My Surreal Life (Part 2)

Today (actually... my "today" started about 16 hours ago... and still going... so it feels more like YESTERday...) was another interesting one, so I haven't had time to really comment on all the wonderful comments by the two most important women in my life (who supposedly love me, but it's hard to tell from their unabashed bashing of me...)... so we'll just ignore them, shall we? hehe

I've spent most of the day troubleshooting our network, which has refused to cooperate. Hard to believe that a bunch of electronic gizmos could be so stubborn, but none of them really seemed interesting in all working at the same time, making my job infinitely more interesting. As you can tell, it's around 11pm my time, and I got here around 7am...

But I remembered another factor in My Surreal Life (c) that I forgot to share with you the other day. In all this "dirty yucky" country, I have found a little slice of Heaven... TRUE NERDVANA. (Dilbert fans are smiling and nodding, n00bs are looking up the word).

There's an area that is just PACKED full of computer stores of every imaginable type. It's in Hawalli, and there is literally 2 malls, right next to each other, and EVERY store is a computer store. Imagine walking through your mall (whereever you live...). You don't see a Bath & Bodyworks, or any other "girly" store... No Gap, Old Navy, or LL Bean. No stupid kiosks in the middle of the floor selling your family history, or glass baubles, etc.... JUST GEEK STUFF. I was only in one of the malls, and I was only able to visit a few of the stores, but I saw no less than 30 stores... ALL of them computer stores. And to make things even WORSE, copyright laws do not apply here... think about that... here's how it works:

You walk into pretty much ANY computer store, and you ask to see their "book". They all know what you're asking about, and most of them have right there on the counter. So... you flip through the book, and you can immediately tell what it is you're looking at... Playstation, Xbox, DVD movies, PC games, whatever... in the corner there is a number. You tell the guy what #'s you want, and he disappears somewhere, and comes back with your choices, in a plastic bag, and a printed copy of the software or movie cover. A CD or DVD (game) usually has a hand-written description on it, while the movies usually have a nice printed label (similiar to the original). And these aren't always just copies from a DVD... for example, the book I last looked at included Bad Boys II, Open Range, S.W.A.T, Pirates of the Caribbean, etc... all movies still in the theatre. These works of art are filmed in the theatre (usually quite poorly), and just copied to DVD. What's really funny is if you watch one of them long enough, and you get into the movie, then all of a sudden someone (in the theatre that it was originally filmed) walks in front of the camera, and you realize that you're alone in the room.... your first thought is usually somewhere along the lines of "what the hell...?".

Anyway, back to my little piece of Heaven in the middle of Hell. Some of the prices are really good, some are really outrageous. Add to that the challenge of figuring out KD in USD, I'm going to be very cautious in there... but I did see some things I really wouldn't mind having... Sorry Shelley, but it's true... I'm really curbing my urges (do I need it vs. do I want it...), but I'm going to breakdown eventually. hehe I'll justify it by claiming it's to better prepare our progeny for the world of technology he/she is being born into...

Speaking of offspring, Shelley is doing good, in her 17th week, and sounds good when I talk to her. I know a lot of you talk to her on a regular basis, but would you please just call her and say "hi"? You can even call her and tell her I told you to, so I'll score some points too. I just can't call her now as often as I could when I was in the States, because of the time difference. She's asleep when I'm awake, and vice-versa. Anyway, just do it, will ya?

Well, that's all that I have time for, thanks for all your comments! I want to see 10 comments (from different people) on one of my posts one of these days. I guess I'll just have to post something REALLY interesting... =)

Love to all ... but especially to Shelley (and the BIG tadpole)!