Gold ATM's n Stuff

I haven't been terribly active over the past few months; a post once in a while complaining about stupid MP's etc.. There will be quite a dramatic change to the site pretty soon though, and I think i'll probably start writing a lot more **sound of everyone rejoicing** so what better way to start off than with a happy topic? Sure, the world has managed to go through a full financial crisis, people lost jobs, huge companies collapsed, people went bankrupt, etc. One entity that has managed to benefit through the turmoil, however, is our neighboring state, Abu Dhabi.

Yup, with Dubai out of the picture, enough oil to ensure constant cash liquidity throughout the crisis, and one of the biggest sovereign funds in the world, they've managed to reach a point where even global powers such as the UK were begging them for money. Lovely.

With Abu Dhabi having so much wealth, what better way to prove it than by giving it's residents an even more opulent way to get their cash? Enter the Gold ATM. Yeh, umm, I don't mean an ATM that's just covered in gold. No, I mean this baby is for those who think withdrawing your regular 200 or 500 dirham note is a bit, you know, lower class. This baby actually gives you.. *drum roll* actual gold. **pause for dramatic effect**

Why anyone would actually need to go and withdraw gold, however, is beyond me. You can withdraw gold coins and bars, all in pure 24 carats, and if really up your alley, you can even print a logo or something on them. Apparently the first run of gold ran out pretty damn quickly.


It's good to know there are people with so much money that any form of common sense is stripped from their mental state; this just means we can probably rip them off easily with another bogus project. Coming up next, the Ammaro Diamond Dispensing ATM, and here's how I would price it:

Actual price of diamond - $200
Ammaro markup - $800
Ammaro Tax - 20%
Service Fee - $150
Stupid Tax - $150
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Total paid by millionaire for a $200 diamond - $1500

Of course, to make it more appealing, millionaires love to show off how rich they are, so each person who withdraws a diamond gets to have their video taken while withdrawal, and uploaded to YouTube, the AmmaroDiamondATM site, and a few others, to show everyone how rich (stupid) they are. That option, of course, requires an extra $500 online service fee to be added, but hey, it's worth it if you could keep that memory forever, right?

The things too much money can make you do eh?

MP Ban

A short and to the point fun post for today:

The Facts:
- Alcohol is allowed in Bahrain, Qatar, UAE and Oman. It is not allowed in Saudi or Kuwait.
- During an MP session, it was a majority vote to ban alcohol.
- The MP's are up for re-election this year.
- The decision is to be raised to King Hamad on the 10th of May for a final binding decision.

The Proposed:
- Alcohol to be served only to those who are non-muslim. All of this in the name of Islam, of course.

The Stupid:
- See above. Because Islam is about choice; if you have no choice, you're just a sheep and therefore whether you do good or otherwise has nothing to do with your conscience, it's just you doing what you do. Second of all, if a 'muslim' person sends his non-muslim friend, maid, etc to go get alcohol, you're still in the same dilemma. Third, black markets exist; examples are in Saudi Arabia or Kuwait, where a bottle of Black Label has a higher street price than almost anywhere else in the World.

ammaro's Proposal:
- Let's ban MP's.

Random Observation:
- Walked into a Zain Shop today, and they had a large Wheel. Asked them what it was for and they said, pay BD4 and spin the wheel to win. Great. Alcohol is on the verge of being banned and people are already opening casinos. Nice.

Let Me Speak

I haven't blogged in a while, and not planning on doing it for a while to come.. My "blogging" has shifted to mostly random babbling on twitter, and with decreased spans of attention in people, 140 characters seems about as long as you can keep a persons interested before they drift somewhere else (probably to a photo of a cute kitten or some random YouTube video of something being destroyed).

There are things that tick me off so much with this country, however, that the rage must come out. What is UP with Bahrain? Seriously? So much for a country all about promoting freedom of speech, right to say whatever you want, and so on. But no, after numerous arrests of reporters, the crackdown on websites (no, it's not just a porn crackdown, it's tons of political content too), shutting down a newspaper for a couple of days last year after an 'unpatriotic article', and so on, now they're trying to stick their hands into blackberry messenger groups.

There's been a group started a few months ago called خبر عاجل which translates into 'breaking news'. This basically gives you an update of all news that the newspapers are planning to print tomorrow, today, and also covers some fun stuff such as what movies were released in the cinema, etc. The service is free; as long as you have a blackberry, you can add the service and receive the news updates, wherever you are. This service was started by a single individual who wanted to provide a useful service to the country. He's not profiting from it, and all resources to broadcast the service are financed by him. Subscribers to the service reached approx 12,000 as of yesterday.

But yesterday, the service stopped.

What happened, we asked?

And we got the reply; apparently the Ministry of Culture has decided that this service never got official permission from them to broadcast the news messages, and can thus cause chaos and confusion.

Excuse me, what?

