Category: Kuwait

Just got a flyer from GameWorks with the following message:

Play all you can play in 1 hour for KD3.500 every night from 9PM to 11PM. Valid till May 31st.

KD3.5 doesnt sound bad. Probably will try it tomorrow night before starwars.

As I promised, here is an example of a picture of the day before post processing. Here is the post on miskan.com with the picture post processed. I still need to post a guide on good post processing but I have been really busy.

I was passing the Sheraton round-about today when I noticed there was something going on infront of the old Kuwait door. There were some people dancing and stuff plus they were being filmed. So I took a picture, click here to view it.

The Scientific Center is one of the coolest looking places in Kuwait, so I would like to know who is the smart guy who gave I don’t know who, permission to build a building right infront of it?

click here for a better view

Today was unbelievable, I had more work then I could handle and thats never happened to me before! I had to be at a full day photoshoot which started at 10AM, at the same time I had to be at the office at 11AM to meet a calligrapher. At 1PM I had to be at another location with another account handler to plan another shoot for tomorrow then I also had to be at the office to work on a logo that is due today and also an ad for one of our clients which is also due today. Luckily other team members offered to help me out and I was able to accomplish most of my jobs. Crazy stuff, I didn’t have lunch yet even. Now I got to finish up a quick job here and head out to another photoshoot at 6. No time for anything today.

Nibaq told me he was going to watch Star Wars III at the movies on Tuesday, so I decided to check out the KNCC website for showtimes. Turns out there is a showing on Tuesday at 12:00AM at Marina Mall so I just bought 2 tickets and reserved our seats online. It was the first time I tried using their website and it was also the first time I bought tickets online. Its a very easy feature to use and I am surprised we have this technology in Kuwait.

1) First you need to sign up on their website, a very easy and quick process.
2) Then you look for the movie you want to watch.
3) Once you find a movie you want you then have to find a showtime that would suit you.
4) The next step is to reserve your seats. This is the best option, they show you a map of the theater and then you can choose where you want to sit. Very cool.
5) You pay for your ticket online using Knet, Credit Card, M-Net or a Smart Card.
6) You receive an email and SMS message confirming your order.

Very easy and very simple. I now might watch more movies because of this.

I take a few shots during the day and at night I post them on Miskan.com. What you don’t see though is how the pictures looked before right out of the camera. I shoot everything in RAW format which basically means the pictures are stored on my memory card unaltered. The pictures aren’t compressed in any way, no white balance is applied, no sharpening, no nothing. Its pure. When I open up the pictures in Photoshop, I have to set up the Raw options before the picture opens up. Its basically a window where I can control various aspects of the picture from brightness and contrast, to exposure and the white balance. It time consuming since I have to open each image and post process it till it looks good. Each one of my raw files are also over 5MB (on older cameras they are twice the size). The advantage is I get to control the settings, not the camera. Most of my pictures are usually shot under exposed because you can always brighten a picture but you can’t darken an over exposed shot. Shooting in RAW also means I am now more picky with my shots, I don’t want to get home and have 50 pictures I need to open and adjust one by one. I just don’t have the time for it nor the computer processing speed to do it quickly. Below is a shot I just took now in the office to give you an example of the importance of post processing.

In this first picture you can clearly see the white’s are grayish, the floor is dull and the whole picture lacks decent contrast.

This picture is the first one but it’s been post processed. I increased the brightness, contrast, a bit of saturation, set the white balance to neon and then proceeded to manually set the white balance till it contained a decent amount of magenta.

So in conclusion, don’t expect to get good pictures if you don’t post process. Remember when in university you took photography? Remember how in the dark you spent time experimenting trying to get the right contrast and shadows etc.. this is the same thing. If you don’t do it right don’t expect excellent results.

update: I think from now on whenever there is a cool shot I upload onto Miskan.com I will post the original unprocessed one here just to show the importance of post processing.

Today I was listening to my iPod via iTrip when I noticed my signal was getting disturbed. I had my iTrip setup to broadcast on 102.5mhz and I am sure it was free the other day. So I turned off my iPod and as I had figured, there was a station that was interfering with my music. So I started to search for an empty station and there wasn’t any! I don’t know why but I think it has to do with todays weather but every frequency had some kind of interference from a nearby station. Really sucks, its like the iTrips worst nightmare.

