Search: “mis”

Last week I posted about the under appreciated indoor vertical garden at 360 mall. Under appreciated because no one knew about it. Well I was checking a website (lost the link) and found an article talking about this glass artist and they had a picture of one of his works which looked similar to the blue glass sculpture at 360. So a quick google revealed the blue sculpture at 360 was actually done by the same artist in the article.

The artist is called Dale Chihuly and he was commissioned to do two pieces of work for 360 in the theme of the sun and moon. Again interesting but I only found out about it by chance. 360 need to find a way to inform people on this stuff.

Now the cool part is I found a gallery online showing the actual build process. I was always curious on how they put the sculpture together and now I know. Check out the pictures [Here]

Note: If you get an error trying to view the pictures tell me and I will try to host the pictures somewhere else.

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.

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

[YouTube]

Thats pretty messed up. Back in 2005 I shot pictures of the cops shoot out with some terrorists in Salmiya and you can see those [Here]

Thanks Kent

The Kuwait Bookshop has been around for a pretty long time and although its not a Barnes & Noble it does have a pretty decent collection of books and magazines. If I am not mistaken I think it actually has the largest collection of books and magazines in Kuwait. Because its an old bookshop they have a lot of older books that sometimes can be pretty interesting. The bookshop is located in the basement of Muthana Complex and its a very quiet and cozy place with friendly and informed staff. There is a lot of parking which is a plus. Their phone number is 22423876 in case you need to ask about a book.

Henry Surtees, 18, the son of motorsport legend John Surtees was killed in a “freak” accident during a Formula Two (F2) race. You can see the accident in the video above, a car crashes into a side barrier and one of the tires flies off and bounces towards the track and hits Henry in the head while he was racing. If he was just a bit faster or just a bit slower the tire would have missed his head and hit the car. Extremely unlucky and very very sad. [YouTube]

Someone emailed me this liquor permit dating back to 1964 when alcohol was still legal in Kuwait. This permit was set to expire on August 31st 1965 but alcohol ended up getting banned completely at the end of 1964. Here is the full version of the image above. [Picture]

If you’ve missed my previous post from TIME magazine dating back to 1965 talking about how alcohol was banned in Kuwait click [Here]

Thanks Alban

Update: The permit was scanned and posted originally by Rwatan.

I own too many headphones for some reason and yet I always manage to convince myself I need a new pair. I currently own a B&O A8, Shure E2, Sennheiser PX100, AKG K81 DJ and the Ultimate Ears Super.fi 5 Pro. These cover just about every type of headphone from in ear’s, to over head, from open air to closed back, and from tiny to large and bulky. Whats missing are a pair of noise canceling headphones. I originally fell in love with the noise canceling Beats but due to the fact they weren’t very portable made them unpractical for my main reason of wanting noise canceling headphones and that’s traveling.

So after a bit of research I decided to buy a pair of Sennheiser PXC250’s. I had read about them ages ago and remembered them again with the release of the newer updated PXC300. But after some googling I realized the 300’s were just a slight improvement over the 250 but were also double the price. So without hesitation I bought the 250’s from Amazon for just $73.

I’ve been listening to them for over an hour now and the headphones don’t have much bass. I was expecting that based on previous reviews I had read but since I will be primarily using them to watch TV shows on my Archos 7, its not a big deal for me but might be to you. The noise canceling seems to be working right. The dryer is on and when I turn the noise canceling on I don’t hear it, when off I do. The proper test will be using it on the plane which I should be soon.

The little device thats in the picture above is the battery holder. The Sennheisers work with or without battery but the noise cancellation only works with batteries. Once I get back from a trip will post another review on these.

The Sennheiser PXC 250 is for $72 on Amazon [Link]
The Sennheiser PXC 300 is for $128 on Amazon [Link]

Back in April I was checking up on my domains and realized I had one domain missing called t20.org. So I checked up on it and it turned out the domain had expired and I had forgotten to renew it. I was really pissed off but now I am even more pissed off because I just realized the domain could have actually been worth some money today.

There is a new version of cricket that’s become super popular recently called Twenty20. Twenty20 cricket is also know as T20 cricket. SUCKS!

Although a bit late (like 6 months late!) Marzouq just uploaded a video him and his friend put together of Gulf Run 4. Gulf Run 5 is going to be held this November and I am not missing it this time around. [Link]

I just got invited to a new exhibition that will be held at the Al Sabah Art & Design Collection next week. For this exhibition they commissioned a bunch of designers and artists to customize a very popular fragrance bottle which they will be displaying and selling at the exhibition. They aren’t revealing what the fragrance is until the actual event but I heard that the fragrance might actually be Chanel No.5 which could be what the “5.5” in the exhibition title stands for. H

Private Viewing / April 12, 2009 (By invitation only)
8:00pm to 10:00pm

Open to Public / April 13 to April 20, 2009
10:00 am to 10:00 pm
Admission: Free

Here is the link to the actual invitation which contains more information. [Invitation]

I don’t know how I missed this! [YouTube]

This commercial is a couple of years old but I somehow missed it. There are two more parts [Here] and [Here] although I don’t think they’re as funny as the one above. [YouTube]

Thanks Katia!

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?