OddCircle

Welcome back CLT

2012-03-28T02:23:00.001-04:00

The central limit theorem makes a strong comeback in six sigma !!!

Man I miss those college days!!!😭😭

My Gift List

2010-05-21T04:09:00.011-04:00

So the gift season for me just passed and I've heard a lot of complaining about how I'm so difficult to shop for!!

I mean come on! I'm a pure bred Bahraini guy and there's only 3 things we like...count them with me now

3!! that's right! So lets spell them out shall we...

1) we like to show off
2) we like girls
3) we like money

In THAT order!!

and they're all related really when you think about it. Simply put, numbers 1 and 3 are there for us to get number 2...seems like an easy enough equation to remember...doesn't it.

Anyway back to our main topic which is buying a gift for me...

To make things simple I will compile a list of gifts that I will enjoy receiving, pretty much like an amazon wish list. For your information this list took me about 5 minutes to compile so dont give me any crap about me being difficult to shop for.

So in no particular order...here it is (Momo's gift list)

Dark/Metal shaving kit (Preferably ones that accept Gillette razor blades)
Tobasco Gallon Jug or any Hot Sauce/Chili/Spices Related gift

Personalized Leather Portfolio

Montblanc Pen
Cool wall art canvas prints

A good novel (Fantasy/Science Fiction/mystery)
A DVD box set

And that's just of the top of my head... So next time someone says I'm hard to buy a gift for they have no excuse....!!!

~sam

So I'm ranting again...

2010-01-03T04:52:00.003-05:00

So I'm bored out of my mind ... again

I just hate this transition phase during new years...There is absolutely nothing to do. Everybody seems to be hiding in their homes afraid to come out for some reason and you can't even watch anything decent on TV.

And since I don't have a decent book to read, or game to play...I'm stuck cleaning up my room and playing "lost in blue" on my Nintendo DS.

I don't even have a decent new year resolution yet!

So everyday I basically sit down and watch "Black Adder" episodes which make me laugh...just a bit (I've seen the show a hundred times already)

Ooh and I finally finished watching "Jekyll" which was nice. I only found out recently the show actually went on to conclusion. I stopped watching the show when I thought it went on hiatus for like 3 months or something.

A Cat

2009-12-29T13:31:00.002-05:00

I just found this too...I just couldn't not post it

By richius at 2009-12-29

XBMC 9.11

2009-12-27T08:31:00.004-05:00

Well, it was another boring day in the old homestead so I did what I usually do when I'm bored out of my mind and browsed over to lifehacker.com

Now lifehacker has been a particularly favorite pit-stop of mine since my days as an intern at BDO. There's always at least one decent post to read and expand from.

So when I saw the post about the XBMC update, I didn't hestiate to head on over and download it for my home media Center

(which I am proud to say now includes a 37" Full-HD Samsung LCD TV connected via HDMI to my PS3 for all that 1080p HD glory!!)

Ahem...too many acronyms in that sentence...

anyway, so yeah...I downloaded the thing and IT WAS BEAUTIFUL...

since they apparently switched directX it is faster, sweeter and all around better than anything I expected to get out of that old computer of mine, but...and thats a big BUT

...It didn't play video...I KNOWWWWWWWW!!!

I mean that's the point of the whole exercise, isn't it?? What good is a media center that doesn't play video...

So I check the forums and apparently this bug has been around since November! and there is no fix!

So I try my best, update drivers, play around with directX..nothing works

So I give in and try to reinstall the old version, but wait...there's a catch

The new install effed up my library, It can't display movies and shows properly with thumbs and synopses and fanart...

By this time I'm sacred out of my mind...I remember how long it took me to compile that stupid library in the first place...but no matter what I do it doesnt work...and I have to uninstall my previous profile, install the old version of xbmc (AGAIN) and compile the library from scratch...which is what I have been doing for the last 5-6 hours

So the moral of the story boys and girls...is always backup your crap!

had I exported my library before I made the update I would not have been in this position...

C'est la vie

MM

Darkly dreaming dexter

2009-12-15T22:58:00.004-05:00

So I just finished reading this novel, the first novel of the dexter series by jeff lindsay which is the basis of the popular TV series of the same name.

In fact, the fourth season just ended two days ago and I have to say, it was fan-freaking-tastic. I don't usually like to quote other bloggers out there in the blogsphere, but i really DO love how the show "operates outside my comfort zone".

I have to say though that when this season started I thought it was the worst season yet, but it really started to pick up in the last few episodes. I can even tell you the exact moment it miraculously transformed, for me, it was the instant you find out about Arthur's connection to Christine hill, the reporter, it was a classic Dexter twist that put everything up to that point in a new light.

And how about that ending folks, I truly did not see that one coming, and although I'm usually all for killing off main characters if it benefits the storyline, I can't help but feel a little sad to see that particular character die...

Anyway, back to what I was saying, I just finished reading the novel and I have to say...I didn't like it!!!

It kind of ... well ... it sucked!

I didn't care at all for any of the two dimensional characters portrayed in the novel. There was barely any character development, heck there was hardly any plot development.

But that could be coming from the fact that I already watched the show before reading the book.

Characters that seemed alive and entertaining in the show suddenly became dead and uninteresting, Angel Batista - sad, lonely, looking for love after his wife left with his daughter became Batista-no relation which means less than squat to me since I have zero knowledge of Cuban history.

FYI: Fulgencio Batista was the Cuban president and dictator before the whole Fidel Castro and the Cuban revelation thingy...hey don't look at me...I barely know my own country's history!

back to the subject at hand...and what the F is with all the stupid fart jokes Dexter keeps making?

I mean once was funny, twice was ok, but he just keeps repeating them with a new line every few chapters...not funny.

