2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003This is a pretty messed up incident. A British soldier in civilian clothing got ambushed by five guys in Kuwait City and then held captive. Luckily he managed to escape by jumping out of a first story balcony. [Article]
Update: According to Al-Rai newspaper the British government is denying this incident took place. Here is the article (it’s in Arabic). [Article]
I passed by McDonalds tonight and tried out their Brownie Sundae and I didn’t like it. The brownie sucked, it was cold, hard and didn’t taste that good. Luckily I was at the Avenues McDonalds branch which is right next to Choowy Goowy so I passed by them and picked up some freshly baked brownies and added them to my sundae instead (pictured below). Much better!
Update: Forgot to add a funny incident. I asked for a Brownie Sundae and a bottle of water at McDonalds and the guy asked me if I wanted fries. I was like dude I am asking for a Brownie Sundae not a burger!
I always thought they built the crane from down to up. [YouTube]
I spent 2 hours trying to upload this video onto YouTube with my 1.5MB Qualitynet connection and I couldn’t. Finally was able to upload it by connecting my Mac to my iPhone’s 3G connection. Took around an hour but at least its finally up. Anyway this is the final cut of the new Wataniya Airways commercial which we shot 10 days ago in Beirut. I uploaded the 720p version so make sure you click the HD button or click the following link for the best resolution. [YouTube – HD]
I am really getting frustrated with my Qualitynet connection. It’s like every week they have some kind of major problem and their DSL connection either crawls to a halt or just stops working completely. Currently I can barely load websites because the connection is so bad. I am trying to call qualitynet support but they keep hanging up. After around 9 or 10 minutes being on hold the music stops and I think someone is finally going to pick up when they end up hanging up on me. This happened 3 times now. Last week they had issues and the week before that. Qualitynet are you reading this? This is frustrating!
Anyone else having problems with their internet provider?
Update: Ok I am definitely changing providers. I just had my worst experience with customer support in my 3 5 year history with them. I finally got through to customer support and a guy picks up. I tell him I have a major issue with my connection. He goes uhum. I am like yeah its been like this since 5pm. He was like is this Patrick? I was like WTF? No I am not Patrick. I then proceed to give him my DSL phone number and he then replies you have a problem with your internal building line. I was like dude are you reading random notes off your computer screen? The building line problem is a completely different issue, yesterday the engineer was over trying to see if I could install 4MB and the internal line issue is that the building gets 4MB but by the time it gets to my apartment the max is 2MB. He then proceeds to explain to me I can only get 512kb. I was like what are you talking about? I was using 2MB until a month ago and up until 5 minutes ago I was on 1.5 what do you mean I can only get 512kb? Anyway long story short he had to be the most incompetent customer support person I had ever dealt with. In the end I ended up closing the phone with him and calling them back up again to talk to another support guy. Everything is back to normal now finally.
Update2: Called Kems (Zajil) and spoke to a guy who sounded like he was asleep. I asked him a few questions and he answered but he didn’t sound too confident. He told me if want to get 2MB for KD200 I need to act now because their offer expires on September 5th. So I need to make my decision in the next couple of days if I want to move either to Fasttelco or Kems. Kems I think would be more practical since our new office is going to be located right next to their head office which makes it easier in case I need to pass by them.
Update3: Qualitynet just called me and told me my problem is my internal building/house wiring and because I was a loyal customer they would send a technician to swap out the whole wiring at their expense. I told the guy that I live in a huge complex and it’s not possible to swap out the line or I would have paid for it myself. I told him I had been using 2MB for 8 months and 1.5MB for like 2 months and yesterday I was told my line could only handle 512kb. He insisted to send someone over so I agreed. Will see what happens.
Update4: Well just an update, I don’t think I will be moving over to Kems. Ever since my post multiple people have been calling me from qualitynet to see what problems i have and trying to solve it. They even offered to rewire my phone line throughout the building! Qualitynet reads my blog and they want to keep me happy so that’s more than enough to convince me to stay with them.
Note to self: Next time when in Lebanon, inspect all roundabouts. [Link]
Just a concept car so far but I think it looks pretty good.
I love the roof. [Pictures]
The website Yearbook Yourself has relaunched after being down for some time. There are some new additions to the site but most importantly there are new pictures to be super imposed onto. Yearbook Yourself is a website where you upload your picture to it and it will then super impose your face onto different yearbook pictures from the 1950 up to the year 2000. You get to see how you would have looked like if you had lived back in that era. It can be a lot of fun. [Link]
Back in July I posted about Amigos that was going to open in place of Arby’s at Avenues. Well they’re now open and as you can guess they serve Mexican food like nachos, burritos, fajitas and tacos. They’re located in the Avenues food court opposite Choowy Goowy.
