Baseball Cap

I just realised something (while reading Abdullah's "Come Get Some" blog) : I never talk about politics.
Not in real life, not on the blog, no where.
I don't even think about politics. Nor discuss it. Nothing.
It doesn't interest me the least. I don't even watch the news.
And I'm not talking about the local UK politics. I'm talking about Iraq.
People here are obsessed with it all, the Kurds vs Sunnis vs Shi'ites. All they do is talk and talk about it, and about the shitty state Iraq is in now, and about the violence and the terror and hunger and fear and the general hell. All from the comfort of their houses, in one of the world's safest and richest and most advanced countries.
It's easy to observe things from outside, but what about those inside. What do they have to say about it all? from the hell of their houses without electricity nor water nor safety?

Maybe that's why I don't do politics. Maybe it's cos when I decided to leave Iraq all those years ago, I decided to leave it for good, and just take with me the memories, but most of all, keep the friends that I made there.
Or maybe I don't do politics cos it's just damn boring.
It hurts me to see what's happenning to the place I spent some great times in. It really hurts. Maybe that's why I don't do politics - I just don't want to talk about something that hurts....

Xbox Live GamerTag

As you might've noticed, my ever-faithful sidebar has got a new addition to it, my Xbox Live GamerTag. This Tag business was created with the Xbox 360, in which you had an online identity (your live username, mine being DrSbaitso - for the old enough to remember what that is ;) and an online reputation and profile thingie.

Nice thing about this tag is that it tells you the last 5 games I've played (the icons at the bottom). So at the time of writing the last thing I played was Kameo - Elements of Power. Clicking on a game's icon takes you to the "achievements" page, as each game has got certain targets you try to reach, in order to increase your gamer score.

People with higher scores tend to be matched up when looking for online matches, in order to try and balance out skills (unlike the original live, where you nearly always got matched up with a geek that played the game 100s of hours and kicked the living shit out of you before you even started).

In other news, Sony have announced a tentative September release date for the PS3 (allegedly March 07 for .eu), but even better than that, they're also releasing a PS3 exclusive of a certain crap game, God Of War :D

Guess I'm owning all 3 mofo next-gens then.....

Where did you say you live again?

This I can't believe. But it's true nontheless. Was randomly surfing wikipedia tonight (am on-call for 24 hours, sucks), and searched for "fucking", to find out that it's not just a rude (and very pleasurable) activity/word, it's also a VILLAGE IN AUSTRALIA.
Seriously.
No Joke.
Just imagine living there. The embarassment of telling someone your address.
Hi, I'm Ali. I'm from Fucking. (Aren't we all LOL?)

I better go to sleep. I stayed up late last night, and this morning I found an email from Amazon in my inbox, thanking me for ordering (Learning Unix for Mac OSX) at some unholy after midnight hour. So I go sleep now, before I find an email tomorrow from Amazon thanking me for ordering (The Dummies Guide to the Net) or something like that.

SoB out.

Where?

Those of you astute enough might remember a post here called "When?", about a picture that I found of a friend of mine looking, let's say, rough....

Unfortunately, due to outstanding demand from said friend (well one text message, 2 emails, and a few lines on msn), I have removed the post. That said, I'll still sneak his picture somewhere online, most probably a gay dating service for frustrated Arabs. Or Something :)

Oh and kudos to Wolf who caught the post before it disappeared, and actually saw the funny side of it all. Here's some Smirnoff on me.

Space of Freedom Photobook

After alot of postal errors, delays, ex-girlfriend mistakes, and so on, I've FINALLY managed to get my hands on a copy of the offical Jarre Gdansk photobook! The damn thing was released in Poland only, and I asked my ex to get a copy for me.
She did, but sent it to the wrong address. It then returned to her parent's address, and she then sent it to the right one! Anyhow, it's great to see the offical photos of the event, shame i have no clue what they're saying. I might get her to translate it one day :p

In other news, I've discovered that Dead or Alive 4 for the XBOX360 is a great game! fluid, beautiful, fast, and easy to get in to, hard to master (cliche!!), it really is a unique title. Best of all, you can fight online against others, and when you join a session you hang around a virtual lobby, watching the other plays duke it out on a big screen, just like in the old arcade days when you were waiting for a machine to be free.... bless tecmo :)

Where are you baby....

