the Universe and Everything Else
I should have asked this question many months ago, but better late than never.
Who are you? Why do you come here? Do you subscribe to the RSS feed, or does Google bring you here against your will? Do I know you from the offline world? Do we have something in common?
I have intentionally disabled comments on this post. Please leave a comment on the “Who are You?” page instead, that I have made just for you.
Thanks.
This song came up on my playlist just as I published the previous post, so I had to share it.
Consider spending six minutes of your life listening to Pink Floyd.
I tried looking for a ‘moderate’ flavored documentary, but couldn’t find any good video that didn’t mention the US of A.
Warning: it contains some very shocking images, but if shock and depression can cure us of apathy, we should be shocked more often.
Here’s the youtube link.
and the lyrics… just in case… Read more “On the Turning Away”
Aren’t you tired of the monotonous “Happy” and “Mubarik” Eids year after year? Why not try something different, like a “Sombre” Eid, for a change?
Don’t hand a 1000 rupee note to every one of your ten nephews. They already have plenty and will blow the money up in a day. Give them each a 50 Rs. chocolate instead, they would be just as happy. Use the 9500 rupees to feed a child. Like this one. For many months. Take your nephews with you. Compare.
Do you really need those new clothes? Isn’t your wardrobe full already? They’ll go out of fashion next year. Or next month. Wear your best clothes on Eid. They don’t have to be new. Buy milk for this child instead. Before he dies. Realize.
Skip one Eid visit to a friend who lives 20 kilometers away. Save 500 rupees in fuel and the eid cake that you were going to take with you. Drive around your residence until you find a child like this one, or this one. Give the money to her. Your friend has a cellphone, wish him over the phone. Tell him what you did. He’ll understand.
Turn the TV off for a few hours. It will only make you crave more stuff to buy. Instead of wasting time on the special Eid broadcasts for a few hours, read a book with your child – or read The Book. One more day won’t hurt. Learn.
A change may do you good.
http://www.azadfoundation.org/
http://www.soschildrensvillages.org.uk/sponsor-a-child/asian-child-sponsorship/pakistan.htm
Each blog has its own micro-zeitgeist (that’s a word that I just made up, or neologized) that gives an insight into its place in the larger scheme of things, and this one is no different. Like most of the human race, I like to look at my Google Analytics data every now and then, perhaps as an aid to introspection, or perhaps because they look very pretty. Looking at the search queries that bring people here, I see some queries that have an answer/solution here, and I hope that the inquirer had to look no further. There are queries that I could have answered in a closely related post, but chose not to, and there are queries that make me wonder about the inquirer’s mental health. There’s also a lot of raw material and leads for possible blog posts, but that’s for real bloggers, not me.
Since I have a few free minutes, let me share a small slice of search strings with you, in decreasing order of popularity, and the replies-that-never-were… because I have nothing better to do.
If you cut your cyber-teeth on MySpace and Facebook, you probably won’t recognize the face of Khaled Mardam-Bay. For millions (yes, millions) of us, though, he is the Zuckerberg of the 20th century (that’s where the IRC generation comes from), and IRC is where we took our first cyber-steps. You may want to hit Google and do some digital archeology to find out about IRC in general and mIRC in particular. Meanwhile, I just want to list down all the things that IRC meant to us, the generation that was exhilarated when we upgraded from a Hercules to a CGA monitor. So join me as I reminisce about life online in the last decade… after the nag screen. Read more “N Things I Miss About IRC”