Monday, January 30, 2006

fire in the hole!

I have been mired with various exams this week. Luckily, I'm doing great in almost all my subjects, save the one that I detest, Computer Organization. A great teacher has even made physics bearable. Additional fun is to bad since the computer labs at the university now have Counter Strike installed and LAN gaming with classmates has never been so much fun as when you're sitting close enough to yell at them when they take a sniper to your sorry ass.

Misha at Monday, January 30, 2006

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Sunday, January 29, 2006

Death is in the air. A friend's father just passed away.

Inna Lillahi Wa Inna Ilaihi Rajioon

Misha at Sunday, January 29, 2006

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If you're feeling vulnerable to all the negativity in your life, some movies I strongly you not watch at the risk of spurring on a bout of depressive broodiness:

1. Event Horizon
2. Requiem for a dream

Unfortunately, I chose to watch Event Horizon today. Even in the best of moods, the movie can freak you out and at the worst of times, it brings out the seven year old in me that wonders if there really is a hell and if we're all on our way there, even if within the movie, the "hell dimension" is described as a place where chaos and evil (the abscence of good) reign supreme. *shudder*

Misha at Sunday, January 29, 2006

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Wednesday, January 25, 2006

submergence

I always has this objectivity about emergencies and crises, they never affected me, hence I was always able to be the one who could calmly assess the situation and come up with a solution while everyone else would be running around like chickens with their heads chopped off. As of late, things have happened, horrible things, events that managed to drag me down into the mud too and I can understand and sympathize with the people around me I see who can't sleep and worry incessantly. For a while, I was that person as well. I could not sleep till everyone in my family was in the house and asleep and even then with a sleep so fragmented that it would be broken by a creak of the door as the cat wandered into the room in the wee hours of the morning. I was convinced something horrible was going to transpire and that if only I was awake, I could stop it. If someone was gone a half hour too long, I would worry. All it took was the electricity to go and the house to be entirely quiet for me to start to lose it. Overly emotional, lonely as hell and very, very pissed is how I spent the last month. Suddenly the recluse was seeking superficial company just for the sake of having someone next to me talking and keeping the overwhelming quiet from gaining a firm foothold. Understandably, I was disgusted with myself during this period.

Yesterday I finally got a grip. I think I'm finally returning to that higher, oblivious plane of existance I have lived on all my life, where no problems can really have any dire consequences and nothing bad can happen to me and everything happens for a reason. I still worry, but at least I can sleep with my door closed, convinced that nothing horrible is going to happen. It's good to be myself again.

Misha at Wednesday, January 25, 2006

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Sunday, January 22, 2006

Vet Tales

I have been more wrapped up in myself than usual to post anything half sensible. As of late, I noticed that my cat appeared to have a bit of a problem. Should you pat him anywhere near the rear, he would hiss and scratch and, failing to get you to stop, he would run away. This was a cause for concern. In fact, I became a cause of concern for my family who would see me trying to lie almost flat on the floor and get a peek at the rear end workings of the cat without touching the area. It requires some dexterity, I must admit. What really concerned me was that the cat appeared to have some sort of bleeding issues from the rectal area. If it was a boil or something, that was okay, but God forbid it should be some sort of internal bleeding, so I took him to the local vet. Unfortunately, the vet wasn't in, so I asked the throng of assistants available about the problem. Unfortunately, I've never enjoyed talking about rectal areas in public, not least to a bunch of guys who apparently are not familiar with the word rectal and I myself unfamiliar with what one would call a bum in urdu and a curious yet amused onlooker with a small white dog looking on from a bench on the side.

Me: I think my cat may have some problems. He won't let me get close enough to check, but I think there's some rectal bleeding going on for some reason.

Random assistant: Acha jee. Kahaan se ho rahi hai bleeding, moun se?

Me: Um, rectal? Rec-tal. *impatiently gesturing behind me* Peechay se, yaar.

Assistant: Oh acha, acha.

Anyhow, that being done, we brought him in for a check up. After the usual yowling for which he is famous at the doc's, it turned out to be nothing serious, just a sort of boil that he had irritated by constant licking. Goody. :)

Misha at Sunday, January 22, 2006

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Thursday, January 19, 2006

vroom!

