123345
Omar Bhai says:
hello fatima popo
º Fatima º says:
hi Sehyroo Patairu!
Omar Bhai says:
hello any one there
º Fatima º says:
yes
one Popo for one Sehyroo
Omar Bhai says:
fatima popo ilove you 123345
º Fatima º says:
My goodness! It grows with each time
Omar Bhai says:
fatima popo could you please whate
º Fatima º says:
of course I can
Sehyr may I please keep you with me forever and ever?
Pretty please?
Omar Bhai says:
i donot know fatima popo
{have to ask mama or abu
º Fatima º says:
I will get Dada or Dado to ask them
We will keep them as well.
How is that?
Omar Bhai says:
ok
Omar Bhai winks:
Play "Heart"
º Fatima º says:
My goodness, you are such a cutie patootie!
Omar Bhai says:
{so you got a new picture fatima popo}
º Fatima º says:
Yes I did. This is my niece Sehyr.
Have you met her? She is lots of fun.
She has very cold feet and she likes to keep them warm by hugging me.
Omar Bhai says:
i know its me sehyr
º Fatima º says:
I know silly! I was just saying that
Omar Bhai says:
hahahahahahahahahahahhahhahahahaha
º Fatima º says:
AND she laughs a lot.
Omar Bhai says:
you are silly popo and she likes warm hugs
º Fatima º says:
she likes warm hugs best from her best friend
AND she will visit really soon insha Allah.
Static
You know when the television is on to a channel with only static for a long time and you're busy doing something else while it hums, and when you're finished you settle down on the couch facing the television, staring at it thinking about what you were busy with. Well, the entire time, the television has been humming its static in the background but you have been oblivious to it because of your distractions. Until the sudden jolt where you realize what you've been staring at for the past fifteen minutes.
What I mean to explain is that although you're busy doing your own work, the static on television may sound the same but its consistency speaks of its everlasting existence. It doesn't matter how early or late you wake up to it, it's been there the entire time whether you gave it importance or not. It's only when you snap to attention do you actually wonder how long the television has been on.
I experienced a similar jolt while reading today's edition of The New York Times in my inbox.
The news read,
"Helicopter Crash Claims 13 on Deadly Day for U.S. in Iraq
By DAMIEN CAVE
Published: January 21, 2007
BAGHDAD, Jan. 20 — On one of the deadliest days for United States forces since the Iraq war began, an American helicopter crashed in a Sunni area north of Baghdad on Saturday, killing all 13 people onboard, the United States military said. "
A bit further down,
"Iraqi state television reported that a raid in south Baghdad on Saturday, with around 100 Iraqi police commandos backed by six United States helicopters, killed 15 suspected Sunni Arab insurgents"
So the wake-up call makes me ask, "Who's the Iraq WAR against?" Now that Saddam has died, who are they fighting or trying to control?
Aren't these insurgents actually residents of Iraq?
Such questions are at the top of my head with a lumbering tower of more questions beneath.
Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche
"Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche" - I can write the saddest verses tonight. A personal favorite poem. Insha Allah, truly insha Allah once I learn Arabic I will learn Spanish and read Pablo Neruda's poetry in his native language.
Only then will be able to wonder at his simple-minded rhetorics in the language which made him think in the first place.
"Sufre más aquél que espera siempre que aquél que nunca esperó a nadie?" - Does he who waits forever suffer more than he who never waited for anybody?
"Algún día en cualquier parte, en cualquier lugar indefectiblemente te encontrarás a ti mismo, y ésa, sólo ésa, puede ser la más feliz o la más amarga de tus horas." - Someday, somewhere — anywhere, unfailingly, you'll find yourself, and that, and only that, can be the happiest or bitterest hour of your life.
After that, on to Persian for Amir Khusrau, but that's for another time, another post.
Limbo
"Til I Hear It From You" - Gin Blossoms
I didn't ask
They shouldn't have told me
At first I'd laugh, but now
It's sinking in fast
Whatever they've sold me
Well baby I don't want to take advice from fools
I'll just figure everything is cool
Until I hear it from you
It gets hard
The memory's faded
Who gets what they say?
It's likely they're just jealous and jaded
Well maybe I don't want to take advice from fools
I'll just figure everything is cool
Until I hear it from you
Until I hear it from you
I can't let it get me off
Or break up my train of thought
As far as I know, nothing's wrong
Until I hear it from you
Still thinking about not living without it
Outside looking in
Til we're talking about it, not stepping around it
Maybe I don't want to take advice from fools
I'll just figure everything is cool
Until I hear it from you...