The only character I enjoyed in the book was captain Mathews which was a surprise since I never really cared for him in the series. I loved his straightforwardness and Dexter's funny comments about him like how he has such a diverse vocabulary due to writing police reports for many years.

and the book did explain some of the quirks the detective LaGuerta character - she wasn't a lieutenant in the book- displayed in the first season.

Her mannerisms always felt a little weird for me in that first season and didn't really make a lot of sense given how the story turned out. Its like they started out by trying to make her closer to her book counterpart, but then they suddenly changed their minds. So now I know.

Overall I'm glad I didn't pay the BD 6.800 for this book at "the bookstore" or is it the "bookshelf"? anyway its that place in Budaya or the BD 5.400 in Jashenmal for this piece of crap writing.

I may just read the other books of the series out of respect to the show and also I want to see how the dark passenger turns out to be the spirit of some diety. Yes, that was a spoiler and I read it in the reviews on amazon so you get to read it too!!!

Most people seemed to think that he just turned the genre around last minute, but knowing that I think he made it pretty clear in the first book where he was heading with this dark passenger crap.

Anyway, this was my rant for the day...hopefully someone will read it and benefit from it somewhere.

Later

~MM

10 things I love about my new Nokia E72

2009-11-30T05:14:00.007-05:00

1. Control my downloaded torrents

Using Utorrent WebUI mini I can check download rates and add new torrents remotely so I can download anything I want before I get back and have it ready by the time I’m home. Its this tiny add on that you download to utorrent after you activate WebUI in the preferences which adds a phone compatible webpage to the WebUI GUI
I love checking my speed and ratios on the go!!

2. Search!!

I loved the search function on my old E61i and now the new E72 makes it even better!
Instead of wading through 5000 messages the search function makes it easy to find the one you want. You can also search media, contacts and your calendar for whatever you want. The new search function is more refined and easier to navigate not to mention significantly faster. I love having it on my standby screen ready at a moment’s notice.

3. Check weather, time, exchange rates, news, flights and email.

The phone has the wonderful “world traveler” software preinstalled and preset email configurations for Nokia’s OVI mail, Gmail and Windows live hotmail among others. This makes setting up your email as simple as typing in your login and password.

Plus now that they actually got the phone to work automatically with gmail I don’t have to wait for the phone to download ALL my emails before I can read them. This was a royal pain with my e61i and I’m glad they fixed it.

4. The OVI store

Ok, I don’t really love this cheap imitation of apple’s app store, but Its still nice. The way everything is presented, its easy to find what you’re looking for and downloading and installing is much simpler and much faster thanks to the improved processor inside the phone

5. I love me some Active notes!!!!

Anyone who knows me can tell you how terrible my memory is, and that is exactly why “Notes” has always been one of my favorite applications in the Nokia E61i. And now they’re even better!
I always use notes when I’m driving around town trying to find the best deals on different products, or I want to leave myself a reminder to check out a new movie, game or restaurant. The fact that they are only text never really bothered me till I saw what you could do with the new and improved “active notes”.

Now you can add images, phone numbers, files that are stored on your phone and you can even link them to a contact so they display when you make or receive a call from that contact number!!

Who wouldn’t want to see “Don’t forget to buy her this necklace on your anniversary in September” accompanied by a picture of the aforementioned necklace when they get a call from their significant other??

6. Dictionary
Now who can honestly tell me they didn’t wish they had a dictionary in their phone!! I love the way the Finnish think!!

7. Wirelessly plug into my Upnp network at home

There was this wonderful new addition to symbian devices which I stumbled upon when I first got my new E72 called home media that can access media servers on your network. Now I can share new media from my phone and stream music to my phone from my laptop, PS3 and TV media Center!!
This is amazing all I have to do is pick whatever I want to listen to and it plays it perfectly directly on my phone! I can’t get it to play movies on my phone yet, but I have yet to try real media files. I’ll post an update If I find a way to do it.

8. One touch keys

Although you no longer have that wildcard key that you had on the E61i, with four quick access keys to the menu. Calendar, contacts and email exchange (which you can reconfigure if you are so inclined) you now have the two application keys free to set to whatever you need.

I have mine set to camera and active notes. In addition to the 6 standby applications I can access anything I want with fewer click than ever before.

9. Flashlight, Bluetooth and silent keys

The e61i didn’t have a camera flash (or autofocus for that matter) so you couldn’t use it as a flashlight which you can do by simply pressing the spacebar on the E72.

You also had to memorize the Blue arrow + ctrl combination to activate/deactivate your Bluetooth connection. Now you have a single clearly marked key to perform this action.

And of course you can switch your phone to silent mode by pressing and holding “ctrl” which you could also do with older models albeit with a different key, but now it is clearly marked and you don’t need to look through the manual to know about it.

10. Predictive calling

Instead of remembering numbers you can simply type in names and the phone will automatically display possible contacts. For example if you want to call “John Doe” you can simply type the name on the keyboard and you can make the call!

Amazing stuff!! I really love this new device and this new OS. I cant wait to see what else they come up with in the future.

C'est la vie...

2009-10-29T05:40:00.004-04:00

I still haven't gotten around to finish the third episode of the media center series although I've been using the system for months now. I just have more important things to consider at this time...

Its called finding me a job and its driving me insane, I've basically cut off everybody who continuously asks me how the job hunt is going! It's become really annoying and embarrassing to say the least. Don't get me wrong I appreciate the sentiments and I have had calls and interviews, but the gears seem to be moving slower than a 56k connection!

If I compare my job seeking situation to Elizabeth Kubler-Ross Stages of Grief where a person passes through

Denial (this isn't happening to me!)
Anger (why is this happening to me?)
Bargaining (I promise I'll be a better person if...)
Depression (I don't care anymore)
Acceptance (I'm ready for whatever comes)

I would have to say I am in a transitional period between depression and acceptance.

