More Midnight Mayhem

(*) Welcome to the Next Level says (00:21):
my computer is on its way to depreciation
steampunk says (00:22):
computers are always on their way to depreciation
(*) Welcome to the Next Level says (00:22):
but this one 'was' good.
steampunk says (00:22):
mine's like 4 months old and already suffering with old age
(*) Welcome to the Next Level says (00:23):
u were fooled into buying an old one to begin with :/
steampunk says (00:23):
nah it's new
bechara can't cope with my computing practices
(*) Welcome to the Next Level says (00:23):
insane!
computers have feelings too
(*) Welcome to the Next Level says (00:24):
u can actually count them by opening task manager

Khao Soy Ramadan

I have been having chicken noodle soup hankering since like 5:00 in the morning. It's all boey's fault actually. Boey is this 31 year old ethnically Chinese, born in Malaysia, schooled in Singapore, went to college in the US, working in California as animator/graphics designer guy who is famous for his styrofoam cup art.

Anyway so today was the first day of Ramadan, and it was the weekend so as usual I was up till 3:30am or so, and after that there was no point in sleeping since sehri/sahoor/dawn was at 4:20am anyway and I had to stuff my face before then. I had had a late night frozen-food dinner and was already kinda full since I hadn't slept but I ate anyway and around 4:30, since I still wasn't sleepy, started reading my RSS feeds, and then one blog had written about boey, so I ended up on his site, which is rather cool with stick figure drawings of him, his friends, his workmates and funny everyday stories about his life. I mean the stories wouldn't be funny if I had been telling em but the guy writes em so they are funnier. You know what I mean!

So boey is having some sort of noodles or noodle soup every 3rd or 4th blog entry or so, and that gave me the noodle soup hankering. So I went to sleep around 6 am, woke up in the afternoon, lazed around and since I was still dreaming about noodle soup, went to Carrefour to get the makings of Khao Soy ... which is Thai but anyway it is yummy noodle gravy thingy. Stupid Carrefour people don't believe in boneless chicken ... I was hoping they'd have a frozen boneless chicken pack so I could make enough for just me and dunk the rest in the freezer but they didn't so I ended up buying 1/2 kg of fresh chicken which you can't freeze so I had to chop it up into little pieces at home and then cook it all. And they didn't have spring onions either so I had to stop at another shop to get some sad looking spring onions. Not as bright and crisp as the ones we got back home. Anyway I was back after 5:00, iftar/sunset was at 6:45 so I went about making everything at once, and emptying about a ton of food that I got besides ... I do that EVERY time ... I think I have a buying-too-much-food phobia. Anyway I had forgotten curry powder so I ended up dunking in a random mixture of spices which thankfully came out fine. And then I had some spring rolls and mango flavoured milk at iftar and then I ate sooo much khao soy that I couldn't move. And I got like three more servings lying around cuz I had cooked all of the chicken but I think it will be a good idea to freeze it for later.

So a Khao Soy bowl is egg noodles at the base, with Thai chicken curry poured over it and then heaped with fresh spring onion and shallots and cilantro and sometimes they even put fried crispy noodles and pickled cabbage but I stuck to the fresh veggies bit only.

Khao Soy: At this point you can only see the cilantro and the rest of the veggies. Maybe it should served in glass bowls for people to be able to see the layers

All Shook up -- after a few bites

By this point I was so full I was half sitting half lying on the rug in the lounge, somewhat leaning against the couch and praying for the food to stay where its supposed to be ... anyway you can see the thai chicken curry at the base now

Oh and I even got instant hot chocolate ... mostly because the bottle was kinda funky! Darn the pretty package designs. I always fall for em! And its midnight already and I'm waiting for some space in my tummy so I can also have the hot chocolate. And sehri/sahoor/dawn is at 4:20 again. Boy o boy I'm gonna eksplode! :D


Oh and at the end of it i left an epic mound of dirty dishes in the kitchen, but the maid is coming in the morning so yay!

There's Always a Song Playing in My Head!

Pat Benatar in my head sings: "We are young, Heartache to heartache we stand, No promises, No demands, Love is a battlefield ...."

bahahahaha *shoots self*

*tries making Whitesnake nudge out Pat Benatar*

The voices in my head sing: "We're young ... here i go again ... heartache to ... on my own ... we stand ... only road ... no demand ... like a drifter ... is a battlefield ..."

How about some Golden Earring?

