Search: “ace”

I was checking out Nemo’s blog when I found her post on a cafe located in Omneya complex in Salmiya called Book Cafe.

This is the description taken from the Book Cafe facebook page:

A quiet place
Provides you with Taekwondo, physical and mental relaxation
To think deeply, to read a book, to discuss a draft
My place is the beginning to achieve a place for you in the world
Start here

Judging by the pictures the place looks cool (color matches my blog) and the idea seems interesting but not too sure about the location. Nat also brought up a good point that usually when you want to read a book its more comfortable to read it while sitting on a sofa not a dinning room table. So bean bags or cozy sofas might be more suitable…

You can check out more pictures on Nemo’s blog [Here]
Here is the link to the Book Cafe’s facebook page [Link]

Picture taken by Nemo

I got home after work and took Geo my dog for his walk when I noticed three kids abusing a small white puppy. So I asked them who the dog was for and a kid answered that it was his and that he wanted to sell it. I asked him how much and he told me KD5. So I called Nat and told her that we were going to rescue a dog and that she should call Animal Friends League to see if they could pick it up.

We got some towels, food and water for the puppy which turned out to be really hungry and waited for a call back from Animal Friends so we could see what to do next. As a backup I told Nat to give PAWs a call but as usual no one from PAWs picked up. Animal Friends called us back and told us no one could pick up the dog tonight but we could drop it off at the International Veterinarian Hospital which we ended up doing.

It was a pretty cute and playful dog. Nat decided to call him Grumpy like the Smurf since it had a grumpy look on its face, probably from all the abuse it got from the kids.

Animal Friends League is a non-profit organization that rescues animals and strives to improve the quality of their lives in Kuwait. So please if you would like to help them out either with a donation or other means visit the following link to find out how. [Link]

Has anyone heard of a burger place in Kuwait called Smokehouse? Its on exit 211 in Mahboula, block 1. Supposedly they have really good burgers. I also heard a new burger place opened up in the Avenues in place of where GBK used to be.

Update: Someone from the Smokehouse commented the following…

At The Smokehouse we specialize in Southern BBQ. We serve a variety of smoked and barbequed meats, southern style sides and a selection of desserts. And Mark we do have three different burgers on our menu. We are located in Mahboula block 1, off exit 211of the Fahaheel expressway. Our website www.smokehousekw.com should be up within a day or 2, it has a menu as well as directions and map of our location. If you need help finding The Smokehouse call us at 97340070 or 97340080.

I was out of the country when the military parade took place recently in Kuwait but a reader of my blog who was at the event took some pictures which I’ve uploaded online. To check out the pictures click [Here]

Thanks Salem!

Tried paella today for the first time at a place that was recommended called La Paella Real. It was delicious! Someone needs to open up a Spanish restaurant in Kuwait if there isn’t one already, they’ve got some amazing dishes here…

While in transit at the Frankfurt Airport I met up with a friend of mine who told me to try out a restaurant in Madrid called Sobrino de Botín. The place is the oldest restaurant in the world, established back in 1725! So I passed by tonight and had dinner there. The place is pretty cool, I didn’t like the food but that was my fault, should have gone with the seafood. The idea the restaurant existed 500 nearly 300 years ago is just crazy.

Found a small place in Madrid that specializes in fried calamari sandwiches. It’s such a simple idea, I loved it.

I just found about freelensing and can’t wait to try it tomorrow during the day. This is the definition of freelensing according to Luke Roberts:

Photos taken with the lens detached from the camera but held in place and moved around to focus. This also lets extra light in sometimes causing light leaks and giving a vintage look and feel.

Also:
* Gives extra bokeh by shrinking the area in focus (aperture is 0)
* Allows for super macro shots
* Delicious light leaks
* Tilt-shift effects

For some cool freelensing samples (better than mine above) click [Here], [Here] and [Here]

Update: Here are some more free lensing shots I took which turned out much nicer. In all the shots except for the last, I had the lens flipped backwards.

I was emailed the following:

Throughout the coming months there is going to be an eventful calendar of activities at different Starbucks locations. Ranging from insightful and inspiring photography exhibitions, to fun live music performances and gigs and many other more art forms to be included and surprises to be later announced.

Each weekend the photography exhibitions will take place in 3 Starbucks stores across Kuwait so choose the closest to you and come encourage young creative youth in Kuwait and spend a great weekend at Starbucks..

The schedule of events and locations are to be found for reference below:

6 -7 March
Starbucks Al Bidaa:
Ammar Al Othman & Samar Al Bader

Starbucks Behbehani Villa – behind Church – Kuwait City:
Saleh El Gaith & BaderAl Ajeel

Starbucks Mishref Coop:
Abdula Al Foudary & Nawaf Al Saleh

13-14 March
Starbucks Avenues (by Fountain):
Maha Al Asaker & Jarrah Al Boloshi

Starbucks Kuwait Free Zone:
Saleh El Gaith & Bader Al Ajeel

Starbucks Palms Spa & Resort:
Samar Al Bader & Sherifa Ben Ali

20-21 March
Starbucks Al Bidaa:
Maha Al Asaker & Jarrah Al Boloshi

Starbucks Salem Al Mubarak – Opposite Al Fanar:
Bader Al Ajeel & Ammar Al Othman

Starbucks Hilton Al Mangaf:
Abdulla Al Foudary & Nawaf Al Saleh

27-28 March
Starbucks Behbehani Villa – behind Church – Kuwait City:
Sherifa Ben Ali & Maha Al Asaker

Starbucks Palms & Spa Resort:
Jarrah El Boloshi & Saleh Al Gaith

Starbucks Marina Mall:
Ammar Al Othman & Abdulla Al Foudary

For more information visit their Facebook group [Here]

Thanks Maha!

