Anyone know why the Del.icio.us Sidebar links are not showing up? Is it just me in Dubai? Del.icio.us is available in Dubai, not blocked like some other sites (Flickr). Can you all see the links? Is something wrong on Del.icio.us? Sometimes the RSS seems to go down or something. Any nerds out there know something?
Everything is going smoothly so far. Well, maybe not smoothly, but not badly. I moved into an apartment straight away, which was not was I was hoping for, but now that it’s done, I think it was best. The night I arrived, the guy I’ll be working with, Will, picked me up in his convertible TVR (that’s a sweet little sports car, but very small) and we were barely able to get all my crap into it before slamming the trunk lid down and SPEEDING through the traffic. It was a beautiful night, and a fitting beginning to the trip.
The apartment is a simple one bedroom, pretty new, furnished, mostly with IKEA-like stuff. Nothing on the walls, mostly white and light wood stuff. The couch is UGLY, but everything else is fine. They included some simple stuff like toilet paper and a bottle of water, but mostly empty cabinets and fridge. There is a bidday (sp?) and a washing machine, but no dishwasher or dryer. I would trade the bidday for a dishwasher any day. I don’t even know how to use a bidday, or spell it.
I have gone grocery shopping a few times, and have slowly been stocking up on essentials. It’s funny how many US products they have here, but it’s funnier to see the stuff they don’t have – like Bounty (the quicker picker-upper) and Dawn. Also having a hard time finding basil. Ah well.
I still have no cellphone, but my apartment does have a landline. I just finally got DSL installed this morning, so I finally can get on the internet. Of course, I have internet at work, but it has been so busy and I have been running around so much, I haven’t had much time for anything except telling my mother I was alive.
I also spent 2 hours at the Dubai DMV today getting my local license. Dubai DMV. EXACTLY what you expect is what it is. But not I have a Dubai license that reads, “Christopher Louis” because they didn’t understand the difference between a Last and Middle name. My Visa says “Christopher Louis DiClerico son of Camillo DiClerico”. Ha. Like a royal family.
I have a rental car now, a Mitsubishi Lancer, though I am afraid to drive it yet because I am going to INSTANTLY get lost. I have marked up a few maps and have been making mental notes when the cab drivers take me around, but I don’t think it’s going to help much.
The DSL is restricted access, like 90% of the city, so there are many sites I cannot visit. Instant Messaging and the camera thing will not work unfortunately. Also can’t visit boingboing and some other sites I normally visit. TV is absolute shit, Satellite, with 500 channels, 3 of which are english – BBC World, CNN, CNBC World, and that is fucking it. I may pay out my own pocket for a better package with english channels. It doesn’t matter now, but once the summer comes, leaving the
house is not an option.
I will be working from the office daily. Work week is Saturday – Wednesday (Th, Fr are the weekend) from 7am until 4pm. I am sure that I will adjust those hours soon, as I’ll need to be on the phone regularly with the NY office. Since 4pm is 7am in NY, I think I will adjust so that I will stay in office until 7pm (or 10 NY time) for the few days that the NY office is in, which will make it easier. I am sure they will allow me to come in at 10am if I need to. Dress code is more relaxed than I thought. Still wearing suits, but I currently the best dressed here. Now sitting with jacket and tie off, thank God. It is already about 80 degrees + outside.
I live in a neighborhood that is right on the Bur Dubai side of the creek, a block away from the UK embassy, and 3 long blocks away from one of the many massive malls, Bur Juman. I have been there 3 times in 2 days so far, and will go again tonight. Dinner there gave be diarrhea.
I haven’t taken a single picture yet, but I plan to over the weekend (starting tomorrow). Flickr, as expected, is blocked, so I’ll need to work out a way to post. It might be rough going to start. Anyway, keep reading, because this is about to get interesting.
It’s 6:12pm EST, despite what the timestamp might say at the bottom of this post. I just finished packing: my bags, plus my whole room into boxes because I accidentally found a sub-letter. Cool guy names Flak will be moving in April 1st, and I am pretty sure he didn’t want to have to slide my clothes out of the way to fit his own. Anyway, having a sub-letter will mean more money in the bank, but a hell of a lot more stress the last few days. Packing was horrific. A dozen boxes, plus various other bags, cabinets, and small boxes later, our attic looks like a self-storage unit.
Despite the 2 bag check limit, I have 3, plus 2 carry-ons. Carrying so much stuff with me makes me nervous, but I have never packed for 6 months before. I guess 30 t-shirts is reasonable for such a trip. I hope.
4 suits, 8 pairs of pants, 30 t-shirts, maybe 8 button down shirts, many socks, all my underwear, 2 laptops, a psp, 2 cameras, 3 lenses, a baseball hat, 3 lightweight jackets, one of which is water resistant, a pair of goretex boots, dress shoes, casual shoes, and a pair of sneakers. I forgot some of the stuff, and I am sure I forgot to bring something important. I guess that’s what credit cards are for.
My flight to Dubai is at 11:30pm tonight. I’ll leave for the airport early at 8:30pm I think. I’m not sure when I’ll be back again. This year is shaping up to be all about travel. The company agreed to pay for 3 trips back to NY from Dubai over the course of the first 6 months, but I have many places to see. Oddly, I may be back for a meeting at the agency on March 28th, but after that I have no idea.