Why the hell does a broadcast message need to get official permission from you? I just sent out a dirty joke via BBM to about 100 people, wanna come and regulate that as well? What a way to say thank you to someone whose just trying to help, and the thing is, he was just sending out news which is meant to be published the next day through "official" publications anyway.

Seems our Ministry of Culture wants to control all messages being sent out via people to people. You will NEVER be able to control information; it goes through email, text messages, word of mouth, Facebook fanpages, twitter, and services you don't even know of let alone understand. It's news articles like this that just gives me a bitter after taste every time I remember the Bahrain National Action Charter:

Fourth - Freedom of expression and publishing

Every citizen shall have the right to express himself orally, in writing or in any other way of expression of personal opinion or creativity. Under this law, freedom of scientific research, publishing, press and printing are ensured within the scope specified by law.

And here's what actually happened:

In a statement carried by the Bahrain News Agency (BANA), Abdullah Yateem, assistant undersecretary for press and publication at the Ministry of Culture and Information, attributed the decision to the "chaos and confusion" of unauthorized news postings.

"In view of the impact that such news create among the public by causing chaos and confusion, especially since the source is individuals and agencies which have failed to obtain official permission by the ministry prior to engaging in such activities, we have summoned those individuals and will be taking legal action against the offenders who broke the regulations and laws," Yateem said.

Way to go Bahrain...

A Bahraini Romantic Comedy Crime Thriller

News in this region is generally more entertaining than informative, mainly because we have a ton of idiots living in this region. They are fun to read about, such as the below: I know we have a lot of desperate and bold people, but not like this lot.

First guy (let's call him Abood) has a BD500 phone bill, and doesn't have the cash to pay it. Instead of going out and getting a job like regular people, he decides there are tons of ways to make money on the internet.

He goes online and finds someone to chat with (let's call him Hamood). So Abood talks to Hamood and tells him he needs him to pay his bill, but the twist is, he actually tells Hamood he's a girl. And he's actually willing to send Hamood nude pix of her (him) if he does pay her (his) bill.

Hamood, being a total naive jackass, decides, yes, I can get nude pix just by paying someone's bill! Here the mistake is made because 1- there's a ton of free porn online and 2- for BD500 you can actually get a little more than a photo, and get it a few times over as well. Not that I endorse either.

Anyhow, now Abood thinks he's pretty clever right? Well, Hamood decides he's gonna be even cleverer, and instead of spending his own cash for a photo, he decides to steal a credit card from someone (let's call him Khalood), and use that to pay Abood's bill.

Now, here's where it backfires. Khalood discovers BD500 missing from his credit card, calls the cops, who see that card was used to pay a specific phone number. They look up the owner of the phone, and guess who they find? Abood! Now obviously the phone company has all of Aboods details, so they go to his house and arrest him.

Abood says he's not guilty, and tells them about Hamood. Now he doesn't really know anything about Hamood, so him, along with the cops, chat with Hamood and says that he wants to 'meet him' at a shady spot in Hamala, and also gets him arrested. Now they're both on trial... Here's how I feel about this whole situation:

No further comments. Here's the original article from the GDN.

Credit card fraud denied

AN alleged Internet scam in which one man posed as a woman to convince another to pay his phone bills has backfired - after his supposed target apparently used stolen credit card information to settle the balance.

Both appeared in the High Criminal Court yesterday where they denied charges of fraud and theft. The 21-year-old first defendant is said to have created an online persona called "Manal" before meeting the other man, 25, in an online chatroom.

Prosecutors claim he offered to show the second defendant pictures of "Manal's" body every time he paid the bill. However, police were called when the 25-year-old allegedly paid a BD500 bill with stolen credit card details that he took from a website.

Both are standing trial in the High Criminal Court, where they pleaded not guilty to fraud and theft. The Bahraini victim whose credit card was used to pay the bills was due to testify during yesterday's hearing, but failed to appear.

Judges issued a warrant ordering him to appear at the next hearing, which was set for February 23. Police first arrested the 21-year-old, who then led officers to the second defendant after arranging a meeting near a restaurant in Hamala last April.

Lol. Just, Lol.

Apple Tablet - First Image (Before the Announcement)

Yes, we're hours away from the big announcement that has supposedly been a huge secret with rumors flying everywhere, has techie geeks wetting their beds, driving people nuts trying to figure out what it is and what it looks like, etc..

But here, we have the first official look at the first Apple Tablet image, ready?


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According to what we've heard, this tablet looks sleeker and nicer than other tablets and comes in minimal stylish compact packaging, and costs about 3 times as much, and does pretty much the same any other tablet does.

No seriously though, so this Apple Tablet is supposedly the Amazon Kindle's competition. In other words, it's a big E-Book, where you can download novels, books, etc. Might help getting people back into reading because it's "cool".

Lets see.. A few more hours to go!


-----UPDATE-------

Okay, they've just made the announcement anddddd...


It's called the iPad!

Crap, what a rubbish name! Here's what I think when I hear the word iPad:



But honestly, it's just a big iPhone, without the phone part. Dammit, I still want one though.