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Yesterday I shared a video called Kuwait Nights 1984 created by Faisal Alrajhi and instantly fell in love with it. He created the video using AI, so after sharing his post on my story I got in touch with him to see if he could share his process with my readers.

Due to the length of his project he couldn’t share the full breakdown, so instead we decided to focus on one of my favorite scenes, the Green Island sequence.

Step 1 – Creating the visuals

The first thing Faisal did was create a custom prompt on Google Gemini:

“Create an 8-bit pixel-art scene of Kuwaiti people relaxing, sitting on benches, and walking inside Green Island. Show the iconic tower in the background, kids running in the distance, and palm trees lining the walkways. Use retro warm tones and subtle pixel shading.”

For the pixel-art images, he used the Google Gemini app along with Freepik’s Nano Banana feature. Freepik gave him higher-resolution results, which made a big difference when putting everything together into a video. He also added reference photos he found on Google, like shots of Green Island, to help the AI recreate the scenes more accurately.

Once he had all the images generated, he did some light touch-ups in Photoshop to clean things up, fix small details, and remove anything the AI added that didn’t belong.

Step 2 – Converting stills to animation

Once he had a scene he liked, Faisal then animated the images using an image-to-video AI tool from Freepik.

Step 3 – Creating the soundtrack

For the music Faisal used the AI music generator Suno. He gave Suno 30 seconds of the original song he wanted to use then used the following prompt to convert it into an 8-bit video-game style soundtrack:

“A playful 8-bit track opens with bright, pulsating chiptune synths and a bouncy, syncopated square wave melody. Driving 8-bit percussion interlocks with rapid arpeggios, playful sound effects, and simple bass, keeping the energy high. Short bridge introduces quirky glitch textures.”

Step 4 – Combining the scenes

The final step was putting everything together, he used Final Cut Pro.

So in case you want to replicate this video style, just follow steps 1 and 2 over and over for the different scenes and then combine them using a video editor.

When I posted this on Instagram, someone people left comments hating on the fact AI was used to create this. I think there is a huge misconception or naivety on how difficult and even impossible it would be to create a video like this without AI. One follower left a comment saying that Faisal should have instead “learn how to do pixel art and write music” as if it’s something someone can do by watching a YouTube video and not requiring any talent. I think that comment is actually more insulting to artists than him using AI to create this video. But even if Faisal was a pixel artists, it wouldn’t necessarily also mean he would know how to animate or compose music. Even if he did, the process of creating something like this would have taken months. Hiring a team to create a video like this especially when it’s something just for fun is also not realistic or feasible. AI has its issues, but in this instance it’s allowed someone to create something that wouldn’t be possible without the use of AI.

Make sure to check out Faisal’s Instagram account, he posts a lot of cool tech videos and they’re always informative. @f_alrajhii

Galaxy Juice just dropped a new three-track EP called Give It Over, their first release since the single Only Time. According to the band, this EP took nearly a year to put together because they pushed deep into production, sound design, and the overall concept.

They’ve shared with me the YouTube link to the track which I’ve embeded on top but you can listed to the full EP on Bandcamp right now with Spotify and other platforms coming soon.

If you want to check out my previous posts on Galaxy Juice, click here.

This past weekend Al Andalus revealed The Petal Pavilion, their new pop-up kiosk located at the center of their plaza. I’m currently halfway across the world on vacation, but they sent over photos of the project for me to share.

The Petal Pavilion was originally designed as a functional oyster bar by the Copenhagen-based studio @lasovskyjohansson for an art fair in Denmark a few years ago. The design won many awards and a version of that pavilion stands at the Design Museum Denmark, serving as a permanent café installation.

What’s cool is that this isn’t a copy of that design, Al Andalus actually worked with the original architects to reinterpret their award-winning concept to meet their specific requirements and adapt it to our unique weather. The result is this new 6.5-meter-tall kiosk where the petal folds open and blooms during the day, casting shadows below, but as daylight fades, the pavilion’s surfaces come alive with colored linear lighting.

