vandal

while watching some reality tv about carlo's bakery (been there...its good) in hoboken, a commercial came on for sharpie markers.  it made me want to make a poster or something.  of course, i could go out and buy a pack but i'm afraid id do something stupid and immature with them.  no, i dont think i'd be the guy that writes poems and racist stuff in the last stall of a public restroom but sometimes i struggle to avoid doing dumb things. 

one fateful spring afternoon in 6th grade i got off of the schoolbus and decided to quickly scribble on the outside of the bus.  i wrote "something" and ran off but little did i know that the bus driver was watching me while i committed the crime.  damn those huge side view mirrors.  anyway the next day i was called into the principal's office and i got myself a few detentions...along with a rag and cleaner.  i had to clean the bus.

so yeah there is a history to me and dumb stuff. 

in service of the people.

i was once listening to a writer being interviewed on npr and he was saying his writing is often influenced by his dreams.  if i did that it would be a most disturbing novel indeed.  at the very least it would be random as hell.

so here it goes:

i had a dream last night in which i was at home chillin... doing a whole lotta nothing when suddenly i realized i was a congressman.  apparently what happened was i halfheartedly tossed my name into the election ballot and by chance i won.  just nobody told me that i won.  so i ended up missing almost 3 months of my term sitting at home...again, doing a whole lotta nothing.  well i raced off to get to dc and when i got there i went straight to capitol hill and found where all the congressmen were.  i found my chair as congress was in the middle of a debate.  it was some issue about water actually.  anyway i sat down and it was pretty damn boring.  i was  having trouble staying awake after a few minutes of listening so i just kept a low profile.  as some lady was talking about water, there was some old senator standing nearby and kind of taunting all the representatives because he was trying to move the proceedings along.  he thought he was better than all of us representatives.  what a jerk.

anyway i left the meeting realizing that i was never even officially sworn in...oops.  and i was scared that i started so late that my constituents might not reelect me after having missed so many votes.

random political crap:

love the spelling correction.

arachnaphobia was a horrible movie, but toy story 3 will be the shiz.

few things are more annoying than when you are enjoying a nice walk and you realize you walked into a web.  one time i did it and the spider was on me too.  i didnt realize it until i had a weird feeling on my arm. 

usually, when i walk into a web its when i am taking out the trash.  i already hate taking the trash out but the web is just infuriating.  what i dont get is sometimes i just walked through the spot and then when im coming back there is a web that wasnt there two seconds ago.  is the spider messing with me?

cuz i'll stomp him.

arab groceries, bill cosby, and turkey.

about a week ago a middle eastern friend of mine was telling me about a new arab grocery store that opened near my house.  well i wanted to check it out and finally, this past saturday i had a chance to go.  the guys who own the place were nice ( i got to taste all kinds of cheeses made from all kinds of animals) and although i only went to check it out, i felt like i had to buy something too.  so my cousin and i started looking for something to get and we bought some of those fruity fake beer looking drinks and lunch meat turkey.  well heading back home i was in a separate car from my cousin who started to signal me to put my window down and then he urgently told me that i needed to listen to 96.5 on the radio.  i flipped over and i realized what a dirty prank he just played.  it was that stupid song...something like...my chick bad, my chic hood, my chick do stuff that yo chick wish she could.  ludacris goes on to repeat stuff about certified strippers and being all alone.  i dunno.

at that point i remembered bill cosby.

if you watched the cosby show you would remember that he often made some damn awesome sandwiches.  being a lover of good food, i couldnt help but think that cosby's sandwiches were a lot like the chicks in that song.  bad, hood, and doing stuff i wished my sandwiches could.

i always wanted them to glow in the dark.

how come the green tasbihs dont glow in the dark?  they look like they should.  i want them to.  but they never do. 

at jumah and i was looking around and i saw that they had some 50 tasbihs (might be a bit overboard) hanging on a wall.  of the 50 i would say at least half were of that seemingly glow in the dark green color.  its weird that the neon/soft green is the predominant shade i see everywhere.  if you know what a tasbih is, then you know the shade im talking about.

the other weird thing about tasbihs is how much of a market share they have of religious stuffs.  at the masjid for example, i see a few used but why keep so many?  the variety is awesome too.  there are natural wood ones, plastic/synthetic ones, and even heavy expensive looking ones.  even the string varies too.  it could be yarn, nylon...sometimes the beads are loose.  sometimes tight.  tight ones never work well because you cant exactly get the ones you finished apart from the ones you are doing.

