To be a Gooner is a famous chant of Arsenal fans. FYI the term Gooner is used to refer to an Arsenal fan. I have been a Gooner for nearly a decade now an I have realized that it has had a considerable impact on me in terms of making me the kind of person I am today.

The truth is this and I feel proud to admit that for alarmingly large chunks of an average day, I am a 'moron'. I often find myself drifting off, in the middle of a working day or a TV show or a conversation, towards a left-foot shot, curling into a top left corner. Crazy I know but it feels all right. It might not have made me the best person around, but it certainly has helped me delude certain traps of the modern day life, which most people of my age often fall into.

When I first started following Arsenal, I was 14 years old. It is the start of that period in a person's life when he thinks he is no longer a kid and that he knows a lot when actually he doesn't. There are a lot of changes happening to a person in this time and all kinds of thoughts cross his mind. It is easy to fall prey to apparently charming but actually hazardous things. I may sound like the "Mr. Nice Guy" but my social circle has had all kinds of people in it. I feel lucky and blessed that I came through that age unscathed especially when many close friends of mine did experience all these crazy things. They thought they were adults and they always tried things that adults were supposed to do. I could easily have been influenced. For the record, I have never smoked, never drunk, never had any kinds of drugs, never committed adultery, and never even fallen in love with some one. Besides my genes, it's largely down to my mental concentrations being strictly focused on ‘you know who'

I remember when I was first invited by one of my friends to try a drug (known as ‘churs' here in our part of the world) I do not know a lot about it but it belongs to the family of the infamous drug Heroine. I was 15 years old at that time, in 9^th class. I had bunked biology class because I hated biology and the biology teacher. I was sitting with my friends in the woods on the backside of our school. While my friends were smoking ‘churs' cigarettes, I was wondering why Arsenal had so many draws at the start of the season. If only we had won one game in that winless streak of 5-6 games at the start of the season, we would not have lost the premiership by one point. Man united would not have won the treble (3 trophies; Premier League, FA Cup and UCL) that year. When my friend interfered in my daydream and asked me to try it, its fun; I am sure if I wasn't thinking that deep about something as beloved as Arsenal I would surely have tried that, and as you know, once tried, addicted forever. I said no at that time and then later on too at many such occasions. Some of them even involved drinking and even adultery at one of the times. Thankfully it was more often than not amid my deep thoughts regarding Arsenal. My social circle until 12^th grade was awful at times but thank you Arsenal for keeping me away from all that sh*te that my friends used to get involved in. What is really funny is that my friends never knew about my passion about Arsenal at that time. When at times I meet my old friends from school/college era they are surprised to know that I am so into Arsenal now. Maybe its because I never spoke about it those days. My company in the university was much more ‘civilized' compared to the one I used to have before.

During my years at the university, I have come to realize that we live in such a society that falling in love with someone is easiest to the core yet making it through is tedious, complicated and highly infeasible at most of the times. Still many people fall in love everyday and most of the times they are left with bitter tastes in their mouths at the end of the day. Such are the social norms in this part of the world. And I am in no way criticizing the social norms here; actually I agree to most of them. I just want to point out the raw ground realities that we have. During my 4 year BS, while almost all my class fellows were consistently falling in love and having issues with girl friends, love over the Internet, dumping and flirting and other such stuff I remained strictly committed to Arsenal. Like all relationships, I might not have had the ideal of times with Arsenal but still the impact of joys and disappointments, like in any relationship, have been more of personal meaning than any other broader ones. Yes, I have had a fair share of many sleepless nights, but that was just me. I have had tears of joy but only those people know it to whom I have chosen to tell. My family, although a little concerned about my obsession with Arsenal is fairly satisfied in terms of my social life as I have never introduced them to something from my social life that would hit them like a train. In fact they trust me. They know that if the kid is wide-awake at 2 am in the morning, it must be a champions league game that he simply cannot afford to miss. They know that if he is talking on the phone at 2 in the night it would be one of his friend, discussing and dissecting the match in progress/just finished.

I remember the only time when I asked a girl to give me her number and that too over the Internet. Apparently she did not want to share and just ignored it. I also forgot about it as I was more anxious about my download speed being lower than normal at that time. I was downloading the video of Dennis ‘the iceman' Bergkamp's testimonial game. I remember it very well! Now when I recall it I don't feel really proud about it. Not because she never shared her number, but because it was a stupid thing on my part to ask for someone's phone number when we barely knew each other at that time and were thousands of miles apart geographically. If it weren't for my thoughts being elsewhere, maybe I would have asked her again. Maybe I would have forced her to type something like no I don't want to share my number. Things could have gone ugly but they did not happen largely because I never asked her again. And I still talk to her sometimes over the Internet, we have a nice level of respect for each other and I appreciate it a lot. Things could have been different though.