South Sound
Yes, there is such a thing.
Crunchy peanut butter that's simply too crunchy.
So I scoop a teaspoon out from a brand new jar of crunchy peanut butter that Ami bought, and all I can taste after that is peanuts, little bits of peanuts and also larger chunks of peanuts.
Where did the peanut butter go? There is a world of a difference between having peanuts in my peanut butter and having peanut butter in my peanuts.
I am now left with a jar of peanut butter to finish before I can even think of getting another brand. It's a painfully slow process since I cannot manage more than half a teaspoon at a time. In the end I'm simply waiting for it to miraculously dissolve in my mouth since I don't want to chew on it for fear of tasting it and swallowing just large chunks of peanuts is impossible.
Squeaky Clean
There's always a newsfeed that appears on top in my gmail inbox and I usually click on bits I'd like to know more about. Recently there was a piece on some urinal thief in some part of the world. I obviously did not click on the link to learn the details.
Just that the way the final chapter to the urinal thief story was worded made me laugh at its suggested silliness. The newsfeed reads, "Urinal thief comes out clean."
It makes me picture a urinal thief that keeps a bottle of hand sanitizer handy on him in case things get messy. What an immaculate sense of cleanliness. What utter cornball.
These Sounds Keep Running Through My Mind
"Perfect" - Alanis M.
Sometimes is never quite enough
If you're flawless, then you'll win my love
Don't forget to win first place
Don't forget to keep that smile on your face
Be a good boy
Try a little harder
You've got to measure up
And make me prouder
How long before you screw it up?
How many times do I have to tell you to hurry up?
With everything I do for you
The least you can do is keep quiet
Be a good girl
You've gotta try a little harder
That simply wasn't good enough
To make us proud
I'll live through you
I'll make you what I never was
If you're the best, then maybe so am I
Compared to him compared to her
I'm doing this for your own good
You'll make up for what I blew
What's the problem...why are you crying?
Be a good boy
Push a little farther now
That wasn't fast enough
To make us happy
We'll love you just the way you are
If you're perfect.
Neatness' Sake
I really like how Peanuts echo my sentiments about traditions in such a delightful manner. I couldn't have put this in a better way myself if I tried.
Chew On This
Below is part of a newsletter I received from a restaurant located in Zamzama, Karachi:
"We will be closed on Monday, 1st January 2007, on account of Eid-ul-Bakr. We will resume our services for dinner at 7:30 pm on Tuesday"
Now my question is, what is an Eid-ul-Bakr? The last time I checked it was Eid-ul-Adha where adha is derived from udhiya that means sacrifice or sacrificial meat. and Eid-ul-Adha would consequently mean the Festival or Celebration of Sacrifice.
Is this the latest in our sub-continent fads where we decide to rename Eid according to the animal we choose to sacrifice? Bring on the Eid-ul-Bael and Eid-ul-Oont as well then!
While we're on the topic, I regret to inform that Chand Raat is not the night before Eid-ul-Adha, Chand Raat of Eid-ul-Adha happens nine nights before the entire nation decides to step out and celebrate it.
Metallically Yours
Am I the only one who finds the mere option of getting a vacuum cleaner to fill the void caused by the absence of a person or his attention extremely worrisome? How can people be touched by this and not offended? What's the point of breaking your back at work if all it amounts to is being able to afford surrogate company for your spouse at home?
Robots That Fill an Emotional Vacuum
By Joel Garreau
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 29, 2006; C01
Comes now the minor miracle of The Week After Christmas, 2006.
These are the days when liberal-arts majors finally crossed the line, falling into an emotional relationship with a real robot. Not one on a movie screen, but one that scoots around their ankles, scaring the bejesus out of their cats -- isn't that fun to watch -- while actually being quite useful.
This week, women all over America -- and not a few men -- are cooing and doting over their surprise hit Christmas present. They swoon when it hides under the couch and plays peekaboo. When it gets tired and finds its way back to its nest, sings a little song and then settles into a nap, its little power button pulsing like a beating heart, on, off, on, off, they swear they can hear it breathe.
It's as cute as E.T., as devoted as R2D2, more practical than a robotic dog and cheaper than some iPods.
It's a Roomba, an artificially intelligent floor-vacuuming 'bot, and this is the year mountains of them rumbled off the shelves not just of nerdistans like the Sharper Image and Brookstone, but of mainstream players like Costco, Sears and Target. They landed on the floors not just of innovators and early adopters, as in the previous four years, but the hip majority targeted by "Saturday Night Live."
