2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003

Yesterday after dropping off my dog at the vet and heading to the airport I decided to pass by the old Ahmadi Drive-In Cinema. I’ve been wanting to pass by for ages and figured I’d quickly scout out the place to see where I could climb in from and then come back another day.

When I got there I drove up to the main entrance where cars in the old days would line up before driving in and noticed the main gate was closed. I decided I would drive around the complex to see if I could find some kind of hole or a low wall I could jump. But, as soon as I turned to the side of the building I noticed the side gate was left open. It caught me a bit by surprise and from where I was sitting in the car I could see the cinema screen inside. I had my camera with me and I still had time to get to the airport so I figured what the heck, took my camera and went inside.

The place is huge, I’ve never been to a drive-in theater before so I was a bit dumbfounded by the size. Once you’re inside you’re closed off from the rest of the world and it was around 6pm when I got there which was during sunset so the whole experience was pretty tranquil. I loved the place.

Although the place is not being taken care at least they haven’t demolished it. There are so many possibilities for this space, even though drive-in’s are long gone that doesn’t mean the place can’t be used for anything worthwhile. One thing I’d love to see take place inside there is car booth sales You’ve got a nice space that’s isolated from the surroundings as well as a place with history so events like that would fit perfectly. Even car meets and monthly flea markets could work really well in that space.

Whatever comes of the place I just hope they keep the structure standing.

Yesterday after my visit to MRC I decided to pass by the tire graveyard which was located around 5 minutes down the road from them. The road that takes you to the tire graveyard is unpaved and unmarked but with the help of Google Maps I didn’t have any trouble finding it. Once there I was awestruck with the amount of tires that were piled up on top of each other, literally millions and millions of them.

To get a better look at the tires I first had to climb a tall wall of tires but once I got to the top the sight was spectacular. I know it’s not a good thing because these tires are an environmental disaster but still you can’t deny it’s a scene like no other.

I didn’t know if I was allowed to be there of if I was allowed to take pictures so I quickly snapped a few shots and got out. I really need to go back since it’s full of photo opportunities. On the bright side I did end up with a cool desktop wallpaper (pictured above) so that was worth it. If you want to use the picture above as a wallpaper as well you can download the higher resolution version from [Here]

Yesterday I passed by MRC, a metal and recycling company to check out how everything works. It’s one of these things I’ve always been curious about which is why I emailed them to see if they’d give me a tour. Their recycling center is located in Amghara and it was segmented into two parts, plastics and metal.

Plastic
You can easily tell you’ve arrived at their plastic recycling facility since you’ll be met with huge piles of colorful empty plastic containers divided into different groups depending on the color. They export both the plastics and metals for recycling abroad but before they can send the products out they need to be prepped. With plastics that process involves a few stages. The first thing they do is shred the plastic into small pieces. They then wash these plastic pieces in a large pool and are left to dry. Once the plastic pieces dry they are placed into another machine that melts them into long plastic strings which get chopped up into very tiny pieces. Those pieces are filled into sacks and then exported to different countries where they are recycled (mostly China).

Metal
For metal the process is a lot simpler than plastic although it’s a much more larger and difficult process since it involves large metal objects such as cars. Like plastic the metal gets exported but before they can export it all the metal needs to be shredded into very tiny pieces. After a bit of safety prep I was actually allowed up onto the large claw crane that was picking up cars and tossing them into a pile. I sadly wasn’t allowed to control it but it was still cool being up there. The cars and other metal objects are then placed into a large shredder, the first part chops the metal object into big pieces and then the second part chops them into tinier pieces.

If you’re interested in recycling MRC have a program called NewAir which they’ve tailored for companies. They will collect and recycle your waste products which include paper, cartons, plastic, metals, PET bottles, cans, electronic items and more. To sign up to NewAir to get more details you can visit their website [Here]

There’s a new burger place called Hashtag that opened up next to Solo Pizza in Kuwait City and I got to try it out tonight. I don’t usually have burgers in the evening but since I had been eating super healthy and clear for nearly 3 weeks I kinda had a weak moment when Fahad posted about it on Instagram. Once I was done with the gym I headed to Hashtag to try it out. I was actually hoping the place would be packed since it would have given myself an excuse not to cheat and drive off but it wasn’t so I parked my car and went in and ordered a burger.

If I was to open a burger place it would be very similar to Hashtag. It’s a very tiny joint in the middle of no where with just 4 burgers on the menu (my place would probably have just one). I ordered a double Hashtag which is 2 beef patties, 2 slices of cheese, grilled onions and their special sauce. I also ordered water as my drink and no fries since I didn’t want to cheat too much.

