself pretty hard from attacking the prick and shoving those balloons where the sun don't shine!

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