Of Why I Wish Pakistan Was California

Really, and it's not because of the beaches and the babes... that's just second on my list of priorities.

Who is the Governor of California? That's Right! Arnold Schwarzenegger! Arnie Bhai!

I am a huge fan of Arnie movies. And if you've only seen the the Terminator series, stop reading right now, go rent True Lies, Commando, Total Recall, Predator, Eraser and Last Action Hero.

That said, the charm of any Arnie movie is not the story. Heck in those days the story was too formulaic. In a nutshell any movie falling in the Lone Hero Action genre followed the typical pattern:

1. Hero has retired from his ways of killing and saving people to live with his relatives in peace.

2. Villain decides to either:
--> a Hold-a-lot-of-people-hostage-including-the-Hero's-relative get rich quick scheme
-->Kill/hold hostage Hero's relatives to exact revenge on Hero, for foiling get rich quick scheme / killing Villain's own evil relative, by luring him into Villainous Base peppered with henchmen.

3. Hero arms himself to the teeth, goes after Villain, killing most of the henchmen is creative ways. Note that minions are cannon fodder, and disposed of easily, whereas henchmen are the sleazy lot who directly answer to the villain and are mentioned by character's name in the ending credits.

4. Villain threatens Hero's relative with torture and death, enraging the hero

5. Hero kills Villain and saves the day. Also disables any bomb(s) before the countdown reaches "00:01"

That being said. The main objective of these movies wasn't a story that moved you to the point of tears or make you sit and wonder the philosophical implications of the story. It was to showcase the stunt team's outrageous ideas and how the effects team made you believe that everything you saw was real. As for the writers, they shone the brightest by writing dialogue for the Hero. Nothing complicated or intense mind you, just some awesome sound bytes shoved in between punches.

Some awesome Arnie Quotes:

Movie: Commando (Arnie is Matrix)
Bad Guy: You scared, m****f****? Well, you should be, because this Green Beret is going to kick your big ass!
Matrix: I eat Green Berets for breakfast. And right now, I'm very hungry!

[Plane refuses to start, and the minions are catching up]
Matrix: Come on, you piece of shit.
[Punches the controls]
Matrix: Fly or die!
(And somehow, the plane starts - I bet Top Gun Man would have an issue with this, but I found it hilarious. Especially since a few moments back Arnie bashed a guy's head into a pole repeatedly just to knock him out)

Movie: Total Recall (Arnie as Quaid)
[So, Arnie's wife is trying to kill him, since he's uncovered a huge conspiracy where he's being used and his wife's one of the main ringleaders. Wife's beaten Arnie to the ground and is about to stab him when he grabs a nearby pistol and shoots her in the head]
Quaid: Consider that a divorce!

Quotes aside, the way Arnie goes about rescuing someone is equally entertaining. Like for example, anyone who's seen True Lies would remember the Harrier scene near the end. Arnold's daughter's been kidnapped by Muslim terrorists and being held on like the 50th floor of a skyscraper. His solution? He flies a Harrier and uses the onboard rail-gun to kill everyone while his daughter hides somewhere. Skip a bit forward. Muslim terrorists in a helicopter are trying to blow Arnie out of the sky, their leader and Arnie's daughter are hanging on for dear life on the wings of the Harrier. Well, the leader is trying to stab both of them to death. Suddenly (after daughter is in the cockpit) the leader slips and wedgies himself onto a missile. Arnie, being a man of very very few words says this: "You're Fired!" and launches the missile towards the helicopter.

Can you expect that level of awesome from our leaders? Fine, I may be blurring the lines between movies and reality. But come on! When Musharraf was coming to overthrow Nawaz Sharif, Nawaz decided not to let his plane touch the tarmac. Can you imagine Musharraf storming into the cockpit and kicking the controls yelling"LAND OR DIE!" Can you imagine a Musharraf cornering a supremely outraged Nawaz in front of the presidential palace's geyser, ripping off a 6 inch thick steel pipe and throwing it at Nawaz and saying, "Let off some steam" (pipe gone through Nawaz and geyser, billowing out hot steam).