More than 2 million of the machines, which range in price from about $150 to $330, have been sold. The day after Christmas, a Roomba was among the top 20 items in Amazon.com's vast home-and-garden section, ahead of the top-selling iron, the top-selling blender, the top-selling coffeemaker and the top-selling George Foreman grill. In Housewares, different models were Nos. 1, 6 and 8, ahead of all the other vacuum cleaners, including the DustBusters.
"The Roomba is wonderful!" says Kazuko Price, a family practice physician in Alexandria who says her patients include a lot of "kids who come in and mess up." Her robot cleans four rooms.
"Well, sometimes he's dumb. He keeps going back to the same place. I kick him." She's named hers Robert.
Why does she thinks it's a boy? "Because I'm a she, that's why. I like guys."
On Epinions.com, a reviewer named "Leisure Larry" writes: "This was the first household item ever I gave my wife as a Christmas present. . . . I don't think many husbands would even dare and fewer would survive giving a vacuum cleaner as a Christmas present. It worked . . . she was thrilled!!"
She's named it Karlson.
These people are onto something. The wonder is only marginally about dust bunnies. It's about robot love.
The cultural moment when the walls between human and artificially intelligent machine began to tumble arguably came a couple of years ago when an "SNL" skit imagined a product called the Woomba, "the first fully automated completely robotic feminine hygiene product." That moment can now be revisited on YouTube.
This week, however, the cinematic moments occur in homes. Visit new Roomba owners and the scene is like those old war movies where you can hear the sounds of conflict, but all you can see are the faces of onlookers, cringing and turning away. The thumps and bumps under the bed finally end and suddenly these faces break into rapture as the Roomba emerges -- covered with dust, but victorious.
You can just envision tomorrow's movie pitch. A vacuuming Roomba falls in love with a Scooba -- the model that is designed to wash floors. They have a child. It is raised to know its place, as a lawn mower. But you know these kids. They have dreams. Real robots roam. It yearns to meander around Mars.
No less an authority than Bill Gates announces in the current issue of Scientific American that 2007 is the year the robotics industry will take off the way the personal computer industry did 30 years ago. "Some of the world's best minds are trying to solve the toughest problems of robotics," he writes. "And they are succeeding."
"We could have made the Roomba cuter," says Colin Angle, the chief executive officer of iRobot, the Massachusetts firm that makes the Roomba and Scooba as well as a host of military robots. "But we wanted to make sure this product was taken seriously. Rather than put a little bunny on top, we hit the efficacy message over and over again, because it appeals to the busy homemaker who has the job that needs to get done.
"And then she decides it's cute. The epiphany is when adults start talking about it as a helpful member of the family. You get them saying 'I do this and Rosie does that' or 'We can't imagine Rosie not helping us.' "
Indeed, the vast majority of Roombas get named, according to Angle. Kids name 40 percent of them when they're barely out of the box. The naming decision leads to questions of whether a Roomba is male or female. Rosie is the most common name, says Angle, after the robotic maid of "The Jetsons."
But the Roomba does seem kind of male, in an eager-to-please fifth-grader way. Adding to its Y-chromosome cred is that you wish it had a little more memory, and that its meanderings weren't so random. There's even a group on Amazon discussing why so many people view Roombas as male, although one contributor says, "Our Roomba is named Rhonda" and accordingly now sports "ponytail stickers and googly eyes on it to give it more personality." You see, the robot used to freak out the owner's toddler daughter. But after they converted it "into Rhonda -- she fell in love with 'her.' "
So, a note to future historians: Not only are our helpful robots no longer the preserve mainly of gear-heads and toy-freaks. This is the year for a lot of mainstream American families that our robots emotionally became one of us.
Carved on Stone
I've finally figured out a way to get Ami to use her gifts instead of saving them to hand them down to future generations: engrave her name on the gift.
The other day I was helping her clean out her closet and she found a really pretty wooden music jewelry box that Aamir Bhai gave her on her birthday some years ago. Ami didn't even remember who gave it to her but I knew it was Aamir Bhai since he gave me a music box and he also remains the reason why I started to like snow-globes as much as I do now.
Ami was about to wrap the box and put it back when I told her that although I usually support her decision to keep stuff she's not keen on using to hand down to her family, I seriously doubt we'll be having another Rehana fond of music boxes in the family anytime soon.
Alhamdo lillah that convinced her and she let me put the box on her end table. Now I hear the sweet tinkle of "Unchained Melody" each time Ami puts on or puts away her often worn rings or necklace.
