Disclaimer: Somewhere on this blog are multiple grammatical mistakes, spelling errors and obscure Star Wars references.

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

December..

I think I'm always happy whenever December rolls around. Maybe it's because for once in the year I can complain that it's too cold out. Or maybe it's because for the first time this year I can sleep in a cool room unde rthe covers without the air conditioner running. Or maybe it's because I love the smell of fresh rain. Or maybe it's because my birthday's on the 19th. Or maybe it's becau.. Yea I think it's because of my birthday.

December's always been special that way. A lot of my friends were also born in December. My mum's born in December too. So are Hussain & Sehr. I guess God chose a month for the hipper crowd. Josh's born in Dec too. In fact he turns 18 this year, with Sehr. 18's quite a milestone in the UAE cuz that's our sweet 16. License, Legal smokes n' sheesha (not that I do any of those...) etc etc. I think the fact that winter also roles around in December adds to my fondness to it (read previous post). Something about it I'm not entirely sure...

In other news: Dubai Desert Rock fever is catching up. Children of Bodom, Prodigy & Incubus have been confirmed. Rumours are afloat about Slayer, and more importantly, In Flames. If In Flames come and I don't get to go, someone is going to rue the day. Anthony, I hope you're wrong. In Flames are awesome and I'd hate to miss them.

Zenobia flies off to India tonight for her brother's wedding which is (coincidence) also in December. She'll be back in Jan, when she'll stay for a week before she flies off to Monash, Australia for her University. Sucks. Am going to miss her. Too bad I won't be able to tell/show her that. Crap.

Other than that, stuff isn't half bad. Soaking up this awesome weather. Been sleeping a lot more lately. Anyway, I oughta get going, have to be at school early tomorrow morning.

Oh, and work sucks.

xx

Monday, November 20, 2006

Winter winter....

I think it's pretty safe to say that a good majority of Dubai's population loves winter. Especially if you grew up here, like yours truly. Today, for the first time since people began talking about the weather getting better, I actually enjoyed the walk home from the Sheraton. Today was not a normal November day, it was a good sign of, hopefully Inshallah, a good winter to come...

Khalid dropped me off at the Sheraton from where I would walk home. Uzma called me and informed me that it was drizzling at her side of town. I love rain and was hoping it would rain on this side too... As I began walking I noticed that the sun was nowhere and I had almost no shadow. There was this huge cloud over my head, and I was secretly hoping that it would rain as I walk home... God was listening and Alhamdulillah it did.

The walk home wasn't long, but I really enjoyed it because THIS time around, there was no sun, there was a great breeze blowing, the clouds were out, the drizzle was...well...drizzling and it was all good. I love this weather. I think that living in the heat all this time really makes you want to go out and run in the rain. Don a windbreaker, shorts, shoes and a baseball cap and a long walk with, if possible, great scenery. The scenery is where all the Meadows, Springs, Greens, Gardens blah blah blah people get the upper hand. Aaah what the hell. I still like it.

The good thing about this right now is that its still only the first half of November. December and January are still not here and they're normally the colder months. Which is awesome. Another thing about this weather is that from now, until maybe late March its really a whole lot of fun running around outside playing footie etc.

Love this weather.

xx

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Making Poverty History... Think about this...

As we wake up every morning, there are lots of things that we take for granted. Not necessarily those of the Gucci kind, but even the more basic, simpler things. Electricity for example…the soft hiss of the central A/C reminds us that, yes, the bill has been paid and that it is really comfy sleeping in on Friday mornings in 24oC, while outside the mercury continues to soar.

At the breakfast table, a simple spread of sunny side ups, toast and tea (or coffee), is nothing different or special. I mean honestly, shouldn’t cost you more than a dollar or two. After breakfast, and a hot (or cold) long, shower we’d probably change into something simple, like a t-shirt and jeans. Or maybe instead of the jeans some of us would rather don a pair of khaki shorts, since it’s so hot outside.

Consider this though… What if things weren’t really like that? Assume that for one month, the electricity bill was left unpaid. Doesn’t really paint a pretty picture does it? All that time spent indoors in the heat would not be my cup of tea. And all that sweat. Oh dear. Sweat = not good. Unless you’re exercising. Even breakfast though…What if you went to bed knowing that when you wake up in the morning, you can’t exactly have someone make you breakfast or even make it yourself. Nope, there’s nothing to eat.

