Binhindi's Greed: The Samsung Omnia case

I have been looking for a decent phone to replace my Sony Ericsson P990i for some time now. I wanted a powerful device that can keep track with my busy life, many contacts and schedules. I thought it was about time I get me a Windows Mobile device. Though I do hate Windows, I guess it's the best option at the time for my needs.
After a lot of googling, I had my eyes set on the fabulous Samsung Omnia i900, the 16Gig flavour.
Windows mobile 6.1, 5 MP Camera, full touch system, etc. etc. Often touted as an iPhone killer. It costs around BD250 in countries where it was released already, pricy but its worth it. OK, I want one.
I called Binhindi Informatics (the local Samsung dealer) and while they were vague, they did say it would be out this month. So I have to wait. Boy oh boy I'm so excited! I want one so bad!!
However, today I know the official price. BD 385!
385?
3-8 freaking 5? Is Binhindi serious? I call Zain to be sure:

Zain: "Masak Zain!!"
Redbelt: "Yeah, I'd like to get a discounted phone with a contract. Do you have the Samsung Omnia i900?"
Z: "Yes! We just got it, it's brand new. Lets see, your under our most expensive package, so that is a discount of BD 102. You can have it for BD 283!"
R: ".... Good Grief!"

See, it seems like Binhindi, in their infinite wisdom decided to overcharge the rich Bahrainis a cool BD 130 or so. Sorry Mr. Binhindi, But 385 Dinars is not "phone price". It's "Laptop price" or "LCD TV" price. But phone? Give me a break habibi!
Oh, and Mr. Binhindi, GSM arena compared the Omnia to the HTC Diamond in a head to head review. If you take the time to read it you can see it has very similar powers. What's the Diamond's price? BD 279 in Geant. A cool BD 106 difference. Heck, even Geant sells the Omnia cheaper than Binhindi. They have it there for BD 369 (Arabic).

So Mr. Binhindi, I am sincerely disgusted at your act of GREED. I am formally starting a Redbelt Company Black list for companies that rip people off. Binhindi Informatics will be the first to be on that list. Mabrook!

Also, to help people fight against your stupid pricing decisions, I will list here different ways of Buying an Omnia:

1- Buy from Binhindi, 16GB, No accessories. BD 385 (Not Recommended)
2- Buy from Expansys, 16 GB, No accessories, shipping in 3 days, Total price BD 332. (BD 53 Cheaper than Binhindi)
3- Buy from ebay, Seller X1387 is a trusted power seller. 16GB, Case+4GB SD card + Car charger + Extra charger + screen protector, shipping in 3 days. Total Price around BD 270 (BD 115 Cheaper than Binhindi. Best Price, Best Deal)
4- Buy from Geant. 16 GB White. No Acessories. BD 369 (BD 16 Cheaper than Binhindi)
5- Buy From Saudi Arabia. Dealer: Almostaqbal. 16 GB, No accessories. BD 340. (BD 45 Cheaper than Binhindi)

So as you can see, just about every place on freaking EARTH has the Omnia cheaper than Bahrain.

As an Alternative, Buy the HTC Diamond.

1- Buy from Geant. BD 279.
2- Buy from Expansys. Around BD 260.

Thank you Binhindi Informatics. I will be ordering my phone from ebay. I do have some interesting recommendations on where you can shove your precious phones to, but lets wait until after I break my fast, shall we?

Taekwondo Olympian attacks referee, proves he is a crybaby

This Cuban "Olympian" is Angel Valodia Matos. Matos was a Sydney 2000 gold medalist. So on he comes to Beijing to compete once more.

In the middle of the second round of his +80kg bout against world silver medalist Arman Chilmanov of Kazakhstan, he broke his left toe. Taekwondo rules will stop the clock for injury for one minute. Any longer and the contestant is deemed unfit to continue. Chong (Red player) took more than that one minute, so the Swedish referee (of Arabic north African decent) declared Hong (Blue player) as the winner.

The Cuban and his coach did not like to lose to Uzbekistan that way, so once the ref announced the verdict, Matos attacked him with two kicks to the head.

