The Wandering Mind

So I woke up this morning at 5:30 and that was partly due to Daylight Savings kicking in and ruining my already volatile sleeping habit but then at some point during the point where I was trying to go back to sleep and contemplating things, as you do when you wake up at these weird hours, and my mind wandered off to a series of things happening on social media. I have tried to keep my time on Facebook at the minimum these days because if it is not inundated with game requests, there's always someone feeling mighty ticked off about something or the other and while it actually does not bother me much, I have started to notice that there seems to be a lot of polarization going on which I try and ignore because as most mother's almost all across the world have taught their children at one point or the other that if you cannot say a good thing about someone, do not say anything (I am guilty of breaking this rule only when it gets to the right wing idiots, stupid extremist bigots and false nationalists who have done nothing good for their nations...and there I go again but I do believe that exception is valid).
Now I do realise it is the internet and there is no stopping anyone and for most parts it is a free world where people have free speech. The first time that notion hit you was when you first saw the comments section of any website. Yes that is when you knew when given an opportunity some section of the human race will bear their inner most animal out and use the choicest words ever. Heck, I have seen two random strangers fighting on a YouTube video over something inane and it basically was a refresher course in swearing.
Any how the way things stand today or the way it seems it does, is either you stand with one section or automatically get associated with the other, there isn't that little space where you are just in your own corner judging everyone for being so judgmental...you just aren't give that choice.
So what is my point here, well my point is that whatever happens, don't take things for granted even if it means breaking that polite etiquette mum taught us but the most important point is that Daylight Saving still is irrelevant and all its good for is messing up your body clock and making the next 6 months of your evenings a depressing mess and that if you do wake up at 5:30 am, probably do some breathing exercise to go back to sleep rather than think about random things. 

Guess who's back...back again

Yes yes yes...it is I and I am back to pen a few more thoughts after a massive hiatus. It really has been quite some time but then a lot of things have been happening that made things chaotic to take out and ramble about stuff online. I moved countries and decided it was apt to go right to the other side of the world where day becomes night night becomes day, the weather follows weird norms like being hot in July and cold in December and all that.

Anyways I am back and this time I am going to try and be a little more consistent till that thing called life takes over again and throws the spanner in the works, but for now lets be positive.

So what have I missed giving my two cents on in the last one year and some......a lot really....we have had a lot of screw ups by the elected governments around the world most of them making us realise we are as dumb as......we as dumb as the Politicians thought we would be to elect them. We have a display of how less we care about "humanity" on show throughout the world and then you hear some good stories and that hope that possibility of things turning good still remains.

I did miss writing on a few things that happened and just jotting down my take of it, like when that douche of a creature who raised the prices of a medicine from $6 to something ridiculous and then was trying to be smug about being good at business....well hopefully karma gets him sooner in life and he realises how much of a burden he is to mankind.

Any how be tuned in for there is going to be things coming up.....

Stay happy and keep smiling :)

140 Character Dilemma

Hello Hello! Yes, I am back from my hiatus and maybe gone again, but while we are here....I thought I would type some words in and get to waste not only my time, but if you have clicked on the link and got here and are reading this, yours as well.

I have to admit, that when you have the option to describe the weirdity (yes that is not a real word and neither is most of the words in Game of Thrones, so stop correcting this in your head) of the world in 140 characters, who would read what in the world of Twitter would seem like a big novel. But hey...where's the satisfaction? No that is an actual question, everyone passes it off like its rhetoric.

So how did I resist writing about the man who remodeled his face like the Ken doll, or worse like Bieber or how people are now getting liposuction surgeries for their dogs, yep their dogs, or how men in monkey costumes were hired to scare away "monkeys" near the Indian parliament, or that Australia scrapped its Carbon Tax, or kids lighting themselves on fire in what is called a "Fire Challenge". You get where I am going with this right? There's just too many stupidity going on around the world and too few characters to write it in and thus I am here. I am here so I can tell you all that whatever you do today or tomorrow or even a year from now is not going to be as stupid as the next person who will beat you to it. Wow, that was intense, I am sorry, and this apology is probably more sincere than United Airlines insincere apology, missed that just type in those four words in Google and you will have learnt something new today and also appreciate my apology.

In other news, I really have run out of characters and have used my word limit for the next 45 days, so while I ponder over that, take this opportunity as a cue to hit that "x" on the top right side of your browser and clear your history too as all your metadata will be stored to look into your online activity very soon.....or it may have already begun...who knows. Until next time....keep smiling! :)

P.S: Why have I not mentioned Facebook, coz they most probably are offline, has happened three times in the last 4 months.