So as part of my acceptance phase I think I'll satisfy myself by waking up every morning to a nice healthy breakfast, an annoyingly cold shower, an hour of exercise and a few sent CVs.

and after a bird sized portion of a lunch I'll sit back and watch my shows!

Indeed a good life, n'est-ce pas?

So to celebrate this occasion I'm doing one of my famous reviews the shows I'm currently watching

So...

SHOWS

White Collar (Fridays)

I finally saw the pilot of this interesting show yesterday. I have to say that I was pleasantly amused by the show which I thought would be just another civilian/cop show (bones, castle, the mentalist, etc...) which seem to have dominated the screen as of late.

Nothing really stands out in the show, the civilian character "Neal" seems to be more lucky than smart relying heavily on his criminal contacts and pure luck to get the job done. Maybe that's not completely a bad thing...god knows if I've learned anything these past few months its not what you know its who you know!

The characters are definitely likable, however I would really like to see Neal's actual talents come into play in the coming episodes.

Bottom line: Recommended

StarGate Universe (Fridays)

Okay, I've never been a fan of the StargGate franchise. I liked the original 1994 movie, but I could never really get behind any of the series. So when I was thrown into the StarGate Universe umm.. universe I was a little confused, but a couple of minutes on the SG wiki cleared things right up.
You don't really need to be an SG expert to follow the series just know that humanity through the stargate program was able to finally master faster than light travel "FTL" and although you only need seven symbols to operate a stargate they found a code with nine symbols that takes them to an ancient spaceship during one of their trips.

The show is quite good and so far it's been concentrating more on the characters rather than the actual journey which is nice. There are however, some quirks in the show that i find annoying. For example, in the first episode they said that the ship itself has some supplies that were "not to be touched". Now considering that the crew brought no supplies and are plagued by disasters due to that issue wouldn't it be prudent to at least check those crates at some point? Also they make a point of telling the audience how huge the ship is and how they only occupy a fraction of the available space. Why are they not exploring the ship yet??

In any case I would really like to see these issues addressed in the comping episodes.

Bottom Line: very recommended

Thats it for new shows this season. As for returning classics you have the ever popular

House (Mondays)
Castle (Mondays)
Two and a half men (Mondays)
Little mosque on the prairie (Mondays)
Dexter (Sundays)
Merlin (Saturdays)
Nip/Tuck (Wednesdays)

Other new shows that are out, but I didn't feel deserved to be on the list include:

Hank
The middle
Modern Family featuring Ed O'Neil (Al bundy from married with children)

How I built my own media center (Episode 2 of 3)

2009-08-13T09:27:00.005-04:00

If you thought that spending my days jumping from place to place looking for the best priced components was the hardest part of setting this up…you’d be wrong!!

I spent countless hours downloading and trying out different media center software to find the best software and configurations that work with my hardware. Not to mention all the trouble I got into for focusing too much on the project and forgetting the people around me.

Now for the software I focused on three main points

Stability – I needed something that would work without a lot of hiccups that would force me to switch back to keyboard and mouse input in windows XP.
Speed – Now back in the day this computer was a beast. It would eat up any game you would throw at it and spit it out like it was nothing, but time was not kind to my old beast and these days it can barely boot without me being there holding its hand. So I needed something that would leave enough resources for the computer to do its thing.
Price. – This was the most important factor. I was not about to pay for my software! It had to be free!

Now as a windows user, my options were rather limited. Especially since Batelco was so kind as to cap my speed to 56k before I even got to Bahrain for not paying!! How the hell was I going to pay with me out of the country!

Even as a 256k user I was having a little trouble downloading the software. Damn those corrupted downloads!!

Anyway, I narrowed my choices down to 3

Sesam TV – Small download size easy to work with and all the remote buttons worked except for fast forward and rewind. Unfortunately it also has a problem playing DVDs since it doesn’t come with its own decoders and for some reason it can’t access the codecs installed on my system correctly. These issues proved to be tiresome to fix so I switched to my next choice.
MediaPortal – Now this is an Excellent open source media center with great support. The remote worked like a charm without much configuration and it played everything I fed it. There were only two problems with this software.

The download was a bitch! The installer (25 megabytes) needs dot net framework 3.5 (231 megabytes) to work which requires windows installer 3.1 to install (smaller download). After 6 hours of downloading the dot net framework twice! I had to use utorrent to fix the corrupted download which was an even bigger hassle because there weren’t any seeds around!
When I was finally able to get a working copy of Microsoft dot net, I found that the media portal installer needed to download another 4-6 components depending on whether or not you have them on your system. This was just unacceptable, but I stayed with it because I knew I was getting a quality media center (I had tried media portal before on y laptop).
The second problem was speed. The thing was just too damn slow. It had to initialize everything at the beginning and playing videos would take forever.

This led me to my last hope

XBMC – I had tried xbmc once before, but didn’t find it to my taste. I don’t really remember why. Whatever it was, the new version works like a charm. Some of the buttons on the remote like the play/pause and stop buttons don’t respond, but you could work around that easily as I will explain below and it comes with 3 different themes and unless you’re using a brand new HD television for this setup I recommend the mediastream skin since the fonts are more legible and if you’re connected to the internet you can get those nice show and episode synopses, If they’re named correctly.

With that you can move on to other aesthetics.

First of all I recommend you download:

Bootskin which is a nice little application that changes your windows boot screen for free. (You know, that ugly black loading screen with the windows logo you get when you start windows). You can download different boot screens from www.wincustomize.com.

You can also change your logon screen with

logon studio, but I don’t have a password setup since I want the media center to load with as little human interaction as possible so this doesn’t really affect me.

I also downloaded some nice Icons to replace the default windows XP setup,

I also chose a desktop wallpaper to go with the overall theme, removed all unnecessary icons from the desktop (I only left the recycle bin and one Misc. folder for quick access).