During my years at university, it took one of my class fellows just a month to say ‘I love you' to one of our class fellow girls. And that too was via e-mail. Too bad the girl shared the gist of that email to head of the Department, and the guy got an official warning. But I guess he is doing great these days. Ironically I came to know about this story about six months later, in June when there was no football, season was over and all this sh*te stirring of transfer speculations was on its full peak. It was the year of the Invincibles I remember.

Sometimes when I saw one of my very dear friends (he doesn't want his name to be revealed here) talk for hours with his girl who he had met on the Internet, I thought maybe there is something wrong with me. But then came some thought into my mind and I forgot all about this immature love and affairs stuff. No prizes for guessing which thought :D Unfortunately his love did not materialize due to some social implications of the proposed union of the two. I hope god gives him something even better. Amen. But the irony with his love saga is that he was really into it and it will take long time when he gets over it mentally. He worked tirelessly hard to gain the professional status that he thought would pave the way for the proposed successful union. God works in strange ways and may be it was not meant to be like he wished. If you are reading this my friend then all I can say is good luck and that the night is still young and there are plenty of fish out there and you will soon catch another that will fit the social bill of yours :D

Then there is this friend of mine, Naveed. He is an absolute legend when it comes to falling in love. He really is. I did not know him before his arrival to the university but in his words, he had two really solid fallings in love when he was in Lahore. If memory serves me right his first (not that solid though, and apologies to Waqar) love was with ‘chinki' (Her real name I must not reveal, she was commonly known as chinki in the hostel) he would day dream about her, write her name as wallpaper on his mobile, write "I Love chinki" on his notebooks, even on his arms at times :D I think it was more of a crush than love and that is why maybe he never told her about it. His second love was with one of our class fellows who has no alias, so for the sake of description she will be referred to as blahblah or simply blah henceforth. I am not sure if Naveed will agree with me that he actually was in love with her but I know enough about him to safely claim that something was there. The thing started with conversations on the msn and it grew to the extent of them having combined studies in the library after the campus hours. One of blah's female friends also accompanied them in the library for studies and female jealousy got the better of the wisdom of that friends as well as of her other ‘well wishers' in the girl's hostel. They did their part and Naveed and blah split up after a few showdown moments, much to the delight of the so-called well wishers of blah and blah's friends/seniors. Third one was with a girl from the Internet. He never really meant to fall in love with her. In the beginning they just talked over the msn and he was at time a little flirtatious, Then it started getting serious and not long after that they were having long conversations on the phone. Naveed would spend loads of money on mobile phone scratch cards and I really did not like that at that time. I honestly made my opinion clear about his crazy spendings on the phone. I did not like it one bit. Then one day the inevitable happened. It was around 11 in the night. Every one at my home was fast asleep while I was watching an Arsenal match. It was the doorbell that came as un-welcome a break as one could ever get in an Arsenal match. (My home was at 5 minutes walking distance from the university campus and the hostel where all my class fellows lived) When I went to the door it was Naveed, and it was one of those moments when I hate even the best of my friends. And he said "yar she is in love with me, what should I do now" We went long into the night discussing implications of all this. I mentioned all kinds of things that came into my mind, from minor short-term implications to the one that would involve his future kids listening the story of "how I met you mother" from their father. At the end of the discussion I was sure that Naveed and his then girl friend had lost their minds, but it was only when I reached back inside my house that I came to know that Arsenal had lost it too that night. (West Brom 2-1 Arsenal, 15th Oct 2005) Needless to mention how much sleep I had that night.

Naveed's saga however was far from over. He continued with that girl for few more months, but things were not pretty between them, each time he would talk on phone with her, he would be more anxious than before. According to him that girl used to cry over the phone a lot because of the fear of them never being together and all that. It was our 5^th semester in the university, by far the easiest one of the 8 semesters. Naveed got his record low GPA that semester. By the time semester ended, Naveed had officially called it a day with that girl.

Like most people after every disappointment, Naveed also thought of doing something fun to get over all this and he turned his attentions to the charms of the social network called Orkut. In the next two years, Naveed enjoyed his life on orkut with many girls among whom he fell in love with two of them. Not at the same time, one after the other. First one was surprised and said a plain no when Naveed eventually expressed his feelings about her. Second one has had quite a long saga of yes, know we don't know. They both were into each other and If I am not mistaken, just a few months ago he has called a day with her too, officially this time. Now Naveed does not intend to fall in love with some one any soon and is focused on his career building process but with a person like Naveed, you never know. I love him for the great character he is and if last few paragraphs have given the impression that this guy is anything but serious, he clearly isn't all like that. In many aspects of life he is much more serious and mature than most of us. During our time together, I have adopted quite a few good as well as not so good qualities of Naveed. During all his love sagas he has told me almost each and every twist and turn of his love life, and despite being a mythical and charismatic character, Naveed hasn't been able to inspire me to fall in love with someone.