and those little clicking counter ones.  those are the worst. those ones are usually chromed out but they should be the glow in the dark green.  apparently its tradition.

could be madness, could be genius

yesterday my uncle swapped cars with me so he could move out my cousin from college and ive been cruising around in their car and of course using the car radio at the same time.  i figured i would just use the preset buttons to switch stations and as i flipped through buttons 1 through 6, and then bands FM1, FM2, and FM3 i realized there was no logic to the presettings.  in fact no one used FM2 or FM3.  they were still factory preset stations mostly.  the FM they actually used was just seemingly randomly set to stations they like to listen to but not in any order.

but now i wonder.  am i the only person who organizes presets?

i used to preset them by stations in numerical order but that ended about a month ago after years of having to switch to FM2 to listen to 104.5... which is obviously pretty high on the dial.  so now i do it in the order of my most commonly listened to stations in the order i listen.  convenient and organized.

NPR, ESPN radio, Rap, Rap, Rock/Alternative, Indie.  how hip hop and rap stations got in there twice is a mystery.

sometimes you do paperwork

other times you do paperwork and listen to bob marley.  today is that kind of day.  its also cold and rainy and  i spilled coffee on my shoes and pant leg.  but its not as bad as the time i got owned by hazlenut coffee and the whole day i had to deal with that smell.  that was another kind of day. 

dont make me choose.

sdriving home today i was sort of lamenting a new road being constructed nearby my house.  partly because i dreaded the traffic increase that would follow  and partly because of how many trees were cut down to make room for it.  but because my mind wanders too much, my thoughts didnt end there.

i started to think about all those living tree dudes in lord of the rings and how so many of them were killed by sauron and his army.  i wasnt just pissed when they showed the dead trees and forest but i was sad.  i think i got a little emotional even.

in lotr, there were countless dead humans but all the death and destruction was meaningless to me until i saw the trees get some.  i checked moviebodycounts.com to verify if i really was as twisted as i started to think i was.  the site confirmed it.  LOTR II and III are some of the highest movies in body counts.  in fact the 3rd part is 1st place.  yet all i remember is the trees!

here comes the worst part.  if i was so affected by the trees being cut down in the movie (apparently more so than the dead humans), then why did i have so much fun cutting a tree down yesterday in my yard?  few times in my life have i felt so accomplished as i did when that thing started to tip over and fall.  please dont hate me.  the tree was getting all up in the house.  i swear.

and i do plant a lot of stuff too.

open wide, i know you thirstay.

What the hell is a baby carrot?  They always look perfect, clean, and always taste good.  I have hard time believing that natural foods can be so uniform.  It's like orange juice from Tropicana.  If it's fresh squeezed orange juice then why does every carton taste the same since I was a kid?  Not a single bad orange ever?  i imagine that a baby carrot is a regular carrot cut really weird but what happens to all the rest of the carrot?  they need to do a "how its made" segment on the discovery channel.  id be interested.

adnan got me addicted to bulleh shah. the translation i found is clunky compared to the poem itself.

BULHE NU SAMJHAWAN AAINAN BHAINAN TE BHARJAIAN
MAN NE BULHYA SADA KAHNA CHAD DE PALLA RAIAAN
AAL-E NABI AULAD-E NABI NUN TOON KION LEEKAN LAINAN
JEHRA SANOON SYED SADDE DOZAKH MILAN SAZAIAAN
JO KOI SANOON RAEEN AAKHE BHISHTEEN PEENGAN PAIAAN
RAEEN SAEEN SABHI THAEEN RAB DIAN BE PARWAAIAN
SOHNIAN PARE HATAIAN NE TE KOJHIAN LE GAL LAAIAN
JE TU LOREEN BAAGH BAHAARAN CHAKAR HO JA RAEEAN
BULHE SHAH DI ZAAT KI PUCHNA-EN SHAKAR HO RAZAAIAN

To counsel Bulleh, his sisters and sisters in law have come.
Pay heed to us and give up mixing with the low caste Araeen,
You are a scion of Ali,the Prophet, why must you shame our fair clime.
Those who call me Syed, are destined to hell made for them,
Those who call me Araeen, have the swings in heaven laid for them.
The low caste and the high caste, are created by God who cares not for family.
He regards the beautiful and cherishes the not so comely.
If you wish to enjoy the glory of the Garden, go and serve the Araeen.
Why bother about Bulleh’s caste? Obey the command that comes from Saeen [God].