Being an Ex-Taekwondo athlete and a life long fan, I watched this live and was appalled and enraged by this violent act of a cry baby sore loser.

The World Taekwondo Federation seemed to share my feelings as they immediately announced that Matos and his coach would be permanently barred from all championships it promotes. They said:

"This is a strong violation of the spirit of taekwondo and the Olympic Games"

"The sanctions are the following and are effective immediately: Lifetime ban of the coach and athlete in all championships sanctioned by the World Taekwondo Federation and at the same time, all records of this athlete at the Beijing Games will immediately be erased."

Serves him right. Congratulations to the WTF on its swift and stern reaction. And to Matos: You are a disgrace to all Athletes on earth, be they martial artists or else. Your Sydney 2000 medal is undeserved in this light and it is a shame to see it wasted on an arrogant cry baby such as your self.

It is a good thing that we will never see you again. Good riddance.

Americans afraid of college prayer room

So, Normandale Community College, USA, have turned its meditation room into a Muslims prayer room. It has a male and female section, prayer times, direction of the Qibla, and people can thankfully actually pray there now. Katherine Kersten writes about it, it gets posted into Digg, then Islamophobia breaks loose, just look at the comments of Digg users:

It'd be a good time to start carrying pork-rinds around campus, and offer them to anyone you meet. Since it's not politically correct to "profile", offer them to eveybody, especially those in the meditation room. It'd be rude not to offer.

It works on airlines, too........

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Wow.

I think a group of female students needs to go in there quite often and be sure to be uncovered, speak loud enough to be heard, and not stay in the small cordoned off area for women. Show these folks what gender equality means.

---

Come on diggers, you talk of free speech and bash religion all the time. whats stopping you now??? You rip the Christians a new one everyday, let me see your best shots about this oppression against women and against other religions.

---

Is anyone beginning to understand how the excesses of the Crusades and the Reconquista happened?

All this my friends is pure Islamophobia. I can safely say so because they are contradicting their own AMERICAN LAWS which state: Every person has the right to practice his / her own religion.

Now, the segregation of sexes is done as part of the religion itself, and that is a private matter. No one is being injured by it is there? Is it increasing fatalities amongst infants perhaps? Guess not.

And the whining about a dedicated prayer room? Well, again, the AMERICAN LAWS state that they are free to practice their religion. Which incidentally means praying 5 times a day and that unfortunately needs a place to do so.

I mean seriously, people are stuck in a room praying and all this phobia surfaces? Americans are not Americans anymore. No, they do not believe in the words of their forefathers anymore. shame that.

I am ACCUSED! The Pebble of DOOM resurfaces.

I have officially been cited to appear in front of the Sixth Minor Criminal Court. What is the charge? Allegedly, a pebble flew out from my tyre and hit another car's wind shield.
This charge is so bogus and trivial, I cannot believe it is real. You can read about it in the original post here. This was last May.
No I have been cited with the following charges:

1. Caused by mistake to cause damages in properties of others
2. Drove the vehicle while unregistered
3. Did not take utmost care due when driving

Are you laughing yet?
I answer as follows:

1. PROVE IT!
2. Well, it was my mom's car, I had no idea if it was or wasn't registered. The owner of the car should be responsible for that and it is usually a fine not a criminal offense.
3. What on EARTH is the "due care" I should take to stop pebbles from flying off my tyers? Fix a damn Hoover on the front bumper?

I heired the services of Mr. Ziyad Kioumji to represent me in court. It is a full blown court case for a lowly pebble. In his professional opinion, they have no law to stand upon nor they can prove it. He was also alone, No witnesses.

I suspected that this might be actually be a scam. Last May, several police officers called me several times, long phone calls may I add, to try to persuade me to pay BD 10 "for this poor poor man!".
Are they scaring citizens to do so? I swear if it was my mother she'd pay on the spot. But they had to get that stubborn blogger.

My trial is on 11th Dec. @ 9 AM. I am inviting anyone who could use a laugh.

Car dealers are ripping us off

A foglight on my precious Altima needs to be changed. I go to Almoayyed to ask for a spare. I told the guy, since I am changing one, let us change the other too.