I have been too focused on Arsenal to look somewhere else. I think it would be appropriate to mention how many girls I have had opportunity to talk to. In real life not many but since I have mentioned quite a few love stories that have initiated from the Internet, I have to mention how many I have had talked to over the Internet. They are certainly less than the ones Naveed has had opportunity to talk and acquaint with. I have never asked a girl for friendship from the Orkut. Although me, Naveed and Waqar did used to have conferences in random girls' scrapbooks than our own msn :D That was fun. Anyways it's been not more than 10 in my entire time as Internet user. And they have been only four with whom I have talked for over a month. One Pakistani girl from Karachi, haven't talked to her for a year now. One Filipino girl with whom I still talk to, one Indian girl with whom I talked for like a year and a half and the time spent with her was by far the highlight my chatting career, what a nice person. I miss her as she never comes online now, busy in studies in another city. And lastly A Pakistani girl who is currently in Dubai with whom I still talk to. I talked to them longer than I talked to the other random girls that I met online, because they were nice persons to talk to and while I really like them a lot for the good persons they are, I haven't fallen in love with any one of them and hopefully I won't in the future. It ruins good friendships.

BTW if you are one of my close friends who know me from real life and you are trying to suggest some bullsh*t, I am as straight as an arrow and you know it ;)

Just in case you (Naveed, Waqar, Junaid and Mooin) wanted to know, two different girls from the Internet, one American and another one Filipino confessed that they were in love with me. Flattering as it sounds I told them thanks but it really is not feasible for us. I am flattered as I type this :D

Is there something wrong with me? Maybe there isn't. Maybe I have the right thing that all these unfortunate people around me don't have. My life rocks. Championships!, Derbies!, European Nights, pinball sexy footie;its priceless stuff! These are tears of joy in my eyes. Instead of having to interrupt one of my close friends in the middle of the night when some one says ‘I love you' to me or having a horrific night after a break up and clawing on my own flesh in desperation and disgust, I am being awesome 24/7 - three sixty five (minus the silly season).

This one goes to my beloved Arsenal as it always does on each home game at the Emirates.

When no-one else can understand me

When everything I do is wrong

You give me love and consolation

You give me hope to carry on

And youre always there to lend a hand

In everything I do

Thats the wonder

The wonder of you

And when you smile the world is brighter

You touch my hand and Im a king

Your kiss to me is worth a fortune

Your love for me is everything

Ill guess Ill never know the reason why

You love me like you do

Thats the wonder

The wonder of you

Ill guess Ill never know the reason why

You love me like you do

Thats the wonder

The wonder of you

Every day I love you more.

My love affair with Arsenal has come to such proportions that words don't do justice in describing the way I feel. I literally mean it. I do. For all those who are alien to my beloved Arsenal, read here you muppets . Im sorry, no offence meant :D.

It all started in 1999, our bitter rivals manchester united had won treble that season (premier league, FA cup and Champions League). Good thing I wasn't a glory hunter then and thank god I am not a Manc today. I fell in love with the way we played football. No long balls, pretty pretty pinball football, pace, movement, tip top tip top, Dennis Bergkamp awesome!. From the grit and power of Adams in defence, Petit and Vierra in the engine room, the magic of the one and only dennis, vavavoom of TH14 to verve, vision and invention of Cesc & Hleb and the "left foot to die for" of Robin van Persie, from the highs of tilte win at old Trafford and the Arsene's invincibles, to the lows of Paris in 2006, from all the sweet moments to the bitter ones, its been a roller coaster ride. I cannot sum up what I have witnessed over the last decade or so in limited spaces of a blog, maybe better writers have wrote tons of material on that, maybe I should leave that to a biography some day. The fact that I use the word 'we' when I describe Arsenal, sums it all up I guess. Maybe a common reader won't understand at this point that what the author is up to but I damn well know what I am writing just now! (more about arsenal in sleepless nights and exams failures and other let downs later)

Everyday I love you more.

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I made the most unexpected discoveries this week.

