Salim's World | 2004 Archive

December 14, 2004 - Death threats

I have received at least 5 threats on my life in the last couple of days, all of them made by my wife. I am beginning to rethink this whole marriage thing...

December 12, 2004 - New and improved handsfree headset

My buddy Derek is always giving me a hard time about my crappy cell phone headsets. To date I have been unable to find one that I like that is comfortable, easy to put on and take off, doesn't look super-geeky and sounds good to both parties - if anyone knows of such a beast, PLEASE let me know!

In any case, he thinks he has found the ideal low budget solution for me with this surreptitious snapshot he took while walking back from a Giants game.

December 3, 2004 - Pig races!!

I always get a kick out of silly things like this. Abizer brought this flyer back for me after he completed his road trip moving from Rapid City, SD to Las Vegas.

Let me ask you... can you think of a better way to commemorate the tragedy that this nation endured on September 11th than spending the evening at the pig races??

December 1, 2004, 11:15 pm - I feel I should be scared...

This warning label always cracks me up - it looks like it belongs on some sort of highly sensitive device housing unstable gases at some top-secret government lab. The reality is far more mundane as this is the label on the water heater in my building. It seems to me that regular folk shouldn't be allowed near something that can cause an area to burst into flames...

Moreover, I feel a little scared that this label is attached to the back of a water heater that looks like:
decrepit hot water heater

November 21, 2004 - Evil Empire

I don't think there is a corporation out there whose *name* screams "evil empire" more than Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia.

November 20, 2004 - thoughts on 100,000 miles

I had the opportunity several weeks back to drive an old Hyundai Excel - this thing had to be like 100 years old and had about 4 zillion miles on it. I don't know anyone that owns a new Hyundai, I think they come off the assembly line with 100,000 miles on them. I am just impressed that these cars last so damn long. I was immediately reminded of my roommate's Hyundai that he had in college our Junior and Senior years... for the amount of use it got, it was certainly the best bang for the buck out there!

I think everyone should own one of these at least once in their lives or live with someone who does.

November 3, 2004, 10:17 am - It's done

It's official, we're doomed.

November 3, 2004, 6:34am - The day after, still up in the air

Well, it looks like only one thing is for certain - the board of wood has won.

November 1, 2004 - The day before

Well the big presidential election is coming up tomorrow... I view this as a choice between 2 planks of wood - one candidate with the personality of a board of wood and one with the brainpower of a board of wood.

October 29, 2004 - 100,000 Miles!!

I am very excited... last Saturday afternoon (Oct 23), my car made the big jump from:

I can't believe I have had my car that long... I can't believe that I spend that much time in my car! I can't believe that I have driven the equivalent of 4 times around the planet at the equator!

October 23, 2004 - Canadian Hater

I need to set the record straight. It seems that I have been mischaracterized as someone who hates Canadians. This is totally not true - I did marry one after all...! :)

I think generally speaking Canadians are more warm, friendly and socially active than the average folk.

However, I also find them irritatingly smug and self-righteous (especially about how un-smug and un-self-righteous they think they are). This is by no means meant to imply that Americans aren't, however nobody ever calls Canadians on this whereas bashing Americans for their arrogance and hypocrisy is practically a national sport in most countries.

October 22, 2004 - Comments on a Canadian wedding

I must say that being back in not only Canada, but Powell River, two weeks back was probably one of the trippiest things that I have experienced in a long time. Actually I cannot possibly express enough thanks to those that invited, housed and put up with me that weekend because I had more fun than you could possibly realize.

However, I just want to say that the only thing which did not cause me JOY on this JOYous day, were the comments of a few rabidly-anti-american folks :).

Moreover, it needs to be stated that when bears come up in more than one conversation about unrelated incidents - there are too many bears in the area.

In any case, here are the pictures from Christina and Percy's wedding in Powell River.

October 16, 2004 - Salim vs His Freezer II: The Revenge

Before the defrosting battle - note the pot pie that is embedded into the *CEILING* of the freezer!

The steamer is just warming up...

*Now* we're talking!

After I prevailed!

Exactly 30 years ago, in the late months of 1974, well before the term "no-frost-freezer" had entered the American lexicon, my Tappan Refrigerator-Freezer was born. I inherited it in 1996 and I knew from the beginning that it didn't like me. It was responsible for numerous instances of freezer-burn and I am pretty sure that it ate half a tub of ice cream. For seven years we endured these little "border disputes" when finally my freezer made a full scale attack. After about a week of battle I defeated it. This battle was chronicled in the first movie in the installation - Salim Vs His Freezer.

Embittered by its defeat, my freezer bided its time while rebuilding its strength. A year later it struck setting the stage for the sequel in this series.