The Petal will be hosting different pop-ups throughout the year with the first being @boostcafe from November 6 to December 31 followed by @kello.kw in January.

I’ve posted about UFO sightings in Kuwait in the late 70s twice on the blog, first time back in 2013 and then again in 2021. Recently, I found out (via @thevenerablebetty) that Kuwait was also featured in the 1979 summer edition of UFO Update! magazine, and I managed to get a copy of it.

The article was written by an executive from an American oil company who was in Kuwait on business. While driving out to one of the oil fields, he spotted a strange aircraft, and the piece details what he experienced and saw. He wasn’t the only eyewitness that night.

I’ve also uploaded additional clippings as a bonus read. These were declassified by the US State Department and include US embassy wires along with statements from KOC officials, KISR, and even the Ministry of Interior, who investigated a report by a Kuwait Airways pilot who had spotted an “unusual light phenomenon.”

I used to be a huge UFO buff, so I always find these stories interesting. Even if you don’t believe in UFOs, they’re still fun to read. I’ve uploaded everything to my Flickr and you can check them out there.

Tonight Kuwait will get to witness a lunar eclipse, that’s when the moon passes into the earth’s shadow. During the deepest part of the eclipse the moon turns a reddish color, and that’s exactly what we’ll be able to catch tonight.

You can catch the lunar eclipse from anywhere in Kuwait, but if you’d rather watch it with a crowd, there are a couple of viewing events happening tonight that I know of.

Kuwait University
The Kuwait University Faculty of Sciences Physics Club is hosting a viewing on campus (North Park). They’ll have activities lined up and 45 telescopes for the public to use. If you’ve got your own telescope, there’s also a private observation area where you can set up. @physcku @ikarustechnolog

Abdullah Al Salem Cultural Centre
If you don’t feel like heading to Kuwait University, ASCC is also hosting a viewing tonight. They’ll have an outdoor setup by the Space Museum with telescopes also available for everyone to use. @ascckw

The Kuwait University event is free, while the ASCC one needs a museum entry ticket. The eclipse will take place from 6:28PM until 11:55PM tonight.

Bas Ya Bahar (or The Cruel Sea in English) is a Kuwaiti film directed by pioneering filmmaker Khalid Al Siddiq and released in 1971. It’s considered to be the first feature-length motion picture made in Kuwait, and also one of the first from the Gulf region.

I recently got my hands on what I think are two important pieces tied to the movie, the original film poster and the international film brochure, so I figured it was the right time to do a post about it again (previous post here).

The film is set in Kuwait before the discovery of oil, when people lived in poverty, surviving on small-scale farming and fishing. Their only hope of changing fate came from the sea, where pearl divers risked everything for the chance of finding a life-changing pearl. The story follows a young man ashamed of his family’s poverty and his inability to win over the family of the girl he loves. Determined to change that, he becomes a pearl diver, returning to the same sea that left his father crippled and half-blind.

Bas Ya Bahar starred the then-young, now legendary actors Hayat Al Fahad, Mohammed Al Mansour, and Saad Al Faraj. The film was selected as the Kuwaiti entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 45th Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee.

I purchased the poster from a guy who watched the movie at a film festival in Algeria back in 1975. He got the poster from Khalid after the show and kept it stored away until I bought it from him. What struck me most about the poster were the colors. Everything I’d seen related to the film was always in black and white, so the neon green and pink instantly caught my attention. The Brochure is also in great quality and is in three languages, English, Arabic and French.

I took a few photos of the poster and scanned the brochure since I don’t think many copies are still around today and so I wanted to share them. I also reached out to @badshaiji to see if he had any photos in his collection, and he did. The black and white shots are from him and were taken at the film premiere at Cinema Al Andalus on 03/27/71.

Khalid Al Siddiq passed away in 2021 at the age of 76. If you want to watch the film, it’s on YouTube and I’ve embedded it below.

I’ve uploaded all the photos in their original resolution to my Flickr account, you can check them all here.

I’m currently still on vacation in LA but trying to get back into the habit of posting so figured I’d write about my experience using Waymo. Waymo for those of you who don’t know is exactly like Uber, except the cars are driverless. It’s really cool in theory and in reality it’s even cooler.