Unexpected Discovery 1: During the power loadsheding hour I was on our rooftop, enjoying the cool breeze and killing the time and waiting the re-return of power supply. Suddenly my foot struck something. It was a little thing that rolled on the floor and made a mettalic sound as it rolled around. I threw light on it with my cellphone and picked it up. To my surprise it was a real bullet. I had once used an air gun but to find and hold a real bullet was a first time experience. It was odd, it was surprising and it kind of made my family a little bit worried. From where did it come from. Maybe it was from a house 2-3 streets back from where we sometimes hear sound of firing guns. My family was a little bit concerned about this finding as they thought it can be a dangerous thing, the bullets arriving at the rooftop. I took a few photographs of the bullet which you can see below and if you have any idea which gun it belongs to or how deadly/harmless it is, please help youself in the comments section. I have that bullet locked in my drawer for now.

Unexpected Discovery 2: We were cleaning our room cooler which had been abandoned for nearly 9-10 months and from its back side I found these 4 lizard eggs. I was furious at that mommy lizard which had layed her future generation in our room cooler's backside. Ever since we moved into this new house, I had vowed that lizards were a thing of the past and no lizard will live in our house. At my previous place I used to kill them regularly but their population never seemed to reduce. But here I have killed very few and there have not been many here either. A few weeks ago I saw one and yes you guessed it right. It was killed, mercilessly. I smashed these eggs on the road outside after photographing them. There is no place for you filthy looking #$@^%#%^ lizards in my house. eff off!

Till then...

Today, one of our juniors at PIEAS(university from where I did my BS), died because of drowning into Soan river that flows near the university campus. I was told on fone by my ex-classfellow Shoaib who lives near PIEAS. The guy was there along with his friends to enjoy a nice swim in natural waters after a whole hectic week of heat and studies at PIEAS. Somehow or the other he drowned and lost his life. Fate works in cruel ways, the kid was a mere 20 year old. Sad and tragic indeed. But thats how it is. God bless his soul and may he rest in peace. Amen!

Morning all, its been a shorter break between the posts this time than usual, I hope it continues.

My condolences to a dear friend who recently said goodbye to one of the loved ones; grandfather. While the fact remains that every soul shall taste the death, it still is always a really painful thing to endure. All we can do is to pray for a happy hereafter for the departed one and try to move on with life. May god bless us all.

Update: It turned out just now when one of the co-workers called my friend and co-worker Junaid, that his grandfather passed away this morning. Sad and tragic. My condolences to him. May his soul rest in peace. Amen. Not a good week for my friends.

Heavy reconstruction work on the Islamabad highway means a queue of vehicles that measures several kilometers in length, especially in the morning hours when everyone is leaving for schools and work. Apparently work is in progress on both sides of the highway, the idea is to expand current 3-lane sides to 5-lane sides. While it would be extremely beneficial to the masses in the long run, the inconvenience that it is causing at the moment is massive to the core. The distance it took a mere 20 mins to cover previously, now long queues make it more than an hour. People reach offices and schools late and it causes problems. Shakeel sahab, with whom I go to office, has decided to take another route. Its about 4-5 kilometers longer but the journey is much smoother. It also leaves me with a little longer to travel from the point where Shakeel sahab drops me but still its much more convenient than that one hour on a stuck highway. I am seriously thinking about changing my return route too in the evening. Lets hope the highway gets fixed sooner rather than later.

My new pink shirt brought the best praises out of one of co-workers who thought it was the coolest colored shirt ever and really good thing and blah blah blah :D I guess these praises had more to do with her obsession to the pink rather than my shirt. Still it felt good. And just to make matters clear for you if you happen to be Waqar or Junaid, she always has that ninjas costume on and what you are thinking right now is out of question really :) seriously :D

Too bad Naveed doesn't read my blog.

That all I'm afraid I have for the moment, more later.

Till then..