Someone emailed me about an exhibition thats taking place in Kuwait for a “digital artist” called Anwar Ghader. So I googled him to check out his work when I found a cool post on Projekt Cyan showing how in under 10 minutes you can replicate one of his work. I really dislike how some people take a picture, apply a few Photoshop filters and then call it art. That’s not art, what I posted the other day is art. So if you want to find out how to create your own digital art like Anwar click [Here]

Update: Just so there is no miscommunication. The reason I don’t call Anwar’s work art is not because it was easy to create or because it is ugly or anything of that sort. Its because of the way the work was created. If I take an image and using the software Rasterbator I create something nice, does that make me an artist? If I use Obama Icon Me to create a cool looking poster, does that make me an artist? So why is it art when Anwar (or any other person) uses live trace to create the work?

K5 has an interesting post about this cool little store he found called Nawader Al Kuwait. The place has a huge collection of vintage Arabic vinyl records and also vintage radios and record players. The place also has other random items, personally I am interested in the painting of the musicians above so I might pass by tonight to check the place out. You can see more pictures and information about the place on K5’s blog [Here]

I got home after work to find a bunch of retards fighting under my building. I parked my car in the basement and walked up to the ground floor to find around 20 teenagers (16-18 year olds) shouting, screaming and shoving each other around. I watched them for like 5 minutes and then decided to go upstairs and watch them from my balcony. A lot of fights erupt next to my building because there is a billiard place in the building next door that attracts a lot of the wrong crowd. There is also a prostitution ring that operates in that same building but they only open for business like once a week and its a pretty tightly run ship with high end customers so they never cause any problems (I should post about them one day). The billiard place on the other hand just attracts all these trashy kids that want to fight for the dumbest reasons.

While watching the fight from my balcony I heard what sounded like one guy yelling at who I thought was one of the Bangladeshi janitors in my building so I went back downstairs to make sure no one did anything to the workers. Turns out the workers were inside the building away from harms way but the fight outside had turned really violent with guys holding cutters and some guys bleeding. I live in a shopping mall in the old Salmiya street and these guys were basically fighting in the backside, then moving inside the mall and then back out to the front of the building onto the main Salmiya street. It was ridiculous! So I asked the landlord if he had called the cops and he told me yeah when the fight had first started but no one had come yet.

20 minutes later and the cops still hadn’t showed up. Actually the fight dispersed and everyone ended up going their separate ways and the cops never showed up. I went back up to my apartment while the janitors started to clean up the blood stains. Unbelievable.

When I first started this blog over 4 years ago I was getting only a handful of visitors a day. Since then the site hasn’t stopped growing and I’m now averaging over 10,000 visitors a day. From day 1 the blog was being hosted by a good friend but now it’s time for me to move the blog to its own dedicated server.

I just signed up with Rackspace, a leading web hosting provider hosting sites like Threadless, 37signals, Liquid Web Laughing Squid, ESPN, Disney Online, Motorola, Canon USA and more. They gave me a really good deal and promised to have my server up and running by Tuesday. This means I would probably start moving my blog to the new server sometime late next week.

If you’re interested my new server will have the following specs:

Dell 2850
Dual socket = 2 Xeon 3.2 GHz performance CPU’s
Two 146GB 10,000 rpm Hard drives (Raid 1)
4GB RAM
1 x Cisco 506 Firewall
24x7x365 Unlimited live person support
Guaranteed 1 hour hardware replacement
100% network uptime (Backbone = 65GB throughput)
1000 GB High Performance, Tier 1 Redundant Bandwidth
Constant network monitoring for latencies and intrusion

During the move there should be some downtime but I will post about it ahead of time.

[YouTube]

This fire happened on Wednesday and resulted in two dead woman and 64 injured. What I found shocking is this:

Relatives of the women initially blocked firefighters from entering the wedding hall, an action that some suggest may have contributed to the disaster. According to an eyewitness, when firemen first arrived at the scene, they were prevented from entering the hall by some men (apparently relatives of some of the women inside) on the grounds that it was an all-women place. “You can’t get in,” they shouted.

According to eyewitnesses, the hall was filled with smoke at first, which frightened the guests. They panicked and a stampede broke out when flames began to engulf the area.

Witnesses added that what aggravated the situation was the fact that many women who were trying to flee the scene, stopped to put on their veils and head covers. They also said that the hall accommodated 220 women and children. [Kuwait Times]

Thanks Kuwait Black Market!

A new pizza place recently opened up in the Avenues food court called Pizzeria Rustica. Its located opposite Applebee’s. The rice placed called “Rice” also looks to be opening up any day now. The lights were on and the staff looked like they were getting training.