Category: Information

A reader yesterday emailed me a link to a website of a Kuwaiti illustrator called Ahmed Al-Refaie. I checked out his work and was blown away so I emailed Ahmed and asking him if he could tell us a bit about himself and his illustrations and this is what he had to say:

Currently, Im about to graduate from Kuwait University “English Literature”. I don’t like it, but certain circumstances forced me to since there was no Graphic Design in KU. My name is Ahmed Al-Refaie (22) (Kuwaiti, although that does not matter, an artist is an artist no matter the origin ), my art is called vector art. I’m self-taught, never attended any art related classes. When I was 10, I started sketching, beginning of high-school I began graphic design, but this current style you see all around my website started in early 2006. Usually my art was varied in style and that is what I think of as a corrupted aspect of an artist. So I made and refined my own style. My website does not include my old works. For more technical details, I use a mouse, keyboard and Photoshop CS3 ( I always get the question “do you use a tablet?” ), just a good ol’ Apple mighty mouse. I was a bit into 3D using 3D Max but quickly lost interest as there are many giants in that field, its just not for me. That said, my work is completely raw, no pictures, filters, I do however reference body gestures (sometimes) but the image used is removed and I recreate the whole thing.

I think the guy is extremely talented and I think its about time KU setup a design department. There are a lot of talented young people and it would be sad to see them all taking random majors like English Literature or cooking just because they don’t have design.

Here is a link to his deviantART gallery [Link]
Here is a link to his personal website [Link]

I recently decided that whenever I travel I want to take a 35mm film camera with me instead of a digital camera. I realized when I have a limited amount of pictures I can take (36 per roll) I tend to take only the shots I really want and not just everything I see. With digital cameras I come back from my trips with hundreds of photos and I spend a lot of time deleting random junk because instead of spending more time taking 1 shot I use that time to take 5 shots of the same thing.

So I decided to stick with film instead of digital. When I went to Munich last year I took my 30 year old Nikon FE and came back with a lot of cool vintage looking shots. [Check here] Thats why I started looking for a new film camera, one that has personality which is something very important for me.

I started first by checking out the Nikon F3, then the Nikon F4, then the Yashica Electro 35 GSN, then the Canon QL17 GIII, then the Konica S2, followed by the Konica S3 until I finally landed on the Voigtlander Bessa R3A which is pictured in this post. Its one of the best looking camera I have ever seen. Its extremely well built and to some people its one of the best rangefinder cameras ever made right behind the Zeiss Ikon. I found one on eBay second hand that came with the fastest 40mm lens ever made, a Voigtlander 40/1.4 Nokton. Bidding was ending at 4:50AM so I set my alarm to 4:40AM and went to bed at 10PM. The maximum I wanted to pay was $500 since brand new the camera and lens were selling for $940. Sadly I didn’t win the bid. Even though I ended up increasing my budget to $600 the auction ended at $606 and the other person bidding looked like he could have taken it even further.

Now I need to decide what to do but I just wanted to share this camera with everyone now that the auction is over. Its such a beautiful camera!

I got home after work to find a bunch of retards fighting under my building. I parked my car in the basement and walked up to the ground floor to find around 20 teenagers (16-18 year olds) shouting, screaming and shoving each other around. I watched them for like 5 minutes and then decided to go upstairs and watch them from my balcony. A lot of fights erupt next to my building because there is a billiard place in the building next door that attracts a lot of the wrong crowd. There is also a prostitution ring that operates in that same building but they only open for business like once a week and its a pretty tightly run ship with high end customers so they never cause any problems (I should post about them one day). The billiard place on the other hand just attracts all these trashy kids that want to fight for the dumbest reasons.

While watching the fight from my balcony I heard what sounded like one guy yelling at who I thought was one of the Bangladeshi janitors in my building so I went back downstairs to make sure no one did anything to the workers. Turns out the workers were inside the building away from harms way but the fight outside had turned really violent with guys holding cutters and some guys bleeding. I live in a shopping mall in the old Salmiya street and these guys were basically fighting in the backside, then moving inside the mall and then back out to the front of the building onto the main Salmiya street. It was ridiculous! So I asked the landlord if he had called the cops and he told me yeah when the fight had first started but no one had come yet.

20 minutes later and the cops still hadn’t showed up. Actually the fight dispersed and everyone ended up going their separate ways and the cops never showed up. I went back up to my apartment while the janitors started to clean up the blood stains. Unbelievable.

Yesterday I posted about how disappointing the Teshkeel Comics theme park looks like and today I found a post on another blog about the Cartoon Network theme park which already opened and looks pretty cool. I can’t seem to figure out where its located though. You can check out pictures of the Cartoon Network on the blog P0ach by following this [Link]

Global Finance magazine just released a list of the world’s 50 safest bank and the only bank from the region that made the cut was NBK which came in at #44. The German bank KfW topped the list at spot #1 while HSBC came in at #19. For the full list here is a [PDF]

Thanks Abdullah!

