What's going on man?!?!

So I'm on my way back to Islamabad right now after spending the night in Lahore and over the course of 24 hrs, I have managed to rile myself up based on the current happenings in Pakistan. I will say that I am pretty fed up of the world saying Pakistani's are this and Pakistani's are that. With that in mind, I'm even more sick of Pakistani's constantly getting their hands caught in the fucking cookie jar. Its a god damn bear trap!! When will the people of this country become grateful for what was handed to them on a silver platter!?!

Now, I haven't slept all night so I'm pretty wired so please excuse the profanity and random retardation.

First let's discuss Dr. Aafia Siddiqui. A woman who apparently wore a head scarf (oooooh be afraid, she might blow you up with her eyes). I'm reading a (in Daily Times 08/08/2008) an absurd reprint of article published about her in the Daily Times 2004 (the year Bucknell gave me a thumbs up) which honestly reads more like a low budget hollywood flick that obviously would never make it on screen, but then again water world did so I guess anything is possible. The author, a Mr. Khalid Hasan, who needs to take basic math (hint: if you are in the us, they have this show u can appear on - Are you smarter than a 5th grader - u see where I'm going?). Why am I pointing this out? Well he states she is 29 in his article on Nov 11, 2004. Her bday is March 2, 1972. So let's try baby steps...1972 + 30 = 2002 + 2 = 2004. So if her bday is correct and the date the article was published is correct, that makes her 32 when the article was published in 04. Mr Editor at DT needs to be careful editing these little details that apparently people ARE reading. The article goes on to highlight how her hubby, apparently more fundoo than Aafia, threatens to divorce her while she is abt to have their 3rd child, during which her father dies from hypertension causing a heart attack. She has her kid then goes to the US to find a job. The Feds claim she actually endured all the previous trauma to come all the way to the US to open a POBox for mail for some dude named Majid Khan, "a purported" baddy from the Al-Q school of thought. This is not a hit on the author, but a question to the FBI-are you guys on something? I mean, I've studied the funny things that have been cooked up in the past in college (in the US) and this is a potential cherry topping. Let the woman go! It takes five yrs for this to get light from our beloved global media, u obviously let something leak and feel bad and guilty so now you wanna slap some cuffs on her and take her to court for a bank job when she probably didn't even eat the free twinkies at her kids pta meetings.

Let's move on to Mushi-ma-main-man. I gotta say, I have always been a pretty diligent fan (pankha for all you pakkers) of his. I'm not afraid to say it since we are a democracy with free press, or are we? So he came to power by pushing Kadoo Bhaiyya out. Hey, its the law of the jungle, only the tough survive. You don't see the Rhinos filing suit against Simba the Lion, do you? Obviously something went wrong when we assumed to be more evolved than other animals. Did everyone just wake up one day with amnesia? Zardari and Nawaz are impeaching Mush, not some good guys we all love to see like Jan Rambo. These guys are like Mumra and his sidekick from Thundercats. They put on a happy face and its suddenly ok that they are blowing stories abt how bad Mush is? If you want my opinion, if Nawaz was still here instead of M-man, he would be king - the title he was looking for before getting the boot. His support was all the Mullah Members Association (MMA) we all love so, and he wanted Sharia as primary law. Am I the only one who recalls? I was only 18 but maybe its because hadn't started anything. Mush came in, he got Shaukat Aziz to come and do a pro bono gig as PM, got butt-loads of cash into Pakistan (aka FDI or Foreign Direct Investment) and now we have things like Hyatt Regency and Centaurus and Metro and Makro and booming Ibanking by JS et al and a whole host of other things that usually result from economic prosperity. Sure we weren't number one, but these days (a result of smiley and baldy) we are at par with Nigeria and Zimbabwe (who are at something like 1 million % inflation). The US warns people not to travel to Pak. This is a first in a while. Mush made Pak safer, trustworthy, investable (if there is such a word) and now more jobs than before 1998. Kids graduate from the US and come back to find great career opportunities. Rozee.pk becomes a success as a local monster.com, professional competition becomes something become seek, salaries allow people in their mid-twenties to affors their own clothes and phones and dinners with friends (at least those who earn honestly). Things were good. Now we want to pack our bags and get on the next flight to 'anywhere but here' departing asap from all gates.