Like all sequels, the bad guy is bigger and badder - in this case, the ice was *quite* a bit thicker and now caked across all four sides instead of three like last time.

But, also like all sequels, bigger and better weapons are featured as well, namely the Euro-Pro Shark Super Steamer

Unlike the marathon weeklong battle that ensued last time, the Shark Steamer took care of even more ice in (just) under an hour!

October 13, 2004 - Some brief thoughts on debates 1 and 3

Well, I just caught the third debate on TV then immediately watched the first from video off the internet (which I hadn't seen yet) - I do want to watch the second at some point as well, but after three full hours of presidential debates... I am done for now!

Generally speaking, I think that Kerry did a better job of actually answering the questions asked. Bush relies much more on repetition, answering each and every question asked with the same answer - regardless if it made sense or not in order to drive home a point.

In the first debate, Dubya harped on the point that Kerry is a flip flopper. He worked it in every answer that he was resolute and that Kerry was a flip flopper.

In the third debate regardless of the question - Bush's answer was education and "no child left behind". When asked about jobs and economic development - "no child left behind" was the answer. When asked about healthcare - "no child left behind" was the answer. When asked about raising the minimum wage - "no child left behind" was the answer...

Finally, in the conspiracy theory department, I thought this was pretty funny (this link too)... apparently, the story goes that in the first debate Dubya was wearing a wireless receiver and was being fed the answers by an offsite team of Republicans. After watching the first debate, this theory sure does answer a lot of questions...

October 13, 2004 - Canadian Speed

The posted speed limits in Canada are just too damn slow... and the worse thing is that Canadian cops are *soo* much better at enforcing the speeding laws than American ones are.

October 12, 2004 - YVR

I have been doing some travelling this past weekend up to Canada. Some observations from the Vancouver airport from where I had *quite* a bit of time to kill...

I couldn't believe that I actually saw sparrows inside the airport. It seemed a little scary that after all the security that you had to go through to enter the international transit lounge, it was still apparently porous enough to still allow birds to fly in and out. It raises the spectre of nuclear tipped Al Qaeda sparrows of mass destruction...
I really like the Vancouver airport because while it is very new and shiny, it retains it's personality. It is very distinctly Canadian and doesn't look like so many identical airports in Europe and Asia.
It seems to me that they would sell more porn if the newsstands weren't staffed only by young cute girls.

September 18, 2004 - Talk Radio

I thought that as soon as you called up and pledged to public radio (like the annoying man told me to), the irritating pledge drive was supposed to end *immediately* (ok, well maybe not thought that, but wished it). Since that's not how it works, I have been forced to expand my range of commute hour talk radio (until the pledge drives *do* actually end).

I generally listen to NPR because it produces intelligent (mostly) unbiased commentary and the people who call in aren't total neanderthal morons. In comparison, most of the other talk radio that is broadcast is generally unimpressive. Making the rounds this is what I found:

I have always found Rush's rantings entertaining in small doses, but I am not sure if he is no longer on the air because I can't seem to find him
Howard Stern is entertaining in *very* small doses but is generally infantile and gets old quickly
Sarah and No Name spend all of their time talking about stupid useless bullshit
Michael Savage remains a xenophobic, racist, Nazi that I can't deal with for even a second
Armstrong and Getty are mildly entertaining but have no real staying value
The biggest gem that I have found was Bill O'Reily's show

What really won me over, in the first 15 minutes that I listened to O'Reilly, he said something that was actually intelligent. This was the first time on a non-public radio station that I had ever seen someone take a point, weigh the pros and cons and make a reasoned argument - I didn't agree with his point, but that made me appreciate the way at which he went around going there all the more.

Unfortunately the moments of intelligence are few and far between and scattered among self-pitying whines about how he was cancelled from something or another or desperate self-praising pleads on how "only the Toledo times was intelligent enough to realize how great my show is while everyone just else ignored me" and there was a fair amount of other just general nonsense. However, compared to some of the tripe that is on the radio, it is not horrible.

While I am on the topic of political commentary, I think my buddy Kyong has some excellent comments on the Republican National Convention, although his "Girls of the right wing" commentary, gallery and survey are quite possibly the scariest thing that I have seen on the internet in the last month.

Sept 14, 2004 - The Canada Files

This is one of those long running projects that I have been meaning to do for a while, but had always found enough actually important things to do to never have gotten around to it. It first came to mind when I was living in Canada, then becoming engaged to a Canadian and making subsequent trips back to the frozen north added fuel to the fire. Well finally, I have managed to procrastinate away enough important things to make time for this... a reasonable compilation of my rant, raves and observations of and in Canada.