P.P.S: Maybe only two but who was counting....or on it?!

P.P.P.S: I hate post scripts!

Mad Men and Cars Adverts

There was once a time I actually thought I would get into the world of advertisements, be that creative individual who brought products to life. Before you jump to conclusions and start going "must be a wanna be Don Draper", I would like to add that Mad Men was not made then and it was not for glamor. Turns out I am more functional than creative and looking at the current scene of advertisement that we currently are subjected to makes me glad I didn't go that so assumed "creative" lane.

It was not long ago that you saw commercials both TV and print and chances was you would be entertained, amused and had a feel good factor after watching it. Yeah sure there were those annoying ads which had a voice screaming at you and the balloons shaped people asking you to come down and get the bargain of your life, yes there were even some with men wearing skirts selling flowers and the annoying jingles selling carpets and curtains. Yes, they were still ads that made you cringe but then all of a sudden, you started watching short clips which made you, the consumer, feel like an idiot, it was like all the Ad men really did start thinking of themselves as Don Draper and took everyone including the consumer of the piece they were creating for granted. Some how in the whole realm of things the majority of these ad men seem to have landed up doing jigs for the automobile industry and maybe someone needs to tell the executives in these companies that they are investing their money creating commercials which are putting people off their cars. I have been asking the one question that no one ever seems to answer for me - Does getting a Kia automatically make a guy an asshole who starts to insult the girl he picks up for his first date? Or that car which you miss more than your family when you are stuck on a spaceship in outer space (can I say the way that dude acts, I think it was more of an insult to the spaceship program where ever that was than the actual audience). Or does getting a car of a certain brand , which in this case, is not even yours make you deny its a car but an Alfa Romeo......last I checked lady even an Alfa Romeo had 4 wheels, an engine and a steering wheel and did the same a bloody car does. Then most recently came another gem, which questioned if you in fact were a "yes" man and said yes to your boss, your wife, your work and how about saying No and buying a car....yeah coz in the dramatic financial market, a car is thing to help you with everything considering it depreciates almost 30% as it hits the road from the showroom.

All in all, if you are considering to buy a product and especially if that product happens to be car, don't rely on TV advertisement to sell the best option, it really does seem that the used car salesmen have become wannabe Don Drapers and we are now being subjected to dodgy sales everywhere we look.

Until next time, don't fall prey and keep smiling. :) 

Hello There......

So its been quite some time since I have last updated this space. Yes, I have become busy with that thing called life and in the scheme of all things irrelevant, some things that matter get forgotten. The very few, and I mean very few of the people who actually read what I write have sent me a nudge saying why I had not posted anything new. Well to them I say "Thank You" and the rest who just forgot me, well no hard feelings coz I didn't really remember you either.

So what did we miss while we were on a sabbatical? Oh yes, the end of the world was a dud affair and the only claim to fame for the Mayans is still the chocolate, yes the Mayans were one of the first to bring us the tasty treats (there were also the Aztecs, but Mel Gibson chose the Mayans for Apocalypto and well bad luck Aztecs) so all is forgiven.

There were quite a few things that happened which may not have directly affected us but always leave a mark on us all and no I am not talking about me having to move my apartment although that was one of the things that shook some of us....mainly me...OK only me. I had to move from my ocean view from the 25th floor to an ocean view from the 10th floor in a totally different building. Although the last three false fire alarms in the last 6 weeks has made me feel good about this little shift of floors.

The other things to happen is now I kind of know how twitter works, or so I try to tell myself having been on it for over a year now and it basically is..........you know expressing yourself briefly...very briefly....140 characters to be precise. I could make the excuse of it distracting me from writing but then it would be just that...an excuse. Sometimes, it always good to take a break and come back fresh apart from it being some what of a habit of mine here.

But now I am back I will stay...at least for a couple of months before that thing called life takes over. I don't know about you all, but I have missed you. Until next time, keep smiling. :)  

Where is the Love?

OK not much has changed since I had last written stuff, the time is still ticking, December 2012 is still approaching (not that I care but it seems to rile a few people so why not do it and enjoy the show), Harry is still making news with his costumes or the lack of it this time followed by his sister-in-law being snapped by the French paparazzi who really need stop referring telling the world that they are "Journalists" coz hey every monkey behind a SLR camera is then a photographer (and yes I do not own one of them..as yet), the mother nature throwing up surprises and the general unrest which seems to plague us continuously.
So the other day I was asked the question or well the discussion veered in the following direction -

Person A : "So Asif, being a Muslim, what do you think about all the violence caused by these protest your people are causing the world over...they even killed people in Libya."