The voices in my head sing: "All set, the court ... we're young ... on my own ... to heartache ... going down the only road ... I swear, nothing but the truth now ... no promises ... born to be alone ... bullshit ... battlefield ... i've made up my mind ... bullshit ... "

Final Score:

Pat Benatar: 4 Whitesnake: 3 Golden Earring: 1

17 hops to the Blabbering Wombat

Just now, sitting at work, it randomly occured to me to do a tracert to the blabbering-wombat. Yes, yes, further testament to my hopelessly wandering mind (btw it is also thinking about OJ at the moment), when I should be actually working on some fancy shmancy analysis ... anyway so from work it is 17 hops to the blabbering wombat ... and one of em goes through Amsterdam (is seeing all the men drool). Will try hopping from home later ... anyway me out for some orange juice ... laters!

C:\>tracert blabbering-wombat.blogspot.com

Tracing route to blogspot.l.google.com [74.125.79.191]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 143.39.76.2
2 55 ms 54 ms 105 ms 152.164.121.41
3 48 ms 48 ms 49 ms 152.161.126.114
4 75 ms 67 ms 55 ms 143.19.200.25
5 79 ms 110 ms 50 ms 192.229.17.36
6 71 ms 77 ms 61 ms 192.229.17.99
7 60 ms 64 ms 125 ms fordtest2uu.uunet.be [212.190.126.213]
8 96 ms 75 ms 56 ms so-3-0-0.CR2.BRU2.ALTER.NET [146.188.2.121]
9 82 ms 76 ms 54 ms so-3-0-0.XT2.BRU2.ALTER.NET [146.188.9.153]
10 82 ms 110 ms 63 ms POS0-0.BR1.AMS11.ALTER.NET [146.188.5.94]
11 103 ms 84 ms 71 ms ams-ge.Level3.net [146.188.112.46]
12 93 ms 67 ms 60 ms GOOGLE-INC.car2.Amsterdam1.Level3.net [212.72.46
.234]
13 60 ms 77 ms 96 ms 209.85.254.250
14 83 ms 56 ms 112 ms 209.85.248.79
15 62 ms 56 ms 80 ms 209.85.255.166
16 56 ms 105 ms 69 ms 209.85.255.126
17 128 ms 57 ms 53 ms ey-in-f191.google.com [74.125.79.191]

Lost in Translation

She checks the time ... "oh its nearly six! should call a cab otherwise it won't get here for ages, what with the rush hour traffic and all!".

Picks up the phone, dials 2080808, the phone gets picked up by the system after a couple of rings ...

"ahlan wasahlan bekum fi taaksi Dubai ... Welcome to Dubai Taxi ... al'al istamrar fil lughatul araabia wahid ... to continue in English press 2". She presses two. An Arab operator answers the phone ...

"Hello welcome to Dubai Taxi, how may I help you?"

"Hi, I need a Taxi in the Jebel Ali Free Zone"

"Where in the free zone?"

"At junction 12, gate 5, the company is P&G"

"B&G"

"Procter&Gamble, P&G"

"B&G?"

She suddenly realizes that arabic doesn' t have the "p" sound in it, the closest approximation is 'B'. "Yes"

"When do you need it madam?"

"As soon as possible, please"

"May I have your name and cell number please?". She gives the details ...

"Anything else Madam?"

"No, Thank You!"

She hangs up the phone and turns back to her laptop, winding up work for the day. The cabbie should call any time now. Her phone rings once. Missed call from an unknown number. Has to be the cab driver. So she calls back ...

A subcontinental voice answers the phone

"Haallooo"

"Hi, I called a taxi"

"Yaas, yaas, this is the taxi"

"So where are you?"

"Eye yam neaarr gate 5, wherrre eye comme?"

"Okay, go straight from here and you will come to junction 13"

"uhhnnnn?"

"go straight and you will come to roundabout 13"

"Yaas Yaas, raoundabaout 13"

"Take a left"

"Laft?"

"Yes, left"

"oakay, oakay, naow wherre eye goo?"

"Go straight and you will reach roundabout 12"

"12?"

"Yes, 12, take a left"

"oakay, oakay, 12 naoww, laft?"

"yes, and as soon as you take left, its the first building on your left again, it has a blue gate"

"oakay, oakay" hangs up.

She packs up, since the taxi is barely 5 minutes away. 15 minutes pass, no luck. Just as she is beginning the wonder, the phone rings.

"Yes? are you here?"

A frustrated subcontinental voice replies ... "Thaere is nooo aaafis here, eye haave chaeked aal bildings"

"you took a left from roundabout 13?"

"yaas"

"and then a left from 12?"