.....we used to have so much fun

Hello. Best way to start this long overdue update is by the universally known word, HELLO. Hope everyone's been ok and kicking.
I for one have been fine. My friend Ziad (who came here in September from Dubai if you remember) decided to visit Britain again on a 2 week holiday. We had a great time, went clubbing, pubbing (:p), saw Cirque Du Soleil at the Royal Albert Hall (friggin' awesome! best circus ever!), and did loads of other things too. He's gone back to UAE now.

When he was here, my mum decided to give me a heart attack and actually buy me an XBOX360 as a gift for passing MRCP 2!! I was shocked! She gave me the cash and I had to hunt all over the place to find the damn thing (they're in shortage worldwide). I managed to get the last remaining "CORE" version from Virgin. I bought 2 games with it (condemned, perfect dark) and two wireless controllers. I had to order a hard disk from ebay (necessary to save games, download stuff and connect to xbox live), and a vga HDTV cable from lik-sang (yeap! hong kong!).

Anyway, all that arrived, and before hand I had treated myself to a 27" widescreen LCD HDTV television (DiBoss from amazon, dead cheap). I connected the xbox to it via analogue VGA and set the xbox to widescreen HDTV. DAMN THE PICTURE IS AMAZING! HDTV rules! it really has to be seen to be believed!

Next, I got the Sky people to install a Sky+ receiver in my room, and now i can watch tv here and rewind/pause/record live tv (it has a built in hdd that records the stream all the time). They will start broadcasting in HDTV mid this year, so that's another use for the tv.

The TV also has a DVI input which I connected to the PC as second output. The monitor is cloned onto it, and it's used as the fullscreen overlay device for videos. I watched HDTV Shrek 2 and Kill Bill on it the other day, and believe me, once you've seen it you REALLY can't go back to crappy "DVDS". Seriously. It's that amazing. Once HD-DVD or BluRay come to the market, we're gonna start watching films the way they're meant to be :)

Another use of this TV is that now kelly (and other friends that come over) can watch me do stuff on the pc, for example the poor girl would have to endure some quake 4 deathmatching online, watching it on the tv :p



As a side effect of the above things, I had to drag Ziad to HomeBase and get some cheap shelves and a TV unit to house all this crap. We spent a whole evening DIYing and sorting things out, but now after wobbling about for a bit, everything appears to be stable (I hope.....)

So as you can see I'm happy, and still wasting a ton of cash on crap. But this crap is awesome and last for quite a while. Also, playing X3 in the middle of the night with my 5.1 headphones on, the Cyborg Evo, and on the wide screen telly is a heavenly experience.... One day i'm going to lock myself in the room for 24 hours and do a marathon X3 universe session. Someone, get me a life (and convince my girlfriend not to dump me once she's read this :p).

SoB over and out for now, and back online for a long time to come...........

Games Clocked 2005

I guess it's the time of year again to list the games I managed to finish playing last year. Gotta admit, it wasn't the best of gaming years for me, what with the 3 exams I did (mrcp 1 twice, mrcp 2a once :)), my moving homes, and ofcourse meeting Kelly since July has kept me more company than video games. Ofcourse, she loves playing games and now that her initial welcome period is over (and me turning into normal SoB, not polite, caring SoB), I'm gonna start playing more games with her... am sure she won't mind (I hope :p).

Anyhow, here's a list of games finished last year, according to format:

PC
Doom 3 Resurrection of Evil
Half Life 2
F.E.A.R.
Quake IV
Call of Duty 2

GAMECUBE
Resident Evil 4
Metroid Prime 2
Killer7
The Legend Of Zelda : Wind Waker (AT LAST!!!!)