It’s not available yet in all of Los Angeles, but it was available in the downtown area which is where I decided to try it out. I had my rental parked in one area of downtown but needed to go to another part but didn’t want to take my car. So I called a Waymo and it came and picked me up.

When the car first arrives you need to unlock the doors through the app, that’s how the car knows it’s you or you know you got the right Waymo. Once you get in you are required to put your seatbelts on, generally I wouldn’t want to but in this case because its a driverless car and this whole thing is still in testing it makes sense to do so. The car obviously knew where I was going and once I clicked on start driving on the rear screen the car took off. I had my Spotify connected in the Waymo app so once we started moving it started playing my music. I could control the music from the rear screen which also had other commands like if I wanted the car to pull over to drop me off early.

The ride was actually pretty smooth, and the car smelled fresh and was comfortable. They use modified Jaguar electric cars and because there isn’t a driver, both front seats are pushed forward so the rear passengers get a lot of legroom. It’s a very weird and futuristic feeling being in a car without a driver. Like it’s hard to believe we are in that point of time where such a thing is possible.

The only negative thing was the fact I had to wait 20 minutes to get a Waymo. They don’t have a lot of cars yet so it’s understandable. It’s actually because of this 20 minute wait I ended up finding out that Paddy’s Pub from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia was near where I was and got to pass by it before the cab came.

The ride fare was cheaper than Uber and the overall experience much better. Not sure if the Waymo car can leave me a rating but if I could rate it I would have given it a 5 star.

LA as a whole I generally find behind in tech compared to Europe, but this trip feels the other way around, I think mostly because of the driverless cars, the fact everyone seems to have a Cyber Truck here and also because of robots that go around delivering food to people (which are super cute btw).

If you’ve come across a photo booth in Kuwait, maybe at an event or mall, it was probably a Calling Marilyn booth. Calling Marilyn was born when popular studio photographer Salma Alessa brought her studio’s signature high-end aesthetic and attention to detail to a wider audience. A luxe photo booth where people can have fun and capture moments with friends turned out to be the perfect way to share her photography style beyond the studio.

Not only do the photos look great, but the booths themselves are just as impressive. Each one has a unique design inspired by its environment and is created locally. No two are alike, and all are built in collaboration with local artisans and creatives. They also like thinking outside the box, literally. Last year they turned a vintage Cadillac convertible into a booth just for fun, and people had a blast with it.

Another cool aspect is that the photo booths don’t store or save digital copies. It brings back the old school magic of physical copies, while also being a privacy feature. The photos you print will be the only copies that exist.

If you want to check out one of their public booths, you can find them in various spots around Kuwait, including 360 Mall, Assima, Al Andalus, Al Thuraya, Khiran Mall, Marina Mall, and more.

Check them out @callingmarilyn

Yesterday, TEC announced that Winter Wonderland is getting the largest indoor roller coaster in the world called the Höllenblitz. Technically it’s not the largest indoor roller coaster in the world, it’s the largest indoor roller coaster in the world that is portable, in the dark, and doesn’t contain any loops. But all of that doesn’t sound as catchy and wouldn’t have fit in my headline anyway.

The Höllenblitz was designed and built by the Renoldi family, who first released the world’s largest transportable indoor roller coaster at a fair in Frankfurt back in 1992. The ride was called Magic Mountain but was redesigned and renamed Star World in 1998, inspired by Star Wars. Years later, Klaus Renoldi Jr. watched Indiana Jones and was so impressed that he decided to transform Star World into an Indiana Jones–themed roller coaster, launching it as the Höllenblitz in 2007.

The roller coaster is an impressive 860 meters long and was inspired by the mine cart scene in Indiana Jones. Its structure resembles a rocky mountain, complete with a 30-meter waterfall, suspension bridges, fog, fire, and rotating gondolas.

Here’s an interesting bit of roller coaster trivia. Did you know that Shaab Park once had an ultra-rare, one-of-a-kind ride called the Spiral Coaster? I’ve posted about it previously here, it was a pipeline coaster, meaning the train rode between the tracks instead of above them like traditional coasters. The concept was meant to be the next big thing in roller coasters and was even featured in a National Geographic special while the concept was being tested.

