2:48AM - Entertaining Kuwait since 2003

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

The picture above is of the new KFC sandwich that’s just been released in the US which uses two fried chicken fillets instead of bread to hold the sandwich together. The sandwich contains pepper jack cheese, Swiss cheese, and bacon smothered in the Colonel’s Sauce. [Link]

I posted a video of the Aston Martin Rapide in Kuwait before but here is better footage. I can imagine they would have a hard time explaining to hotel security what the box with all the wires in the trunk is for. [YouTube]

Update: Here is an article to go with the video above that talks about the testing that went on in Kuwait. [Link]

With the hottest part of the day approaching and temperatures now exceeding 50 deg C, the next test involved leaving the car parked outside in the intense midday sun for an hour – typical of an everyday lunch stop.

Sixty minutes later, the team measured what’s called the solar load placed on the car during the break using a device on the roof. To give an idea of how hot the sun in the Middle East can get, a typical solar test in a factory is usually limited to 1,000kW/h, as values higher than this rarely occur in habitable climates.

But after returning from lunch, the laptop was reading a peak value of 1,100kW/h! [Source]

Thanks AndyQ8

I really hate how the no smoking sections in restaurants here in Kuwait are usually tiny and located all the way in the back near the bathrooms. Restaurants should encourage people to cut down on smoking by having the prime seating locations allocated to non smokers not the other way around.

Update: For some humor watch the following three clips in order from the IT Crowd that are related to smoking:
Smoking was fun
Too Soviet
New smoking area

YouTube Description: Two awesome Americans in Kuwait give one lucky TCN a taste of the good life for one night… Will this spark a trend of kindness?

Basically two guys find someone who needs help, they then take him shopping, buy him stuff, take him out to dinner and then give him KD100 cash at the end. I think its a pretty cool idea especially if it catches on and random people start doing it. [YouTube]

Note: TCN stands for Third Country National

Thanks Nate

Pretty gruesome so don’t watch it if you can’t handle it. [YouTube]

Office Depot has finally opened at the Avenues and I am kind of disappointed. I expected the place to be much bigger and have more stuff but at the moment they have a little of everything which I guess is ok for a shopping mall branch. They really need to have a much bigger place if they want to compete with the likes of Mogahwi. On the bright side at least we have a new franchise in Kuwait.

Update: I got the following response from the Office Depot marketing team:

In the future, we will have stand alone stores that will be much bigger in size having a bigger range as well as smaller stores that will have a limited selection focusing on stationery and small office supplies. Our focus is on offering the customers all they need in one shop at competitive prices, good customer service & an excellent shopping experience. We started with the Avenues store mainly for individual consumers however we will service business clients for that store as well. Our future plan is to open business targeted stores as well & in 2010, we will also launch our catalogue that will have the full range of products from all categories.

For more information, you can email us at [email protected] or check www.alshaya.com
If you want to receive a sms or email whenever we do offers, you can fill your info here https://www.alshaya.com/OfficeDepot/

I’m back in Kuwait finally. Just an update about the Jeep garage they never ended up emailing a cost estimate since they ended up repairing the a/c at no cost. This is the email I got the day before yesterday:

Dear sir,
At the ouset, I would like to wish you a very good day. I would like to inform you that we have completed the service of your vehicle & also we repaired the a/c of your vehicle. We cleaned your a/c system & we road tested your vehicle & it is working fine. Also I washed the vehicle & kept for ready for delivery. The total repair charges coming to 58.00 KD/-.

Also assuring you our best of services always.

Thing is the problem with my a/c was that it was making a very loud sound and it would let in the smell and air from outside even if I had it to circulate internally. Not too sure what a cleaning would do but I guess will see tomorrow if that fixed the problem.

Update: Picked up the Jeep, its perfect! They did end up fixing my AC and it now finally sounds normal. They also did a pretty good job of cleaning it, the interior is spotless. Not bad, wasn’t expecting this.

For some reason the latest trend in Lebanon food wise is hot dog stands. I tried a couple and they’re ok, nothing extra ordinary I don’t know what the big deal is. It’s over hyped. Food in Lebanon generally sucks just like Paris. Someone recommended I try Nandos in Lebanon, I did, it sucks compared to the one in Kuwait. I had the chicken burger with side order of coleslaw. The coleslaw sucked big time while the chicken was stingy tiny and although I had asked for it to be medium spicy I think they made it extra spicy because I was burning up like crazy. Can’t wait to get back to Kuwait. Only good thing that came out of Lebanon food wise? Hummingbird Bakery.

Wow can’t believe how well they go together. Trent Reznor should invite Rick Astley to tour with the band or at least make one appearance. [YouTube]

Thanks Wretched

Ra’ed Qutena the photojournalist took pictures showing the aftermath of the wedding fire and uploaded them onto flickr. Looks like nothing was left standing. [Link]

Thanks Nibaq

This is a huge tragedy and a very sad event. [YouTube]
The video above is in Arabic but there is an English version from BBC [Here]