Icons for Full and empty Recycle bin and Misc. Folder

Note that you can access My computer directly using the remote.

The last episode of this series will be dedicated to configuration and setup of the media center.
Which requires that you have windows media player 11 or higher installed on your system.

How I built my own media center (Episode 1 of 3)

2009-08-13T05:56:00.007-04:00

The media Center project has been on my list for two years now. It started out as a home-made PVR project, but in time I found that to be a bit infeasible. The thing with a PVR is that you really have to find a reliable guide if you want to automate anything, which I am sad to say, does not exist in the region. Anyway. All the good shows can’t be watched here anyway since they’re

Late
Usually, they are out of sequence
I download mine an hour and a half after they air through IRC and torrents (Commercial Free and sometimes encoded nicely in HD)

HD is also a pain in the butt, none of the channels here air in HD and it’s almost impossible to find a DVB satellite card anywhere in the kingdom – trust me, I looked -. So the best that you can hope for is converting your digital signal to analogue using a regular TV card and losing some quality in the process.

Anyway, I finally settled for buying a cheap new dish with a free to air channel receiver for BD 38 instead.

SO here are the hardware components of the media center:

Old desktop computer AMD 2000 Athalon XP processor with the NVIDIA 4200 TI 8x graphics card with S-video output.

Price - Free!
This actually cost me quite a bit back in the day and I also had to change the power supply and motherboard to fit it (Crazy I know), but it shouldn’t be that expensive now and any video card will work as long as it has a video out so you can connect it to the TV.
One S-video to RCA adapter and cable

Price - Free!
I got this with the graphics card. You can also probably get one from radio shack or you can get an S-video to RCA cable instead. They all work the same way and they shouldn’t be too expensive. You can use any composite rca cable to connect to the adapter.

One 3.5mm stereo jack to RCA cable

Price – Also free.
I got this with an old CyberShot Digital Camera. You can get the two jacks one, but those inputs are usually in front of the TV and I wanted this one to be hidden and only work on the video channel.
Digital sattalite dish and receiver - Arabsat, Nilesat and Hotbird

Price - BD 38 including installation
One External hard disk (1 Terabyte of space). You can use the internal hard disk of course, but out of the two hard disks I have installed in my computer I have a fried 40 gig drive that fails on boot and I had to bypass its initialization completely in order to get the computer to run unassisted and the other is a puny 120 gig that I would fill up in 14 minutes if I tried.

Price - $169 Canadian
I have a LaCie Hard Disk designed by Neil Poulton 1TB USB 2.0 - 7200RPM that I bought last year. Sharaf DG in Bahrain had an offer on a nice I0mega with one Tera of space for about BD 40 a while back so I wouldn’t pay more than that.
One PC remote controller. This was a really hard to find here in Bahrain. I spent an entire day looking for this before I found it at colors 2000 while going to see a movie in Seef Mall with friends.

Price - I got the nice looking one for BD 7.5.
They have another one for BD 6.5, but it doesn’t look that pleasing to the eye and it doesn’t have that nice analogue stick to control the mouse which I found to be extremely useful.
One Wireless-G router. I personally connected My old 3com wireless router to the computer using an Ethernet cable that I had since it doesn’t have WIFI capabilities, but you can get a Buffalo USB wireless adapter for around BD 10 at Sharaf DG.

Price - Free. I had this for a while. I don’t remember how much it cost to be honest and I didn’t bother checking. Given a choice I would actually go with one of the new N routers instead of the G and connect it using an Ethernet cable to both the Playstation 3 and the computer since it gives better speed and connectivity.
Note – Don’t Pay more than BD 12 for a wireless adapter.

Optional -

I also connected my Playstation 3 to the network wirelessly. It has excellent capabilities and another 80 gigs of storage on the network can’t hurt.

Total Price I paid for this setup minus optional and pre-owned components

BD 45.5

And thats the end of episode 1! I’ll write another post to explain the software I used and to show you how to connect everything together, but this should be enough to get everyone started :D

Good luck and happy streaming!!

All hail the new Sam-mobile!!!! :D:D:D

2009-04-20T15:57:00.005-04:00

I have to say...When I first got this car I wasn't too excited..
I really wanted a nice dark titanium 2009 dodge charger...

But!!! beggars cant be choosers and after staring at this things for many hours, I have to say that I think that I'm going to love this car!!!
So to all of you who think that you can do better ... YOU CAN KISS MY A$$!!!

I love my shiny new blue Camry...

And now you can love too ... (Insert Evil laughter here)

Hottest PS3 Games coming in 2009

2009-04-20T15:35:00.002-04:00

Now We all know that I'm one heck of a PS fan, but some of these titles are just too good to be true.

If you didn't think you'd love to have a PS3 before, just check out the trailers for God Of War III and Bayonetta on youtube.. AND DONT YOU DARE NOT WATCH THEM IN HD!!!

GOD....I think I'm in love....

The 10 Hottest PS3 Games to Be Released in 2009 | Unigamesity

The 10 Hottest PS3 Games to Be Released in 2009

Jan 26th, 2009 at 2:47 pm | By Calin |

Today we continue our preview of the year ahead – we’ve already looked at the 10 hottest PC games to be released in 2009, and now it’s time for the PS3 titles to be analyzed. As I was saying, this year will be a great one for video game fans, since we’re having an impressive bunch of very promising titles announced and, to be honest, I found it really hard to choose just 10 games since other highly promising titles like Borderlands, MAG, The Agency or Batman had to be left out. (And no, I did not forget about FFXIII which can’t be included since it only comes in 2010). But enough talking! Let’s check out the 10 hottest games to be released in 2009 for PS3 systems:

10. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II – it’s clear that Activision will have a tough competition this year for their upcoming Modern Warfare title, but this doesn’t mean that people will simply forget about it. Its predecessor turned the franchise into a real legend and, since it’s still one of the most popular multiplayer games, we have to place it on the list. The fact that it’s just at number ten just proves how promising other upcoming PS3 games are this year!

