Of The Invasion of Copyright Infringement Proportions

Look at that! I changed my Blog Header.

Every time I look at some random person’s blog, I see that at one point or another most of you have redecorated your blog for some reason or the other

• Maybe it was a mid-life crisis
• Maybe it was to impress a girl/guy who reads your blog
• Maybe it was to attract more readers
• Maybe it was because you were tired of looking at the same lame header staring back at you.

I made this blog during a quarter-life crisis, I don’t feel that there is a need to attract more attention, and I didn’t really get tired of the image. As for the bit about impressing someone, that’s still up in the air.

As some of you may or may not know, I recently changed the layout of my blog. Recently is a relative term. I changed the template a year or so ago. Didn’t like it, stopped blogging. Then I fixed it up, But the header was short…

Do you really want to know the thought process behind it?

Just scroll up and stare at it for a bit. Let the beauty sink in. It took me an entire day just to get it right. Well, I gave up editing it after 10pm today.

So there. New header. Woooo!

I especially like the Potato-Man wearing the Fez. Let me know if you like something.

Of Haram Chocolate

It's too hot to write lengthy bullshit about this. So I'll leave you with just this picture.

Of How To Deal With People…

…Who Annoy You.

Before I begin this educational tutorial, I would like to clarify something. This post, was solely aimed at those people who are either hypocrites, or promoters of religious violence and hate. The rest of you can carry on what you’re doing and I wouldn’t mind in the slightest.

Since Pseudo-Mullahs annoy me the most. I take it upon myself to mess with their heads whenever I am feeling brilliant enough to do so. Normally however, I don’t bother. If they break through my ignorance threshold I’d swear at them and leave.

One incident was so awesome, that really I have to share it with you guys.

Behold. The generic misguided young priest. This guy is pretty much the kind of person who annoys me to the point where my blood boils. He’d come up and tell you “Eating food with Shias, and Aga-Khanis around is worse than eating with your left hand – It’s written in the Quran”

Bullshit Alert.

You ask him for the exact reference, and he asks for a day to go home and check it. Next day he ignores you until you corner him. Then he says, “Sorry, it wasn’t the Quran, it was the Hadees”

Bullshit Alert.

Ask for a reference and the same thing happens. Vanished for a day, came back, ignored, finally cornered and claimed it was something said by the companions of the Prophet.

Yet, that is a part of his core values, which is just messed up if you ask me.

So one fine day, I was enjoying a smoke and he happened to sit nearby and told me that I should control where I exhaled. Dude, I don’t have control over the wind. Yet, I moved away. He complained again, and this time snatched my cigarette and demolished it under his Peshawari Chappal.

So. Since he was just begging for it. I joined his conversation. Just to see if I could confuse him to the point of shutting him up for a while.

Now keep in mind that most of this is purely bullshit. There is a lot of theoretic physics involved. But that’s it.

Miracle Analysis with Physics – 1

Static Electricity produces an attractive or repulsive force in a circular field around it. A common physics experiment is bringing a negatively charged object to a stream of water. The stream bends towards the object. So if we extrapolate the same principle on a much larger scale. Hazrat Musa’s staff wasn’t magical. Just a giant static conductor amongst other things.

Proof? Well, remember how he walked down the floor of the Red Sea with the water parting in front of him and closing behind him. That gives the impression that it was a circular gap. Hence. Proved.

Miracle Analysis with Physics – 2

Now this is complicated. See, deep space experiments have proven that space and time act like a fabric. Time behaves differently dependant on gravity. Since you (the misguided molvi) can’t give me a credible source to save your life, go read The Brief History of Space and Time by Stephen Hawkings. Anyways, in that book, along with countless other scientists, it is possible to create two holes in the fabric of space and time, connect them, and send matter from one end to another. While mass is travelling from one end to the other, time stops, and all the forces applied to the matter continue to act on it when it exits the wormhole. This is the Wormhole Principle.

There is another principle called Teleportation. What happens is, matter is completely scanned and transmitted between two points at the speed of light. The same way a fax is sent. Only, in order to transmit the object, it is broken down into atoms and then sent. So technically, it doesn’t exist until it’s reassembled. For a living thing that is the same as dying.

Now go think about it. Which miracle does this remind you of? The Night of the Mirage.

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Suffice to say, he has never bothered me after that. Nor has he declared me Wajib-ul-Qatal. I think of this as a public service.

I apologise to anyone whom I may have offended. The apology is limited to my first, and my last religious posts. If anything else offends you, quit reading.