My friend and co-worker Junaid has had a terrible week. Last month Junaid had got a pay increment and was consistently being forced by the co-workers for a treat. Then about ten days ago, Junaid got the money for a free-lance project that he had done a month back. After receiving the amount in cash, Juni looked really very happy and told me “I am going to give you guys a treat tomorrow” At the lunchtime Junaid and me went downstairs at the Food24 to book the order for the stuff for the treat. After we had booked the order we were going down the stairs and just on the last step, Junaid’s foot slipped off the last step awkwardly and Junaid went tumbling on the floor. By the looks of it, it did not seem that big an accident but Junaid was clearly experiencing an overwhelming amount of pain. He was lying flat on the ground, clutching his right ankle with both his hands. I kept speaking to him but he was unable to utter a single word. After 1-2 minutes when he was able to speak, he said “@#$@$$%#$$ don’t speak to me, and leave me as I am for a while”. A few minutes later when he was feeling a little better and could speak a proper language, he said he might well have done his ankle, it was really painful and he needed to go straight back to the office. I helped him reach the office where every one was so busy they never noticed Junaid limping into the office. They enjoyed the food on their tables and thanked Junaid for it. I can’t’ say how much Junaid enjoyed the food but that chicken roll paratha was delicious :D After having lunch Junaid removed his shoe and to our surprise, his ankle area had a huge swelling. I quickly went downstairs and baught a moov cream and an ankle support. When I was rubbing that cream on his foot, that was the time when everyone sniffed something in the air and then asked, oh, what happened! And then I told them the story. After putting the ankle support on, Junaid called his brother who took him home with him and saw a doctor. Scan revealed it was a fractured metatarsal in his foot. (Metatarsal fracture is that infamous injury that happens to many footballers and then it rules them out of action for 6-8 weeks) Junaid’s foot is all plastered up these days and he is not coming to office. He hopes to be on his feet within a few days. Such is the importance of his work to the office that he has been sent a laptop and a wireless Internet device so that he can work from home. Get well soon Junaid and Godspeed for a brisk recovery.

Elsewhere in football, its that silly part of the season when there is no football and instead there is a whole load of sh*t-stirring by football websites, blogs, tabloid newspapers and above all, the players’ agents regarding the transfers of players. Every day countless players get linked with a possible transfer to Arsenal. Mostly these rumors are put by the players’ agents themselves who want to raise the profile of their client by linking them to a big club so that a rival club comes with a substantial offer and they get their reward for the big transfer.

It’s been a fortnight and Arsenal are constantly being linked with a £12.5 million swoop for Marseilles’ 21 year old Samir Nasri, who is often referred to as “the new Zidane”. There are strong indications that he may sign for Arsenal. Alex Hleb is one Arsenal player who has been linked with a move away from Arsenal, maybe Barcelona. We shall see. Apart from the transfer business, Euro 2008 kicks off on 7^th June and for what seemed to be a boring spectacle of international footbal in the closing stages of the season when Arsenal used to play week in week out, it now seems to be a welcome piece of entertainment especially in the wake of all this sh*te of transfer speculations. The football fan in me wants a Spain v Holland finale while the Gooner in me, as selfish as it is, wants France, Spain and Holland all to get knocked out at the first group stage so that the key Arsenal players playing for these sides can get a good summer’s rest and come out all guns blazing for the next season in August.

last night clocks went one hour forward in a bid to save power, a new initiative taken by the new govt. Lets hope it works out as expected.

That’s all I’m afraid I’ve got for the moment. More later.

It’s been the longest gap in the posts since I have started blogging. If you are one of those two regular readers and have been waiting for this post for quite some time, my heartiest appologies! Its just that I have been so damn busy. Now as I am typing I try to recall what happened between this post and the last post. I remember in the last post, I promised to include an extract from my conversation with Waqar so here it goes.

waqar says: AS
waqar says: kaisa hai
Muntazir says: fit hon tu suna
waqar says: mai bhee fit hoon
waqar says: abhi aik SCO ka banda cheneoo say riddle pooch reha tha
waqar says: en ko samajh hee nahi aee
Muntazir says: :D
Muntazir says: ye cheez
waqar says: woh tung aa ker chala gay a
waqar says: :P
Muntazir says: to us se dan brown wala riddle poochta
waqar says: kuan sa
Muntazir says: in london lies a knight a pope interred...
waqar says: ha ha ha cheneoo say pochoo
waqar says: phie sari zindgee en ko samjahana paray ga k kiya poocha hai
waqar says: :D
waqar says: pehlay agar mai en ko kahoo ga k
waqar says: guess this riddle
Muntazir says: :P
waqar says: phir kahoo ga riddle like quiz test
waqar says: some body ask u a question n u give the answer
waqar says: esee mai ghanta lag jai ga
waqar says: :D
waqar says: cheneo k sath reh ker pata chala hai k duniya mai pashto say bhee mushkil zubain hai
waqar says: :P
Muntazir says: :D
waqar says: dula hura no weaga kah
waqar says: to latoo mukama haa haa
waqar says: samajh aee
Muntazir says: bc ye kia hai
waqar says: lainti mai sara din yehi sunta hoon :S
Muntazir says: :S
Muntazir says: mujhe tere se hamdardi hai
Muntazir says: tere gunah dhul rahe honge din badin :P
waqar says: oaa yara humaray proj mai joo cheeni aee the woh jaa rahee hai :S
Muntazir says: oh
Muntazir says: wohi maltay wale perfume wali?
waqar says: han
Muntazir says: ab uski jaga koi cheena ayega jis se dirtoo wali boo ayegi
waqar says: :S
waqar says: woh pehlay hee baray hain
Muntazir says: oye commander safegaurd ki nayi episode kab ayegi?
waqar says: wee waee heloo taoo nigama
Muntazir says: oye mera kia kasoor hai..
waqar says: mujah lagta hai mera softeare kaharab hoo reha hai mera kan en key conversation ko decript kernay ey koshish kertay hain
waqar says: ISB mai barish hoo rahee hai kiya
Muntazir says: mousam bana hua hai barish wala
Muntazir says: oye mein blog jab likhon ga to us mein AMC ke convocation ki aik poori story ho gi
Muntazir says: kal raat ko likhon ga..dont miss
waqar says: KO :D
waqar says: oaa mai jaa reha hoon bara kharaab mosam hai bahir
waqar says: ok Allah hafiz
Muntazir says: ok allah hafiz