Leave all that, can you imagine letting Musharraf lose in Buner, N.W.F.P to deal with the Taliban threat? 5 Hours later he comes out, clothes tattered and caked blood and grime all over him, followed by gracious (and liberated) hostages, carrying three children in his arms, only to meet G.W.Bush there to getting ready to fight his war on terror with his predator drones and what not. G.W. sees Musharraf and asks, "Musharraf! Leave anything for us?" Musharraf looks with a steely gaze at G.W. and says "Only Bodies"

If that actually happened, America would never dare touch Pakistan. Sadly, our leaders aren't that cool.

Sorry for making this post chronologically ancient. Thanks to Zardari's new law to imprison people who make fun of him, I had to go back in time and use older, less entertaining examples. After all, I've already lost 4 years on my education, I don't want to make that 4 into an 18!

This post in no way makes fun of Zardari (hey, his name's mentioned only twice and one pronoun)

Of A Whacky Dream

I've officially reached the point where I don't know what's real anymore.

I am waiting for Morpheus to come and ask me to take a pill. Then I'd Kung-Fu . . . Not like an obese panda mind you.

I woke up 15 minutes ago. Had the most senseless dream ever. Filled with Arnie Quotes and Random explosions (I vaguely remember my sandwich exploding at one point, and my wallet at another) in the end, Dad comes and gives me a Nestle's Apple Juice, which I take and go to sleep.

Problem is, I woke up with the juice pack under my pillow. =/

Arnie post needs some work. Will be up soon.

Of A New Coat Of The Same Paint

Why change something that's working so well for you?

So, the only thing that bugged me about Blogger's templates was the fact that they wasted 3 inches of screen real estate. Rather than make my posts look obscenely long (because sometimes they are) I wanted to utilise those 3 inches somehow. Scouring online templates didn't yield any results since I loved the whole dark green /blue potato-ness the blog already reeked off.

... I was supposed to rant about Arnold Schwarzenegger (without spellcheck I'd never be able to type out his name.) But I guess that's postponed till I wake up.

So, today I installed Dreamweaver MX in hopes of editing the .xml file of the layout. Dreamweaver went over my head. Next I installed Frontpage. Same thing, though this time, it just gave me a huge page of code and gibberish.

So, using trusty old Notepad, and Photoshop, I edited the values painstakingly, made a new banner since the old one didn't fill up the space.

Anyhoo. It's 5:00 AM. Sehri Time in a bit.

Your task, dear reader, is simple. To the right you see a poll. Vote. And if you have something additional to say, then comment here.

Cheers and Good Morning to you all!

Of Rain Rain Whattay Pain

Last thing my TV said to me yesterday morning was:

And the steady rainfall in Karachi has made things really pleasant for the people, about a 100 KESC feeders tripped causing 12 hour blackouts in some areas, A dozen people died due to electrocution....

That's it. Then the cable shut off. No TV. No Interwebs. No nothing. GAH!

Also, I was called "king" by a commenter, which led me to remember MegaDeth's "Kill the King". Which provoked this itch in me to listen to the band again. And I didn't have a single song because I had to make room for my Orange Range collection. Do you realise how annoying it is to have your head buzzing with "Peace Sells... Peace Sells.. But Who's Buying??" and "I'll Get Even With You" and whatever other scraps of songs I could remember. Finally having the interwebs back online means I can listen to them! :D (Also, this is pretty much how any of my obsessions start)

Of ...Ummmm.. ??

All together now: "Haaaainnnnn?"
* tilt head to one side *

What were they thinking when they named it? What the hell happened to Scotch Brite and it's ultra idiotic knock-off Sketch-Bright (or something similar) Was the creative team high? Or is there a slogan I'm missing out on (Like "Virgin Scrubbing Pad: Makes your Pots and Pans, Pure and Clean")