And now presenting...

Salim's World - The Canada Files

September 4, 2004 - Women's shoes

I just want to state for the record, that I do not understand women's shoes.

August 18, 2004 - Bush gets soverized

Following is the transcript (video below as well) of President Bush being questioned at a gathering of minority journalists (the UNITY conference in Washington DC, August 6, 2004):

MARK TRAHANT: Mr. President, [...] what do you think tribal sovereignty means in the 21st century and how do we resolve conflicts between tribes and the federal and state governments?

GEORGE BUSH: Tribal sovereignty means that, it's sovereign. Ohhh, I get it! You're a -- you're a -- you have been given sovereignty and you're viewed as a sovereign entity. It makes so much sense when explained like that!

MARK TRAHANT: Okay.

GEORGE BUSH: And therefore, the relationship between the federal government and tribes is one between sovereign entities. Wait, this is now the third time he said that Now, the federal government has got a responsibility on matters like education and security to help. And health care. And it's a solemn duty. Wait, Dubya's not answering the question From this perspective, we must continue to uphold that duty. I think that one of the most promising areas of all is to help with economic development, What? Economic development?? What does that have to do with the *meaning* of tribal sovereignty in the 21st century or the conflict with state and federal government?? and that means helping people understand what it means to start a business. That's why the Small Business Administration has increased loans. It means, obviously, encouraging capital flows, Whew! Glad we have Dubya on the job to define what a loan is for us! but none of that will happen unless the education systems flourish and are strong. That's why I told you, we spent $1.1 billion in reconstruction of Native American schools.

Afterwards, the Reverend Jesse Jackson held a news conference which he used to poke fun at Dubya.

BRENT MERRILL: As you saw today at the president's conference, the leader of the free world does not understand tribal sovereignty. Ouch! What would you do in your estimation, Reverend, what would you do and how would you advise tribes to educate our folks, just exactly what tribal sovereignty is?

JESSE JACKSON: The President explained. You just didn't understand. Sovereignty is sovereignty. You understand? It's like in sovereignity. If you are on a reservation, you have been soverized. Your Ph.D. is in soverbication. You understand? I don't think you understand. [laughs]

BRENT MERRILL: You're right. I didn't understand that.

Watch the streaming video, it's freakin' hilarious!! The original transcript and streaming video are available. I have a local, non-streaming copy of the video, it's 24MB, tho.

My only comment on this, is that this bumbling idiot has access to nucular weapons - if he asks nicely, he can even get access to the nuclear weapons. He has access to the most powerful military in the world. He sets the policy and tone for the largest economy in the world. Is he *really* the right guy for the job???

Now, one may make the argument that as president one can't stay up to date on the issues of every single group in the country, and that would certainly be true. However, considering that one of the four groups that organized this press event was the Native American Journalists Association, this question, or one like it, should not have come as a surprise.

All of this leaves me really impressed with Dubya's campaign machine. John Kerry has almost constantly been on the defensive about stupid trivial non-issues - many of which apply just as validly to Dubya. Kerry is completely unable to keep the conversation focused where *he* wants...

Flip flopping??? My god, did we not hear Dubya state in the 2000 presidential debates that he would avoid nation building and would use our military in a more sensible manner and not over-commit the military and that he valued smaller government??
Vietnam - regardless of whether or not Kerry threw away *all* of his medals or how much fire he actually came under while in Vietnam... he WENT TO VIETNAM... willingly... voluntarily. What did Dubya do? Well, all we know is that he is really defensive about it and won't tell anyone.

If we are going to talk about stupid issues like the above, why can't the Kerry people keep the big picture in the front of mind... like THE CURRENT PRESIDENT IS A BUMBLING IDIOT... and not let themselves get dragged down into esoteric details.

Oh enough ranting...

To finish, let's review...

Word: sovereignty	Definition: It's sovereign If you're on a reservation, you've been soverized A study of sovereignty is soverbication
Word: increased loans	Definition: encouraging capital flows

August 5, 2004

The fact that we are just now posting pictures from our wedding reception in San Francisco has less to do with the fact that we are master procrastinators and more to do with the fact that the miserable photographer took many multiple months to actually deliver the pictures to us, and it took us repeated attempts to get the CD of pictures from them. Despite a professional setup and friendly staff, the quality of many of the pictures and most of the prints were sub-standard (especially for a professional) and we ended up feeling like we would have been better off just giving a camera to one of our friends.

Overall our experience with Image Arts Etc located on Main street in downtown Los Altos was just terrible and we strongly urge people to run, not walk away from them.