I had seen a few adapters that convert the car lighter into a powered USB port but they were all ugly looking or too bulky. Then I read about the Belkin Micro USB adapter on Gizmodo and decided to order one from Amazon.
Because its tiny it fits perfectly into the car lighter without sticking out so it actually gives the impression that it came built in from the factory. I am currently using it to charge my iPhone and BlackBerry but you could use it to charge other devices. Very practical.
It costs KD5.750 and comes with an iPhone cable. [Amazon Link]
Update: Changed picture to a better one
Update2: According to a reader its available at Alghanim X-cite for KD8
Back in May I posted that Alshaya was opening up Pinkberry at the Avenues. Looks like the location is going to be opposite Dean & Deluca in Avenues Phase 2.
Last week when I was in Beirut I was there for work shooting a commercial for Wataniya Airways. One of the cool things about the shoot was that we were using the Phantom HD camera. The Phantom HD is a digital camera that can shoot up to 1500 frames per second (fps) at 720p resolution or 1000fps at 1080p.
I think we were one of the first people in the region to use this camera if not the first. Anyway just to explain what shooting at high speed means or does. Generally video runs at around 24fps. So that means if you shoot 1 second of footage at the speed of 1000fps, when you play it back at regular speed of 24fps, that 1 second of footage will last around 40 seconds. What this does is allow you to capture a lot of detail in that 1 second. It’s similar to the camera used on the Discovery Show, Time Warp. If you shoot a bullet in front of a high speed camera you will be able to see it flying through the air when played back. The camera slows down time.
Since the commercial is going to get released soon I was able to get permission to post one of my favorite takes. It’s a scene of a guy dressed in a dishdasha falling back onto the bed. What I liked about this shot is the way the dishdasha moves while in the air and also how the bed ripples when the guy lands. This scene is going to be in the final commercial except we will only be using around 2 seconds of this 47 second clip. [YouTube]
Note: I am trying to get my hands on a higher resolution footage, once I get that will update this post with it.
Update: I’ve updated the video with the higher quality version. Also added the picture below of the camera on set.
A guy spent 1,500 hours putting together this Lego stop motion. There are some really amazing moments in this video. [YouTube]
I know this is a bit late but I just passed by the Oum Kalthoum exhibit at the 360 Mall over the weekend and thats why I decided I would post about it. I am not a big Oum Kalthoum fan neither do I know much about her but the exhibition is definitely worth visiting. The exhibition space is huge. I was expecting a small room but it turned out to be gigantic. Its also very nicely put together, very tasteful and there are a lot of things to see. There is even a small cinema like section with a large projector where you can sit and watch Oum Kalthoum perform on screen. If you haven’t passed by the exhibit yet you should. Its free and its located on the ground floor of the 360 Mall.
The Hummingbird Bakery is one of my favorite dessert places in London so when I heard they released a cookbook I ordered one right away from Amazon. Since I have a lot of free time during Ramadan I will be baking a lot more and today I started off with an Apple Pie.
I passed by Sultan Center to pick up my ingredients around 3PM but it was a huge mistake. The supermarket was packed and everyone there was shopping in large quantities. My favorite line I overheard today was a daughter telling her dad “but that’s a lot, we don’t need that much” and then the dad replying “it’s Ramadan so it’s fine”. That’s why the 10 items or less line was practically empty and why I was able to leave so quickly without waiting in the humongous lines with people who had carts filled to the brim with food.
Anyway back to baking. The cookbook has a lot of pretty pictures and instructions for baking but they really don’t take you in great detail through the process. Since I hadn’t baked an Apple Pie before I used a Betty Crocker cookbook from the 70’s that had step by step pictures which helped out a bit specially when it came to putting the bottom crust in the pan without ripping it (you fold it twice so its a triangle and then you put it in the pan and unfold back into a circle).
According to the cookbook you’re supposed to bake the pie at 170degrees celcius for 30-40 minutes or until the crust is golden brown. It took me 1 hour and 30 minutes to get the crust golden brown! Next time I will be increasing the temp up to 180 to try and speed things up a bit. The result though was an extremely delicious tasting pie. I had only one minor issue and that was with the bottom crust and top crust separate while baking on one side of the pie but its a minor quibble which I should be able to solve next time.
So far the Hummingbird Bakery cookbook looks to be working. If you want to order it, it’s available on Amazon for around KD5. [Amazon Link]
Previously: My favorite cookie recipe