Emirates ID Cards are heeeerrreeee!!!!

in case you haven't heard yet (UAE people) we now need to get an Emirates ID in order to be a legal living/working person in any of the seven Emirates in UAE. :::sigh:::

this sigh doesn't come from that fact that they are asking for everyone to get and Emirates ID (because there are Pros) but because they have given the people of this country until December 31st, 2008 to complete this process. there are two ways of doing the registration for the card

1. use UAE Government's handy dandy website and register online! then they send the card to you.
Pro: it's handy dandy.
Con: the website/server isn't capable of handling all the traffic of, you know, the entire UAE trying to register at once

2. you can go down to your local Emirates ID office (i think there's one in Al Barsha) and pay an extra fee (because of course said card costs money already) in order to do it in person.
Pro: you don't have to figure out how to get the english application on the website (look upper right corner) and you can talk to people who can answer questions that a website can't.
Con: instead of a congested site you will have a congested office and that's if you can find parking (where ever these offices are).

neither of these options are what i would call convenient. i mean you can either rip your hair out trying to load and re-load the web pages only to get nearly done and have it lock you out or you can sit in a crowded room between the convenient hours of 8 am and 2 pm with people from all over the world (some of whom do not have the same standards of personal hygiene as the rest of us) while waiting for your number to be called. lets see spend day at mall with friends knitting or at ID office desperately trying to get yet another card with your photo on it. wow that's a close one (insert sarcasm here)

like i said before there could be some pros to having an ID card. it's suppose to help prevent identity theft which has recently become an incresing problem in the country (see previous aggravation here) perhaps it would also mean that we wouldn't have to bring our passports with us every time we wanted to do something official like get a drivers license. although the whole process could end up being a bit Big Brother but then again i don't think this will be the only country to implement such a process.

good luck in your registration all my UAE friends!!!

one more thing... one of my cat's (jerry) has kinda gone crazy, well crazier than usual. she's just walking around the house meowing at walls. do you think she's eating the cat litter???