Actually, before you run away - please go inside their store, ask to use their bathroom and leave a big smelly dump in the toilet without flushing. We would appreciate it. ;-)

July 29, 2004

My wife is filling out immigration forms for the INS (or USCIS or BCIS or immigration.com or Department of Homeland Security or CIS or whatever the *hell* they are called these days!) and part 3 of the I-485 form, asks a series of truly thought-provoking questions (*my* first thought being, what the f**k are these guys thinking??).

Following is a sample of some of the questions that are asked to each and every person applying for permanent residence in the United States (really, I am not making this up - see page 6 of the I-485 form (local copy)):

Have you ever:
1. within the past ten years been a prostitute or procured anyone for prostitution, or intend to engage in such activities in the future?
Have you ever engaged in... sabotage, kidnapping, political assassination, hijacking or any other form of terrorist activity?
Do you intend to engage in the U.S. in:
1. espionage?
2. any activity a purpose of which is opposition to, or the control of overthrow of, the government of the United States, by force, violence or other unlawful means?
Have you ever been a member of, of in any way affiliated with, the Communist Party or any other totalitarian party?
Have you ever engaged in genocide...?
Do you plan to practice polygamy in the U.S.?

These are questions that the government expects truthful answers to??? Additionally, question 6 baffles me - what is that still doing here? Are we really still scared of communists, do we feel that they still pose a threat to this country? Last I checked the cold was over and we won!

However, the silver lining is, who knew that the war on terror could be so easy? Someone should tell John Ashcroft of the existence of these questions immediately. He will undoubtedly have all of the immigrant spies, terrorists, prostitutes and Communists rounded up shortly!

<sigh> our tax dollars at work...

July 4, 2004

What is with the Republican party that they repeatedly elect people so dumb that they sound like elementary school dropouts?? Starting with Dan Quayle and continuing with George Dubya, people have filled entire books with idiotic, incorrect or just plain dumb things they say???

Recall the phrase "Fool me once shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me" - the below link is Dubya's eloquent personal interpretation of said quote... come on, are we going to continue to give this man access to nucular... I mean nuclear ;-) weapons!!!

Remember, a vote for George Dubya, is another vote for this guy as leader of the most powerful country in the world.

June 26, 2004

After some procrastinating and *much* heckling, we have finally posted the pictures from Mumtaz's and my wedding in India. Enjoy...

June 21, 2004

This totally cracks me up... I received the following email today...

Dear sir,
Greetings in the name of Allah, the most beneficent,the most merciful. My name is Mrs Halima Abdulahi Mohammed, a widow to Late Mr Hassan A. Mohammed I am 74years old, Presently I am suffering from long time cancer of the breast, [...going to die, don't have any kids... yada, yada, yada...] My late husband was very wealthy and after his death, I inherited all his business and wealth, [...still going to die... yada, yada, yada...]

So now i have decided to divide part of this wealth,to contribute to the propagation of Islam and in assisting the less-privileged Muslim faithful and all humanity in Africa and through out the Muslim world,

Wait.. wait... the best part is coming up...

I chose you after visiting the website and I prayed over it,

Hahahahahahahaha!!!!

I discussed this with my Attorney,Barrister Alwal Sadique.I am willing to donate part of the sum of US$18,000,000.00 (Eighteen Million US Dollars) for the development of the hollywork as well as a distribution to aid muslim faithfuls and also for the less privileged, including orphans who lost their mothers through this deadly illness [cancer] no matter their faith.

Because it's clear from my site that I am a Muslim faithful that does lots of this type of charity work.

Please I want you to note that, this fund is deposited in a Security Company in Dubai,United Arab Emirate (UAE). For that, my lawyer Barrister Alwal Sadique will file in application for the transfer of the money in your name as you wish provided you are ready to use part of this money for this purpose. You will therefore have to travel to Dubai, to sign for the official release of this money as well as advice on how you want the money remitted to you own account. my Attorney will acompany you on this trip.

Lastly I honestly pray that this money when transferred will be used for the said purpose because I have come to find out that wealth acquisition without Allah is vanity upon vanity.for this reason I have decided to set-aside 40% of this money for the service of humanity and the work of Allah.

May the Grace of Allah be our guide and be my refuge when i leave this world. Moreso,I decided to offer you 30% While 20% will be transfered to the account of my Lawyer, Barrister Alwal Sadique as compensation after successful conclusion. The remaining 10% is to cover the expenses [...]

Yours in Allah,
Mrs Halima Abdulahi Mohamed.

Wait, now I'm confused, I thought *I* was going to be doing the charity work... why is she setting aside the extra 40% for? Frankly, I am a little hurt, she has *clearly* done her due diligence when she chose me... she even prayed on it!