He goes: 23 Dinars please.

I go: WHAT THE F***? IT'S A FREAKING LIGHTBULB.

Almoayyed rep: Well, Each bulb is BD 11.500 (US$ 30.50)

Now I think, that can't be right! I mean, do you know when Thomas Edison invented the light bulb? It's not new technology man!

So I go to the internet. Compare this with me please:

2 light bulbs @ Almoayyed= BD 23 (US$ 61)

2 light bulbs @ worldpartsexpress.com = BD 4.530 (US$ 11.98 - excluding shipping)

Anyone of you smart boys know how much of a profit margin Almoayyed is taking? Above RRP (which already has a profit margin in it if you don't know).

This, does not compute to me. I am sending this to Almoayyed.com, let us see what they have to say. Vote on the poll to the right about this.

Batelco is the best internet provider.... Wallah! Don't laugh!

It appears that Batelco is the BEST MID_EAST INTERNET PROVIDER. So all you moaners can just shut it.

Ammar is having a fit about it too! I mean PLEASE! I know that our Arabic PR usually leans toward the "Alsahhaf" way (the famous ex-Iraqi Info. Minister), and we are experts at turning everything bad into a good point. But this is blatantly lying in your face. It's like someone looking at you in the eye, telling you that cows DO fly, and then grin expecting you to shut up and just take it.

If Batelco's aim is to enhance it's image in Bahrain, well, that will have the negative effect. If your plan is to enhance your image abroad, that might work, but we (the bloggers) are here to try and stop the stream of Bullshit.

Of course, for good measure, visit Boycott Batelco.

Have a hilarious day.

The pebble of DOOM!

Everyone in Bahrain has his own opinion about the Traffic directorate. I appreciate their efforts, they work hard, but still have some reservations.

I however was gob smacked with this.

About two weeks ago, I got out of the house going to the gym. Its about a 3 minute drive or so. I wasn't in a hurry, it was midday, the gym wasn't going to close anytime soon and I had nothing to do that day.
When I pulled over at the gym's car park, another car, which was following me pulled next to me. The driver got out and walked towards me. He said hello, I greeted back. Then he said that a pebble flew from my rear tire and hit his windshield, cracking it. And now he wants me to pay for it!
To be frank, I don't know if he was telling the truth or lying. I heared many tales of guys with cracked windshields doing this to strangers trying to guilt them into paying for the repairs. Even if this did happen, its not really my fault, I cannot control pebbles in the road nor do I know of anyone that can. I abided by the traffic laws in my 3 minute drive and that's it.
I told him I can't help him and he said he'd complain to the traffic police. "suit your self" I said. I didn't think the police would be interested in such a trivial complaint. Boy was I wrong!

On the 8th of may, I got a phone call from the traffic department. The man told me that Someone has filed a complaint against me for breaking his windshield with a flying pebble from my car.
He said: "We get alot of these complaints and you have two options, either pay the man BD 10 (US$ 26.5) or we'll have it brought forward to the prosecution."
I said "Prosecution?"
"yes", he said, "You don't need to go through all that trouble, how about if you just pay that BD 10?"
"NO!", I replied. "I didn't THROW him with a stone, it was a pebble according to his words, which is something I cannot verify happened. Besides even if it did, its not my fault is it? It just happened."

The police man tried to convince me to pay 10 Dinars but I apologized and told him to go ahead and take it to court. Several phone calls were exchanged between me and him (totalling around 5 minutes in total) trying to convince me to yeild but I remained firm.

