Slipper slaps n’ unwashed car story

Last night as I reached to my neighborhood I heard a loud fight that I overheard it while music was jazzin’ up loud. Turned off music, got the window down n’ the closer I get to my place the louder the fight. It was the neighbors. As I was about to turn the car off I see a Man with his Undies chasing his Maid, pushed’em n’ gott’em backin’ to the wall. Got his slippers n’ started slappin’em with those on his face. Took me a while to realize what’s up, first I thought it was a thief chase, then when I looked closely, these are people I usually say Hi to, neighbors. Approached’em n’ tried to stop the beating as the maid was all tears n’ promising he’ll wash the car n’ never forget again.

I gave the master a cigarette to smoke to let’em calm down n’ let the maid go wash up n’ go in. “What happened, what did he do?” I asked. “He washed my 750, I wanna’ go out with my Range(short for Range Rover)”. The man has three cars n’ as he explained he drives a different car by schedule n’ the maid has to wash a car everyday, apparently he mixed up which car he had to wash last night. I couldn’t take talkin’ any longer to him, so I left.

Shocked. Jus’ shocked.

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Life without Ads

This morning I was watching a channel that stretched a half an hour documentary to more than an hour. While I was fine with it having it watched on a Free channel and unplanned out of blue. Just thought of a crazy-wild idea. How would life be without Ads. Ads, as in Display Ads, Roller Ads, TVC, Radio, Newspapers, Outdoor, Google Ads, Web Banners, E-mail shots & Newsletters Ads. And not even SMS or Telemarketers. And those annoying brochures left under your apartment’s door or the slips left on your windshield. Clearly no Ads of any sort.

Radio

Imagine driving on a road like Sheikh Zayed Road on a jammed day, traffic ain’t moving. Dial a radio station and listen to your music without no cheesy brand name insert here and there, comes News break then you do not hear that “why stand inline when you can book online, Fly Emirates”, ah so you change to Virgin Radio(104.4) and get that so annoying 5 words weather update, “it’s going to be sunny” and then another insertion, “brought to you by Snickers Ice Cream, your favorite chill”.

Think about this, how much of programming is done to do all the insertions planning. Man! If all that was spent on getting better music and repeating less tracks, we’d have amazing Radio Stations.

Outdoor Banners

Then you get bored of the music played, so you turn on your iPod on your car n’ rock your own tracks. Window down, lite a cigarette take a look around, and you find a jungle of colors and lights. It always reminds me of my room back in the teen days with all the posters in no order. Look right and you see some Hyundai ad, now Hyundai being a luxury wannabe’, look ahead and it’s all about why you should buy cheaper stuff. Air Arabia teaches you that it’s okay to go aged and balled exactly as how you have to accept getting the cheaper Plane tickets. So Air Arabia is something one has to talorate, not something to accept, who got sold on account managers’ crap. So it’s all about the economy weather?

Just like teenager’s posters, you could know his/her music Genre from the posters, you could learn the market from the style of the ads.

Close your eyes for a second and get all that out of your mind, get back to your own music. You remember you’re still connected to the world, hah, got Twitter and Facebook in your car, on your mobile.

You fire up that Twitter client and you find weird @yournickname replies to things you never talked about or related to, snap, spam that is. Star those cool tweets to read up links later on your big screen.

Time to see what your pals are doing, get that Facebook up, oh, got 4 new messages in my inbox. Wow, I feel so popular today, first reads Live invites you to use the Live Messenger App more often. Second reads “Hi I sell iPhone 3G for AED2799, hurry up”, third, “Hey S send me your BB Pin”, forth, “Sponsored by ***** win dinner at… while you’re at it, you get an e-mail notification on your Blackberry, oh, you’d be excited to be receiving replies to some of your earlier sent e-mails. E-mail reads, Lands, Apartments direct from the owner, hurry up.

So what’s up with the “hurry up” is everything on sale and for sale nowadays. Gets darker outside, turn your headlights on, the car ahead has stickers all around it with. Apple’s logo, some Air Intake brand(usually K&N) and when you get tired take a look at your left, there is that ugly public transport bus with AMEInfo all over it, I mean isn’t it enough that we have our inboxes full of AMEInfo already?

By the time you reach your destination you think parking, after a long search you spot a slot and you park. Waiting for the elevator, a screen between every two elevators showing a promotion on ACs? Winter y’all! Yo go in, reach your destination, wait to meet your host, you get coffee in a “Nescafe” mug, cheap bastards. On the waiting table, it’s all classifieds and promotional brochures, people don’t read magazines anymore? Or there’s no more space?

Down the building, reaching to your car, ah, man, another fine for what? Some bastard put up a promotional Brochure on your windshield covering your parking token! Fines remind you of more bills waiting for you, you race to your Post Office, you open up the box and you can’t take anything out, it’s all jammed, because Jutton had to send you a big-huge-brochure that is thick enough to cover up your inbox.

No moral, just a crazy thinking. You see, you can be frustrated about Ads, but can we live without’em? That was a way too negative way of thinking about Ads. I was about to edit some, but hell, that’s some reality.

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Pro is softer than the down-to-earth MacBook

Spilt coffee on my little white MacBook and had to turn it to the service center for a checkup, it wouldn’t power on. Me need a machine to work on, so I ran to Jumbo and got me a MacBookPro and thought I’d spare the white little thing for another use. Shocked by how delicate the Pro is. I’d throw my MacBook in my car, carry it with a little portfolio and a notebook for meetings, the Pro is not made to be used that way, I thought it’d be tougher and had to take less care of it, it just ain’t.