EDIT: A friend I showed this post to posed a hypothetical question. “What if, for the sake of argument, the guy you were messing with asked you how these two Prophets came into possession of such technologically advanced items. How will you prove your theory then?

I just looked at him for a few seconds, and then, rather than give a sound logical argument I gave him this:

If Linux-Loving-Atheists can pull this off, why can’t I?

Of Being Surrounded By Impossible Things

This world runs on fixed patterns. You might call it physics or the will of God.

Imagine waking up looking down at your bed. Yeah, you’re on your roof, looking at the world upside down. That’s probably going to freak you out right?

In my experience, electronics end up defying the laws of physics more often that people would like.

For someone as obsessive about his gadgets as I am, this gets a bit harrowing after a while.

In layman terms, a bottle of water cannot contain more than it’s designed capacity. No matter how hard you try you cannot fill a one litre bottle with two litres. At least not in anyway where the water would be useable.

My laptop’s battery broke the laws of physics governing capacity. Observe.

For the layman, the battery should have 5200 units of energy, which would last you 2 hours with normal usage. For some reason, it ended up having 60K more than it should. And going by the new capacity it’s supposed to last for nearly an entire day. It lasts for 15 minutes total.

Well, technically, I am to blame for that. A while back it died. No charge whatsoever. So I did what any self-respecting tech head would do. I mucked around until I could get it to work. Mucking around also involved stabbing it’s contacts with a knife at one point.

Today, my phone’s memory card was giving me problems. So, took it out, plugged it into a reader and checked the specs. I don’t even know how to explain what I saw. So I took a screenshot (and decided to do a blog post about it.)

Yeah. The entire card is a 4GB one. However, just the pictures tat 74 freaking gigs.

This laptop should never have worked. Yet it stayed with me, tolerating my antics for the better part of 2 years.

You know, I think we should have a Zubaida Aapa for Gadgets. Can you imagine how simple life would be if she started giving tech help?

“Agar aap ka computer neeli screen dekha ker band ho jaye, to side ka cover utar ke ek chota panka laga dein aur phir chalaien, Neeli screen nehi aaye gi!”

“Agar aap ki kisi bhi cheez ki rechargeable battery charge na ho, to usko ek theli mein band kerke do ghanton ke leay freeze kerein. Freezer se nikalne ke baad usko room temperature pe aane dein, aur charge kerein. Aap ki battery chal parey gi!”

(I bet most of you read it in her voice didn’t you?)

Of The Second Unmentionable

That’s right ladies and gents. The second part of the unmentionable series is up.

Today we’ll focus on religion. Hide yo’ wife, hide yo’ kids, ‘cause this shit’s gonna get ugly by the time I am done with it.

TO THE RELIGIOUS NUTBAGS:

We all know you love your God. We all believe in one form of higher power or another. The keeper of cosmic balance, Allah, Bhagwan, God, Great Spaghetti Monster, Cuthulu or whatever.

That is unless you are an Atheist internet troll who loves quoting Wikipedia articles and just proving your intellectual superiority. We all know you’re overcompensating. So shut up and keep reading.

I have to deal with Muslims in majority, being a resident of a Muslim country, and being somewhat of a Muslim myself. What I really detest is how everyone with a beard thinks he can tell me about the God I believe in. The fact that you think you know more than anyone else does not justify you to preach. Religion is meant to be between you and your God.

Would you like it if someone with a gigantic penis wrenched your mouth open and shoved it down your throat just to prove that he is indeed well-endowed? Obviously not. There is a time, place and a way to approach such a topic. Yet, most people practice the same amount of delicacy as the aforementioned metaphor.

Do you honestly believe that when the Quran says God will protect his words to man from the hands of evil-doers gives you the right to believe everything that your Imams and Molvis and Sheikhs spout out of their food-holes?

Us Muslims are divided into so many pointless factions, each calling the other one blasphemous JUST BECAUSE THEIR PRIEST SAID SO.

Since you love interpretation so much, here’s a side of logic to go with it.

Do you not agree that Islam teaches us tolerance, and promotes peace?

Where was your tolerance when a newspaper in Norway made that cartoon. People like you stalked and threatened the artist. An artist who was, a woman, not a Muslim, doing her job. It is only natural that people saw you as bullies. Draw Mohammad Day would have never happened if you showed some tolerance. “God is all seeing and will smite the evil doers” remember? Yet some of you have this need to dispense justice by your hands.

Do you not agree that the word of God and the teachings of the Holy Prophet are irrefutable?

Then who gave the priests and imams the right to make their own interpretations. In the last four years I have heard some absolute bullshit. I will not repeat that nonsense out of respect for my friends and readers. Most of this bullshit falls in the questionable practices category. And they usually start with “Since we’re from the same sect, I thought I should tell you something I learned about this other sect which some of your friends follow…” Next thing you know, the sheep start distrusting each other.