Oh well, the next time I am in Dubai, I will be sure to follow up on this fantastic opportunity to help my Muslim brothers!

June 20, 2004

The charcoal brick you see pictured on the left is what happens when you put a frozen pizza into a preheated oven and then don't take it out for four hours... just in case you were wondering.

It was great - it looked like a pizza, you could even make out the shapes of the each individual bell pepper, but there was no food content left - it was 100% charcoal... and it made a strange crackling sound that lasted for a good 15 minutes...

June 2, 2004

While I am on the subject of the roads in the US vs. the UK - one huge pet peeve that I found while driving in the UK was that it seems cars can seemingly park on whatever curb they want to, even if this means that being parked on the side of the road means you are sticking way the hell out into the middle of the road. In fact in many places, if two cars were parked on opposite sides of the street, they would block enough of the road where it would become unusable. This has the effect of reducing many small 2 lane roads into windy single lanes where the various drivers have to decide, in a polite game of chicken, how best to navigate the resulting single lane without killing each other or sideswiping a parked car.

In the US, if there isn't room on the road for a car to park *and* for traffic to pass through, we simply don't allow cars to park there.

June 1, 2004

I was driving around and for some reason (more often than usual) found myself in the incredibly annoying situation of being the only car in an empty intersection, but having to wait for a red light.

It made me think back to my time when I was driving in the UK and I am definitely now starting to realize the value of the roundabout. Assuming reasonable traffic, it means *never* having to stop for a light. Having an initially slightly more stressful road construct is a *small* price to pay for never having to stop at a red light.

I don't know why they don't build more of these in the US... well actually I do... they take more room to build and UK drivers, are consistently more considerate than the average US driver and the only place in the US where I've seen roundabouts (Boston), I was constantly fearing for my life because Boston drivers are assholes and everyone believed that *they* had the right of way...

April 12, 2004

Arghhh!!! It happened again!! I was walking through Fry's, really tired, I had just picked up a pack of CD-Rs and was milling around, minding my own business, when I met another freakin' Amway guy!!! (For those of you unfamiliar with my prior experiences, a little historical reading is in order, see my posting on September 3, 2001).

He was a dead giveaway, using all of the familiar tag-lines: "I own my own business" (he *is* president after all :), "It's an e-commerce business that deals in goods and services", "I do it on the side", "I'm looking for a select few people to help me", "Can do in my part time, without affecting my life (that cracked me up, he knows my life so well!)", "Very lucrative if I keep an open mind" etc. He sported a business card with the company name of GK Business Solutions, that provided - get this - "e-Commerce Business Development" (whatever the hell that means). As per Amway (Quixtar, i-commerce, whatever) standard operating procedure he wrote his cell phone number on the card as he handed it to me and asked me if I had a card. Unfortunately I had *just* run out or else I would definitely have given one to him ;). He then suggested that we get together and have coffee at some point and he would be able to explain the whole thing in more detail, I told him that I would get back to him.

However recognizing who he was almost right off the bat, I had a little fun with the guy watching him squirm when I tried to get some specifics out of him...

     "So what does your business do?"
     "We are an e-commerce business that provides online services."
     "What kind of online services do you provide?"
     "My business deals with goods and services, utilizing the internet to better enable people."
     "Better enable people, what does that mean?"
     "Well, we work with the manufacturing sector, moving valuable goods and services to people that need them."
     "What kind of goods?"
     "All kinds of goods that people need."
     "For example?"
     "Well, mainly recession-proof goods, stuff that is not subject to the fluctuations of market conditions."
     "What does recession-proof mean?"
     "Standard goods that all people need. [Seeing my blank look] You know, like what you can get at Walmart."
     "Well, I'm sure Walmart was also affected by the recession."
     "No but the goods that they sell are universal, needed by everyone."

This went on for a while before I grew tired of playing with him.

If I had an infinite amount of time, I would be really interested in taking one of these guys up on their "offer" and seeing how they target people, *just* so I can learn, what the hell is it about me that makes me such a mark for these guys???

April 9, 2004

Regarding the time change last weekend - as much as I hate to lose an hour of sleep, I *really* like the fact that I can leave the office at a reasonable hour and still get home with enough time to enjoy some sunlight... or if I leave the office at my normal hour, it is still light out. There is something very depressing about one's existence when it is dark you get into work in the morning and dark when you leave in the evening.

March 15, 2004

I would just like to restate my utter dislike, loathing and revulsion for single-ply toilet paper.

March 7, 2004

Sigh... it's very sad, after some 20-odd years of service... my TV has finally died.

January 25, 2004

Yay! My phone is now on the list of exploding cell phones!!