There are certain things that shouldn’t cost so much. I wouldn’t mind spending on a nice watch, a nice wallet, a nice whatever. But a TV at KD1500+ is just not worth buying. Some might argue that TVs are the most used piece of furniture ever invented, and I’d agree, but certain things shouldn’t cost much, the tv is one of those things.

Fa 3ad I’ve been shopping around for a nice thin TV to hang on my room’s wall and replace my current vintage “Bo dabba” TV. I like doing my research before I buy something.. it took me 3 months to buy my sound canceling bose headphones.. so you can imagine how much time would I need to buy a new TV.. (7 years) e7em.. anyway. I was glad when they announce the LED technology, I thought I was real smart for holding out and not buying the thin Full HD TVs when they came out, coz now we have something that is even slimmer and akshakh.. I also remember not liking it’s KD1000+ price. No TV is worth my 1000+ monayyh. And it happened all over again with the new cool and futuristic 3D TVs. I mean you can’t help but be a kid again with 3D technology, right?

But you know what? I’ve always thought that we, humans, weren’t meant to indulge ourselves in such an advanced technology, it’s way too cool, and even way cooler to have at our houses and in our rooms.. ya3ny imagine yourself going to sleep to a 3D TV. We’re just not there yet. And apparently someone whose opinion really does matter agrees with me, and have proofs that 3D TVs doesn’t work well with our brains. Unless they produce holographic images, they won’t work.

Anyway, if you’re thinking of buying one, with or without 3D glasses, then you might want to read this article. I did, and you should read this piece by too, it’s by a multiple academy award winning editor Walter Murch.

Highlights:

“But the deeper problem is that the audience must focus their eyes at the plane of the screen — say it is 80 feet away. This is constant no matter what.

“It doesn’t work with our brains and it never will.
The notion that we are asked to pay a premium to witness an inferior and inherently brain-confusing image is outrageous. The case is closed.” – Roger Ebert

So, now we have 2 problems at hand: #1 We need another million years or so to learn how to watch 3D TVs. and #2 TVs shouldn’t cost this much!!

SO! We wanted to attend at least 2 shows in New York, Broadway shows, plays, musicals, call them what you call them, we wanted 2. Why 2? Well simply coz we had lots of things to see, lots of places to be and only 8 days in NY. We thought of adding one more show, but we left it 3altesaheel. We chose the obvious hit musical, Wicked, and another musical called ‘Promises Promises.’

Promises seemed like the right choice after some heavy googling, show comparisons, and serious reviews-reading. It was a nice musical that was generating lots of money, weekly, with a great cast to back it up. We also learned the musical was going to END on the January 2nd. We had to attend the Finale, right? So we booked premium seats, 2nd row in the middle section. We could actually see the actors spit landing on the conductor’s face.

The play is about this guy played by Sean Hayes, who is very insecure and is head over heals for this lady played by Kristin Chenoweth, who works in the same company. He is promised promotions by his married superiors if he let them use his apartment on weekdays for their dates. He finds out later that the woman he loves is in love with one of his superiors, the big boss, and has visited his apartment with the boss on many occasions, She was promised marriage.

The play was beautiful. It was full of great acting, big voices and good, really good, songs. Molly Shannon played a little part too, she was HILARIOUS! We didn’t stop laughing for the entire 15 minutes she was on stage. The musical also had its emotional moments. The girls sitting next to us wear practically weeping. They had tissues on their faces for last 30 minutes of the play. Even the cast, by the last 2 or 3 minutes, they started welling up and some even cried. It was magical. A huge sweeping standing ovation was due when it ended, and bouquets of flowers were distributed. The 2 stars gave nice little speeches where they thanked each others and the audience, before heading backstage.

We bought 2 CDs from the giftshop on our way out. We had to! The songs and their voices along with their acting and storyline, everything, formed an amazing theatrical experiece. We didn’t know we were meant to buy the CDs for something GOOD to come. We stepped outside and we saw people running on the street heading to the back of the theater. Security and body guards were organizing the crowds, and having them in lines in front of the backdoor.

So we stood there, across the street waiting for the stars to come out. We saw Will Ferrell while waiting, and in all seriousness we couldn’t care less. After like 15 minutes they came out. And were signing autographs for every one. That’s when we decided to join them and have our CDs autographed. There was no pushin and no rushing, actually they took their time to hug fans and talk and had all the time to sign everybody’s everything. Thats when we got our booklets signed.