XBOX
Splinter Cell:Chaos Theory
Fahrenheit
Project Snowblind

Nintendo DS
Nanospray
Warioware: Touched!

PSP
Lumines (all skins unlocked)

ARCADE
raiden fighters

AMIGA
Battle Squadron
Prince of Persia

MAC
Doukutsu - Cave Story

And currently playing:
PC - X3/The Threat
XBOX - Prince of Persia Sands of Time (with Kelly), Stubbs The Zombie
GAMECUBE - Geist
PSP - Katamari Damacy
NDS - Sonic Speed (with Kelly)

And life has a funny way...

of helping you out when you think everything's gone wrong.

Speak to me two days ago about life and the future, and I'd of said that I had no future job, that things are looking grim for doctors in Britain, and everything sucks.
Just 2 days ago, I was sprawled on the sofa playing XBOX Psychonauts (really good game! ps2 and pc so no excuse not to play it), when my house mate came running down saying "MRCP 2 RESULTS OUT! I'VE PASSED! GO CHECK!!!" oh no!! So I checked, and sure enough there was my code number, and I had passed!! (got the confirmation letter today, got 64%, passmark was 59%). I had passed the damn exam from the first attempt, a miracle :)

Then, just yesterday was my interview for a job in Colchester (Oncology SHO, ie cancer), and there was one post and 3 candidates (one of which was the same house mate). I managed to do well in that interview too and was offered the post!!

So, within 24 hours I got an exam and a job! Life can sometimes really turn around quickly, and as Alanis sang, it sure has a funny way of helping you out when you think it's all beyond repair!

Next stop, the FINAL damn exam of MRCP, otherwise known as the PACES (practical assessment of clinical examination skills), July '06. Wish me luck :)

Lik-sang

The other day I was reading The Official Nintendo Magazine, and found out that the big N had released a special edition Gameboy Micro celebrating Mario's 20th birthday. The machine was designed to look like a Famicom (Or NES, or even Rakan if you're arab :p).

As I'd given both my old GBA's (the standard and SP) to my nephews, I thought I might as well get one of these. Problem was that I couldn't find them in the UK. So, off to good old www.lik-sang.com, my favourite import shop. There, I ordered the Micro and also a copy of "Boku no Watashi no Katamari Damacy" for PSP (don't ask).
The order was placed just after midnight on Friday 6th of Jan. Monday morning (9th) and at 8:30 the DHL man knocks on the door with the package, straight from HK, and with NO TAX! Great service eh?

Thing is, it didn't stop there. Not only did I get the GBA micro and the game, but I also got a whole bunch of very Japanese goodies:

A Gameboy capsule toy: you get these from vending machines in Japan, and are basically teeny weeny models of classic consoles. Mine was the original gameboy, complete with a cartridge and a connection hub!
A Lik-Sang Badge Holder, A Lik-Sang Mouse Pad

A Katamari Prince shaped PSP case: this I was really happy to get, cos these are uber-rare, and only came with pre-ordered games. For some reason, I got one :)

I know most these things are silly, but you should've seen the look on my face when I was discovering goody after goody between the pyrofoam filler! So, here's a big thanks to lik-sang, and again to the Big N, for making my life happier...
And here's some pics from the back of the micro, and the little capsule gameboy thingie :)

Western Digital Raptor X

Western Digital have today announced their new Raptor HDD, called Raptor X (lot's of imagination there then). Those that don't know, the Raptor HDDs are awesome things that give home computers near-SCSI like performance, and spin around at a godly 10,000 RPM. The only 2 sizes are 32g and 74g. Their also not cheap.

I've owned 2x74 and 1x32 since last summer, and the 2 big ones are RAID-0, and they make loading times a doddle.
The new X series has the same specs as before, but come in at a reasonable 150gig, and a crucial 16mbyte cache (double that of it's older brothers), and also feature a see-through case and leds, useful for anyone with a window in their case. They don't come cheap either, and can be preordered from the Raptor X website for just $349. Check the site for more pics and even a video.

