Given this crazy sale price, everyone wants one now (as expected). It's impossible to get one in the States or UK (I didn't even know they sold these in the UAE). I took this picture at Sharaf DG and those guys have NO idea about the price cut. I feel sorry for the sales guy who spent about 5 minutes explaining the OS on the device (WebOS) and how this will be a strong competitor for the iPad. He thought I was joking when I told him that HP is discontinuing the device, even the manager confirmed that he had no idea about the price drop.
He was the first human to go to space aboard the Vostok 1 this day, 50 years ago (April 12, 1961). A film crew has taken the original audio recordings of that flight and teamed up with the ISS to recreate a film of this historic day which is free to watch on YouTube (website http://www.firstorbit.org).
The above video will also be shown at huge worldwide parties all around the globe organised by the website Yuri's Night (http://yurisnight.net). There's one in Dubai tonight and I have been trying for a week to get some time off but unfortunately I can't make it :( There are live streaming events happening all around the globe, the live Posterous page here, live YouTube page (with special message from crew aboard the ISS) here, a live Facebook page here and a live Twitter page here.
There might not be a huge party down here in Abu Dhabi, but I'll have a drink in his honour. To Yuri, Russia's humanity's favourite Cosmonaut :)
I use Google Chrome as my default browser. I like browsers that are built for power users like me and Chrome is fantastic - it's light, fast and I really like the sync features (syncing all your booksmarks, extensions across your home/work browser for example) among other things. I have the Facebook Disconnect extension installed which blocks Facebook from tracking your browsing habits and removes all those annoying "Tell your Facebook friends that you like/love/want to make babies with this webpage/song/news story" popups. With this extension installed, I was blissfully unaware of the Facebook "Like" button on my Posterous. I just installed Firefox 4 (because competition is good) and it has been my browser du jour when I see the "Like" button below every single one of my posts, right next to the Tweet button. Some of my posts have even been "liked" by a few Facebook users (check screenshot).
So I was chillin in the last lane driving in moderate traffic (with my mom in the passenger seat) and I'm slowing down after the traffic light turns red when I hear (and feel) a huge BANG from behind. Our seat belts lock into place and things like coins, my cellphone and the vegetables in the back seat are flung forward. I take a quick glance into my room mirror and I see a Camry behind me that is about 10 feet away but I can't see the driver's face. I check with my mum if she's okay and step outside and I see that it is a lady driver - her eyes were something like O_O and she was staring straight ahead. She looks at me, slowly steps out of her vehicle and I ask her if she was wearing a seatbelt or needs an ambulance. She whispers that she's fine and looks like she's about to faint. My mum gets out, holds her and the poor thing was sobbing really loudly on mum's shoulders. Awkward.She was totally freaking out and couldn't handle it. I kept asking mum if we should call an ambulance and mum asked her and the lady (her name was Hala) said no. My mum then took her back to our car, asked her to lie down on the back seat and cranked up the air conditioning while I was shooing away all the people that usually surround any accident. We called Saeed (traffic accident division AUH) after they inspected the area, they asked us to move to the nearest bus stop. This was her car after she tail ended me (click on picture to view larger):
*EDIT: removed the number plate :)
And this was my baby:
Except for the obvious scratches/dents and clipping the silencer, we were lucky we didn't end up with any major damage. Here in the above picture you can see my mum in the front passenger seat talking to Miss Hala who is now sitting up in the back seat and enjoying a cold bottle of water that my mom instructed me to get. If you look close enough, you can see the Toyota logo stamped on my bumper, lol. Hala admitted that she was looking at her cellphone and did not brake at all when she smashed into my car from behind. I'm just happy that she was wearing her seatbelt and that her brains weren't all over her windscreen (her car didn't deploy any airbags, maybe she doesn't have them). After the Saeed dude printed us our respective chits, he left and we waited even more till Hala's friend showed up. We then said our goodbyes and she apologized and hugged my mom. So there you have it, humanity won today and also, WEAR YOUR SEAT BELTS!!