You know what the most shameful thing is?

People born into religion are mostly hypocrites. You know what I am talking about. Every one of you know at least one hypocrite.

• The kind of person who appropriately throws Mashallah, Subhanallah and Inshallah while holding a beer in his/her hand.
• The man who is drunk throughout the year. He makes life hell for his kids and his wife, yet has the audacity to become a pious praying machine during Ramzaan. His bottle of vodka gets replaced by the Quran and his glass of ice turns into prayer beads
• The bearded Molvi-sahab who for all intents looks like the most pious person. He hangs out in front of tuition centres leering at the young women exiting the building. And he gets itchy-ball syndrome whenever women pass his field of vision.
• The wannabe Arab. He has no family in Saudi, he loves calling(?) his priest friends over the phone and discuss some interpretation or another in Arabic while in a public setting. (He is also one of the outlets of religious bullshit I mentioned earlier)

At least I know my limitations, and I have the decency not to pretend that I am better than you. It’s time you people should learn a lesson in humility.

Sincerely

A Not-So-Religious-Potato

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If you’re wondering what brought about this rant into creation. I got a little sick of the constant opinions of others I had to listen to in real life. I have my ways to deal with them. Once I get the comics made I’ll put it up (Hey, I know how this sounds but I have people putting external pressure on me so it will get done)

And it’s sad to see that most of the bullshit I have seen personally, happens to be generated by Sunni priests. I mean, enough with the hate. I can be friends with Aga-Khanis, Ahmedis, Shias, and some other religious sect without them trying to force covert me. Or make me kill little babies and fling their entrails to crows.

In fact you know what, I detest the company of my Sunni friends at times. At least the others have the decency to speak politely and appropriately at all times. The Sunnis have no tact.

Last year during a school trip a Deobandi (Thanks KK, for telling me the actual sect) said something horrible in the company of one of the best people I know in uni. A blood-bath might have ensured. If it weren’t for a senior who took matters into his hands and calmly resolved the incident. Both people mentioned were Shia. I trust I’ve made my point.

The only reason I keep portraying Sunnis in a bad light is because only they have the guts to come up to me and tell me how evil another sect is. For you it might not be the same case.  

This isn’t to spark a religious debate. Flames and shit will not be entertained. All I ask you to do is carefully analyse your personality. Ask yourself if you are a hypocrite. If everything you do is by the book. If you’re confused about something, research. Everyone might have different interpretations but if you look hard enough you’ll find one that your heart and soul will be able to accept.

And for the sake of everyone’s sanity, Don’t preach to people who are obviously not interested. I mean, we all can’t go swearing at preachers for ruining our already bad day now can we?

Of Emergency Rooms and Ultrasounds

Yesterday, dearest dad of mine (note sarcasm here – it’s crucial to this post that you note the sarcasm) decided to get sick. Violently sick.

Now, any doctor can tell you that in this heat, and economic recession, it is best if one eats home cooked meals. Meals given by cart vendors are unhygienic to say the least. Food spoils before you can say “Faluda”

The funny thing is. My dad is a doctor himself.

So dad ate some weird kerelas and got ill. His entire digestive system got fucked up. Finally he couldn’t take it and asked Mum to drive him to the emergency room in PNS Shifa.

Now mum doesn’t like to drive alone at night, so naturally, I got dragged along.

We went in at 10pm. Blood tests, ECG and and a battery of other tests were conducted. Finally we had to take him to the other end of the hospital for an ultrasound. Since they gave him a strong painkiller, he was quite delirious. Hence, I got to push him around in a wheelchair.

Let me tell you. I hate it when people in wheelchairs randomly stick their arm out for no particular reason. If you want me to turn left, say so. Don’t stick your hand out in the air. Especially in doorframes.

So, the ultrasound department was down a slope. Me and mum were contemplating on letting the wheelchair go and let dad find his way down himself.

We controlled ourselves. Woke up the ultrasound attendant, and got his ultrasound taken.

Now, being a naturally curious person, I decided to check what the hell showed up on the monitors.

It was 1am, I was tired, and sleepy and hungry and headed towards nicotine withdrawal.

Suddenly, this popped up on the monitors. Right next to the liver was this dancing abomination. I have no idea what it was, but damn it was funny as hell. Apparently the doctor in charge felt that the dancing abomination was important so she took a picture of it.

And here’s the picture.

If anyone has any idea what the hell this is, kindly let me know.