Imagined that?

Now imagine this:

Poverty as described in a dictionary is the condition a person is in if he/she earns less than $1 a day. And that is just a textbook description. There are some who earn a little more than $1, and some who earn zilch. Neither are in the most desirable conditions.

45.3% of people under the poverty line live in Southeast Asia, while 22.4% live in Africa. And for a local twist, a huge percentage of labourers suffer almost the same way right here in this country. In these places, lots of people don’t exactly wake up snug under covers in their bedrooms. Or in their beds at all. Most of them wake up not knowing whether they can afford to or even get breakfast from anywhere. In that regard, most of them haven’t had three square meals a day for as long as they remember. Clothing? What clothes? There aren’t any Giordano’s or Bossini’s for them to get their daily ware from. Even if there was, odds are they probably couldn’t afford it. No Food. No Shelter. No Clothing. These people lack the 3 basic services in life that is a must for everyone. These people don’t know when their next meal is, and many of them don’t know how long they’re going to live. If the Statisticians did their jobs right, then according to them, poverty kills one child every 3 seconds.

That said, I’d like to share an interesting quote with you readers.

His name was Walter Bagehot. He was an English journalist from the mid-1800s. And he said:

“ Poverty is an anomaly to the rich people; it is very difficult to make out why people who want dinner, simply do not ring the bell. “


I’m not trying to say that we’re all rich here… But what his quote implies is that… Unless you’re not in that condition yourself, you don’t truly comprehend what they feel like. Yes, sympathy, pity, and maybe a passion to correct these horrendous conditions may implant themselves in your heart, but you will never be able to fathom what goes on through their minds. Not unless you’re either seeing it with your own eyes, or, (God forbid) one of them. On a lighter note, seeing how Survivor has run into its 13th season maybe they ought to dump the contestants in a slum in Bangladesh or a village in Dharfour.

No one should have to go through what these people suffer as a part of their daily lives. No one deserves to. That’s why at Make Poverty History, our aim is to eradicate global extreme poverty. It is the single, most largest coalition in the world or charities and other foundations trying to pressure governments into fighting poverty worldwide. The gap that keeps growing between the rich and the poor is created out of man-made elements and is nothing that we can not tackle. By working together, poverty could soon be classified as, ‘extinct’. But it won’t happen today, or tomorrow. Nor in one year, or two. But with the support of people all around the world, it could happen soon enough. Average Joes, just like yourself. You don’t have to be movie star or a musician to make a difference. If we work together, Planet Earth can be poverty – free by 2015.

Think about it. Because that’s all you would need to do to make up your mind. And once you’re done thinking about it:

Take action. Join the campaign. Help fight poverty worldwide.

For further information on the campaign and its goals visit, www.makepovertyhistory.org .

xx

Ps: This Article was originally intended for the MPH UAE Newsletter. I'm just posting it here for reading cuz by the looks of it, the MPH Newsletter died...

Monday, November 13, 2006

Inter-house Sports

This week saw our school kick off with our inter-house sports, and the first match played was Yellow Vs. Blue. My team against Faraz's. My team isn't as strong as the other houses but, if we put up a fight we're worth a look at.

Emotions running high in the first game. After the first ten minutes I suddenly felt unusually breathless and fatigued. Which was uncommon. So I took a substitution and got out. It was a rolling substitution so I could always jump back in later. I sat out for a good 10 minutes, during which I tried to recuperate from the sudden lack of breath. During my time out, Sean blistered a free kick straight into the back of the net and we were up 1-0.

Once back in I felt my breath come back to me and I was able to pace better. (Throughout the game after that I missed 4 chances. *sulks*) Before long, Falik (yes, Falik) fired a delightful volley and it shot straight into the back of the net. Everyone was like, "Daym, FALIK!!!!! WAY TO GOO MAN!!" The Kings were up 2-0. Things were looking up. Half time came and went, and the second half rolled in. Confidence was soaring, and we were looking sharp. Then out of nowhere, a quick pass to Blue's Ryan caught our defence off guard and he managed to slot it in the back of our net. The Blues were celebrating. The score was 2-1. They were back in the game.