9. Bayonetta – there are still pretty few details about this upcoming title, but what we know so far is enough to make us want much more. Because we have a hot heroine to start with, who fights against monsters looking like angels and, as the cherry on top – she has guns in her boots, which means that combat sequences will be like nothing we’ve seen before. However, since Bayonetta is created by the man behind the Devil May Cry series, we truly hope that it won’t become yet another pointless button mashing title…

8. Prototype – shapeshifting, superman-like abilities, all sorts of disguise techniques and stealth options – these are just the things to get you started when it comes to Prototype. Add to that a general mass destruction (initiated by the player), fast paced gameplay and absolutely impressive visuals, and you have a GOTY candidate. Oh, yes, this has a cherry on top, too: it’s a sandbox type of game, which means that GTA could finally get a worthy adversary. We’ll see when the game is released to the public, but until then, you can check some Prototype videos!

7. inFamous – another sandbox-styled game that will only be available for PS3 owners this time. It will be a really electric game which allows players to be either heroes or anti-heroes – either way, having fun with their super-powers in a city that never sleeps, nor lacks action. The game is being developed by Sly Cooper creators Sucker Punch, which doesn’t really help the violent inFamous, but every company has to start somehow…

6. I Am Alive – one of my favorite upcoming games (since I am a sucker for Lost, Surviver and all similar shows) and possibly one of the biggest and most pleasant surprises of 2009. The game started pretty strong with an impressive trailer which I urge you to check out, proving that Ubisoft Montreal might have learned from its mistakes with Lost: Via Domus and is ready to give us the adventure of our lives. For real!

5. Heavy Rain – I hope that most of you still remember the impressive Fahrenheit (aka Indigo Prophecy) developed by Quantic Dream, the company which was one step closer to reviving the dying adventure genre. The same company decided to take things to a whole new level on PS3 consoles and deliver us a magnificent psychological thriller that promises to revolutionize both gameplay mechanics and visual standards for “new-gen gaming”. Probably a hidden diamond eagerly waiting to be found, Heavy Rain at shows bags of potential, to say the least.

4. Resident Evil 5 – there’s no surprise to have this title on a “Top 10″ list, since all previous games in the Resident Evil franchise proved to be high quality products. Of course that’s not the only reason: RE5 promises to be a game as good as its predecessors and probably, just like Resident Evil 4, the previous game in the franchise, it will be able to set new landmarks in action/shooter games. Either way, everybody is waiting to get their hands on the game this March when it hits the shops.

3. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves – Nathan Drake made its debut in the video games world in 2007 and amazed players with its intriguing combination of third person shooter, platformer and treasure hunting. Naughty Dog, game’s developers, promise that this year Nathan Drake will take us all to the next level and will soon become “bigger” than Lara Croft. Hopefully they’re not talking about certain body parts…

2. Killzone 2 – the game will be released exactly one month for now, reviews have already surfaced the internet and some gamers already tested Guerrilla’s tactical shooter and the general opinion is unanimous: Killzone 2 will rock the PlayStation 3 consoles and is clearly the hottest PS3 release of the first half of the year. And there’s really nothing else to say ’bout it!

1. God of War III – a game that promises to bring “hell on earth” as gods and titans battle each other in impressive settings – everything rendered at full 1080p HD resolution, with some visuals which will make Gears 2 jealous, is clearly a game to look after. Kratos will be up for a brand new adventure and, even though we have very few details about it or the final product, we can already anticipate that, just like the previous GoW titles, this will also be a “must have” for PlayStation owners.

What PS3 games announced for 2009 would you add to the list?

I'm thinking of buying a new phone

2008-12-04T14:35:00.002-05:00

Ok I hate this ... I write the post and stupid google bar doesn't know how to deal with it. And I have to rewrite the thing...board and unwilling to put in the effort.

So just to prove my point I'm going to do just that.

Me like new n97 phone...me love current E61i. Both nokia!

This new one is has the best of all the world with its

n-gage gaming (Got my psp for that)
Built In GPS (Got my new Garmin Venture cx for that)
Wifi Support (Laptop, PSP, e61i)
5 MP camera with carl zeiss lens (will never compare to my red w170 cybershot with 10.1 MP, carl zeiss lens aaaand automatic smile detector!!!)
qwerty keyboard (got my trusty e61i for that)

It does however have a few nice features that I'm missing...

Nice 3.5 touch screen
32 GB of internal data (daaaaaaamn my computer doesnt even that much space anymore)
it plays flash video that niether my PSP or my phone seem to do :( :(

At this point however I think i'd still wait ... first of all the thing is

too expensive around 250BD ~$670
Still doesnt have EAP-PEAP support which even the iphone has...I mean come on guys, I've been waiting for 2 years and I'm graduating next semester!!
keyboard doesnt light up!!! This is a real issue with me ... I love how my e61i automatically lights up whenever I'm cureled up in bed trying to send that last sms before drifting off to sleep!

Be that as it may its still a killer phone and I think I'll buy it whenever it hits the middle eastern market.

Till then Here's a nice video and the specs sheet for the phone! ... Enjoy

Youtube - Will it ever go away??

2008-11-30T02:57:00.001-05:00

Ok,

its been more than an entire semester since I stopped blogging ... again ...

Its sad being me, I know...

I can keep up with the latest shows, mangas, books, movies, webcomics and apparently inventory management techniques related to my graduation project (anything to plug that into a post), but I simply cannot maintain a blog!!!

I blame google for not finding a way of notifying me when I need to do that!! ... Well they do it with everything else!

Anyway I just wanted to share a new find at 3 in the morning for some reason.