So, that was Waqar, yet again J

Well it is with tremendous pride that I am informing the readers; I now own Casio Exilim Z-12 7.2MP digital camera. I always wanted to have a Sony CyberShot equivalent of this one but it turns out that this one has so many features that CyberShot does not incorporate in it. Happy snapping it is for me now. And just for the sake of documentation, its made in China, albeit bought from Seoul, South Korea.

Mooin Tariq is in Jordan these days and according to him his work is real tough there. He is still staying in the hotel there on company’s expenses. A few days back Mooin had some problem in doing a task that he was assigned and he asked me on gTalk to call a bloke named Saqib who should call him on his Jordan number and help him do the task. Typical Mooin for you :D but its always nice to help a friend in need. I am your friend indeed Mooin J Only problem there in Jordan for him is food. Mooin is still struggling to get acquainted to the local food. Burgers, as global as they are, are always there as a competent substitute for indigenous cuisines and that’s what he is having there on regular basis. Though, it’s just a matter of time when Mooin Gets sick of these at the moment handy burgers. Good luck to him on the food front, that’s all I can say. Apart from that, the way Mooin described the ‘beauty’ of the middle east, its mouthwatering to say the least :D And I am really ashamed because it’s a disrespect to the human values but I have to admit that when Mooin was telling me all about the Jordanian beauty, the women sitting besides me in the office were all of a sudden appearing like some obscure race of a hypothetical species found only on planet Pluto and beyond (remember Star Trek) :D Silly I know but you get the idea :D

Now to the part, which describes how I have been so busy lately. Well I have been assigned the work to develop a promotional website of a musical theatre show to be held in Karachi in August this year. I am unable to reveal further details as it goes against my professional code of conduct. All I can tell is that it contains some relatively explicit graphic content which forces a raise of the eyebrows on a commoner’s part. No wonder the reactions of girls in my office, when having a look at my monitor, have been kind of weird. It feels weird to me too at times but that’s how it is. On the whole I do not dislike the website ;)

This week also marked a forgotten birthday of a dear friend due to all this busy routine. It was a real shame for me and I had to apologize. Good friends always understand and forgive and that is what happened here too. If you are reading this, I am sorry again and thank you. Happy Birthday and God bless you.

Water crisis in the office went to some serious heights this week with the project manager being furious at the person responsible for water services in our plaza. Our CEO bought a huge plastic water tank, which he plans to put on rooftop and have a comfortable supply of water of his own. But water tanks offer little value when you do not have the water to fill into the tank at the first place :P Good thing that water crisis has now successfully been resolved

It is said that time makes you forget things and you learn to move on. I hope it happens with me too as I have come to the conclusion that Sweden is not the way to go for me, at least not for the moment anyway. This blog’s primary objective is to document things that I may well forget in the future. On the other hand, I am quite confident that I will never forget the reason why I had to say no to Sweden. I think it’s a reason enough not to mention here the reason of not going to Sweden. I have moved on, yes but maybe I will never forget it. Am I happy with that, maybe not but I will learn to live with it soon. Not everything happens in life as you wish it to be. Arsenal have not won anything since 2005 but there is hope and they are getting nearer consistently. So maybe, sometime in future, when all the ingredients of a stable environment for a two-year trip abroad are in place at my place, maybe when God wants me to have that, maybe when God thinks it’s the right thing at the right time for me, we shall see. In God we trust.