But within a few minutes of that, Falaknaz's solo effort managed to put us up by one more. And it wasn't long after that, that the final whistle blew. That was it. Yellow dominated and won this game. Confidence was so high it made Sean look short. We felt UNSTOPPABLE!!!!! This happened yesterday.



Today we lost 4-1 to Green.

Damn...

xx

Friday, November 10, 2006

You've been Debated...

Three weeks ago, due to an outburst that Khalid made in the classroom, all of year 13 was involved in a discussion about Hitler. Specifically the legacy that he left behind. Was it a good one or a bad one?

Amongst the girls, Heena was extremely anti - Hitler and so, just to play with her the guys went around ranting, "Hitler was a GENIUS!!!" One argument led to some laughter and before you knew it the coordinators heard about what was happening and a date was set when this topic was to be debated in front of years 12 & 13. I was put on the team that had to speak for his legacy. For it. We had already lost.

Eventually time rolled by and yesterday (Thursday,9th of November) arrived... Teams were set. Heena and Reyna spoke against it, while Awais and I spoke for it. Uzma and Ahad also decided to help us since we were debating a lost argument. The nice Mr. Kamath treated the audience and speakers to Ice Cream and Sodas. Heena was the first to go. She pulled out a fact sheet and began firing off points showing how bad a legacy Hitler had left behind. Daym. The For team was already getting hammered. When she finished the crowd gave her a warm applause. Awais then jumped on the scene and spoke about Hitler's economic developments. Possibly the only good thing that could have been debated about him. As he signed off the crowd gave us a lukewarm response. But it was better than we had hoped for.

We were then given 5 minutes to prepare our Rebuttals. The teams left the hall and began preparing their speeches. After a quick 5 minutes the teams were ushered back into the hall. Reyna was up next. Her speech was well received by the audience where she spoke about how could yo possibly link Hitler to a good memory. It wasn't getting easier for us.

Eventually it was my turn. I stood up and made my way to the front of the audience. I actually hesitated there for a few seconds, knowing perfectly what I was going to say, just not how to start it. I began slowly, and then worked it up into a well voiced speech about how you can't ignore the economic & military development that Hitler brought to Germany from 1933 to before the fall of the Third Reich. We did not have much to go on but I tried to make whatever we have sound phenomenal.

When I finished the crowd gave the biggest applause yet. Reyna and Heena themselves acknowledged that I spoke the best and that the For team had a HUGE chance of winning this. The judges then asked to take their leave to tally the points. As they were doing their thing, us 4 speakers were wondering who would win. The Against team had the best points, but the For team had the best speech. Who would win? Each team thought the other would win. Although, to be honest I did have that little glimmer of hope that my speech could have turned it for us.

The judges were back. Mrs. Khan stood up in front of the audience. She gave a quick explanation on how the scores were evaluated and how the points were tallied. 4 fields: relevance, clarity, accuracy and speech. Each speaker would be given points out of 100, and the total for both speakers would be tallied. The team with more points wins. She then commented on each speaker. Heena had the most points, Awais focused on Economics, Reyna re-stamped what Heena began, and I spoke with the most confidence. Then she annouced the scores.

Heena 91, Awais 77, Reyna 84,


Muhammed Ali 73


Pwned.


A resounding, "Gasp!" was heard throughout the class. "How on EARTH did Mali get 73?!?!" It wasn't half bad though. I was told I lost points for lack of material. The good part was that some of the audience went to the judges and asked how it was possible for me to score the least. Many of them also stopped by me and said that they disagreed with what the judges thought, and still thought that I spoke the best. Even so...


Pwned..

xx

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Woot Woot Auction! (Stupid Municipality)

Yesterday, Lacoste held an auction for roughly 30 - 40 odd items of art, ranging from paintings to clothes designed by artistes, regular people, and our Wish Kids alike. It was a really good event, held at the Lotus One at the Convention Center here. The crowd was (or so I was told) was Dubai's [edit] creme de la creme [edit] (Thanks Devon!). Anywhoo a well organised event it was... Phillipe Lacoste and Patrick Chaloub were both present and spoke to the crowd. This was followed by John giving a speech, after which I spoke about my Disney trip earlier this year, which was such a hit, with the crowd.