Of Careful Observations

What is the Pakistani population’s favourite pastime? Sports? Gossip? Debates about Ninjas and Pirates?

No. Their favourite pastime is to over-analyse stuff and discover conspiracies. Conspiracies that have no logical proof.

A samosa is a triangle, OMG it’s the Illuminati trying to take over our freedom.

That car has 666 in it’s number-plate. It’s the devil’s doing. Lets burn it.

Now as with any political campaign, there will be mudslingers by the opposition. The following picture, started out as a joke apparently by some PTI supporter, but in 3 days, has morphed into something damaging.

Yeah. Let’s all over-analyse a simple hand-gesture and go bat-shit crazy that Imran Khan supports the Illuminati. Well, two can play at that game.

I recently saw a PPP sticker-poster-thingy for their campaign. Since I was without my phone or camera at that time, I never got a chance to take the picture. Nor did the PPP Peeps bother to put it up on the internet for me to find. So I’ll replicate it here.

I asked Furree Katt, who by the way is an excellent blogger, a pretty decent artist, a cat lover, and a fellow cat-food connoisseur. You should really check out her blog AFTER you’ve finished reading this post.

In case your technological ineptitude somehow manages to lead you to a random blog, cross-check the header with this picture. If different, click on this picture.

So anyways, I asked Furree to draw me a rendition of the sticker-poster-thingy. Now this is an exact, albeit cartoonish replica of the original sans text. 

Looks innocent enough. You are wrong. Observe.

Look at Bilawal’s aggressive pose. The raised fist, the angry expression, the blood thirsty look in his beady bespectacled eyes.

Look at Benazir’s happy face, her friendly demeanour, her victory pose.

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Now look at all those things combined. Bilawal is angry, borderline violent. Benazir was winning. The arrow points at Benazir. The trajectory of the arrow is at her head. Substitute the arrow for a bullet, and what do you get?

Bilawal is responsible for Benazir’s murder. Not the incompetent Zardari.

Do I hear you say “Imo, it’s all bullshit. You can’t expect us to believe that”

Well, unlike you, I have a magical dust that turns bullshit into sound logical arguments. It’s called shut-your-face-and-keep-reading.

While I was scouring the interweb, look at what I found.

Which looks a lot like this

Hence:

“Kids, this the story of…

This is merely satire. No need to get your zaarbans and elastics in a bunch.

Of The First Unmentionable

Didn’t anyone ever tell you there are two topics on this planet that you must never ever mention in civilised public. If you’re smart; if you value your continued existence; if you have any hope of seeing tomorrow; there are two topics you must never ever discuss.

“And what would those be?” Do I hear you ask?

Politics and Religion.

I need to be dramatic. People just don’t get it. Everyone has their own opinions. For this post, we’ll be focusing on politics.

See, a week or so ago, this country experienced a democratic election. Now while that is pleasant to read about, it’s was a totally different event in reality.

You are all familiar with the poll rigging. Since I am from Karachi, my experience with voting was an extremely tiring one. Our polling station never opened. It was supposed to open at 1pm after the delays, then 5pm, then 7pm. Finally I made my sixth round at 8pm, in the hopes that maybe I would finally finish my civil obligation.

I reached the place and guess what, no one was there. I mean have you ever been to a desert? Or Phase VIII? Same thing, yet, the MQM representatives standing near it kept on insisting that voting took place at 1pm and carried on till 7pm.

Right. I totally believe you shits.

Now lets move on to our resident mafia, MQM. Their supporters and bandwagon-ers just don’t seem to understand how a staggering majority of the educated youth of our nation don’t support that political party.

Raise your hands if you know an MQM supporter from our generation (i.e. falling between the ages of 15-25)

Now if said friend is temperamental, puts up display pictures of him carrying firearms, talks about his unit, or brags about what a hardcore bhai he is. Raise your other hand if you agree to at least one of these points.

You look stupid with both hands raised. You just surrendered to this blog. Also, since I can’t see you raising your hands (and thus attaining a level of voyeur that I haven’t reached – or rather would not want to dream of reaching… ever! It’s like chatroulette and omeggle all over again.)

Anyways. Sorry, got distracted. Since I can’t see you raising your hands, I’ll assume you did.

That is what I am talking about. For us, for the “future of Pakistan”, MQM supporters are thugs. That is our perception. We have been brought up with stories of how MQM suspended a paper in Sir Syed, or practically shut down the city because someone died.

Fine, I agree that when MQM was founded, it was for a good cause, but everywhere you look, you’ll see a glaring reminder that power corrupts. The ones in charge of everything are the ones that stray from the path first.