Molly Shannon came out first, then Kristin Chenoweth, and then Sean Hayes. My friend managed to mention that we were from Kuwait, and Hayes expressed that he was pleasantly surprised to see people flying all the way from Kuwait to attend the musical’s finale.

Pretty Surreal, seeing all those talented people on stage, and then having a little chat with them outside, and then have their autographs in a very relaxed manner; they signed and talked with every one. Extremely nice and down to earth people.

Hey guys! How’ve you been? It’s been a long time since we last spoke!

So yeah, we took a nice 2 (almost 3) months off. Whoa, we loved it. We have new found appreciation for sleeping early. Personally, I slept better by not worrying about posting new stuff for tomorrow. It’s a wonderful feeling, sleeping without having guilt creeping up on you for not posting. You know what was even more fun? Complaining about how other blogs aren’t posting often enough we loved being able to read and enjoy other blogs, again. You guys (Kuwaiti bloggers in general) are doing an amazing job.

So what have I done in the past 2 months? I traveled! For a month! 30 days! To the US! (Too many exclamation marks!!!)

I took my camera, the big heavy camera and its big bag with all those different lenses, which eventually took their burden on my poor shoulder. But this time I wasn’t obliged to take it everywhere with me… I didn’t have to report back to my blog. You see, going out without my camera strapped to my back wasn’t an option, for a long time, and that isn’t the case anymore. That was the case with me, and is with most bloggers; they go to places and take all their readers along with them to every outing. This time nothing was crowding me during my vacation. Well maybe a thing or two, but nothing more.

I have so much stuff to say about my trip. I won’t rush myself. I won’t even bother reread this post and correct stuff. No serious editing, anyway.

We’re back! (in a way) And it’s about time.. Dontcha think?

Dear readers,

We’d like to thank you for making last month the biggest month in terms of visits and hits for us. Thank you guys.

We also have a big announcement to share with you fine people. We decided after much thought, to stop blogging.

Why?

Well. Having to post everyday was stressful. It was taking a lot of our time, and at times we felt like we needed a time off. Actually we felt that we needed a time off every single day. That wasn’t the spirit we started with. It was something we wanted to do, not something we had to do. Blogging shouldn’t be like that, not if we were willing to maintain a certain standard or have lives, anyway.

We’ve been thinking about it for some time now, at first it was like ‘let’s stop and delete the blog’. But, after thinking of all the material we’ve written, all the good pictures and the reviews, and our love for writing. We’ve decided to keep the blog. We won’t post, as often, we’ll post whenever we feel like it. Be it daily, weekly, or even monthly. We don’t know yet how will it goes. All we know is that we no longer want to be a commercial blog that has to write posts. We’ll stop this form of blogging. And get back to having fun with it.

We’d like to thank you our dear dear readers. Thank you for all the support and the love you’ve shown over the years, your input, comments and encouragement were all an integral part of what this blog is about. You too silent readers, we appreciate every single one of you.

We’d also like to thank our sponsors over the years, thank you all, especially Zain, our first sponsor, thanks for believing in us, and we’re sorry to let you guys know about our decision like this. But we think highly of our readers, and we wanted to let them know first. Even our families don’t know yet. The ads will be taken down tomorrow and no more ad spaces will be made available.

We’re really proud of SOMEcontrast and ourselves. Staying true to ourselves, writing honest reviews, not deleting a single negative comment, buying and learning how to use pro cameras and learning to use Photoshop, literally spending hours on a single post… all that and more. We’re really proud of this effort. We hope you enjoyed it and found what we had to say over the last 3 years helpful, entertaining and worth your visits.

Today marks SOMEcontrast’s 3rd anniversary. Happy anniversary blog!

I received this gift on thursday from the nice people at The Bed Shop (The Bed Boutique). I was excited to try it out ever since I got their email. They’re Tempur. Tempur is the brand of the pillow I’ve been using for 8 months. It’s an amazing brand. Read my review here. So I got the tempur slipper and I used it. I didn’t feel it at first, but after a while, it felt great down there. The tempur material wraps itself around your foot and it takes it shape. It’s like memory foam for the foot. Very comfortable. You should try it for yourselves to understand. The bottom is rugged, so chances of slipping are low. Oh and it’s warm for winter times.

It’s unisex, available in dark blue only, and for KD32.

Definitely recommended.