I've never been a big fan of youtube, but I cannot say that it does not produce a few gems every now and then. Pardoies of berserk and gantz tend to make constant appearances on google reader page.

Today I may have found my second Rss feed from youtube...

ItsJustSomeRandomGuy is someone who makes comic book parodies of those stupid I'm a mac and I'm a PC commercials. In any case...I've only seen one of the skits, but it was really good and I've decided to put here to show off my find.

The OPML file I have on the downloads widget is automatically updated with my favorite shows and where you an get them. Just load it up in google reader and let feed rinse do the work for you

Enjoy

Whats good this summer - by me

2008-07-14T01:59:00.000-04:00

Well, I'm back again...

Looking back at my crazy rant in the previous post I really sound like a spoiled brat don't I. Well, let's just say that I am in a better metal state now, well adjusted in my own home and bored out of my mind. To the reader who commented...As you can see there aren't many people who appreciate my work so it was nice hearing from you whoever you may be.

Anyway, I thought today I'd mention a few new shows that have been out that I like and have been watching.

SwingTown

The first one is one that I actually ignored back in Montreal thinking that its just another crap show. The premise was interesting enough, but I doubted that they could make it work. It revolves around the lives of three families the Millers, the Deckers and the Thompsons. After the Millers move to their new house a few blocks away from their old one they discover a whole new world of swinging, drugs and self fulfillment when they run into the Deckers living across the street. Torn between their conservative views represented by their old neighbors (The Thompsons) and a new open lifestyle as represented by the Deckers.

...Or at least thats how it started out. If it had stayed that way I would have defiantly quit watching the show after the first two episodes, but thankfully I was bored and I seriously had nothing to do. The show started to grow on me after the third episode and although I was never a big fan of the interconnected stories lord of the rings type of story, but thankfully you can safely ignore the lame high school crush story the miller's daughter has with her teacher as it has no impact on the story whatsoever. The son's story on the other hand is kind of interesting and may be worth exploring further.

By the time this was posted only six episodes of the show have been released.

Overall Score:
Slow start, but getting better all the time and good authentic soundtrack. hopefully they won't make any fetal mistakes along the way.

Swingtown - CBS

Weeds

What can I say about this show. I simply love it! 4 seasons of pure pleasure. The comedy is top notch the choice of actors is perfect and although I was skeptical at first I love the new direction of the fourth season. It adds value without taking away anything that makes this show so good to watch. The show as a mentioned once before revolves around Nancy Botwin a suburban mom who starts selling weed to make a living after her husband dies unexpectedly.

I really can't tell you how good this show is without spoiling it so I'll leave it at that. The show airs every Monday on showtime and 3 months later on showcase if you have basic cable like me :). Fortunately you can find it online usually within hours of release.

Overall Score:
I couldn't find a proper trailer on dailymotion, but I could find this season three promo which was kind of cool. Enjoy

Weeds - Showtime

The Middleman

This last one is another new show from ABC. Wendy - DubDub - Watson is a struggling female artist that is recruited by a secret agency to fight against evil forces. This show is smart, funny and very entertaining. Its also makes use of the cheese factor :P Yes, The show is cheesy, but in a good way. Its cheesy like firefly was cheesy! I love how Keeslar and Morales work together they certainly have chemistry and make the characters work. There are also a lot of cool references throughout the show to other shows, people and locations; although in episode four some of them were fairly obvious which took away from the fun of figuring them out. I just hope this doesn't become another show for the lowest common denominator. It is on ABC family after all.

Overall Score:
This is a great show to enjoy every Monday night together with weeds. Very funny and very promising.

The The Middleman - ABC Family

Boredom overtook us...

2008-05-19T23:12:00.000-04:00

ever try writing down what you want to say only to find that its the stupidest piece of crap you've ever had the displeasure of reading?

Ok here's the deal...I watched a lot of movies when I was a kid right? ... and in those movies no matter what the sensitive guy, the loser, the underdog, etc... always ends up on top

Problem is real life is nothing like that...you really need to try freaking hard to be on top and frankly im just sick of trying...

Take this blog for example...you think I have it in me to keep updating a blog? Hell NO!!! Maybe I'm no quitter, but damned if I'm ever going to be a persistent fu*!...

Oh by the way...if you're complaining about why i whine so much then get the hell out of my blog. This was never meant for your eyes in the first place.

Anyway .. screw emotions. I just need a nice long trip alone...I need to get out of my routine and just relax. No phone calls no parents no friends no loved ones...just me myself and I...

Yeah right ...like thats ever going to happen. I used to pride myself on being the easiest person in the world to get in touch with...now I don't think thats really something to brag about..

I hope you would just leave me alone

~Sam

I'm Rich!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! NOT :P

2008-03-18T22:03:00.001-04:00

While I was cleaning up my university email account today, I came across a very interesting email. This one is just amazing. I mean you have to give them an A for effort :D

They got my full name and a personal email address that nobody uses. The only place that I know of that uses that spelling of my name and that email address is facebook, but I might be wrong. Anyway just get a load of this

BY THE WAY IF YOU STILL DON'T GET IT; THIS IS A SCAM. THEY ARE TRYING TO TRICK ME!! :p

Dear (My Real Name),
My name is Nur Mokhtar a registered and practicing Attorney in Kuala Lumpur.Malaysia was an attorney to a deceased client of mine who died in Kuala Lumpur,Malaysia of a heart related condition in August 2004.

My reason of sending you this email is to help secure the funds left behind by my client before it is confiscated or declared unserviceable by the bank where this fund valued at US$ 6, 646, 743 as per the Bank Statement of Account.Since you do have the same surname with my late client, I would want to present you as the legitimate beneficiary with all legal documents required backing the claim up.

