2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003
The Dry Valleys of Antarctica get almost no snowfall, and except for a few steep rocks they are the only continental part of Antarctica devoid of ice. The terrain looks like something not of this Earth; the valley floor occasionally contains a perennially frozen lake with ice several meters thick. Under the ice, in the extremely salty water live mysterious simple organisms, a subject of on-going research.
Some really amazing pictures. [Pictures]
The Washington Post took a world-famous musician who played some of the most elegant music ever written on one of the most valuable violins ever made ($3.5 million) and they put him in a subway station to play to people passing by. What do you think happened? Nothing. No crowd gathered, no one clapped when a song was done, no one cared and he only made $32 from tips.
“At a music hall, I’ll get upset if someone coughs or if someone’s cellphone goes off. But here, my expectations quickly diminished. I started to appreciate any acknowledgment, even a slight glance up. I was oddly grateful when someone threw in a dollar instead of change.” This is from a man whose talents can command $1,000 a minute.
Its a long article but you can skim through it. [Link]
My friend is going to Madrid soon and he was checking out hotels when he found this one. Every floor is designed by a different designer and is a completely different style and mood then the other. My favorite is is the Zaha Hadid floor, looks like something off an alien spaceship. [Link]
From all the cool strange touristic places in Kuwait like the Zoo, Entertainment City, Ice Skating Rink, Green Island etc.. my favorite is definitely The Scientific Center. Its such a beautiful and relaxing place. I passed by there today, it was only my second (or third) time so the large shark aquariums still mesmerizes me when I see it. I sat on one of the benches watching the sharks and fish swim and awhile later four scuba divers appeared and started cleaning the tank. It was fun to watch and the aquarium is really gigantic. If you haven’t been there yet you need to. The entrance fee is KD3 but its not only for the aquarium, there is another section you pass through first which has like bats, lizards, snakes, crocodiles etc.. When you visit the place you won’t believe you are in Kuwait.
Website: www.tsck.org.kw
update: by request here is a picture of one of the scuba divers in the tank [Picture]
The Rasterbator creates huge images from any picture. Upload an image, print the resulting multi-page pdf file and assemble the pages into an extremely cool looking poster up to 20 meters in size. [Link]
There is a new blog called Kuwait Health in which the writers are trying to promote health care reform in Kuwait. Anyone who has experienced public hospitals in Kuwait will appreciate what these guys are trying to do. You can check out their blog by visiting q8health.org
This is how pancake junkies get their fix. [Link]
I had a meeting tonight at the Salmiya Club and when I got there the club soccer team were practicing so I spent some time watching them. It made me really miss playing soccer, the last time I played was during high school. Although I have been living in Salmiya all my life and passed the club from the outside like a million times, I never imagined the club was this huge from the inside. They have the largest soccer field in Kuwait, they also have 2 small ones, 4 outdoor and 1 indoor tennis court, squash courts, a large pool and bunch of other stuff. I was completely flabbergasted (this is officially the biggest word I have used this year), since I had no clue the place was this cool.
Monday I am going back to play some indoor soccer. I also might start going there to play some tennis and squash with Nat. I can’t believe I never bothered to go into the club before..
Here is the club on Google Maps [Link]
I am currently in a studio up in the mountains where they are working on the color grading of the MTC Atheer commercial. Yesterday after the commercial shoot they dropped the films here where they were developed and converted to video, a process called telecine. Now we are working on the color grading of the video which is the process of altering or enhancing the colors of the video. When you pull the video off the film its in very raw form and needs to be color graded before use. The commercial director and director of photography are both present for this process.
I have a few pictures and a short video I want to post hopefully today from yesterdays shoot but I am waiting to get permission from LBC. Once I do I will put them up.
Today I had the MTC Atheer commercial shoot with Ilham Al Madfai and Shada from Star Academy. I woke up at 7AM and was on the set by 8. The whole shoot took place in an old house/museum here in Lebanon and it was a really beautiful location. The shoot started at 8:30AM and ended 16 hours later at 12:30AM. It was extremely exhausting with only 1 short break for lunch.
Its now 2:15AM and I just got back to the hotel room. I am posting three pictures from todays shoot for now but will try to post more pictures tomorrow with more details.
Both Ilham Al Madfai and Shada are in the studio recording the song we are going to use for tomorrows commercial. Here are two pictures I just took of them. The light inside is kind of dim so the pictures are a tiny bit blurry but I will try to take better shots once they are done.
update: I had to remove Shada’s pictures because LBC didn’t give us permission to publish them.
This page has pictures of the biggest passenger ship in the world. I was going through them and most of them look like pictures taken inside a large shopping mall. [Link]
Has anyone ever survived a water landing by donning a vest or using a raft? An interesting short article I read yesterday. [Link]