Without going on too much because my thumbs hurt now and all the text was keyed in on a blackberry curve 8310 from mobilink - reshaping lives with reception all the way up in Santa's nose but none in my living room in ISB, I would like to discuss fuel prices and other things tied to inflation. Yes, its almost the same as putting air in a balloon. What the Fuck! 86 rupees for a litre??? In Saudi, the rate is $.15 or 15 cents and here its $1.22!!!! I know they produce it and all, but aren't we friends with them? Can't they help us cut down our prices just a notch? If not, then isn't the gop supposed to subsidize rather than tax the consumer more and more? So to finish this off, why do we the hard workers suffer when gop officials get unlimited fuel budgets that their spoilt kids are burning away in govt cars on joy rides with their buddies??

Ponder Pakistan, you are deserting your own country for quick gains that won't last your lifetime.

Remember, we don't inherit the world from our parents, we borrow it from our kids.

--
S. Zohare Haider

m: +92 300 5 777 222

instant.secure.payments
www.amaana.com

Too Early Still?

So, having returned from a fun evening at my friend's brothers wedding event, I managed to catch some waking hours with Soph and eventually hit the sack for a short nights sleep.

This morning I awoke, got my self dressed and made sure I looked sharp for my meeting and took off. I felt pretty good when I left home, but something must have happened when the sun hit me because not long after leaving home, I approached a round about where a large SUV was parked right in front. I stopped, looked right and put my foot on the gas the moment the SUV looked as though he was moving.

BAM!!!!

He wasn't and I was...now I have a four inch hole poked by a cast iron pecker protruding out of the SUV's rear. The guy who jumps out, obviously someone quite misunderstood, felt he needed to get up all in my face. Being sublime as I was, I asked for his forgiveness and told him he can only imagine what the rest of my day will be spent doing. He, on the other hand, required some coaxing before feeling like the bigger man for letting me go. Fortunately by the time the cop approached from the distance, the SUV guy made up his mind to let me off the 'hook' if you know what I mean. As he pulled off, the pecker pulled out and I was all exposed, or at least my poor car was.

Moral of the story = Thank God and all the others responsible for insurance!!

amaana Enters BBC World Challenge 2008

About a month ago, I was asked to submit amaana as a candidate in the BBC's World Challenge, where small companies are targeting the low/middle income groups with their products and services.

We thought that with our business model of enabling micro-payments, even for the poorest of users, we are introducing efficient mechanisms into the existing system.

.....

1 year Later & Return of the Retards

There was a time when I had started blogging some years ago, mostly because of the constricted sensation I suffered being back in Pakee-Stanee-Landee. Frankly, I loved being back, but was so anxious to see change for the better.

I moved around from place to place, city to city, job to job, industry to industry, corner to corner throughout the country desperately in search of something I wasn't quite sure of then. Well, to be quite honest, I had no clue what the hell I was even looking for after college. A lot of people graduate with some idea of where they are headed, even generally. Me, i was like that chick in clueless, except I knew i was clueless and that's probably where the adventure really started.

Some folks look back at their lives and consider all the things that have happened and take the breakups and the expulsions and the school yard fights and the speedy car wrecks as a bad thing they wish had never happened. I suppose I would consider myself an optimist...I look at them as opportunity.

Opportunity, if one can recognize it, comes not in a particular shape or package, but rather a juncture in your life perhaps when you least expect it. I graduated, hunted jobs like everyone else, thought about heading down to Ecuador to do some volunteer work (a 6 week program that would cost ME about $3,000 US), flew back to Pakistan (on PIA!!), got a job, worked, left it, went to the mountains to do some quake relief work, etc etc etc. Lots happened and then somewhere along the line I even got hitched, which is about the only concrete thing I am really happy about.

All the while, the President of Pakistan, Musharraf, did a few things and pissed some people off. Now all you read about is Nawaz did this so Zardari did that and then the occasional Let's get them judges back. I personally have not heard Mushi's name in the media as of recent other than some protestors and potential aggressors who want his head on a sheepskin platter. I don't really have an opinion about him or what he did, frankly I don't really see the point in wasting energy on it when, unlike many others, I only have a 24 hour day.