I think it would be appropriate to document this here, as it is a fair chance I forget it very soon, I applied for a job at Canadian High Commission this week. What’s worth mentioning is that its pay package is 50K PKR per month, fascinating, mouthwatering :D Why I soon may well forget is that maybe I will not get this job. But it’s always a pleasant feeling when you apply for such a big job. If I get it, it’s a jackpot. If I don’t, no worries. I’ll soon forget that I did not win the ‘jackpot’ J Hence mentioning it already here :D

In the midweek when I was leaving my home for the office early in the morning, just by chance I met Shakeel sahab who was also leaving for his office. He lives onn our ground floor (our family lives on the first floor). He offered me to join him in his car on the way to office. Previously his wife used to accompany him but now that she had a job in another office and had a transport provided to her by the new office there was no reason why I could not join him in the car. He sincerely offered me a lift and I could not say no to as gentle a person as Shakeel sahab. A really nice bloke. God bless him. So what was a two hours journey before, it’s reduced to just 80 minutes now.

On our way to the office, he brought my attention to a really interesting piece of information. He said “Look at this black and yellow taxi cab, you see what is written on the strip just above its number plate?” I said that’s R.A.K, he said look for any other similar taxi see what you have got there. And then I noticed that every such taxi had R.A.K written behind it. It was simply amazing, as I had never noticed it before. Since that day I have seen hundreds of such taxis on the road and only a very few were without R.A.K. I also asked the drivers about this R.A.K but they never knew anything about it. It’s really a mystery. Shakeel sahab told me that it was also mentioned in a newspaper column a few days back and the author had requested people that if someone knows the meaning and reason of this R.A.K then please let him know. On google I found only minimally relevant information that R.A.K (Raas Al Khaima) was some UAE company that along with other services, provides taxi service too. The real facts are still to be explored. I must be reading Dan Brown a lot because I straight away mentioned to Shakeel sahab that it might be some secret brotherhood or some underground organization :D Hopefully we will find out soon. More to follow in future I hope J

Now when Sweden seems like out of question, I am turning my attentions towards a local University, I am not naming it now, don’t want to get jinxed yet again. And if I get the jackpot that is Canadian High Commission, then it’s so long to the studies.

That’s all I have time for in this post, more about Junaid’s accident and the silly summer break in football in the next post.

The alien text deciphers to "I appear in the interview for studies in Italy". Italiano sounds cool so that’s why :D I was asked by HEC to appear before a committee of Italian professors in an interview and they were to decide if I was worthy to be admitted in an Italian University. Interview consisted of two parts, first one was non-academic in which a non-professor lady asked me misc. question about Italy. Thanks to Angels and Demons and an extensive research about works of Leonardo da Vinci, I knew quite a bit about Italy. I also mentioned football and the fact that Arsenal had recently beaten AC Milan at their home in a compelling finale but that lady spontaneously said that she did not like football and that it was a boring game. What a moron. Boooo! Of course I did not react like that in front of her and overall she was quite surprised by my exposure to Italian things. She thanked me a lot and asked me to go to the next professor.

Next professor was not too old either, he would be in late 30s and had an aura of the ancient Roman Legions about him. I was expecting a lot of technical questions and a detailed interview but it was never to be. He just skimmed through my file, just confirmed a few facts about my educational career as they were mentioned in my file. He then asked me that do you have any research plans? I was surprised by his question as I had submitted a full-fledge research proposal with my documents; guess they never read it. I explained my research plans to him but his reactions were suggesting he knew little about computer sciences. I guess he was from electrical engineering department. He then said a few words in Italian to the other professor and he also replied in Italian. Then he again skimmed through my CV and my personal information letter. His eyes caught the Leonardo da Vinci word in the end of my personal information letter and suddenly his eyes lit up. He then asked me if I knew about Leonardo's famous painting that hangs in Louvre, Paris. He referred to that painting by some obscure name that I did not know. I asked him if he meant The Mona Lisa, he said yes exactly. I then talked about how that painting had so many hidden clues and encoded messages in it. I also mentioned a rare known fact about a recent research in which a scientist has come to the conclusion that the Mona Lisa is the painting of Leonardo himself. Professor was quiet surprised. He then started reviewing my grades and started raising his eyebrows on courses in which I had less than average marks. At that moment I looked back at my last 4 years and said to myself if only I had worked a little harder, but there is no use crying over spilt milk and there is no use feeling sorry for yourself. All I can hope for is that I do not have to face such a situation in future and work better in my future studies. Professor then thanked me for being there with a pleasant smile on his face and that was the end of the Interview Italia.

With 300 other candidates along side me and 300 more appearing the next day, chances do not look too great. All I can do is hope for the best.

