Random Ruminations of My Mind

so my vacation has come to an end… an abrupt ending at that. from waking up at 12pm in the day, to now waking up at 7am, its been a very rough transition, of course brought on only by myself. even though i feel like i’ve wasted the last week or so sleeping and watching movies, i know that time spent doing what you want to do, isn’t time wasted at all. and that’s what this vacation was supposed to be, a relaxing, do nothing, stay at home, chill vacation… you don’t get many of those too often.

among the movies i watched this past week:

gangster: the first indian flick i watched by my own volition in the past 5 or 6 years maybe. i have to say i wasn’t as dissapointed as i thought i would be. there were such rave reviews about this movie which had a “unique story”, basically the reason why i went ahead and watched it (downloaded it of course, i’d never pay to sit in a theatre for 3 hours… i start getting naseous). i will give it that much - the story was indeed unique. even the cinematography i found was a bit off of what you would expect out of bollywood, the bluish-tint for example, giving it a sort of film-noir visual style. hashmi’s acting was beyond what i had expected, and much better that what his fellow cast members had to offer. what i didn’t like about the movie was of course, it was just too damn long. that whole story could have been told in less than 2 hours. sound track is great btw. score: 7/10.

miami vice: another flick which could have been told in less than 2 hours. for the first hour or so, i was confused as hell. i never watched the original series, so i went in expecting a lot of action, guns, violence, maybe even a little humour? nothing of the sort. no character development, shitty dialogue, pathetic acting by colin farrel and jamie fox, even worse directing by michael mann, this movie was a waste of my hard earned $10. and to top it all off, only one gun fight scene, which was so dark, you couldn’t even tell who was on which side. i was waiting for this movie to end at the 1 hour mark and the movie was an expectedly daunting 2.5 hours. score: 2/10

talledega nights: this movie was pretty good. its that kind of stupid funnyness you long for every now and then. Will Ferrell does a pretty good job in this one. score: 7/10

brick: no, not a movie about a furniture store. this one is about a high school kid solving a mystery concerning his former girlfriend. its the kind of movie you can either get really bored of really fast, or stayed glued to in its entirety. for me it was the latter. primarily because of the language that was used. apparently it is the kind of language used by southern californians or something. as you watch the film, at first it difficult to understand, but the more you listen carefully you get a somewhat clear understanding of what is being said, because some of the lingo is used repetitively. check this quote out: “Throw one at me if you want, hash head. I’ve got all five senses and I slept last night, that puts me six up on the lot of you.”… who the heck talks like that?!?! anyways, check it this low-budget, limited release film, and expect something different from your usual hollywood blockbuster movie. score: 8/10.

mystic river: an older movie, but one that i hadn’t watched. this one was good too. not sure if i really understood the underlying point to the story, maybe there was no point. maybe i thought there was no point because i felt there wasn’t much closure. maybe i felt there was no closure because i expected an message or moral of the story like ’say no to strangers’ or ‘what goes around, comes around’ or something similar. so yeah, maybe in the end, it was just a story without a point. a story about three childhood friends, how they drift apart, and the situation behind what brings them together - i still don’t see the point. in any case, i thought the acting was impeccable. Sean Penn, Kevin Bacon, Tim Robbins do an outstanding job in each of their roles. score: 8/10

and finally,

proof: story about a 27-year old woman who just lost her mentally ill father, who at one point or another, was a genius in the field of mathematics. didn’t like it too much. i thought it dragged a bit in the middle. the main character Catherine, played by Gwenyth Paltrow, is confused about herself and confuses the audience in the process. is she crazy? is she sane? noone knows. you want to believe she isn’t, so she can make her father proud. at the same time, you think she is because of all the emotions she is going through with her recent loss. half way through the film, you ask yourself, why is Hal, played by Jake Gyllenhaal, in this movie again? what purpse does he serve?!?!? anyways… don’t bother paying to watch this movie. just catch it on tv whenever it comes on, if it does. score: 5/10

after seeing this interview, i was left in awe. this guy has the cahunas to tell off the person who is conducting the interview as well as to the person who owns the very station that has asked him to come on. it is a total must-see emotionally charged interview.