I went out to practice my driving today. Turns out the darakshan area is brilliant for practicing driving with only two or three cars on every stretch of road. I then moved on to the more crowded areas such as Khadda Market and had a spot of trouble reversing out of my parked position. Lucky for me the driving population of Karachi comprises of jackasses who insist on closing off every area of possible movement except reversing and then honk at you from all sides to get you to get on with the backing up process. I have since decided that at the risk of having to walk a bit of the way, I will park only in ways that will allow me to simply move forwards out of the parking space and be as far away as possible from crowded parking areas.
So far so good. I'm pretty good at the zipping about cutting off other cars. By next week, I hope to have enough expertise to be able to drive myself to and fro like a pro. :)

Misha at Thursday, January 19, 2006

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Wednesday, January 18, 2006

I'm sorry, I got overemotional and depressive. I try not to do that and it takes talking to a relative who's a lawyer (the two best kinds of people to talk to for good, hard, practical advice: doctors and lawyers) to drive the point home:

"You do realize you're just not being at all practical right now?"

That hit hard. A good hit.

Thank God for friends like S though. You know who you are, buddy, thank you for reawakening my ambition to get into a good university via Norway. Thank you just for caring. :)

So now common sense is back in the driver's seat and I'm looking for practical solutions to my problems, not overemotional ones.

The university has started up again and thank God for hefty courseloads. I hope to be able to spend all day at the university once again. Escapism takes commitment, you know.

I also vow to learn to drive myself around once and for all. Enough with the rickshaws and calling for rides. Tomorrow, it's driversville or bust. :P

Misha at Wednesday, January 18, 2006

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Tuesday, January 17, 2006

dark days

If there is a god up there, I would just like to ask

what the hell did I ever do to you?

Misha at Tuesday, January 17, 2006

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Monday, January 16, 2006

80's Optimism

Thanks to friends who love 80's music, I got to listen to a lot of old pop music as of late. There's such a thread of optimist in these songs, even when they're singing about heartbreak. Some great mood lifters on my playlist currently:

Go West - King of Wishful Thinking
Phil Collins - Can't Hurry Love
David Bowie - Golden Years

:)

Misha at Monday, January 16, 2006

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Friday, January 13, 2006

the sea has vanished!

the sea has vanished!
the sea has vanished!,
originally uploaded by Mishaone.
What an odd thing to wake up and look outside and notice that the sea has vanished.

Misha at Friday, January 13, 2006

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Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Motorolla RAZR V3

Motorolla RAZR V3
Motorolla RAZR V3,
originally uploaded by Mishaone.

Ah, the Motorolla RAZR V3, one of the hottest phones (looks-wise) out there today, in my opinion. Don't know about reliability and processing speed, though, so if anyone has used it, please feel free to leave comments on how you found it.

Information about this phone on GSMArena

Motorolla RAZR V3 on Beliscity

Misha at Wednesday, January 11, 2006

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Tuesday, January 10, 2006

cornerstone

Spurred on by my own inability and unwillingness to meet its demands, my world contracting, this self drawn circle in the sand is getting smaller and smaller and smaller.

Eventually, all that will be left of my world is myself and my own mind.

It is then that I shall lay the cornerstone for an entirely different world for myself and build upon that cornerstone brick by brick to fashion a new world, based on what I want from it and what I am willing to give it in return.

The circle is always expanding and contracting, let's see how far I can take it.

If this seems like pointless rambling to you, I may make some sense tomorrow, but don't count on it.

Misha at Tuesday, January 10, 2006

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Yeah, Eid Mubarak to you too

It's Eid again, whoop-de-doo.