So back to my voting experience. Our sector got a re-poll. And the turnout was pathetic. This little fact made certain MQM supporters I know really happy. So happy that the thought rubbing it in my face would be the best option. It’s amazing how easy it is to shut up the supporters I know with two logical arguments.

A) MQM and PPP boycotted the re-poll and withdrew their candidates. Therefore, everyone voting would be mostly a supporter for the competition. Possibly a PTI supporter. Which means, there was a high chance of something bad happening if even a small crack was found in the security of the polling station.

B) Not 8 hours prior to the re-poll, the PTI VP got shot in front of her house. With something like that happening in the neighbourhood, do you really feel safe? Is the army going to escort you to and from the polling station?

Point out that thanks to these two events, by going to the re-poll you might have just painted a bulls-eye on your forehead, and guess what they do. They devolve into making crass comments about your family and speculations about your sexuality.

Yani, logical argument gaya tail lene.

If you’re still reading this post, lets make one thing clear. I do not support any political party for one reason. Everyone is being led by a dumbass in one form or another. A fugitive, An illiterate, A cricketer, and so on.

Spread the word. Keep your political affiliations to yourself. We don’t want to hear about them. If people like me do, we’ll reduce you to petty name calling and reduce your arguments systematically.

There is a hidden agenda to this post. I am making you more receptive to new ideas. This is important because as soon as Furree Katt makes those images I asked / she offered, I’ll be back to piss another party’s supporters off.

Of What The Hell Did I Write Back Then

Making a comeback is hard. You have to will yourself to write meaning full shit. Well, somewhat meaningful. I mean, I never wrote stuff that shattered mountains or split lakes.

Anyways, Blogger brings out the narcissist in all of us with it’s tracking options.

Imagine my surprise when I saw this:

Apparently, I somehow struck a goldmine when I wrote the Fair Skin post (click on it if you haven’t read it or don’t remember it)

See, turns out that single post, got visits from all across the globe. 473 unique hits is a big deal for me. It’s the kind of thing that makes me happy to write more nonsense just for your entertainment.

Of Being Back… Probably

You are probably reading this because

A. You got it in your mail

B. You’ve subscribed to this blog, and this sudden update piqued your curiosity.

C. You stumbled upon this page by accident.

Either way, lets start by having a moment of silence for the most special person in my life.

Cocoa Beans was a truly remarkable cat. For 10 years, she was an integral part of our family. The glue that held shit together if you will. Like most cats on the internet, she loved boxes, preventing people from working, terrorising small animals and pretending she was human.

She was smart. Extremely smart. She could tell time just by looking at the clock, knowing whether or not it was safe to drag someone out of their bed for food or whether someone was late etc. She knew which days of the week were designated outing days for her… Hey, she was smarter than most cats I’ve seen.

This one time, she was sleeping in her box-lid bed on the parent’s bed. Half-asleep, dad kicked the box (including her) nearly off the bed. She got up, calmly stalked up to his face, slapped him hard and went back to sleep. Morning came and mum told us about the incident. Dad had an inch long gash running up his nose. Cocoa gave him her worst death glare, the kind that can be interpreted as “Come at me and I’ll fuck you up”

Sadly, all good times must end. Two years ago, she got lumps on her belly. The vet declared them to be benign cysts and removed them. They came back. Got them removed again. The third time they came back, he re-evaluated his earlier diagnosis and claimed that she had breast cancer. To make matters worse, he couldn’t operate on her again. The previous operations had removed many of her lymph nodes. Any more and her immunity would be compromised.

So the only option that remained was to keep her comfortable for as long as we could. When the time came, either she’d pass away on her own, or we’d have to put her to sleep.

That’s how she spent the last three months of her life. In a bloody collar. A collar that restricted her movement, caused her to bump in doorways, and made her push her box off the bed when she wanted to sleep in it.

Incidentally, this was the last time we watched Doctor Who together.

So anyways, During the end of October 2012, her wounds broke, and her condition got worse. She started to slow down. We rushed her to the vet, to try and stop the bleeding.

You know how you read about remarkable animals who do amazing feats? Well, she didn’t save Timmy from drowning in a well, but as the vet pointed out, she shouldn’t have been able to move for ages considering the condition of her wounds.

On the 1st of November, 2012, we had to put her to sleep. She fought hard, never showing us any weakness irrespective of the fact that she was in constant pain.

It’s been 6 months since then. I wonder if it gets any easier.

Thank you, for the wonderful time.

 

Now that I’ve successfully managed to ruin your mood, I think it’s safe to announce that I’ll be trying to make a comeback. Enough with the hiatuses.