The holding bank has issued me a notice to contact the next of kin, or the account will be confiscated, and so far, all my efforts to get hold of someone related to this man has proved abortive. This is my proposal; I am asking for your consent to present you to the bank as the next-of-kin and beneficiary of my late client, since you have the same last name, so that the proceeds of this account can be paid to you. Then we can share the amount on a mutually agreed-upon percentage. I do have a good standing in Malaysia, it is my assurance that this transaction will be successful and that I will make sure that the transaction is done within the applicable laws to guarantee full legitimacy. All legal documents to back up your claim as my client's next-of-kin will be provided by me. All I require is your honest cooperation to enable us see this transaction through.

This will be executed under a legitimate arrangement that will protect you from any breach of the law. However, if this business proposition offends your moral values, do accept my apology. Please contact me at once to indicate your interest. Do understand that this transaction does require utmost confidence and you should keep this mail to yourself notwithstanding if you are rejecting the transaction or accepting it.Note that I reserve the right to reject your acceptance of this proposal if I have reasons to believe that you may not be honest or discreet as it concerns this proposal.Further details will be giving as soon as your interest is indicated.

Yours sincerely,

Nur Mokhtar(ESQ)
Attorney at Law.

This is just so amazing heck even I almost fell for it (Not Really)... Anyway a suspicious message like this I just HAD to google it :P and guess what I found. Three links on google with this exact same email format and wording sent to ...

A miss Karen Talkington

A Mr. Juan

and finally

A Mr. or Mrs. Rooij

Now the beauty is that the email is not always exactly the same. Some details were changed from one recipient to another which is painfully obvious from the first sentence of the email that I received. Anyway I just wanted to share this just because it was so good and they somehow managed to fit some real information into it. which is not hard these days, but really still annoying...

One last piece of interesting information. As some of you know I forward all my emails from my concordia accounts to my gmail. So you would think that I would have noticed this email sooner, but fortunately it seems Google has already flagged this email as spam or something.

It's amazing what you'll find while searching...

2008-03-10T09:03:00.003-04:00

Something funny, something sweet and a little political stupidity to boot...

Will the Internet lose its anonymity??
Well apparently if it was up to Kentucky Representative Tim Couch it will. The distinguished gentleman from Kentucky filed a bill last week to make anonymous posting online illegal. The bill would require anyone who contributes to a website to register their real name, address and e-mail address with that site and fines up to $500 will be incurred by any site not posting this information with its comments. This is apparently supposed to stop internet bullying.

Now I realize that this is not the first something like this has been tried for a number of different reasons, but this is just pathetic if you ask me. It just goes to show how much the family unit has weakened and declined. If you can't keep your child safe in your own home then maybe you shouldn't have a child. People should find real solutions to problems instead of sweeping them under the rug and hoping nobody stumbles upon them. Obviously I don't think this bill will ever pass and even if it did it would never change anything, but thats just me.

“but it was my breasts that won in court”.
Ok this is just too funny. Serena Kozakura, A Japanese Pin Up model was convicted last year of property damage as a man claimed that she had kicked in a wooden door of his room and crawled inside - supposedly because she was furious that he was with another woman. The model was acquitted however after the court decided that she simply had too much chest to crawl through the small hole in the door. Apparently During the appeal, her lawyer showed a blackboard with a hole of similar size , and said that it was impossible to crawl through, as Serena has a 110 cm bust.

The Sweeny song

Ok maybe I didn't think highly of johnny Depp's performance as the demon barber of fleet street, but the song itself is not half bad.

Sweeney todd epiphany

Why Be with an Engineer

2008-01-06T18:45:00.000-05:00

I found this today and i thought it was really interesting ( Long Live the Industrial engineers :D )

Have Fun All The Time: Engineer Boyfriend:

Secure lifestyle

An engineer boyfriend can provide you with a secure lifestyle. At 27 years old, an engineer probably has a respectable, stable job
that gives him high income to own a car, invest, have a comfortable life, and get married and buy a house too.

Law graduates are still working as a lowly apprentice in law firm, most management graduates have just failed on their first business plan, the arts graduate is still looking for a job, and the medical school graduate is still living in a hospital.
Unmatchable industriousness

An engineer boyfriend will dedicate an unimaginable amount of his time and effort to understand you. Engineers strain really really
hard to understand their work. You can believe that they will try really really hard to understand women too, just like how they understand their work, once they believe that you are the one. So even if they don't understand you initially, they will keep on trying. Even
if they still do not understand, they will figure out the correct method to keep you happy (e.g. buy diamond ring = 1 week's worth of
happiness.) And once they find out the secret formula, they will just keep on repeating it so that the desired results appear.

Unlike the Lawyer who will argue with you, the Management graduate who will try to control your spending, the Arts Arts graduate who will 'change major', and the medical school graduate who will operate on you. And you know what,it's really so easy to make engineers believe that you are the 'one'.

Say that you like one of their projects and they will be hooked to you forever.

Trust :- An engineer boyfriend will never betray your trust. Let me first tell you what is wrong with the rest of the others - the lawyers will lie about everything, management graduates will cheat your money, the arts graduate will flirt, and you probably just look like another cadaver to the medical school graduate. Your engineer boyfriend is either too busy to have an affair, and even if he does, he is too dumb to lie to you about that.

Hence, an engineer is the most secure boyfriend that you will ever find - rich enough, will keep on trying to understand and please you, has no time for affairs, and too dumb to lie to u !!

Problems with images

2007-10-10T09:14:00.000-04:00

As you may have noticed most of the images on the blog have gone missing. This is mostly due to a problem with my imaging host.

You know i really love Xs.to. They provide a wonderful, easy to use service with no questions asked, but they aren't that friggin reliable!!

Anyway I'll wait for a while and if nothing changes I'll probably just change hosts.