Sure I get to have better performance, specially when connected to an external display, one other thing I missed on when purchasing the Pro is that screen is Liquid looking and not Glossy like my little white beauty, it’s heavy, okay it’s got the multi-touch trackpad, but really, not so satisfied so far. I sold my MacBookAir a week after getting it, think I might do the same with this Pro Heavy and Bulky, I just don’t feel mobile with it or maybe I’d get used to it?

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And we’re down for another temporary cut-off

dot1ne has been off my own radar for sometime, haven’t posted anything that is worth reading for such a long time, but still, gotta’ keep this blog on hold for another month ’till the end of August until I get my schedule back together and get back on my key strokes.

Visitors and feed subsribers have dropped dramatically, feedburner shows less than 100 subscribers, visits have dropped to an average of 170 visitors a day, so it is in a way dying since the content has been pouring so slow and posts have been all scattered among unrelated topics with no relations. Diagnosed with lack of content and posts. Hoping for a better comeback in September. Expect some random posts whenever I catch something noteworthy to post, short ones though. Thanks for being a reader, hope to get it back together with a redesign in September and/or some fresh ideas.

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Nissan GT R35 in Dubai

Finally I saw that with my own eyes, a GT R35 a Blood Red GT with a 5-digit Dubai Number Plate. It looked nothing like the photos and videos, it’s even better seeing it with your own eyes, the reason I did not take photos of it is because I was just amazed and was just looking at its details while on the run on Jumeriah Road, thing is the driver thought I was looking for a race, guess he felt like smoking a Z for a taste, so he just stepped on it and took off, and it sounded awesome! Me want.

I was told that only Eight GTs made it to Dubai, seen only one on the road, anyone with a price tag details?

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Feeds and Facebook in one page

Now I get to check out my Facebook and read my feeds all in one page. Neat.

How didn’t I know about this before, darn, that’s because I’ve ditched my feeds and my favorite netvibes page. So now that I’ve upgraded to the new version I get to add the Facebook Widget and get to do all in one place, man, and I was asking myself why didn’t I go with Bloglines or Google Reader, Netvibes foreva!

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Life on Auto-Pilot mode

Heard it from many, specially those who know me through this Blog, “You ain’t writing anything anymore”, they say that all the time. It’s mostly every month that I think of writing/posting something, but then I think again and keep telling myself that ain’t a piece to write about and just pollute the cyberspace with nonsense and passive comments or controversy. From what it’s worth, learned that comments are not always opinions. Specially when life passes you by so fast with a year full of surprises and new adventures.

Yeah, kept the “Busy” flag on top of every random point I was spotted, but things I’ve missed are yet more than I imagined, specially the habits that changed. Stopped reading my RSS-Feeds for such a long time, most of the blogs changed style, tone, and became really aged and mature, missed more than 15 issues of my favorite webzine; A List Apart, my favorite designer’s blog John Hicks, can’t believe I’ve actually forgot how to write in Textile format while editing this very post.

I guess things have changed, things that were boring like reading News and Business/Industry updates replaced my reading dose that used to be all Technology/Development/Design. I stopped ranting as I used to all the time, instead, trying to make the change by actions instead of negative and angry comments, it’s really amazing how the transition took place, from an angry observer design critique to a person who actually does the change and makes difference, actions baby! It’s amazing and a bless to be able to do that, lucky!

It all just happened, it’s amazing. I should have some more stuff to share, some of the last year’s experiences in Design, Advertising, Client Servicing, and some off-points, like losses and big wins. It’ll come out, this post should be a good start.

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Journalists: 5698724 kindda number plates

Was just reading this bit on the the biggest number plate auction ever at ArabianBusiness.com, where Rob Corder categorizes number plates by number of digits:

Number plates in the UAE bestow upon their owners their present rank in society – Ruler: number 1; immediate family: single digits; senior government officials: two digits; private company CEOs: three digits; journalists: 5698724.

Neat! Journalists: 5698724, or in other words, whatever plate. Gives me a little giggle with ma morning coffee.

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Land Rover ME, you’re so cheap!

Just got me a copy of AutoCar magazine that had all the winners of the 2007 Best Cars Award. Well, nothing so cool about the contest as Audi R8 wins over Lambo? Didn’t dig that! What bothered me was the CD that came with the mag, a concluded version of the Land Rover website burnt on a DVD and given away, ah c’mon! That’s cheap! I expected to have cool interactive multimedia presentation that’d make me navigate every angle of their cars, Land Rover, really, I could dial in your URL and see that for myself, thanks!

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He ain’t no hacker!

It’s been all over the place, a developer in Saudi is promising an Arabized iPhone. Claims are that he is half way through.

I’m concerned about one thing, and only one, his quote that has been quoted everywhere, in almost all the ME tech online portals.

And the quote is:

We are not hackers, we are developers

This quote, worries me so much! You know why? Because, well, let Wikipedia explain this and keep ma’self out of this. Any person who’s had at least a year in coding/development/hacking would know the meaning when we’re not speaking of Security.

Now out of all the press that “non-hacker” got, to my amazement I could get my iPhone to read Arabic with broken letters, got the squares finally turn into letters, one down! Now getting those letters to show up as words, quite a challenge.

I just can’t understand how sometimes journalists write up things and mess up that bad! I tell ya why? Get some real techies on board! ITP please!

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