Mooin Tariq is a legend of a person. I spent 4 good years with him in the university and am proud to have him as one of my best friends. He may not be the most pleasent person to deal with as his nuisance value is always touching the heights of the sky but he has got a beautiful heart. After graduation his hard work and intelligence had earned him the scoop of his career as RF Engineer in Aircom. Ambitious men always look forward to achieve greater heights and Mooin Tariq got another big break in his career with a job offer at a leading telecom company in Jordan. He left for Jordan this early morning. It will be some time when we see our beloved 'dumbo' again. We will miss you, you cookie monster! may the blessings of the Lord be with you. We love you.

These are the testimonials I wrote for Mooin on orkut some 3 years ago

" testimonial_serious version 1.01

wat to say abt u moin.......ppl like u are hard to find.......evry human lacks some qualities and moin is no exception but thr r so many wonderful things about this man....the best thing that i like about him is that he is very very kind hearted person and gets angry for a very little duration if so (although he shouts so loud)... he never bothers when someone is joking with him or laughing at him... instead, he likes to laugh and laughs away crazy..... is very good at making fun of ppl in any way but remains in limits...hes an extreemly intelligent gye when it comes up to picking up things hes tought...a brilliant mathematician....he is always in good health and in a nice spirit...when he needs something to be done in a hurry its a worth watching scene at that time.... all in all he is a "shehzada" kind of person."

Another one:

"ladies and gentelmen ... put put ur hands together as here comes the testimonial of an all time bamboo personality...none other than Moin Tariq

this one is just a kind of silly testimonial...serious one is due later.

C-Hostel ki jaan
Shor sharaba jis ki pehchan
Naveed Qamar ka roomate
Bhaloo jis ka naam

mobile phones ka tharkee
dare is se her larki

jab bhi mess mein jaye
khanay ki shamat aye
chachoon ki shamat aye

jab bhi karay parhai
to kitabein dein duhai

jab ye khailay cards
ho MK ka bura haal

jab jane lagay ye ghar ko
to tensions are on the peak
"naveed mera mobile kahan hai...muntazir daraz se chabi nikaleen...yaar waqar mera laptop utha de...naveed tujhe mera mobile naheen mila jaldi dhoond...oye haq aaj bus 4 bajay jaye gi?...bhai ! aik kaam ker jaa commanado ko bula la...muntazir almari se koi kapra nikal de...oye 10 mint rehtay hein chaloo aik patton ki bazi ho jaye...chal naveed qamar uth samnay aa...munti partner aaj GC kerni hai...!!

bas BHAI se derta hai !"

More about the new camera and an extract from yet another conversation with waqar in the next post.

After the longest day at work I went to sleep at 4 am in the morning and woke up around 7. I had to attend my elder sister’s convocation held at Army Medical College. A proud moment really for her as well as for the whole family. Thousands dream to graduate from that place yet only a few live the illustrious dream. My sister is one of the lucky few. May God bless her. I was not in the best of shapes to attend a public gathering like that as I had slept only 3 hours in the last 24 yet the nature has its own ways to work. It’s a shame that I was at convocation of my sister and still I felt all that and am now going to describe it as well. Boy! Oh Boy! How many awesome chicks were those? :D the graduates and the other students there. They got me wide awake and no one could possibly tell that I was suffering from a lack of sleep. I know it should not be like that on your own sister’s convocation but honestly speaking that is how it was. And to be even more honest, It was surprising just as it was flattering to see most of them giving out the vibes of likeness when they gazed me. And they gazed at me a lot. I don’t know, maybe some people may argue that I was hallucinating due to lack of sleep but what the heck, I loved it: D

Coming to the serious points now, it really was a prestigious ceremony. Although we had to wait for quite a bit for the chief guest to arrive, all that time sweet tunes of national songs were playing in the auditorium. When the chief guest arrived, it was in the form of a procession in which he was accompanied by the faculty members of the college. When the procession arrived everyone raised on their seats and after that the national anthem was played. National anthem is a thing that always runs chills down my spine and it re-ignited my long time fantasy of hearing this national anthem in front of some jam packed stadium crowd while representing my country in a cup final of some mega event. It must be an awesome feeling. I know it is almost impossible but if someday it happens, I it would be . . . I don’t know there is no such word for that type of feeling.

During the ceremony I felt lucky to be listening live to one of the legends of this time; Dr. Atta ur Rehman, the head of HEC Pakistan and also the chief guest of the ceremony. He has done a marvelous job for this nation in the academic filed, especially in the higher education. May God bless him and inspire him to even greater feats. After the ceremony there was lunch, which was good. I was asleep almost all the way in the car on our way back home.

My interview for Italia was conducted today finally. More about Italia and my beloved friend Mooin Tariq who leaves for Jordan this sunday in the next post.

Till then..