Am I gonna get one? maybe...... :p

I wish I was a kid (or had kids!)...

...to get me (or them) one of these things...
A kids bedroom with this TV would look awesome.....

Hanspree Batman 15" LCD TV

Dolby Audistry...

Dolby have launched their new "sound enhancing" system, the Audistry. Claiming to make your music and movies sound better, the Audistry home page has several examples and demos on how it works.
Thing is, the technology and results are very similar to Creative's "Sound Crystaliser"! Essentially accentuating certain frequencies, making the music or movie sound better. It's a brilliant system (I can't listen to my mp3s any more without that function, it's awesome! anyone with an x-fi will agree), but I'm wondering who's copied who. Creative have allegedly said that they've been working on their product for 5 years, while Dolby hasn't mentioned anything.

Expect seeing "Audistry-enabled" products in the hear future, like speakers, players, etc etc. An Audistry enabled sound card would be interesting, and I bet you dollar to dime it won't be from Creative ;)

I Won A Quake IV Deathmatch!

Happy New Year!

Just wanted to say HAPPY NEW 2006! to everyone, especially those that take the time to read this boring blog :)

I've been working way too much these last two weeks, but today is my last 12 hour shift for some time, so I can't wait to get back home this evening and just chill......

In other news, I've decided that it's time for me to take the final leap, and start playing flight/space sims! So I've ordered a Saitek Cyborg Evo Force game controller (it's ambidextrous which is useful!), and I've also ordered a copy of X3 - The Threat (games looks gorgeous!)
These will all arive mid next week from ebuyer.co.uk and amazon. Seeing that I'm not working for the next two weeks, I know how I'll be spending my time!
Which reminds me, I'm currently playing:

PC - The Movies, Quake IV multiplayer
XBOX - King Kong, Prince of Persia - The Two Thrones
GAMECUBE - Geist
NINTENDO DS - Mario and Luigi Partners in Time, Mario Kart DS
PSP - nothing (sucks eh?)

I'll post about the games i've clocked last year later on

Have a good one people and salam!

Barbapapa!

Since my disney post generated more interest in barbapapa than the trip itself (bastards!), here's a picture of the barbapapa toy I bought. He's the pink cuddly thing by the way :p

Autobahn and The Penguins

March Of The Penguins is a French documentary about the life of the Emperor Penguin in The South Pole. Narrated by Morgan Freeman, this movie is an ABSOLUTE MUST for everyone. A captivating documentary into the very harsh and unforgiving life of a penguin, this film is about love, passion, survival, courage, and hope. Filmed more like a romantic movie than a fact-only documentary, and narrated by the Freeman himself, this film will really grab you by the balls and suck you in, only spitting you out 1 hour and 20 minutes later with a big smile and a fuzzy feeling inside. It's available as a DVD already, so you can't do harm in getting one of the best movies you'll own.

Autobahn is a 1974 album by German godfathers of music, Kraftwerk. I've had the album for quite a while but never really listened to it properly. Dominated by its 22 minute titled track, the music paints a picture of driving down a motorway (autobahn in German), everything from turning on the engine to passing big trucks and being overtaken by speedy cars. The music does an amazing job at recreating the image, and can only be listened to entirely to be believed. An electronic landscape of ups and downs, beauty and ugliness, it's amazing that 4 young men in 1974 could come up with such a masterpiece.
Don't listen to Autobahn at home, nor going to work on your mp3 player. Shove the CD in your car, go for a long night drive, and let the music trance you. It's an experience that you'll never forget. I seriously recommend this to anyone with a car.

The Disney Post

Right, suppose it's time to blog all about Euro Disney!

