Shevagol

Image from Uefa.com

Shevchenko does it again. 4 goals for Milan against Fenerbache in today's Champions League game.

Ya salam 3aleik ya Shevchenko.

وظحة....Wadha

I finally got to name one of the new external hard drives at work today.

I gave it the name of Wadha.



Wadha is 250 Gigs

Wadha promises not to lose some important files

Wadha swears that she'd rather lose ibn ajlan , than mess up my editing work.

I'm a bit wierd this morning. I think its the fact that thanksgiving is tommorow, and i have no clue why americans celebrate the turkey.

A new camera, and my first pictures with it

I am now proudly an owner of a Canon 20D digital SLR camera. I have been thinking about getting this camera for a long time and i finally bit the bullet and bought it.
So i went out and took some test pictures with it, i walked up Highland Ave. in Hollywood and found a boxing training place, went inside and took permision to take some pictures.

Click here to have a look at the results of my first bunch of pictures with this amazing camera

Watch "Obsession" Amin Matalqa's latest short

I have been waiting for Amin to give me the green light to post the link for his latest short film, "Obsession." I have been involved in this project in more than one way, on the set i was the boom mic operator for 2 days, and i was also the on set photographer.

The pictures I took that day, lit back that passion i have for photography. After seeing the results, I felt that I had put down my camera for way too long.

I was also ressponsible for doing the compression for the web. Its a "hit and miss" thing, compression. Unless you are an expert in it, people tend to use presets that come with the compression prorgram. That's where I usually start, and start playing around from there. I did numerous versions with different codecs and different rates, and we had a choice between a 24.8 mb mpeg-4 file, and a 28.8mb H.264 quicktime file. The two compressed versions had only 4 mb difference in file size, but the quality on the H.264 compression was way more superior, especially on shots with movement. That is why you would need Quicktime 7 to watch this short. Download here.

As for the film itself, Amin put so much work into perfecting each shot, and making sure the performances on the dot. For those of you who have seen any of Amin's other shorts, you will feel the matalqa touch in this one.

Please enjoy, and feel free to comment on what you think.

Click here to Watch the film

Terrorism Stops here

71group
Originally uploaded by Fata Al-Janoob.

I have to say that i am shocked and sad due to the news that is comming out of Amman. My day at work has stopped and i am just going from one site to another searching for any new piece of news.

A very dear friend of mine was visiting amman and was in the Hyatt hotel, and it was very dfficult for me to reach him, but finally i got to hear from him, and he's doing ok. He'll add this to his numerous near death situaions.

I would like to wish all the best for Hrh Prince Hashim, the acting regent, who is leading the efforts taking place right now , and i hope that our security forces find those who are responssible for what happened.

We also need to stick together as people and citizens of Jordan and not forget that the threat is always there and that we need to combat this cancer they call terrorism, and exted our help to those who combat it.

The picture attached is of a group of soldiers from the 71st Anti Terrorist Battalion in the Jordanian Special Forces. We need not forget what these men go through every day in order to make Jordan a safe place. A lot of their work happens behind the scene and is very secretive, and thats why i felt the urge to put this picture and pay tribute to the hidden soldiers of our war with terrorism.

May Allah bless the souls of those who died today, and may he be merciful on their souls.

انا للاه و انا اليه راجعون

The Arc

I just wanted to share this interesting article that was featured in Imaging Notes magazine, written by my co-worker Gino Guzzardo, who is the director of KOL Network's Geospatial 21, about how geospatial techonlogies may aid in the design of a possible rail system linking gaza and the west bank.

A Week goes and a week comes

The last couple of weeks have been a bit of an up and down. I have wanted to write about my experience of ramdan in Los Angeles, which wasn't that great, but then on the last day of ramadan i recived news that my Gradfather, Kazem Kutob, passed away in Amman.
I pray that Allah have mercy on his soul.
I then wanted to write about my grandfather and how much we as a family owe him for all the great things he has done to us, and all the opportunities that he has given everyone of his children and their kids, but I have yet to gather what i want to write in an entry that will cherrish his memory.
Last weekend i had a quick 2 day dip into washington DC, where i auditioned for a jordanian-american co-produced play that is going to be performed on the kennedy center in April. It was exciting to be back into acting and all the things that come along with it. Hopefully i'll know soon if i got in.

I'll be talking soon about two movies i have seen recently and i highly recommend, Paradise Now, and Good Night and Good Luck.

Finally, next week i head to New York for some work and a nice dinner, and in the first day of december i start my trip to Yemen, Beirut, Dubai and Amman. So if anyone is going to be hanging around San'a chewing on some Gat, let me know.