screening party

What a nice day it turned out to be. We had an early morning meeting at the Bahrain National Museum. Its always good to get documentary footage from museums. So I talked with the museum director, who happens to be a nephew of Khalifa’s (that always helps) and they are going to open their archive up to us. So that project is going extremely well.

Then Tarek and I had another meeting across town at 3. An advertising agency wants to use us to put together a promo video for another Government agency. The good news is that the type of video they are looking for I’ve done my entire career. It’s a short, look how great we are video. It just so happens Im really good at putting those together.

I came back from the meeting a little early. I tried to get in some early Ramadan shopping. I heard that Ramadan is supposed to be August 20. No one really knows for sure, since its based on the moon schedule. But when Ramadan hits all the restaurants and stores will be closed during the day. So I had to stock up on breakfast and lunch materials. I understand there is usually a rush on the stores a few days before Ramadan so I wanted to get there early. One of the perks of quiz nights is that we win coupons for alcohol from one of the sponsors. Everyone likes to be on my team because I usually don’t want the gift certificates since I don’t drink. But I got it from this past game. I wanted to put it to good use since I had friends coming over tonight to screen the premiere of the Funniest Person in Bahrain. So I went to the licensed liquor store where Muslims are not allowed inside. Arabs usually park outside and send the Indians inside to buy the liquor. So no alcohol is sold during Ramadan, this place was absolutely packed. It was like the night before Christmas in a shopping mall. Everyone was trying to stock up. So I got my free bottle of liquor and got out before it got crazy.

We had about 15 people show up for the screening. I bought the pizzas. Everyone seemed to have a very good time. They were all proud of doing something really different for Bahrain. Even though no one was getting paid, they all took ownership. There were many suggestions on how to improve upon ourselves. They even wanted to schedule practice sessions to get better. I love the spirit of teamwork that everyone has. After the screening, everyone stayed around to talk for hours. We are becoming very close friends. A big group was going out to a club afterwards, but I declined. I gave the excuse of having to come back and write this blog, but I just had no interest in going to a club at midnight. I must be getting old or something. Tomorrow is going to be a big day for me though.