We (me and Kelly) left Colchester on Friday at some unholy morning hour (I hate morning travel!), and arrived at Waterloo International in London at around 8:30am. Our train was due for 9:39.
We got on the Eurostar and 1 hour later we were going through the channel tunnel. 2 hours after that we reached Marne La Val Chesse (the train station at Disney). Luckily the train had a power socket where we were sat, so we watched March Of The Penguins on the laptop on the way (great film!)
We then checked in to our hotel (Moevenpick Dream Castle) which as a big but very cosy 4 star hotel, 8 minutes away from the park (there's a free shuttle bus every 10 minutes). As we had arrived mid afternoon we didn't go to the park that day, and just spent the evening chilling (ie doing nothing)

The next day we went to the park, and decided to go to Disneyland Park (the resort has 3 attractions, Disneyland Park, Disney Studio, and Disney Village). The moment you get in to the park you are hit with a magical, childhood like excitement. The colours, the shops, the buildings, the characters wandering around just make everything feel like you're in a disney cartoon!
The park is split into a main area, and four lands (adventure, fantasy, frontier and discovery). Each is themed accordingly (adventure land is arabic themed! for alladin I presume). Each area has one or two "adult" rides (eg Space Mountain roller coaster, Indiana Jones coaster, scary mansion etc), and lots of kiddy things.

The entrance takes you in to "Main Street USA", which is full of shops and restaurants and stuff, and right in front of you is the magical kingdom itself, sleeping beauty's palace!







Mickey and Minnie and someone else's kids :)











One of the beautifully crafted buildings in Fantasy Land, the part of the park that's for the younger ones. Here the buildings and colours are just out of dreams.








Sleeping Beauty's Palace in all it's, erm beauty :p this must be the most famous palace in the world if you ask me!









Me and Kelly













The Magic Kingdom at night
















Later on that evening we left the park (closes at 20:00) after watching an AMAZING parade of lights and music called Mickey's Fantillusion. We went to the village to have dinner in one of those shows/food places which was called Buffallo Bill's Wild West Show, it was great fun!




The next morning we went the Disney Studios Park, which is a smaller, more spaced out park with lots of shows and a few rides (including a great Rock and Rollercoaster with Aerosmith! Each seat has stereo speakers with Aerosmith music while you whizz around the track!). Our day in the studios was more relaxed than the park, cos it's smaller and even though there's lots to do, it's not as stressful as the big park cos it's all grouped together in one place, and there aren't that many screaming kids!

Me by one of those brooms from Mickey's The Wizard's Apprentice.




Donald Duck, in a parade at the studios park.







On our 3rd and last day there (Monday) we went to a close by shopping centre (one metro stop away from Disney) called Val D'Europe. I bought a few things there (including Jarre's Live at Gdansk DVD (collector's edition)). As we were hunting for somewhere to eat, I found a shop called Album (just like Forbidden Planet). Wandering in to have a look what do I find? A big, squishy, and very soft Barbapapa!! the cartoon is very famous in France (well, it is french), and toys are still being sold! I bought a pink, papa toy which is great. He has magnets in his arms to help him keep his arms around something, and ofcourse that big infectious smile and innocent eyes..... I was so happy to find such a thing (I doubt anyone who's grown up in the middle east doesn't have fond memories of the Barba family)...

We left France that evening and reached Colchester around 11pm that day. It was great fun and a holiday to remember for life :)

I'm back! and I got the Jarre DVD!

hello everyone!!
I'm back from Euro Disney, a wonderful, magical place!
had tons of fun there, got loads of pictures, so later on i'll post all about it. Got lots of tacky souvenirs too, the mugs and t-shirts and fridge magnets and all that crap!

I also managed to find a fnac store and got the last remaining copy of Jarre Live at Gdansk (collector's edition) which was released on the 5th of this month there. It's great! been watching it today, and it's alot better than the tv broadcast, with no more silly overlays and lots of fireworks and crowd noise. The direction is generally better also, but still has less panoramic views than I'd hoped for. But at least it's a jarre dvd and one of a concert that I was proud to be part of (and very close to the stage too!).