Relatives have started calling up bitching about how we (my brother and I) have not visited or attended as many functions as they would like. It's times like these that make me want to call an F-you Press Conference addressed to all my relatives, because they are not concerned with if we are okay and so forth, but the fact that when my mum was here, we would appear in public functions as much as propriety demanded, even if we were blackmailed by mum into doing it. Little brother managed to get himself into aforementioned shitty situation right when a cousin was getting married. God forbid anyone should not be able to attend a wedding. Oh, and I make some friends wait outside the venue in the freezing cold for twenty minutes on our way to dinner so that I can pop in at the venue and make the expected "Salaam-rounds" and leave and they bitch about this as well. "Why did you leave so early?" Because your kids are annoying and I have nothing in common with them. "We could have given you a ride home!" Yeah at two a.m. when you were finally ready to leave? No, thank you. "Why didn't your brother come too?" He's not well. "Phir bhi...!"

Bah, I hate holidays. I was planning to have a little moviefest, ignoring as usual the fact that the streets are running with blood spilled gleefully by hands too young to hold a knife but proud to do so anyway. With the guilt trip laid onto aunt it looks like it's going to be another great holiday season involving us visiting relatives who don't give a shit about us and ignore us after the initial salaams just to meet the demands of propriety. Oh well, at least there will be lots of pepsi.

Misha at Tuesday, January 10, 2006

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Monday, January 09, 2006

"apparently, God gave us hips!"

Thank God for Black Fish! Were they not performing sporadically, I would be stuck going to Cineplex and paying a heft Rs. 250 per person for tickets to a mostly edited one and a half hour version of a two hour movie and paying Rs. 60 for a bucket of stale, cold popcorn and another Rs. 60 for a medium sized cup of Coke. Anyhow, enough lamenting about my depleting nature of my finances and more about the show.

This particular show was their 3rd Anniversary and so we got noisemakers (aptly named and much used by all who got them) and cupcakes. The show, of course, was hilarious as always, with the whole troop being in higher spirits than I remember seeing them last time due to the anniversary. Anyone who has not seen them, simply must go at least once.

The show started off with a short stand-up routine by new Black Fish in training, Danish, who got off to a slow start and told everyone how he was plucked off the streets by Sami Shah to polite smiles waiting for the laughs to begin. Of course, once the guy launched into his routine, it was hilarious, as expected, including my personal favorites, a joke about Lahori women which was predictable but side splittingly funny thanks to the delivery and a bit about the odd names of schools in Karachi (the strangely suggestive "Jolly Jingle School", "Model School for Boys" and "Happy Home school"). Definitely one to watch out for and a possible replacement for Ishma, the only female left in Black Fish, who will sadly be leaving to study Psychology abroad for a year.

Sami Shah, the MC for half the event, was harassed (as he always seems to be) by a chorus of females to his left screaming constantly for a "Shezi", who was eventually called up to the stage by an exasperated Sami midway through the show. The games were clearly inspired by "Whose Line Is It Anyway" this time around, as the Sami Shah admitted, since they were trying out some new ideas for this special show. One of the much loved games in Whose Line, Party Quirks, didn't translate as well as it does on the telly, unfortunately, but was still fun to watch. The whole group was at the top of their game, as always, but the severe lack of air conditioning and overselling of seats meant that people were sitting (and rolling) in the aisles and even standing up to allow the elderly to take their seats.

Oh and of course, there were the mandatory jokes at the expense of Karachi Grammar School and it's attendees, the "Grammarians" and this time even Lyceum was included in the festivities in a hilarious ending segment called "Gunda goes to Karachi Grammar School" where fun was mercilessly poked at the "burgerr" population of said schools, the lack of space on campus at Lyceum and the population segments at KGS.

Oh, and in a smart move, Black Fish decided to start cashing in and introduce some merchandising tactics into the mix and even start up a mailing list to inform more people about their gigs. Uptill now, the Karachi Metroblog has served as a great way to find out about their gigs and miscellaneous other comedy events, but I guess a mailing list is a great way to keep the populace informed. A must see!

Misha at Monday, January 09, 2006

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Saturday, January 07, 2006

my TV

Today is a good day, for it is today that my favorite shows return from their oddly timed mid-season breaks. To celebrate the return of my PC-TV pastime, I shall quickly recommend a couple of shows I am absolutely hooked on for the past year, both of which are not easily available on any of the channels in Pakistan but are well worth the extra effort required to obtain them.