Thank you The Bed Boutique. Their # 22256172

A special halloween update is available for downloads now on the app store. 45 new levels was made available 10 days before halloween to kick start the celebration. The iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch users will certainly enjoy the new levels, but I can’t say the same about Andriod users. No update for you!

The addictive game was sold earlier this month to gaming giant EA for a reportedly $20 Million. There are talks of cartoons, movies, stuffed toys and more stuff for Anrgy Birds fans. This game is massive! and I love it to no end.

Thanks Raed

I saw those flyers a couple of days ago, and I couldn’t believe how cheap those fried chicken meals got. While KFC, Hardee’s McDonald’s are going crazy with their prices, Naif on the other hand is cutting it’s prices by 35%.

Thanks Fawaz

The ad says that it’ll open in it’s first branches outside of the states, in Dubai and Kuwait. The first one will be opened in Dubai on the 25th of october, in Mirdif City Center. Then it’ll open in Kuwait on november 9th and 15th, in Avenues and Marina Mall, respectively. And in December, it’ll open 3 more branches in dubai, in Emirates Mall, Dubai Mall, and Ibn Batuta Mall.

Thanks Rashed

Finally Starbucks’ Christmas special is back! I love it. I missed it. I’m gonna have some right now.

Thanks loco

During ramadan I got Julia Child‘s book ‘Mastering the Art of French Cooking’ on my laptop. I skimmed through it, and after a half an hour, I remember I felt that it was impossible to cook any of her recipes. Not that they’re that difficult. But the amount of preciseness, attention to detail and time management she cooks with, was impossible to follow. But I thought, what the hell, I’m gonna try a recipe or two. I chose the cream of mushroom soup.

We were at the chalet, my friend went to Fahaheel and bought all the stuff needed from Sultan Center (We figured might as well pay a little extra for better ingredient, it’s french cooking afterall, Julia Child’s french cooking).

Ingredients:

• 400 grams of mushrooms.
• 1/4 minced onions. We used white onion.
• 7 table spoon butter (she’s a bit crazy with butter)
• 3 table spoon flour
• 6 cups of chick stock
• 2 parsley sprigs (kham6a zgheera parsley mga9a9 3adil)
• 1/3 bay leaf
• 1/8 t tea spoon thyme (see how annoying she is?)
• 1 tea spoon lemon juice
• 2 ego yolks
• 3/4 cup whipping cream
• Salt and Pepper to taste (chicken stock is salty so becareful)

Cook the onion with 3 tb spoons of butter, on low heat, let them get tender but not brown. 8 minutes. add the flour and stir over moderate heat. again without browning.

And then take it off the heat.

Meanwhile you’ve had your chicken stock boiling for a while. Take that boiling pit off the stove too, and throw the onion flour mix. Stir.

Add the parsley, bay leaf and thyme.

(you cut all the mushrooms to 2 parts, the lower part is separate from it cap), you throw the lower halves in the pot.

Add salt and pepper to taste and give it a nice stir. Let it simmer for over 20 minutes while skimming occasionally. When you’re done, strain it, shikhlooh, and press the mushroom stems to let all their juices out. Then return the soup to the pot.

Cut all the caps to thin slices, have a pan ready, put in 2 TB spoons of butter, throw in all the mushrooms, add salt and lemon juice. Cover and let is cook for 5 mins. Moderate heat. Julia says in her book that “add the mushroom when the butter is foaming” not before, and not after. Only when it begins to foam…

When they’re done cooking, pour them with their juices and butter into the pot with soup. Let them simmer for 10 minutes.

Have your cream ready, mix it with the 2 egg yolks.

beat, beat and beat.

Pour in your soup, slowly, gradually and keep beating.

and beat.

You’re almost done. When you beat in all the soup, return it to the pot and heat, over slow heat, don’t let it simmer, you just want to poach the eggs. And you’re done. Check the seasoning, adjust if necessary, and serve immediately.

Decorate if you’re into decorations. Obviously we aren’t big fans of final touches

If you walked in the kitchen at that moment, you would’ve seen LOTS of used pans, pots, knives, plates and all sort of kitchen wares. Julia Childs is an amazing chef, she uses all of the kitchen’s resources for many simple dishes. We couldn’t keep up most of the time. Her cooking is fast paced and hectic. The attention to details (which we skipped due to lack of time and space) was overwhelming.

End product? Great soup. Everyone loved it.

Was it worth it? If you’re into cooking, YES. If you’re not. Don’t bother! It took a lot of time and energy.. and butter!!

O Bil3afya!

Thanks loco for cooking with me.