I was emailed photos of the Teshkeel Comics theme park thats currently being created out in Jahra. The official opening date is March 19 but judging by the pictures the park looks disappointing. From what I can see (which isn’t much really) it looks like they took a regular theme park with regular rides and just stuck Teshkeel Comic stickers everywhere. Click continue to see the rest of the pictures.

I thought this project was canceled but I guess its still on. Kuwait is planning to build the tallest skyscraper in the world, one thats around 30% taller than the current tallest skyscraper, Burj Dubai. [Link]

Thanks DJ

There is a digital art showcase that’s being held at The Exhibition for the next two days. Here is the information I received by email:

Ugly, But Beautiful
Date: February 26-28
Time: 4PM-12AM
Location: The Exhibition

Beauty is something rational, everyone has their own taste of it. Ugliness, on the other hand, is one’s own opinion.

When you look at an image that is full of beauty and structure, you find it beautiful because you are living a structured life. You rarely see things placed randomly, as a result you say an image is ugly without knowing that ugliness has its own beauty.

That is why we can say something is ugly, but beautiful at the same time.

‘Ugly, But Beautiful’ is Remon Yousef’s means of making you see how ugliness can have its own beauty.

Remon Yousef, a Lebanese graphic designer currently working in Kuwait, will be showcasing his artwork to the public for three days only.

All artworks are for sale.

Géant hypermarket will be opening in Kuwait at the 360 degrees mall in June 2009. Although Sultan Center purchased and took over the Géant franchise in Lebanon, Tamdeen Group will own the Géant chain in Kuwait.

Thanks YBhatti!

Yesterday the American International School of Kuwait had a bomb scare when they got a phone call from someone in Spain telling them there was a bomb in their school. After all the students were evacuated it turned out to be a hoax. Today they had another bomb scare. It isn’t confirmed yet if it was another phone call but the rumor is, and again I want to highlight the word RUMOR here, is that a school teacher found the bomb today on the way to the bathroom and that’s why they were evacuated. Hopefully that doesn’t turn out to be true and stays a rumor.

Update: Looks like they did find something at the school, a box with a clock and random wires. Turns out it was a senior prank.

Update2: Here is suposedly a leaked photo of the fake bomb taken from Al Rai newspaper. Thanks Armani Exchanger!

Murqab a reader of the blog sent in the above two receipts. One is for a tall hot chocolate he purchased at a Starbucks in New York and the other is of a tall hot chocolate he purchased at a Starbucks in Kuwait. So how much of a difference is there in price? According to the popular online currency site XE.com, Murqab paid 900fils for his hot chocolate in New York and KD1.500 for his hot chocolate in Kuwait. Thats makes the Starbucks in Kuwait 60% more expensive than the States.

Deera Chat found an article online which talks about how Kuwait last month purchased nearly 6 million anti-nuclear radiation drugs. The question here is WHY? What exactly are they expecting to happen in the near future??? Here is the link to the news article. [Link] Here is a link to NukePills.com, the website which sells these pills. [Link]

What do these Potassium Iodide pills do? According to NukePills.com:

Potassium Iodide (KI) is used by health officials worldwide to prevent thyroid cancer in people who are exposed to radioactive iodides caused by nuclear reactor accidents and nuclear bombs. It protects against radioactive iodine by preventing its absorption by the thyroid gland located in the neck…

We don’t have any nuclear reactors in the region (I don’t think we do) so that only leaves a nuclear bomb, who would want to nuke us?

Fasttelco
256 Kbps = 59KD
512 Kbps = 99KD
1 Mbps = 159KD
2 Mbps = 199KD

KEMS
256 Kbps = 70KD
512 Kbps = 110KD
1 Mbps = 180KD
2 Mbps = 300KD
3 Mbps = 500KD
4 Mbps = 700KD

Qualitynet
256 Kbps = 96KD
512 Kbps = 120KD
1 Mbps = 199KD
2 Mbps = 225KD
3 Mbps = 499KD
4 Mbps = 675KD
5 Mbps = 780KD
6 Mbps = 940KD
7 Mbps = 1000KD
8 Mbps = 1200KD

United Networks
256 Kbps = 96KD
512 Kbps = 129KD
1 Mbps = 192KD
2 Mbps = 360KD

[Source]

Note: These prices are per year

I just found out today that there was a fire at Al Mayass. I don’t know how I missed this but I guess it happened while I was in London. Hope it wasn’t too bad.

Some of you requested pictures of the seats, I took some shots today on my way back. The one above is of the first class seats while the one below is of the premium economy seats. Also below is a picture showing the amount of legroom in the economy class. I am 1.86m and as you can see there was plenty of room for my legs. Also the economy class seats have power sockets.