So now all of a sudden I have become a spokesperson for about say 1.6 billion of the world's population roughly in that instant where anything I say will be judged on for not only would this reflect my inclination to jump to support "my" people who if I really tally up and my maths ain't the best but I would put it to know about .01% of that number I threw up there somewhere. So anyways I went something like this -

Asif : "Well being a Muslim, I condemn the violence (cause I do and was raised up being taught you don't hurt anyone let alone bring harm to them) but being an avid cinema watcher, documentaries, I can really say that more than being anti-Islamic what that film or if we may even call it that, is nothing but a torture to the human race and these people who are going around being uncivil may just have been victims and prefer going to Guantanamo and being water boarded than be shown whatever it was that was actually produced there."

Now before you turn your judgement in on me and go that violence is not something to joke about, you need to realise a few things and these you need to take in without prejudice, a clear head and calmly -
1. These people who are going violent do not even constituent to the 1% of the total population of "us" Muslims.
2. Most of us, with all our beliefs and what not DO NOT condone violence in any manner or situation but who likes to listen to us as we do not make breaking news, mainly as we remain calm while we go about explaining why we are not a terrorist to deaf ears.
3. We sorta, kinda, maybe did say this but were left unheard when we went "Stop meddling in other people's    country and affairs." The whole Gaddafi killing shenanigan seems like mistake in hindsight now with that the whole country taking things for granted. A bit of our own undoing is it not.

Which then leads me to the point - has anyone even completely watched this movie in question because I tried to catch the trailer just to know what it was that riled "us" to the point of going and rioting and I could not go through the complete a minute something long video which apart from its hate inciting message was a complete insult on the medium of film making with frigid actors, bad visuals, dialogue writing which even a three year old could do a better work on and a concept which was meant to cause the very thing it eventually did, create tension, disharmony and violence. It also has two different voices coming from the same person which sort of goes to the whole concept of possessions but this would be crediting a bit of smartness to this production crew which it obviously lacked.

This whole matter is obviously not gone to rest and it does not matter what one person says or does, the whole concept of labelling us as violent is not going to go away soon and while we sit here and cop that abuse for what a small portion of our community does, the fact is that as long as Religion mixes with Politics we will never see calm and peace and that is how it lies.

Also the next time you ask such questions, I may just be tempted to emulate Harry's act from Vegas which would probably only get me arrested and not famous. If we could vote on this (oxymoron) I would totally vote him in to be the next in line to the throne, the world needs an entertaining King at the moment to save....the....errr...humanity...probably not that but something for sure. Until next time, keep smiling! :)

God's Particle Creates Mass....Dispels the Mermaid Theory

So its has been some time since I have last updated this space but today has been a day full of events and one cannot help but jot down a few words. There has been ground breaking news where in one corner of the world, a group of lab coats almost soiled their pants when they discovered a new particle which kinda sorta, maybe, we really hope it does, resemble the characteristics of the much elusive Higgs-Boson particle also known as the God's particle. The legend has it that this discovery would uncover that mystery of the origin of mass and understand how the universe works. Now I have no idea about the later part but one thing I can tell you is that the origin of mass can pretty much be attributed to deep fried delicacies especially if you add sugar to it, the mass created from these foods are substantial and the evidence is pretty noticeable too. 

So as the world of the scientists take the time off and celebrate, I would have said party yet am not sure how those lot do it as my only insight to this group has been the actors on The Big Bang Theory and they sure as hell do not give a wild impression on their partying style. 

So as the lab junkies go crazy there was however another news that came across to the shores of the land down under this morning and it has moved the floor beneath the most of us, it has been such a shocking revelation that the US government agency itself had to come and make this announcement - Mermaids are not real. Yes, you read that right, mermaids, those half fish, hot hotties that swam around the oceans around the world are in fact just a figment of our imagination and we have been tricked by a very cruel joke. Something which started with Santa not being real (that obviously is as fake a story coz where else would all those presents come from?) to zombies not existing, something that had to be officially announced also after someone high on bath salts went around trying to bite off people's faces, who had a shocked look after sighting a mad naked man running around with bubble effervescing presumably from his mouth (there is no recorded fact of that last bit but am sure the bath salts would have that reaction once it started mixing with the liquids within). 

So while we had a ground breaking discovery which most of us have no clue of, in terms of its effect and importance, we have had years of illusion also shattered by a government agency which deemed it was necessary to let its citizen know in case someone actually started to believe it. While I take some time to digest this fact I am just dreading if there may be any more announcements by these government agencies to discredit the existence of Iron Man and Spider Man and if the world would be safe anymore.