Now to engrave her name on each sari she insists to keep in the futile hope that I'll wear it someday without wanting to cut it into three distinct pieces for shalwar kameez. Not to forget jewelry and jewelry, and clothes and more jewelry.
The Million Billion Gazillion Reasons Why I Love Sehyr 254,289,037,238
Winter Wonderland
Most people in the West attend Christmas parties and call them holiday parties.
Consequently the gifts they exchange are called holiday gifts.
Living in Pakistan our family receives many cards that give us the "Season's Greetings."
What's all this about anyway? I haven't come across anyone on the face of this earth who sends and receives season's greetings on the blessed seasons of autumn, spring and summer. Then why is winter so ostentatiously celebrated? Season's greetings! Let's join hands in a Communal Icicle Freeze!
It's at times like these that I feel drained just thinking of our ready assimilation towards festivities mainly created by card and gift companies for their personal prosperity. So much that we tend to not think of our two Eids with its due reverence. There is a chand raat for Eid ul Adha ignorantly on the day before Eid even though the moon was sighted nine days before.
MCB's marketing scheme for Eid ul Fitr made my blood boil. What's the big idea behind pressuring people to take out personal loans to buy "more than bangles" or "go designer this Eid?"
It's almost as if we're apologetic about the fact that our Eids are not as glitzy as other occassions strewn all over billboards and Expos at the Expo Center.
What's so enlightening or liberating about assimilation? Albeit towards an idea, a festival or even a sentiment?
Speaking of assimilation, I will write about the KaraFilm Festival soon insha Allah.
Waiting for Number Five
Recently I've felt that various advertising agencies have become lazy with regard to marketing campaigns. My most recent dissatisfaction is with the idea of using the product name as a verb.
Take the local i-mate campaign that starkly asks, "I-mate, do you?"
All right, even if I were to stretch it to the point of favoring it, I would think it to be kinky and almost extra-terrestial in its bluntness. I-mate, do you? I-Tarzan, You-Jane. I-come-in-peace.
Keeping their product image in mind, I can understand their strategy that promotes the imagined and unimagined extents of communications. One can tell what they're driving at with the dimly lit room and the numerous appeals to the senses.
So all in all, it's an effectively executed campaign judging from the mood of the television advertisement until the catch-phrase in the end.
Now take the example of the BMW showroom on main Zamzama Boulevard where the BMW Mini Cooper is on display. Streamers in the showroom read, "Let's Mini."
Now what on earth is that?! Let's Mini?! Let's Mickey! Let's Scooby Doo AND while we're at it, let's do the Hokey Pokey and turn around... Forget all that, let's polka!
What kind of image are they trying to portray with a campaign like that? A convertible for the foozy-
minded? BMW is not about that. It's about smooth cruising, not a happy jig.
Verbs work for catchy words, words that denote various meanings and moods, like jazz or mate and I honestly can't think of anymore at the moment, which is all the more reason that advertising agencies need to chuck out the first idea of making the product name do everything out the window, and come up with another, better idea.
In my extremely brief exposure to graphic designing I learnt the invaluable lesson that the first three or four ideas that a person usually comes up with are the mainstream ideas that almost everyone can think of. The trick behind effective advertising is to discard these initial ideas and come up with catch-phrases less thought of but more often remembered and repeated with spunk.
For I am repeating these slogans, but not with spunk.
Hey gang! Let's Mini!
Bias
Of all the things I hear people say, my heart fills with warmth on hearing sentences that begin with, "My mother says," or "My mother used to say".
Enmity
Someone added me to Faakhir's Fanclub and went to the brutal extent of subscribing me to his newsletter.
Of Eulogies
Why do people refer to so-and-so as having a premature death when no one knows when s/he is going to die?
Pretty Picture
My cousin told me about an upcoming horror movie by the name of "The Hills Have Eyes". I Googled it and discovered that it's a remake of the 1977 movie by the same name and the same producer, i.e. Wes Craven.
I'm looking forward to watching it when it releases on March 10, insha Allah. Although Wes Craven's known for making gory horror movies (Nightmares on Elm Street), his movies are still more tasteful and contain more of a plot than more recent film-makers' projects.
While reading the review of the remake I came across a phrase that proves to be extremely graphic.
The MPAA rating reads, "R for strong gruesome violence and terror throughout, and for language."
Terror throughout. Makes me think of people fainting in theaters from lack of oxygen since they had been screaming throughout, out of terror throughout.
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