The Spiral Coaster was marked as standing but not operational from 2005 until 2017 in the online roller coaster database. It had closed for maintenance in 2005 but never reopened. When Shaab Park was demolished in 2017, the coaster disappeared and the online roller coaster community lost track of it. Over the years, there have been numerous posts and even videos investigating its fate, but nobody seems to know what actually happened to it.

The Ministry of Interior has set a new validity period for driving licenses. If you’re Kuwaiti the driving license is valid for 15 years while if you’re an expat it’s valid for 5 years. Used to be 10 years before for expats then they decided to make it 1 year for some reason which overwhelmed the traffic departments, 5 years now doesn’t seem to bad and at least we can now get the physical copies again. Link

It’s that time of year where I need to post about a band that’s NOT coming to Kuwait. Last year it was Lana Del Rey, this year it’s Backstreet Boys.

There’s a fake Instagram account pretending to be @thearenakuwait that, at first glance, looks legit. The account posted that the Backstreet Boys are performing in Kuwait on August 7 and they’re selling tickets for the show. When someone sent me the link, it took me a minute to realize the account name was slightly misspelled, which explains why so many people are falling for it. What’s hilarious is that it’s impersonating The Arena, but the concert venue they list is JACC 🤷🏼‍♂️

The fake account even copied the impersonation warning from the official account, and their posts are a mix of stolen content and made-up announcements.

I don’t know why The Arena hasn’t shut their account down yet, it’s not that difficult to report an account impersonating you or copying content from you.

The Traffic Department just selected the Genesis G90 as the official vehicle for ceremonies and protocol duties (source). These won’t replace the current police cars, they’ll only be used for specific situations like transporting high-ranking officials, being part of motorcades or convoys, etc.

In 2021, the G90 was also selected by the National Assembly as the official transportation car for its members.

I’ve seen a couple of the G90 police cars on the roads when they were testing, and although they look nice, I still wish they would have gone with the Volvos they were testing back in 2020. Those looked way hotter.

Nonstop Dan has uploaded one last video related to his experience flying Kuwait Airways, this time the video is regarding the responses he got from Kuwait Airways (and a member of the royal family?). Video thankfully isn’t 30 minutes long but if you want to skip the intro just jump to minute 3:30.

In summary if you don’t want to watch the videos. He got three emails, 2 from Kuwait Airways, and 1 supposedly from a member of the royal family. The emails were apologetic, friendly and wanted to make it up to Dan. So the saga is over, Dan and Kuwait Airways are friends again.

Dan just published part two of his review where he goes into details about what happened with Kuwait Airways.

I don’t watch his videos so not sure if they’re all like this but god he drags things for sooo long. This video could easily have been 5-10mins long instead of 26mins.

In short, nothing surprising for anyone living in Kuwait. Basically he was told he can’t record video onboard and publish it without permission from Kuwait Airways. Obviously that’s not true and the people involved were most likely all old school crew. He was threatened that he would be sued if he did which again is such a normal thing for us to hear, or at least I’m used to this. Eventually when he landed the cops came and spoke to him and obviously nothing came out of it because he hadn’t done anything wrong. Just normal Kuwait drama.

Anyway, that was all of it. It didn’t need a part 2 video, and definitely didn’t need to be longer than an episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

The airline YouTuber Nonstop Dan recently flew Kuwait Airways and just published his part 1 of 2 review. The review goes as expected, nice first class seats, but subpar service and poor amenities. But, supposedly he was threatened not to publish the review and police got involved once he landed in Kuwait. He’s publishing the dramatic second half of the review after tomorrow so we will have to see what happens.

Nowadays I don’t believe anything I watch online since everyone is just trying to grab headlines. I don’t know anything really about Dan’s credibility so I don’t know how dramatic he usually is. I’ll have to watch his second video to see if things were lost in translation, or if the police did get involved etc. I guess he’ll be getting my views.