My previous Oakley’s broke a few weeks ago, the model was Minute Black with Black Iridium lenses and the rate of transmission of the lens was only 10%. Since there is a volleyball tournament tomorrow I decided I needed to get new shades. I found some really cool ones in the market, my favorite was the Oakley XX model, but the problem was I only found it in Metallic Black with Black Iridium Polarized lenses. Polarized lenses are really expensive and add up to the price of the shades. The XX model I saw cost KD60 which was over my KD50 budget I had set. My previous Minute’s only cost me KD33 and I was hoping to find something just a bit more expensive. So I kept looking for a non polarized version which would bring the price down under KD50 but I couldn’t find any. So I ditched the XX model and spotted the Straight Jacket version which was Black and used a Gold Iridium lens. I think the golden lens gives me the adventurer type of guy look which goes pretty well with Nats Jeep. The price was KD40 which was under my KD50 budget and so I got them. When I put them on outside in the car I noticed a problem though. Everything around me was yellow. When I tried it in the store I hadn’t noticed it but outside it became pretty obvious. I hate the yellowish tint and it fucks with my eyes color balance. The rate of transmission is decent though at 12%, not better then my older lenses but still good enough. Hopefully this yellow tint crap issue is only temporary and I won’t notice it once I get used to it. Oh one thing I noticed, Perla Nera is too expensive. The same shades I got for KD40 they were selling it for KD46! Rippoffs..

Just got invited to a party tonight. Starts at 9PM, will probably leave by 10. Should probably take my PSP so kill time…

Back in March I was trying to get Nat wasta because she needed a paper from the government saying she could get license. There is a law that says if you have been in Kuwait less then 2 years then you need special permission to get a license. A friend at work told me he knew someone who could get me the papers. So I gave him all of Nat’s papers and he took them and gave them to the guy. A week later the guy comes back and tells me the wasta wants a ticket to Egypt. I was like what? No way, I knew some other people who had offered to help for free, one of them was Nibaq. So I told the guy from work forget about it, get me the papers and I will find someone else to help. Next day he comes to the office he is like the wasta went ahead and did your papers, all he wants in return is a cheap phone. I was like OK thats not a problem, atleast the papers are signed.

I went and bought the wasta a Nokia 2600 for KD30 and sent it to him. The gift got rejected and I posted about it back then here. Turns out the wasta wanted a Nokia phone that costed around KD145. I told the guy at work that no way I was gonna pay KD145, I told him if the guy was also gonna get Nat her license then maybe I would. He was like the guy said he would help her out with the eye test. I told him she doesn’t need help in the eye test. The guy at work told me I was right forget about it.

Since that time till now every week a couple of times the guy at work keeps telling me the wasta is asking about his phone. Now past two days the guy at work is telling me the wasta is really pissed and he has been threatening him and crap. I told him what do you want me to do? He was like get him the phone. I was like no way why should I. He was like because he did the papers. I was like come on I told you not to do them anymore.

Anyway to summarize things, the wasta is threatening the guy from work, telling him he will do bad things to him and now the guy from work is scared and has been begging me all day to help me out. This situation is really pissing me off.

How I see it, its the fault of the guy from work. a) He should have gotten me the papers when I told him I didn’t want to get the guy the ticket. b) he shouldn’t have told me a cheap phone is what the guy wants. c) when the guy kept asking him when I was going to get him the phone he should have told him the story about how I was told a cheap phone would do and if its an expensive phone I didn’t want any help.

Am I right here?

Just got my two tickets to the Volleyball Tournament this weekend held by The Communication Zone. Its going to be at Kempinski Hotel this Friday. Supposingly over a thousand tickets were sold so its going to be really crowded..

Here is a larger picture of the tickets

I just got a phonecall from a creative director I used to work with. He is opening his own advertising agency here in Kuwait and he wants me to join him and help him build a team. In return I would get the same salary I am currently making and he will also make me a partner and give me 10% of the company and its earnings. He already has a major client waiting for us plus he has a deal with an international agecy. If that wasn’t enough, he wants nat and rampurple to join us.

All this and I think I will have to reject the offer. I am a very safe person. By that I mean I don’t take risks. I like routine and I like job security. I am also currently very happy with what I am doing. Ofcourse not everyday is a good day, there are ups and downs, but in general I am having fun where I am now. I am gonna meet with the guy tonight and get more details, I am wondering though if for once in my life I should just take the plunge and go for it..

I was talking to a friend of a friend now who is a doctor at Johnson & Johnson here in Kuwait. He was telling us that one of their top selling products in Kuwait is a cream which you rub onto your ass to make it bigger. This cream is supposed to be used for people with back problems because it helps to increase the size of the ass. But, here in Kuwait the woman use it in general to help increase the size of their ass for aesthetic reasons.

Muthana Complex is just weird, or atleast the people inside it. This picture might look like a mirror image or something but its actually half a bag glued to the outside of the window, and the other half glued on the inside. So the bag looks like its broken through the glass. Some shop had this on the outside I guess to attract customers. Its like soo fucking strange I mean why would he even bother going through all this trouble? I doubt it will generate more sales but it probably will grab him some attention..