My Something Worthwhile…

Before coming to Singapore, when I was free in my last days in Karachi after leaving my job, I was involved for a while in the redesign of ApnaKarachi.com. A major part of the overhaul was the new section of ApnaKarachi Maps which provide street-level maps of the city of Karachi. I was in charge of developing the back end of the maps section and as well as managing the people involved in it. We planned to finish and deploy the site for the public before I’d leave for Singapore, but tweaks here and there made maps a little late. I completed the major chunk of the work when I was in Pakistan, and while in Singapore I generally just made things work accommodating the “wish list”.

The ApnaKarachi Maps are now live for sometime now. The site itself has been redesigned and different sections added to it. Its now “bigger and better” in the true sense.

The basic motivation behind the Maps was that Pakistan per se doesn’t have any worthwhile representation in major map sites like Google or Yahoo! Maps, so we intended to provide that kind of information and facility to our people. We have just started with Karachi, other cities would definitely on the way.

As everybody knows that I’m a pretty unassuming guy and I generally don’t do any kind of self-embellishment, but the purpose of this post is to solicit feedback and ideas to make the Maps better and more useful. It’s seldom that we do something worthwhile for our country/people, and while such an initiative is going on and you can be a part of it, then you must.

Please also spread the word around. This service is solely provided for the benefit of people, so the more people use it, the more we would be in the position to improve it.

PS: Don’t forget to say some nice words to me!

Sigh…

During the Decision Making Technologies lecture:

Lecturer: “Modification of EBP Algorithm… blah blah we can use Hessian-based methods which is like the Newton algorithm. Anybody remembers Newton’s algorithm from Calculus classes?”

Blank stares. Nobody flinches. Smiles creep out after a while.

Lecturer: “Okay, so as you would remember Newton’s algorithm had one value to blah blah *random crap* blah, we have Hessian to blah *again some random crap* blah blah. We’ll talk about it later.”

Don’t you just love these moments?

A Poem by a Black Kid

Got it through a forwarded mail. Simply brilliant.

When I born, I black
When I grow up, I black
When I go in Sun, I black
When I scared, I black
When I sick, I black
And when I die, I still black
And you white fellow
When you born, you pink
When you grow up, you white
When you go in sun, you red
When you cold, you blue
When you scared, you yellow
When you sick, you green
And when you die, you grey
And you calling me colored??

Priceless.

Elections, Selections?

After getting pretty much pissed off at Geo live streaming which I am simply starting to detest, I tried checking out the election results online. Pretty much to my horror, the first result on Google is about Politics of Yemen from Wikipedia. The second result is from some apparent “seer” who tries to predict future events and had written something about the elections on his blog a few days back.

At first glance, the first page of results doesn’t look really promising. There is this elections.com.pk link with the title of Pakistan Elections 2008 results, but you know how search engines work and you definitely check out the full link of the result; which apparently is results2002.php. So that result should go in the bin also but a little probing reveals that it is supposed to be a valid website with current results (I think so).

The whole motivation for this post was that people around the world aren’t generally taking interest in elections of our little homeland. Checking out Google Trends for the phrase “pakistan elections” tells you promptly that:

“Your terms – pakistan elections – do not have enough search volume to show graphs.“

I feel that it’s only being treated like a chutti in Pakistan. I mean, even Benazir Bhutto assassination made it to the top searches in Google at least for that day. No such thing for elections. Nobody is interested in our elections. We don’t even have a proper website for elections. Okay there may be a proper website but its not Web 2.0. Its not glossy and shiny. Even the Pakistani population is not checking the results out online. It all comes down to the same conclusion: farcical elections.

Let’s see what happens when results are really consolidated. Who gets in and who is being kicked out. Who would become the master of a volatile nation, if its not decided already.

We are not cool…

I am not dead, no, I am not…

Hmmm so that may have become a sensational title of the post, but at 4am in the night when you’re really pissed off at your assignment that is not getting completed and you just feel like killing time somewhere else (sleep is out of the question dude!), that’s what props up usually to revive an old blog that might be dying a slow death (and might not).

So that’s the reason the title is there. Not anything “item” going on. Really.

The reason why this blog has been lying dormant for a period now has somewhat got to do with me being busy (a bit) and with nothing really having to share. I have almost quit blog-hopping too. I feel that there is no originality in the new crop of blogs that’s coming in, people are just hopping on the band-wagon so that they can boast of a blog that they supposedly write. And what they write is literally trash.

Like they just pretend to be someone they are not, and that brings us full circle to why I am not updating my blog regularly. Short and sweet: I feel disgusted.

I’ll be content with the few blogs I am an avid reader of, who still have some originality left. You guys know who you are. Whereever I am, sooner or later I’ll come back to read up on your lives 🙂

So that outburst makes me feel a little better. Guess I switched the direction of the guns, but nevermind. And hey, I put up a cute little Singapore flag beside the Pakistan flag right up there. You know, the second column, top? At least you guys wouldn’t forget the Singapore flag now. And that makes a bold statement: I am content with Singapore!

That ends a boatload of crap that was in my system. Sorry I couldn’t find any sweeter words for that. In fact, I can’t remember the word for “sweeter words”, it’s right there on the tip of my tongue, but I can’t force it out… I forgot my thesaurus at home!

For a New Day

Today I leave the sanctuary of my home in search of a better future. I leave behind the environment I am so used to, the people I grew up with, the people who taught me to laugh, to hope, to struggle, to never give up. I leave behind the comfort of my own abode, the comfort of getting up when I want, the comfort of consigning everything to hell, to take life as it comes. Today I leave the place that I called home.

Things will never be the same again.

For a few months at least, I’d no longer have a home to return to after a long day, no longer would I have my mother waiting for me on dinner, no longer would I get the dinner to my liking, no longer Mummy would be there to fuss about everything, from my hair to my shoes.