The burger didn’t take long to make and I sat down and quickly dug in. First impression it looked messy, juicy and delicious. Taste wise it also didn’t disappoint. The bun was soft the patties very juicy and tender and the onions were grilled just the way I like them which is slightly raw. The sauce on the other hand wasn’t that great and I didn’t think it did the burger any justice. Next time I’d probably have it with just ketchup and mustard instead.

My biggest issue is that the place is fairly expensive. A double burger and a bottle of water came out to KD5.250 (4.5 for the burger, 750fils for the water). I think that’s pretty pricy for what should be a small casual burger joint. If you’re interested to try them out (you should), they’re located in Kuwait near Solo Pizza in the building behind Tatami. Here it is on Google Maps [Link]

There’s a very disturbing picture on Page 8 of today’s issue of Arab Times. I’ve taken a screenshot from their online edition and pix-elated the disturbing part which is the victim of the car accident lying dead next to the car.

I thought publishing the photo was really inappropriate but the more I thought about the subject the more confused about it I became. Should newspapers publish graphic images? Inappropriate or not, I think they should be allowed to publish whatever they please.

Update: Photo removed by request from the family of the victim

I’ve been carrying the D800 with me all week and I’m loving it. I really haven’t found any major kinks so my first impression has been very positive. I’m going to try and not get into too many technical details but it’s going to be a bit difficult to avoid that since what really differentiates this camera from others is the technical aspects.

Look and Feel
Even though the D800 is a lot more bulkier than regular DSLR’s I still found the size very manageable. I’ve actually been carrying the camera around with me in my small Think Tank 5 bag which I had gotten for my much smaller Panasonic GX1 camera. The camera weight isn’t bad either and feels really solid and comfortable in my hands. The viewfinder is huge compared to my older Nikon D90 but that’s no surprise since the D800 is a full frame camera. What does that mean? If you have a DSLR it’s most likely using a APS-C sensor which is around 23.6 x 15.7mm in size. That sensor is a lot bigger than sensors in point and shoot cameras which are around 7.18 x 5.32mm but it’s still a lot smaller in size compared to a full frame sensor like on the D800 which measures at 36 x 24mm. The larger the sensor the more light and detail it can capture. (more info on sensor sizes)

Customization
The camera has a lot of buttons and majority of them are customizable. I shoot in aperture priority mode so the front rotating dial controls the aperture while I’ve setup the rear sub dial to control the exposure. I have two programmable buttons in the front which I can active without looking and I’ve set one to turn on the virtual horizon inside the viewfinder (shows you if the camera is tilted) while the second button turns on spot metering. One feature I’m currently loving is the Auto-ISO. I’ve previously had cameras that had Auto-ISO but what sets the D800 apart from the others is the fact I can set a minimum shutter speed (for each lens). Once the shutter speed drops below what I’ve set then the camera will increase the ISO until it reaches my minimum shutter speed requirement. I can also set the maximum ISO which I currently have on ISO 6400 (yes it’s that usable!).

The camera has two memory card slots and I can tell the camera to record pictures onto one or video onto the other. I can even tell it to record RAW images onto one, JPG onto the other or even record the same information on both so all my images are backed up. Finally you have three different RAW formats you can save to which is great since the 36MP RAW files can reach 80MB on the highest quality but can drop down to 35MB with very little quality loss if I need.

Features
What’s made this camera really popular is the fact that it’s 36MP. The fact that it’s 36MP was actually a turn off for me since I don’t need 36MP (16MP would be more than enough for my needs). But after shooting with the camera over the weekend I can easily see why 36MP is so great… cropping. When you’re in the moment it’s sometimes difficult to frame the shot the way you want it and that’s what happened with me over the weekend when I was shooting some workers. Because I shot at 36MP, once I got home and started processing the shots I was able to frame and crop into some shots and still have a very large image to work with. Low light shooting is also great with the D800, like I mentioned earlier I have it set on Auto-ISO right now and I’ve set the limit to 6400 because at 6400 the noise is barely noticeable. Actually if I only need the shots for my blog I could shoot with ISO 25,600 and post it here and you wouldn’t be able to see any noise at all.

I really do love this camera. It’s super responsive, there are a ton of buttons which means if I want to change any setting I don’t have to flip through menus, the viewfinder is large and it really just feels great using it. It won’t make me a better photographer but it has reignited my passion for photography. The only negative I have to say about the camera is that you need a powerful computer to process the large RAW files. If you’re paying this much for a camera anyway then you should be willing to invest in your computer. I’m using Lighroom 4 on a 27inch iMAC 3.2Ghz Core 3 with 12GB of RAM and it takes around 5 to 10 seconds to load a photo at full resolution to start developing. I’m now planning to upgrade it to 32GB of RAM to see and if it will help improve things but the best solution will most likely be patience. The camera is currently out of stock all around the world but I pre-ordered mine from Electronic Express and they had it shipped to me within a week. Because of that Electronic Express are now one of my favorite online electronic stores.