By the end of the day, a higher official called me
"Hello, I am Ebrahim, your neighbour, how are you?"
I don't know an Ebrahim that is my neighbour... anyway, moving on:
"It seems that you don't want to pay the poor man"
"I am sorry, I have no way to know if he is telling the truth or not, even if, I fail to see how that was a direct cause of my actions"
So he tried to scare me:
"But you know, if it goes to court, they'll just sentence you immediately without your presence then you'll have to pay a fine"
"Excuse me? Why would they sentence me?"
"because your pebble broke the man's windshield"
"First of all how am I to know that this allegation did occur? Can you prove it?"
At first he said no, then quickly said "yes, we have experts that can prove you hit him with a pebble"
"SAY WHAT?" I wasn't born yesterday! Lying blatantly like that was a no no tome. So I started my own attack:
"Look. You'll have to

1. Prove that there actually was a pebble
2. Prove that it did fly off one of MY tires, not someone else's
3. Prove that said pebble hit the plaintiff on his wind shield
4. Prove that the the fracture in the windshield happened because of that pebble and was not there before this "incident"

After proving all that, you need to tell me how was that a result of my actions, then we can talk"

So he said "Yeah, but if it goes to court, the judge will put him under oath and he'll testify. Can you say that this didn't happen in court under oath?"
I said "No, it could have happened"
"AHA!" he goes, "see? then you will lose the trial"
"excuse me"
"yes?"
"If this is going to court, and a judge will pass sentence, can you tell me which article in the law the judge will use?"
"There is no law for that"
"You mean there is no legal article that this falls into?"
"No"
"I'm sorry, but judges cannot pass sentences without a reference to an article in the Bahraini law"
"yes they can"
"No, no, they cannot"
Then he tried to appeal to me through religion:
"Listen, if you pay the man, god will reward you for your deeds inshallah"
"How do you know that?"
"er.. because it's a good thing.. erm.. its better to have injustice fall on you than be a tyrant yourself"
"Oh? So you do acknowledge that it's injustice?"
"well.. umm.. who is to compensate the poor man for this incident?"
"Who will compensate ME for this incident?"
"Your reward will be with Allah, god willing"
"OK, How about this: Let him take the reward from Allah, yeah? I'll keep the BD 10 thank you"
"You don't want to be rewarded in heaven?"
"You see, I don't think Allah will reward me for this, so I guess I'll wait for judgment day and find out"
"It's only 10 Dinars!"
"look, its not a matter of money. In fact, I'll invite you, the other police man, and that accuser to come to my house for lunch and dinner and you are welcome any time, I'll gladly pay for that. But making me pay for such a trivial case, with no legal base by force is unacceptable to me, especially since it was not a result of any controllable factor of my own"
"No one is forcing you to anything, but this is how it is. It's customary that the accused just pays or the court will find you guilty"
"So courts accept these cases?"
"of course"
"So if to say, I go tomorrow and file a similar case against you, they'll accept that also?"
"....!!!"
"Let's assume that 10 people at the same time filed the same case against me, or let us reverse that. I file that case against 10 people individually. Will the court accept such cases?"
"No, of course not!"
"Why not? Do they accept cases on a whim? Ok for some, reject the other?"
"well .. no.."
"LISTEN. They only way you will see 10 dinars coming out of me is for you to go to court. Then they need to prove that there WAS a flying pebble, THEN prove it actually WAS from my tire, THEN prove it actually hit him, THEN prove that the damages were caused by that pebble not before. After all that, they need to prove which articles in the traffic law did I not adhere to which resulted in his damages. If they can not prove that then it's either the fault of the government for not cleaning the streets of pebbles"
"*laughing*.. haha..that's not..."
"OR if it's not the fault of the government it's Allah's doing for creating stones and pebbles in the first place"
"..."
"If by some miracle I was found guilty, then, and only then I will .. appeal. And I will use all of my appeals then if I am still found guilty I will pay the BD 10 plus fines and only then I will wait for my reward from Allah".

".... So that's a no? Is that your final call?"
"I am sorry, please take it to court, and I will wait for your phone call to set a date for when you can grace me with your presence at my home"
".. that's ok.. I'll just forward that accident through and..."
"EXCUSE ME. This is NOT an accident. I did not collide with the plaintiff"
Feeling smug, he answered: "Oh no, we do have a classification for (broken windshield by small stone)"
"Yes, but that is for trucks who do not cover up or seal the rubble they are transporting in which case it IS their fault, not for civilian sedans with pebbles flying off on your roads"
"That's OK, thank you"


This whole thing took 23 minutes. After that call, I started to think that this might actually be a scam. Someone with friends in the traffic department are scaring people for BD 10 a pop. Good income. No paper work. Who'd know?
I am not saying that this is the case, but it makes you suspicious doesn't it? If any government official is interested in investigating the matter I can give them more details and phone numbers if they get in touch with me.