In other news third year engineering is a bi*ch... I mean; who knew??!!
I'll try to make time, but no promises...not that you care!! :(

I mean even my girlfriend won't grace my blog with a visit ...how sad is that!! Maybe I should put up a picture of her as the banner...see how many hits that get me XD...

Speaking of XD who the F*ck came up with this expression...whoever it is you are the stupidest person on this planet and I hate you. You single handedly ruined 75% of my online gaming experiences!!

Anyway I'm heading back to idle on IRC ... Allah Bless the people who made mirc and xdcc-browser espeicially ver. 2.4

Peace,

~Sam

The God of War ... It will Give you Nightmares

2007-08-25T12:51:00.000-04:00

It's been a rough couple of weeks here in Bahrain. Mostly because they are my last two weeks before I head back to Montreal and a few other things like how all my friends are busy with their final exams for the summer semester. So I decided to spend most of my time gaming ... And boy have I been gaming.

I went out and got me 3 new games last week so I could keep busy!!!

I only really got Devil may cry because I liked the second and third installments of the game. Obviously I liked the third one better, but I've never played the first one! Sadly though as much as I like the devil may cry series; I lo0o0o0o0o0ve The God of War. Devil may cry just doesn't compare! I can't even bring myself to play it now.

It took me a combined 14~18 hours to finish both games and I love them both. The story and animation are both perfect.

You see when I bought my PS2 I had delusions about great games with in-game graphics that looked like final fantasy 8 FMV videos, but I was sadly disappointed ... not this time ... this is where the game truly delivers. To be honest. The game looked so good it was frightening. I had nightmares that night from all the loud, bloody and fast paced action. Trust me when I say that this game is not for the weak of heart.

With a lot of heart, a lot of blood and a lot of sex the game definitely deserves its mature rating from the ESRB.

PLAY IT!!!!

How about your room??

2007-08-25T12:42:00.000-04:00

Ever since I moved out of my parents' house and into my new apartment for college ((which they are paying for btw)) I've been obsessed with how my bedroom should look. At first I thought well ok I'll just wait till they leave and then I'll pick out whatever I really like. After 6 months of procrastination I found out that it doesn't work that way :P and to this day I'm stuck with the really cool bed, but everything else is just bland and ordinary. So for your enjoyment I've posted these photos of some really cool bedrooms that I found on a forum somewhere...

Don't forget to click the "Click to Read Full Post" button below in order to see the pictures

Harry again

2007-08-11T09:21:00.000-04:00

This summer seems filled with love for Harry Potter. The movies, the books, the posters, even my little cousin has been pestering me to borrow my copy of the Half Blood Prince.

And although it took me two days to finish the Deathly hallows I have to say it was well worth it. I immensely enjoyed reading this book. Unlike the previous two it didn't feel rushed or uneven. It seems the author finally found a way to get back to her old style which worked for her so well in past; overall a good book and a good ending to a great saga.

The real reason for this post however is not to celebrate finishing the book, but the fact that I finally had the chance to see the new movie that was released last month with my family and I wasn't disappointed.
Because just like the book the movie literally sucked!! ....
Due to the great popularity of the movies here in Bahrain and the incredible advertising campaign that came with the release of the movie I wasn't able to see the film until yesterday. The movie, much like the book was very boring. It did however surpass the book in the fact that it is completely useless. Many of the points the were highly stressed in the book were skipped over by the movie. I came to learn not to expect much when comparing the books to the movies, but this is ridiculous! I spent half the movie trying not to fall asleep and the other half was spent trying to wake up my mother who was sitting beside me.
AND SHE'S AN ENGLISH TEACHER!! (If you've ever read the English compositions written by intermediate public school girls in Bahrain you'd understand that she's not a person who would get bored easily)

That is not to say that the movie did not have its moments. When kingsley said that Dumbeldore had style and the fire snake Voldermort released on Harry and Dumbeldore near the end, both classic moments to be treasured surely. Not to mention a great performance by theater veteran Imelda Stuaunton as senior undersecretary Dolores Umbridge. The hate she makes you feel for her charecter is enough for her to win the academy award as best supporting actress.

Overall the only real enjoyment I had watching this movie was finally learning how to pronounce those pesky defense spells correctly and watching Evanna Lynch Prance around as Luna Lovegood.

In the end I add my voice to friendly blogger بحرينية (Bahrainia) in saying that this movie was a serious disappointment

It's amazing what you'll find while searching...

2007-08-11T08:31:00.000-04:00

One of the few things that can brighten one's day is stumbling upon a good website. Something funny, something sweet, something serious and something educational.

So four catagories and four websites for you to enjoy fresh from today's inet expeditions by sam.

Confessions of a Vegas Bathroom Attendant
The Wallet
Protecting the World from Fashion Pirates
Dihydrogen Monoxide the Unknown Killer

Harry

2007-08-07T03:31:00.000-04:00

I don't feel like editing the template just yet, but I finally bought a copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
I've been a fan of Potter ever since I started reading it back in 2000 shortly after the fourth book "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" was released.

I first took interest in the book while watching Disney's Hercules on the floor of a children's store in the Satellite terminal in Kuala Lampur International Airport where the Goblet of Fire was displayed in a treasure chest for anyone to see and touch.

After returning to Bahrain and borrowing the first book it only took me 2 weeks to finish reading the entire series till the Goblet of Fire AKA the Mammoth which in my eyes at least is the last real Harry Potter book to be released.

To be honest I was very disappointed in the last two books of the series especially "The order of the Phoenix" and to this day when I talk about harry potter I only mean the first four books. Hopefully this last book will help change my opinion. Don't get me wrong, I love the fact that people die in both books and I think that it took a lot of courage to break away from the usual
cliché of together and happily ever after, but to me it was a little forced if you know what I mean. I feel that the author tried too hard to force the characters to develop in a certain way.

In any case I am still a Potter Fan and will remain one until the end no matter what happens.