No longer my sis who acted more like an elder sis, no longer the bhabhi who became my confidant. No longer Abbu and brothers who sheltered me, being the youngest one. No longer the cute kids that I so adore, and who have become a major part of my life, no longer the bhaiyya/bhabhi who gave us those cute kids and did so much for us.

No longer would I be able to come home and fight with 9j, to shout, to scare, to laugh, to share, to bully, to pamper her. No longer would we have those crazy shopping sprees, and those crazy eating binges. No longer would I have those late night calls, no longer would anyone be able to wake me up on time.

No longer would this guy remain the same…

I love all of you, and I’ll miss you guys terribly. Thanks to all who have done everything to me, and forgive me for any thing that I erred in. I promise that this will soon pass, and I’ll be back.

Wish me luck.

He is back!

Okay so the deal is this: uXuf wasn’t exactly busy as he originally claimed as an excuse of not updating his blog, he is actually a real lethargic bum who thought he has started getting better things in life. He is such a dork.

The better news is this that he is going to Singapore for his studies. Surprised? There is a nifty little university that goes by the name of National University of Singapore, and makes it big on the top 20 universities of the world, and on the top 3 universities in Asia.

Waisay bhi he doesn’t like to brag. Very humbling, isn’t it.

He knows that most of you guys have never heard about NUS, what with the current state of WOWness associated with all the Western universities. He laments that his generation is actually doing a great disservice to his region by ignoring the better universities in Asia and Australasia. He has vowed to change that impression.

He will probably be flying out in January 2008. Wish him luck guys!

He is also working on a top-secret web project that according to him would take the world by storm. Well, if not the world, then at least the people of our region… If not them, then…

He is also apologizing to all his readers for not updating his blog in a long time. They who have him added on Facebook probably have had a glimpse of what he was into (hint: 9j). But he will be back in action soon.

And he has started talking in third-person again.

truly kicking some ass!

Trick:
Make a person’s phone ring during class.

Target:
Depending on the lecturer, it could be your worst-enemy, arch-rival, that-guy/girl-who-stares or even your good ol’ friend.

Method:
Make sure you ask for the target’s cellphone before class. Set the Alarm Timer for some time during the class. Tweak other settings for alarm like Power On etc making sure that this alarm will sound. Almost all cellphone alarm sound even when the phone is on vibrate or powered off :p

Enjoy your devilish plans 🙂

All in the name of God…

Okay so the last day of the freedom of Iblees gets spent by watching the movie everyone was talking about, at the place to be seen at, i.e. Cineplex.

And before everybody runs me down for commenting on what is now supposed to be a very discussed, ghissa pita and cliched topic, let me explain that this rambling is just my two cents worth on the “Revival of Cinema in Pakistan”.

Everything is fine with this movie being a “different” one from the usual load of crap that Lollywood produces every year. The storyline was interesting, the cinematography was commendable and the soundtrack is refreshing. But the major thing that put me off? The actors themselves… Everybody except the angrez people seemed out of place and out of touch with their roles.

For starters, what’s with the lead-man-must-be-a-popular-actor mentality of the Lollywood/Bollywood arena? Shan tries mightily to fit in the elder, mature brother role of Fawad but fails in more than a few places. He has probably saved his lot only with the experience he has had over these years of showbiz. Fawad? Cute, tailor-made for this role, probably like Afridi is for One Day Internationals, but never delivers like Afridi never does. Come on, I know his role was of a shy person, but who in the world is SO shy that he could never utter a word?

Iman Ali never looked like a British born desi, nor sounded like one. Probably she could have taken some cues from Katrina Kaif’s “Jass” in a recently released movie (don’t know the name and probably it was recently released, and since it is Iman Ali so we can be a little less cruel on her :p). And hey, who was her dad in the movie? Were the directors so short on people for casting that they would use just anybody for a major role? That guy didn’t look like he was willing to act, just filling in the spaces maybe…

The best act was of the Hollywood hottie Austin Marie Sayre, who really looked like someone deep in their role, besides Rasheed Naz and Naseeruddin Shah, two very accomplished actors. She stole the show with the vivacity she put into her tiny role, better than anyone else of the lead cast.

So it all boils down to this: to really revive the cinema culture in Pakistan, we definitely need movies with different and thought-provoking topics, but also with better acting, casting and a tight control of the storyline.

And I would not comment on the legality of music in Islam. I think it is useless to comment on an issue involving religion raised by a movie based on the movie itself, when the status of movies themselves is a little somewhat controversial.

Crossfire is welcome.

The brief hiatus

So after the brief hiatus, I’m here. Not exactly promising to be back in action, but I can assure the few readers left who actually read my blog (and I read theirs) to update once in a while…

A lot has happened since the last time I blogged. The days were a mixture of fun, fears, confusion, enthusiasm and hope. My sweet (and significant) other arranged a surprise birthday party for me, and indeed it was a great surprise as any because the event was arranged before my birthday 😛 The best thing was the long list of presents (actually, 23) from her, signifying the years I have spent in this world. These included (for sake of brevity I’m not listing them, but I can do it if somebody insists :P) 4 books, 3 tees, 1 cargo, 1 jeans, 1 shirt, 1 cap, 1 3-pack socks (duh!), 1 can of Fox’s, 1 cute cuddly bear soap-holder, 1 skeleton, 1 “Completely Nuts”, 1 Shower Gel (:P), 1 picture frame, 1 snake piece, 1 customized mug, flowers, cake and surprise!

Phew~! Now I can proudly claim I own atleast one piece from all the shops in Park Towers!

And our engagement turned one year young also… Pray we live in fun as we always do 🙂

For the loyalists reading this, I might have something to reveal over the days… Stay tuned!