I'll be back, with euro disney news and the best thing I found in france..... pictures and blog soon :p

OH NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Picture this: you've got an exam tomorrow. You're stressed, over-knowledged, and pretending to be revising at 23:30 at night, to save your ever-insistent mum's breath (for those (if any) non-arab readers, arab mum's interfere with their children's lives until their very last breaths, even if the kids are 60 year old grand parents!).
Anyhow, what do you do? well I for one had the senses to pack my Nintendo DS (that I'm officially in love with, remember?) with me and with it I got M&L, but also Mario Kart DS.

Everyone knows Mario Kart, the fun arcade racing game from the SNES era. It's been reinvented alot (N64, GBA, Gamecube) and now NDS. The thing that makes the NDS version so special though is it's dual screen (one for the game one for the important map) but also it's the first nintendo game to be officially internet enabled!! Yes that's right, now you can play mario kart against anyone in the world.

Nintendo has always promised to go into the online console market when they deemed fit. And their NDS is the first to do so. It comes with wireless built-in, so to go online you can either use your own wireless network if you have one, or buy a cheap nintendo USB wireless dongle, or (here's the best bit), go to any of 15,000 European hotspots, and join from there for free (eg McDonald's and a ton of other public places). Amazingly, 7,500 of those are in the UK.

Anyhow, so there I was laid in bed at 23:30 with my NDS, Mario Kart, and those crappy white iPod headphones on to make sure the boss (mum) doesn't hear. I connected to Nintendo WFC (wi-fi connection) and starting searching for opponents (that's another thing, going online and starting a game couldn't be easier! there's no lobby, there's no chatting, hence there's non of that famous abuse/anti-beginner attitude in nearly all online communities). A moment later I'm with 2 other people, and the race had begun!

I got 2nd place in the first race, which earned me 5 points. Midway through the 2nd race I was lagging behind. We were racing in Wario Stadium, a track full of ups and downs and boosts. I was just approaching a hill and my 2 opponents had already crossed ahead of me. Luckily, I had one of those kick-ass Blue Turtle Shells that zooms right up to the first racer and explodes with lots of proximity damage! I released at the exact moment when he was about to be overtaken, and the Shell blew up and toppled both racers! This happened just as I was jumping over the hill, and saw the carnage happen right beneath me, as I took the first place.

And as the battery ran out. NOTHING. BLACK SCREEN. ZILCH.

I hadn't realised that, due to a marathon M&L session (I reached the mothership, whatever that is!), I had abused the battery and it was in it's last minutes! just as I had bombed 2 rivals, jumped over them and laughed my evil laugh, and just as I took first place, the damn NDS decides to run out of juice, and just SWITCH OFF. And I wasn't sensible enough to pack the charger. HMV, here I come.

But you gotta give it to the big N for releasing the best version of Mario Kart on the DS, for making playing online so fun and easy, and for being the wonderful people that they are. Oh, and soon, Animal Crossing-Wild World is coming out for NDS too. Where you can invite people from around the world to your virtual village, and it's goodbye social life and everything else forever.... I just can't wait.

Wish me luck y'all. SoB out

The truth about 22mbit

Right, I'm in London now (was here since yesterday).
I've got the 2nd part of the lovely mrcp exam tomorrow... it's a 2 day exam so all fun and games!

But, on to more important things!

I installed the adsl 2+ router yesterday (netgear, looks great and works good too), and after a few teething problems I am now connected to the web at top speed. If you remember a while back I said it would be an estimated 18mbit/second, but the reality is that it's synced at 16mbit. That's exactly 2mbyte/sec download speed.

Web browsing has generally been the same since 512kbit, so no change there... but downloading stuff from fast servers is awesome. In reality, the "pure" data reaching my hard disks is 1.6mbyte/second. I tried downloading a full dvd just now which was 4.4gig compressed, and that took 45 minutes. So the original hope that I could download 1gbyte every 10 minutes has been fulfilled!

Now what?