Later on, we surprised John, by announcing his Birthday, singing a song, getting him a cake and a gift. The rest of the night was followed by the silent auction for all the art works. That was around 10:30pm.

At 12:30 am, the auction was done and over with, and following a tally of all the bids, I think we crossed into the AED 200,000 range. Which. Is. AWESOME! Eventually, we stayed on till around 1:30am when I finally decided to take my leave. Thanked the event organizers, Mr. Philippe Lacoste, Mr. Patrick Chaloub, the senior staff at Lotus One, and I was outta there...

Today the Municipality calls me and tells me that the money raised is illegal. Damn them. Am now currently fighting the legal procedure to make that money legal...

Morons..

xx

Sunday, November 05, 2006

There goes Saddam...

Well it finally happened. Saddam Hussein has been sentenced to death by hanging along with Barzan Ibrahim, his former intelligence chief and half brother and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, the head of Iraq's former Revolutionary Court. They were charged specifically for the crimes against humanity in the 1982 killings of 148 people in a single Shiite town.
Now there's some wondering left to do. Does he deserve it: Yup. Mass Genocide should never go unpunished. But Saddam's crime... Is it really all that uncommon in the world today?

Afghanistan? Chechnya? Bosnia? Palestine? Iraq? Kashmir? Somalia? Phillipines?

Saddam was convicted because he signed the order for the onslaught, which was used as evidence against him. So, one sheet of paper was enough to link Head of State to Criminal.

Maybe we oughta find more sheets? Or is that just being naive? I'd go for the latter, but feel free to express yourselves folks...

oh oh oh another point worth noting. Ol' Saddam was charged for the murder of 148 people.
To understand the irony, click
here.

xx

oooooohhh...So what happens if I click HERE?

Day 2:
(Don't expect something everyday)

As I move along trying to fulfill my promise of keeping a blog updated, we come to the interesting part of making a blog. Making it.

In the settings bar I chose what I thought was nice and useful given the complete reassurance that these could be change at any time in the future. Very good. Great service ala blogger.com. Whoop de doo.

Moving on. Lets see.. The third tab said, " Templates". Templates. What are those? Most of it ran right past me.
But the part where I could add links to the right of the page piqued my curiosity and after spending a good 15 minutes trying to figure out what most of it meant, I managed to get a few links up. Arsenal - Mania (Yes I'm a Gooner) and my older-yet-never-touched MSN Space.

Oh well. More personalizing as knowledge of use permits.

Toodles.

xx

Saturday, November 04, 2006

The Rebirth

Hello All!

Well this isn't the first time I've tried to maintain a blog... If I had to count it would be the 10th or 15th time I've tried to keep a blog running...But recent turn of circumstances have made me wonder why it's more probable than not.

Circumstance #1:
A friend of mine. His vocabulary when around us falls into 4 basic words. Gay, Noob, Mother & F***. But he recently asked me to read up his MSN space so I did. What I found was nothing out of the ordinary. His command of English, at least written English, was at par with the greats. Although his spoken English left a lot to be desired. So it made me wonder how easily one could portray
true character on a web page.

Circumstance #2:
Some errors that I committed, not
completely in ignorance, made me regret them and made me mend my ways... So far at least. So, for some reason, an online abode seemed a good getaway from what happens outside my Etisalat connection.

Circumstance #3:
Google bought YouTube off Chad Hurley and Steve Chen for $1.65 Billion. $1.65 BILLION. What the hell.

Circumstance #4:
*scenario with friends*
mali: What am I the ONLY guy with no blog?!


So those amongst others were good reasons to start a blog myself... So I went about it with quite some vigor. When I finally reached the, "Name your blog" page I chose the tag line, "Boldly Going Nowhere.." I thought it emphasized a lot of things in life...especially mine... Also because that was what was written on the Universal Studios T-shirt that I happened to be wearing right then.... Unfortunately some other bloke already used taht as his Blog URL so I decided on something else...

For the link I thought of, "withoutamap" . I thought it went well with the tag line. Unfortunately somebody else already took that along with my originality. So I turned to the 21st century. Who uses Maps? GPS. The solution offered by people with too much knowledge, willpower, effort etc etc... And a lot of time apparently...

Anyway... Let's hope this is something that I can keep running without lazying out of anytime soon.

happy blogging...

xx