Wrapping this random post around, I suppose what I am attepting to profess is that even though some new roads popped up and new faces finally get their 15 minutes in the GOP, for the most part stuff really just stayed the same....wasteful and tiresome. PPP is out, PPP is in, PML is out, PML-N is in, PML is out, PML-Q is in. Shit....how much can you divide things up? To the point there are half a person here and half a person there?

Arre bhai, stop preaching about who is good and who is bad. Lead by example if you are so bothered by it all or get another citizenship. Whether we like it or not, these are the cards we were dealt and if you look back, not a lot has really happened since 1947. Power has shifted hands, the army has popped in for 10 year long Hello's, Benazir saw a dreadful death, some dude with a fake moustache claiming to be her husband pretended to give his 18 year old son something really cool like a lordship title or chairmanship of some sort (I know what it is, but it doesn't really matter since he can't wave his magic stick until he kicks his dads ass), Nawaz came back thinking Zardari's a friend forever and then suddenly realized that he's only playing the fiddle, etc, etc, etc, etc..........

I think my tone, angle and approach to life has altered quite a bit since the early blogger days. I suppose I have had the advantage of realizing that you get 1 shot, 1 attempt, 1 try, 1 life, 1 power-up (for all you gamers, you!) to do as you will. After which time there is afterlife for those who believe and maybe something else for those who don't.

How will you spend the rest of your....wait, do you even know how many days you did get? tsk tsk...should have read the fine print more carefully. You don't really know how many, do you? That's because no one really knows for sure until the NASA guys figure out how to calculate the incalculable.

My dad always told me "accidents don't happen, they are caused". This relates to Murphy's law, "If something can go wrong, it will" and for those of you who are looking for trouble, you can stop wasting your time because all you're doing is looking for murphy. He only goes for the ones he wants and you are probably just not one of them. Be productive, get your mom a flower, dad a tie, brother a girlfriend and sister a handbag. Go out and try something you haven't, give good advice, don't impose and if you really want some exciting ideas, let me know and I can give you some ideas ;)

I will finish this not-s0-long-awaited-post by saying How Random and I'm Back! Again!
Stay Tuned

New Wave of Technology for the New Year

$100 laptop project launches 2007

The first batch of computers built for the One Laptop Per Child project
could reach users by July this year.
The scheme is hoping to put low-cost
computers into the hands of people in developing countries.
Ultimately the
project's backers hope the machines could sell for as little as $100 (£55).
The first countries to sign up to buying the machine include Brazil,
Argentina, Uruguay, Nigeria, Libya, Pakistan and Thailand.
The so-called XO
machine is being pioneered by Nicholas Negroponte, who launched the project at
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab in 2004.
Test machines
are expected to reach children in February as the project builds towards a more
formal launch.

Mr Negroponte told the Associated Press news agency that three more African
countries might sign on in the next two weeks.
The laptop is powered by a
366-megahertz processor from Advanced Micro Devices and has built-in wireless
networking.
It
has no hard disk drive and instead uses 512 MB of flash memory, and has two USB
ports to which more storage could be attached.

"I have to laugh when people refer to XO as a weak or crippled machine and
how kids should get a "real' one"," Mr Negroponte told AP.

"Trust me, I will give up my real one very soon and use only XO. It will be
far better, in many new and important ways."
The computer runs on a cut-down
version of the open source Linux operating system and has been designed to work
differently to a Microsoft Windows or Apple machine from a usability
perspective.

(Read more at News.BBC.Co.Uk)

This is a groundbreaking move up for getting developing countries on board with innovative technology. I was quite excited to see that Pakistan is one of the 7 countries to have signed up so far. I hope that it really will be a project taken seriously by whoever is responsible for the procurement and not just another opportunity to make a quick buck at the expense of the poor.

Too many people are trying to find more productive and lucrative ways of alleviating poverty, most of which involve their own professional skills and time. With embezzlement from poverty reduction schemes, that time and effort is merely wasted and thus making the process counter-productive altogether.

The bread 

Me n T cookin it up at my place. He's the main ingredient.
jujipic

A New York City Sky (Chrysler Building in the Background)
jujipic

Nisha n I (bestestest buddy from school)
jujipic

Kamikaze in an injection
jujipic