Tell me, what do YOU think?

The playstation3's biggest mistakes

Last November I predicted that Nintendo's Wii is what I think will win the next war.

I however gave allot of credit to Sony. I did not expect them to suck so badly.

When PSM (an American Playstation only independent magazine) starts to show screen shots of Nintendo games in articles and running features about the "worst launch in history", and when EGM comes up with a cover with a PS3 thrown with tomatoes, and when "wired" pick Wii clearly over the PS3, then my friend I can tell you Sony is going down.

Sony is going so down its not even funny. This will be a case study in future college textbooks.

Nintendo, was as foxy as I anticipated, it is to be expected of a company that lived so long and endured so many videogame generation, more than anybody. However, despite Nintendo's intelligence, That's not the reason why Sony is losing. Sony is losing because of their own sheer stupidity!

Sony DID become arrogant, like Nintendo was just as I predicted. That led to some horrific blunders. like:

1- Unit Shortages:

The PS2 was released in 2000 and had a huge success and instant shortages. So, why on Earth did Sony, after 7 years, with all that experience and market GROWTH, how can they expect to release the next gen PS3 with FEWER quantity than last time? That caused riots, stupidly high ebay prices and several shootings and robberies. Yeah, buy a system, fear for your life. Great selling point.

2- High Price:

I'm sorry, I've been gaming since before primary school. On an old Toshiba home PC with two colours on it (white & light blue only). The concept was always to "sell a cheap console". Why? because everyone will buy it and there you go: instant user base. Why do you think magazines are so cheap to subscribe to? yes, building user base (good for advertising revenue you see). Selling a console at a high price (a price never achieved in the history of consoles I might add) will certainly mean a smaller user base, which won't be to attractive to third party developers.

3- Stealing & lying too:

Sony came up with a lame ass boomerang controller that just screams "I HAVE NO IDEA ABOUT VIDEOGAMES", did they not learn anything from PS1 & PS2? Anything at all? Along came Nintendo and tought the world again some new tricks with their Wiimote. What does Sony do? I think someone yelled:"lets go back to the Dual Shock 2 design. Hell no, we don't have time to R&D a new shape, just use the old shape with bluetooth. I WANT MOTION SENSING AT ALL COSTS YOU HEA.. Sixaxis? OK. Just sign them. HURRY!"

So we get the current PS3 joypad, the "Sixaxis". Not as sophisticated as the Wiimote by far, but at least it does have it.

Then someone removes the vibrating function, "say what?" everyone asks then Sony responds "It will mess up the motionsensing capabilities and we'd rather put in a new input method rather than a feedback method".

A lie that PSM themselves uncovered (imagine, a PS3 magazine doing that to the PS3) where they showed an old PS2 controller with motion sensing AND vibration for the PS2 with absolutely no problems. Great, your thieves and liers too. So, why removing the vibration? it must be:

4- Cheap skate tactics 1 - still joypad:

No motor in the joypad means its cheaper (for them to make, not for people to buy). This greedy concept extends to:

5- Cheap skate tactics 2 -HD Not-Ready:

in the spirit of greed & cockyness, Sony claimed HD capabilities. But... You won't be able to bask in the glory of your new HD TV just yet because: Sony won't give you HD cables. You have to go buy them yourselves. that way it will cost YOU extra, not them. Just like selling a car without tires. It doesn't stop there...

6- Cheap skate tactics 3 - Not Fully Compatible 1:

While the PS3 is being touted as fully PS2 backwards compatible, there is no where on the machine to stick in your memory card. Why? Because in the same said spirit, you have to BUY an adaptor for that. Not only is it ugly, they are charging you $15 for something that could cost $2-3 to manufacture built in.