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The single most expensive first episode ever, Lost starts off with an airplane full of passengers crashing into in island in the middle of nowhere. Amid the chaos that ensues, we find out that the protagonist (one of over forty survivors of the ill-fated Oceanic flight 418), Jack, is a doctor and a noble, if reluctant leader of the band of survivors, and that there is something very fishy about this Island. Each episode is divided into a narrative of the present with scenes from one characters's past life before boarding this flight was and the circumstances that led them to this Island. The other main characters whose back stories are explored in the brilliant first season include ex-Iraqi National Guard Sayid, Convict-being-deported Kate, the mysterious John Locke, Father and son with issues Michael and Walt, step-siblings Shannon and Boone, Southern con-man "Sawyer", ex pop-idol and current cocain addict Charlie, unlikely billionaire Hurley, pregnant Aussie Claire and Korean non-English speaking couple Jin and Sun. What with polar bears, dead people, "the others" and constant surprises popping up and budding theories about the Island representing some sort of purgatory and the numbers 4-8-15-16-23-42, this is my personal favorite new show of 2005. I'm doing a poor job of describing it, but trust me, watch the first three episodes, and you'll be hooked.

Visit The Official Lost Website

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Second brilliant new show in 2005 was Veronica Mars. The title character is a 17 year old living in the town of Neptune, where the 09-ers are the filthy rich and everyone else is poor and looked down upon. Accepted into the 09-er crowd because of her quick wit, 09-er boyfriend and best friend and the fact that her father is the town Sherriff, Veronica has a good life up until the day her best friend Lily (also her boyfriend Duncan's sister) is found dead by her swimming pool. Who did it? Was it Duncan, the possibly unstable boyfriend who stopped seeing Veronica for no apparent reason a week before Lily was murdered? Was it Duncan's parents, the uber-rich Kanes? Was it Lily's boyfriend, someone at school who had a grudge? Thus begins an entire season of twists and turns and more surprise twists than you shake a stick at. Veronica's father accuses the dead girl's father and thus loses the town's respect and his position as Sherriff and Veronica is unpopular by association and spends her time partly by solving crimes working part time at her dad's detective agency and partly tossing around scathingly witty remarks to all who cross her for her fall from grace. Sound like yet another teen show with a perky blonde protagonist? It is, but it's written by Matchbox 20 frontman Rob Thomas, and features a great cast, sharp writing and a mystery that will keep you guessing. I already got one friend hooked, so I may as well give the rest of you a try as well.

Visit the Official Veronica Mars Website

Misha at Saturday, January 07, 2006

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Thursday, January 05, 2006

"that lovin' feeling!"

I realize there is no such thing as love. A sad testament to the fact is that I have several objects of affection/lust right this very moment and I could turn my thoughts to any of them and convince myself that they are the one and I must have them or perish in the process. At the end of the day, at least I have that little bit of my brain that would instantly call "Bullshit!" at such a notion and so I remain oblivious to that lovin' feeling.

This is precisely why I'm so cynical about other people falling in love with people they don't even know. How can you possibly do that? If you don't know the person and claim to be in love with them, then it's lust, isn't it, since its inspired exclusively by the looks of said person and nothing more? How can you help but roll your eyes at the hapless majnoo who claims to be besotted with someone he has never spoken to and claims he simply cannot see the point in his life without said person?

Yeah, this post is recycled off another of my blogs. What can I say, I'm busy yet lazy at the same time and inspiration seems to have gone on strike rather than strike me.

Misha at Thursday, January 05, 2006

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Monday, January 02, 2006

2006

Oh what a shitty, shitty new year.

Let me start off with a quick roundup of the events of the last few days:

So I have had a very stressful and all-round bad start to the new year. Morbid and entirely unappropriate humor keeps me sane, but remarks like "We should get season tickets for the ICU in this hospital, maybe they'll give us a discount" are apparently not appreciated by family. Anyhow, here's wishing all of you the most uninteresting year you have ever had, and believe me, you better appreciate it when you do get a highly uneventful year.

Misha at Monday, January 02, 2006

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