More likely than not, I’ll be headed to Edinburgh, Scotland for some user testing in April. I have a wedding in Spain in August, and a wedding in Ireland in October. Another wedding may be happening in MExico, but the plans aren’t final yet. I will try my hardest to get to Egypt and India this year, both less than 5 hour flights from Dubai, and both worthy of weekend trips if thats all the time I have. So, NY, not as high on the priority list as it might otherwise be. My best friend Mike is having his first kid over the summer sometime. I’ll come home for the Christening I think. We’ll see.
I have killed the home phone service here, and am killing my cellphone service tonight. I’ll get a local number in Dubai when I arrive. Email will continue to be the best way to get in touch with me for a while. I will continue to update this site while I am there. If things go well, I’ll be making this site very Dubai-centric. Flickr doesn’t seem to work out there (it’s censored) so photo updates might be a little different from now on. We’ll see. I’ll do my best.
I want to take a second to thank everyone for their good wishes, time, and contacts in Dubai over the last few weeks. Everyone has been very generous and kind. I will miss most of you very much. Please stay in touch and start planning your trips out to visit soon.
Wish me luck…
Sweet sweet classic gaming mashup. Megaman vs. Ghosts ‘n Goblins is fantastic. I played the first board of Ghosts ‘n Goblins with Megaman and kicked ass. I have no idea if you ever get to play Megaman boards with Arthur.
[via del.icio.us.]
It seems kind of old. The animation and modeling isn’t all that good. The idea is not THAT great. But for some reason, I love this 3D animated Matrix trailer made with the Muppets. Rowlf as Morphius is seriously an inspired casting decision.
[via manny.]
Mark Ronson and Alex Greenwald of Phantom Planet cover Radiohead’s “Just” in this video of animated London graffiti. It’s pretty awesome.
[via boingboing.]
Prepare yourself for one of my nerdiest posts in a long time. It’s not a rant, just some observations and expectations of the upcoming X-Men film, The Last Stand. I apologize in advance. If you are an attractive girl, please DO NOT CONTINUE reading.
On May 26th, the 3rd X-Men film will be released, but some things will be different. Brett Ratner will be directing, instead of Bryan Singer (who did a pretty good job directing the first 2 installments and now finds himself in the middle of production on Superman Returns and a recently announced sequel), who’s only claims to fame are Rush Hour and Rush Hour 2 (and recently announced Rush Hour 3). Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth? My confidence level is very low. Comic book adaptations are probably the most difficult movies to pull off. New Academy Award winning Ang “Brokeback” Lee found out the hard way with the Hulk, and only Chris Nolan seems to have really found the formula with Batman Begins.
In addition, some idiot cast Frasier as the Beast, and Alan Cumming’s Nightcrawler is no more. My favorite blue fuzzy character replaced by my least.
Same person cast Vinnie Jones, you know, Bullet Tooth Tony from Snatch, as Juggernaut. Now I don’t know how much you know, but Juggernaut is enormous and nearly invulnerable, and Vinnie Jones was a soccer (football) player. Tough? Yes. Big? Yes, for a footballer. Mean? Yes, you might not know this, but he’s the guy from the infamous soccer ball-grab photo seen below. But a giant bodybuilder? No. His prosthetic muscles ring a little untrue, but we’ll see, I guess how they look in full motion…
There might be hope. The theatrical trailer was released this week, and even though my trailer skepticism is kicking in, it looks really great. Might Brett Ratner have pulled a surprise out of his cheesy ass? I don’t know.
Another bright spot might be evidenced in this still from the trailer… Is that the gleaming, muscley arm of Colossus in the foreground? I think so. He’s another favorite, though his 17th billing on IMDB’s full credits page doesn’t bode well for screen time.
Full motion Juggernaut chasing “phasing” Kitty Pryde through a wall doesn’t look so bad either.
Maybe Vinnie steroided-up for the role, or maybe the synthetic muscles move better than I predicted. In any case, it is nice to start seeing the extended X-Men family making it to the action sequences, though I still have no idea why these people insist on making Iceman important. Wasn’t he only in about 6 issues, and wasn’t he the star of Saturday mornings’ Spiderman and His Amazing Friends. Iceman is one of Spiderman’s friends, not an X-Man. Well, whatever. He sucks. Also, Rogue is not supposed to be a whiny bitch. I hope they fix that in this one.
OK, well enough of this. The main point of this post is that trailer is way better than I expected even though my overall expectations remain low. Also, I am still a nerd.
Finally! The picts from the going away party on 2/24/06 are now up on Flickr. Again, let me thank everyone for coming. It was truly awesome. I’d also like to thank Jay, Mae, and Gregg for taking these fine pictures. If you didn’t attend, hopefully these can give you just a small sense of how good it was.
[from my friends.]
I give it about 10 minutes before the hardcore rap song I just watched Natalie Portman perform on SNL becomes the next big thing on the internet. Adam Sandburg Andy Samberg (I always get that wrong!) is the best thing to hit Saturday Nights sings Will Ferrell. I’ll post it here the second it lands on Google Video.
10…9…8…7
UPDATE: It was posted at 12:18 am. I was off by a few minutes. This is really great.
Business Week has a nice slideshow/story of some of the record-beating buildings upcoming in Dubai. Soon to be the world’s tallest building, the Palm Islands, the World islands, the indoor skiing, the world’s tallest hotel, the world’s tallest apartment, and the list goes on and on…
[via digg.]
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