7- Not fully compatible 2:

The PS3 rendered PS2 games actually WORSE than they are! God, I remember the comparisons between PS1 & PS2 and how 2 made everything just better (world peace must be near now!). In the interest of fairness, this issue has been resolved in system update 1.5

8- Not fully compatible 3 - Destroyer of legends:

It seems that it corrupts data saves for PS2. Careful now.

9- Stupid, Stupid PR:

Who's their PR agency? Seriously? They suck! All these press releases makes me think that they do not believe they are talking to smart people. When the people asked about the lack of vibration they told them it couldn't be done. And we know it WAS done. That is sad. The the president of SCEA comes out and dares anyone to find a PS3 on the shelves promising those who do with $1200.

Ladies and gentlemen, if this person managed to be president, we all have hope to become one, one day.

First of all, when you have a system which had severe, and I mean severe shortages at launch, you cannot "brag" about how successful it is by daring people to find one! Was he on something at the time?

So, penny arcade took him up on that offer successfully proving that the PS3 is freely available (making prez a liar or completely clueless) and holding him up on his dare. (click the image on the right for a bigger picture)

10- You can't rule by division:

A console means an affordable standard to play games on. PCs aren't "standard" because each one is different, that's why pc games look and feel and sometimes play different. That's why there are some games you can't buy because it's not compatible or its too demanding.

A console gets rid of a~ll the headache. except if its a PS3, mind. different versions will eventually mean different spec. Specially if Sony's plans to be able to upgrade playstation 3 to new hardware comes to life. This will cut them off the casual gamer market instantly, as "casuals" will not bother to verify "specs".

So, what do you think? I can't believe that PSM ran an article about the "Worst launch in History" Sony is losing their own preachers.

That's not the only thing their losing, they are slowly losing third party developers. They are looking at castle Mario now, Solid Snake is guest starring in Nintendo's Wii Smash brothers while Square Enix are releasing a Final Fantasy XII spinoff on the Nintendo DS. In the business world, these companies are saying to Nintendo: "Hello. *shake hands* how are you? Were still friends right? cool!". Third parties are paving an emergency exit road so they can easily jump ship if things turn sour.

The charts are not in Sony's favour at all. It's not a problem of hardware or games. This is mostly just very bad management, something unfamiliar with a Japanese company. They should seriously do something before too late.

Dana Cinema: calling for a boycott!

Every one in Bahrain can feel prices rising in everything. Potatoes, a chillies steak, clothes. Its ridiculous.

Dana Cinema decided that they will not only jack prices up, they will also RIP YOU OFF!

I went yesterday and bought 2 balcony tickets, which used to cost BD 3/- each. It now costs BD 4/-. fine no complaints.

But go to the snack stand and try to buy popcorn. You get only one size, guess which size is that? YUP, it's LARGE.

I said I don't want large.

They said we are out of normal size cups.

I said fine, give me the large bucket and don't fill it up.

They said (this is nice) "The large tub is BD 1/500 whether its full or half-full. If I give it to you empty it will still cost 1/500."

Oh really? So what I heard was "You want popcorn? Screw you. Get the large one or F*** off"

Dana must be really having some tough times to resort to stupid stunts like this.

I hereby ask you to BOYCOTT DANA POPCORN.

I'm not getting ripped off & neither will you.

Please forward this to as many people as you can until they learn their lesson.

How to make a planet hate your f***ing guts

This is not a post to Bahraini or Arab readers as much as it is for American readers.
I have alot of American friends.
I have business relations with Americans.
I like Americans... usually as individuals. But when they become governments and Armies, Planet Earth hates their guts.
Now, some Americans will go "Well, the world hates us because we have FREEDOM!"
No you blithering fool! Who would hate anyone for that?
Earth hates you for you arrogant attitude. Things like:

Iraqi Kids running after an American water bottle


Crushing a taxi drivers CAR


oh, and they taught the British a thing or two also!

British Soldiers beating children, and ENJOYING IT!


Disgusted? I'm sure you would be.
Good luck fellas expecting the war to end like that.

I know some decent Americans are really furious about this now, just like I always am when Alqaeda does something as arrogant. and for those furious ones, sorry, the world will still hate you. Better work on sending people who can represent you better.

Kudos go to boing boing for these.