Over 7,000,000 tires! I should have passed by last weekend since I was pretty close to it but didn’t know it was nearby then. [Link]

Spain – World Cup Winner
UAE – Highest Building in the World
France – Best Picture Winner
USA – Highest Winner of Noble Prizes
Kuwait – Winner of Best Red Velvet Cup Cake

This is a picture of wall graffiti here in Kuwait done by a group called Leap. Not sure who they are but they’re funny. Check them out [Here] and [Here]

Thanks Farah

If you’re wondering why the sky is black today it’s because there are a million tires burning. [YouTube]

Kinda reminds me of the oil fires from back in 1991.

via Frankom

I say lets go for solar and nuclear energy and turn Kuwait into an electric hub that would supply the region with electricity for a fee.

Some people have emailed me regarding the new devices that have been installed next to the speed detector cameras on the highway. There is a rumor that these new devices track your speed from one camera to another. I don’t believe that is the case. From what I gathered by checking the manufacturers website of these devices, their speed detecting cameras have an option for adding a secondary camera which is what these are. My guess is they’re just taking two pictures simultaneously (or sequentially) of speeding cars either for better accuracy or in case they have trouble reading the plate number in one of the photos.

Photo by Edgar

Update: A reader emailed with an interesting bit of information. According to him he takes the King Fahad Road (40th) from the First Ring Road every morning and drives past all the cameras going 150KM/h. He told me that the first camera on the King Fahad Road doesn’t take a picture, the one after that does, then the one after that doesn’t while the one after that does. This happens all the way till the end of the highway. I’ve always had a theory that only one side of those double sided camera boxes actually contains camera while the other side is a dummy. If what he says is true then that theory is correct and if you’re driving back the opposite way, the cameras that didn’t go off previously would go off on the return.

Over the weekend I had a project I needed to shoot which would require low light shots and very low angles so I decided to pass by Alghunaim Photo and pick up a tripod. There were a few tripods too choose from but only two fit my budget. The first one I checked out was the Manfrotto 290 series with the quick release ball head. The ball head is the upper part of the tripod which connects to your camera (picture near end of post). Generally you can choose I think between 3 types of heads but I like the ball head due to it’s ease of use. Anyway the 290 was pretty stable, easy and quick to operate but my issue with it was that it wouldn’t go down low enough since 38cm from the ground was the lowest it could go. It was disappointing since price wise at KD45 including the ball head I found it really affordable (for a quality tripod that is).

The second tripod I tried was the 190XPROB. This tripod didn’t go as high as the 290 series but it could go down a lot lower to around 8cm from the ground. It was also slightly smaller and lighter but not by that much. Since I was looking for a tripod that could go very low I ended up getting this one for KD35 WITHOUT the head. The cheapest ball head would set you back another KD25 on top of that price so you’re actually paying around KD60 for this tripod which isn’t cheap specially if like me you won’t be using it that much. But it’s made in Italy and really should last a lifetime so I decided to bite the bullet and just get it. After using the tripod for my project over the weekend I actually found it a bit complicated to use. Maybe finicky is the right word here. Each one of the tripod’s leg adjusts to 4 or 5 different angles and I ended up spending a lot of time trying to get all three legs to open at the same angle. If one of the angles differs then the tripod would end up being slanted. But even though I ran into that issue I had no regrets getting it since I found it very versatile specially since I was able to lower the tripod down so much that my camera was just a couple of inches off the ground. It would really be perfect for anyone wanting to shoot ants or other insects.

If you’re interested in buying a Manfrotto tripod Alghunaim Photo is the local dealer. But, you might be better off waiting until the end of the month before passing by since they’re currently out of stock on most of the items and their new shipment arrives end of the month. Their prices are similar or cheaper than Amazon’s listed price which is amazing. If you know what you want then I guess you could pass by and reserve your tripod. When I checked they had the 190XPROB in stock but only the high end ball heads (KD60 and up).

Just found out there is another mall/plaza popping up in Salmiya right across the street from Laila Gallery (next to Omnia Mall and Sultan Center) called The Cube. Based on the rendering it looks like it’s going to be another restaurants project similar to Bidaa and The Village but my biggest question is where will everyone park? The street is already heavily congested and the only proper parking spaces nearby are behind Sultan Center and Laila Gallery but those two lots already get super packed. [Link]

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