"yaas"

"So then it is the first building on your left, it is a white building with green windows and a blue gate, found it?"

"nooo"

"okay, okay, do you see a black building on the other side?"

"uhh uhh whyyeee essss ellll buuh... buuh ... byoo ..."

She is confused for a while then realizes he's trying to pronounce beauté. Can't blame him, poor guy, French is not for the faint hearted! "Yes, that one, now look on the other side, the white building on the other side, come there"

"butt thaat ees P und G"

"Yes thats the one, P&G, blue gate, come inside"

"Buttt eye have been looking faar a B und G, thaey told me B&G!"

"No its P&G". Shakes her head and hangs up.






Disclaimer: pronunciations and accents have been highlighted to convey the essence of this situation. The writer does not intend or endorse any sort of discrimination whatsoever!

I missed May

and this is the first post from Dubai ... for those following the countdown to salvation, salvation has arrived or rather arrived 1 month 17 days ago. Took its own sweet time but I take my nauseatingly sacchrine sweet time reporting it ... along with about gazillion other things I promised to tell but never did. I wonder if the time lost makes them irrelevant now?

later!

P.S. Time to update Islamabad/Karachi/Tashkent? ...





oh and *dance like a monkey* ^_^

A day in the life of Blabbering Wombat ... Today() - (21 years +1 day) ago ...

One of the blogs/pages I visit most often is All Things Pakistan. They posted about the 'Ojhri Camp blast' yesterday here, which happened 21 years ago. Ojhri camp is one of my earliest memories.

I was 3 and it was my very first day at school, which was located in F-7 Islamabad ... a missile broke through our classroom wall and I have vague memory of adults picking up the children and running around screaming, crying and hiding under stairs and praying. Of course I was totally fascinated by the glittery stuff flying around in the sky, totally unaware of what it meant. My parents came to pick me up, then we went to pick my sister up from her school, and then we drove around the better part of the day picking up and dropping home acquaintances who couldn't get a ride home. It was only much later that we found out that the missiles were heat-seeking and going around in an internal-combustion-engine powered vehicle was equivalent to walking around with a bulls eye painted on you!

More about Ojhri Camp:

Wikipedia
Some random conspiracy theorist on the net

The Relocation Blog

Or post, blog just sounds cooler ... a dynamic one that will be created soon, and will be edited and reposted everytime there's an update ... this is to save myself from repeating the same details via phone, chat or email one million, three hundred and fifty seven thousand, nine hundred and thirty sixth time ...

oh btw I missed March ... nearly two years of discipline gone down the drain! I blame it on relocation.

Random Thought: I have over 10 drafts lying around ... some of them are over one year old. Don't remember what they were about for over half of em

Anyway ... WATCH THIS SPACE!

Feel Good inc.

I apologized to and re-established contact with a friend today I had broken off with some six to eight months ago. Was hard but it feels great. Some people are worth it.

Since I borrow the title from Gorillaz, here is the song, no lyrical/interpretative relation, it's just a good song

The Tandoori Chicken Fiasco

Some things are jinxed from inception ... and I have evidence to prove it! Some months ago, I tried my hand at making tandoori chicken, and the results where quite encouraging, as per the evidence below:



So encouraged by the initial success, I set out to make tandoori chicken again with results that stand solemn testament to murphy's law, i.e. anything that can go wrong, will go wrong!

Given my 'living out of the freezer lifestyle', I put the chicken into the fridge for defrosting, generally it takes full 24 hours to completely thaw, which is good enough, except that events chose to unfold themselves in a way that kept me away from my thawing/thawed chicken an entire 48 hours.

Not discouraged, I ploughed on, finding the time after midnight to make the marinade, all ground and crushed and mixed and whisked, and the powers-that-be dealt a bad hand, literally, resulting in me dropping the entire bowl, hence immediately dispatching the marinade to the trash bin. half an hour and 2nd batch of marinade later, I was able to put the chicken in it, and stuff it in the fridge to cook the next day.

And the higher powers chose to keep me away from the chicken another 36 hours! So today being the weekend, I happily put the chicken on to the hob, all excited about the opportunity to eat it, and then I absolutely forget about it! Only to remember when all the creamy tandoori masala was burnt to cinder {read: over exaggeration for the sake of emphasis} however the chicken proved to be as determined as me ... and survives fully, albeit it is half the chicken it could have been with the masala. But the chicken and I refuse to be daunted, and judging by the aroma wafting through my house, I assume it will still taste great!

The Fiasco will not be photographed

This is to beating the powers that choose to jinx our endeavours! *clink*