Today is my first day of vacation for the next 9 days. It would have the ideal vacation had I gone somewhere, but even still, staying at home isn’t all that bad. I could catch up on some reading maybe. I’m almost done Angels & Demons (after 4 months :S) so I’m pretty much ready to start something else, fictional that is. ‘The Alchemist’ seems like its been on the bookseller list for quite a long while, so I might just end up starting that one, plus its not that long at all. I seldom get bored reading books more than 500 pages. I might also go out and take pictures somewhere, tidy my bedroom, fix up my computer, make enhancements to my photoblog, do some gardening, learn to cook, go skydiving, have a big a$$ party and invite 10,000 people, learn to speak mandarin, sail around the world in 8 days, etc, etc… Hmmm, ok, maybe not the last few, but at least the thought of doing all that stuff is there

I went to a specialist today for my back, which was injured a while go, getting much better now. I got the appointment about 5 months ago. So finally, after all that time, I got a chance to see him… for 15 whole minutes. That’s right, 5 long months for 15 short minutes. Hmmm, talk about long wait times.

In other news, I just learned today that Israel bombed the last remaining bridge into/out of Lebanon. This bridge was located in a predominantly Christian neighbourhood who were non-partisan so far in the war. After the bombing however, there were reports, by CNN, that people were taking a different stance now in that area. Now, I’m no political pundit or analyst of any sort nor am I a “geo-political strategist”, but what I take from all this is that Israel is losing friends at an alarming rate the further this whole mess goes on. Maybe even its allies at one point might not be as friendly as they are now, Jordan and Egypt for example. And these are countries that border Israel. Many are expecting an imminent cease-fire soon, so let’s hope, god willing, that happens with the least amount of civilian casualties on both sides. As it stands, about 900 Lebanese killed, mostly civilians, and about 70 Israelis killed, mostly soldiers. Hmmm… disproportionate, n’est-ce pas?

this past weekend had its ups and downs. i was supposed to get on a flight friday evening back to toronto in order to attend a friend’s wedding. unfortunately, that didn’t happen.

my flight from Providence, RI got cancelled due to bad weather (wind gusts of up 70mph apparently). the plane i was supposed to board had no chance in those kind of conditions because it was a really small 20-seater plane. to make things worse the guy at the counter, who told me my flight got cancelled, was being a prick and pretty much gave me an ‘800′ number for air canada and told me to book my own ticket out of there. i was first in line, and so i had 20 people behind me who were ready to tell him a piece of their mind. luckily the manager arrived and basically took care of things for us.
he booked us the next direct flight out which was the next morning at 11am, but that meant that i was gonna miss my friend’s wedding . everything happens for a reason i guess…

anyways, i took my camera with me and took some pics. to the right is a picture of the mosque out in Woonsocket… quite literally, in the middle of nowhere, they have this really nice mosque.

and below is a picture of the airplane that i had to take. it’s called a ‘beachcraft’ or something like that. seats only 20 passengers. its

funny because when i was checking in i noticed that i got an aisle seat. of course i wanted the window seat and i tried really hard to get one but couldn’t seem to change it. but when i got on to the airplane, i realized why. the aisle seats were ALSO the window seats. the airplane is extremely light and therefore very susceptible to turbulence. at times you felt like you were on a roller coaster.

So my boss came to my thursday morning and said “Rehan, we have to send you down to Boston this afternoon”… not exactly what I’d call reasonable advanced notice but what can you do, right?  its all a part of the job.  But, the worst part is that a friend of mine is getting married tomorrow and I won’t even be there for the baraat walking in ceremony… nevertheless, I’ll be there for the end i hope, depending on what time my flight gets back…

anyways, on to the topic at hand… the infamous, so-called, ‘random checks’.  For those that aren’t aware of these, every time you go to the airport on your way to the US, there is a slight possibility you will be subjected to a random check… this can be anything from luggage checks for certain chemicals to chemical tests on the body through puffs of air.  But here’s what gets me: the fact that i’m always subjected to these random checks, every single time!  Albeit, it is very possible that they are random with me, but highly improbable.  Its like, flipping a coin 10 times, and getting heads all 10 times: possible, but highly improbable.  Its not like I’m surprised that I get these random checks all the time.  It may not be out in the open, but racial profiling certainly has something to do with it and definitely does occur regardless of what people say to the contrary.

Anyways, that’s my rant for tonight as I sit here in a hotel out in the middle of nowhere.  Literally, this place is like 1 hour north of Boston, and yet it feels so remote from the rest of civilization.  The town is called Woonsocket.  Ha ha.  Go figure.

I wonder if that’s really true. But let’s just think about it for a second. Something that is free, usually has very little monetary value associated with it because of the fact that it is free. But, at the same time, it has the power to have a lot of sentimental value. Let’s take a gift as an example. You buy yourself something compared to someone buying something for you as a gift. Which would you cherish more? The latter I’d hope. Why? Probably because its not only the gift that comes your way, but the thought of buying that gift comes along for the ride. And of course its free.

As an aside, I went into a TD bank branch recently in order to close my account at RBC and open one up at TD. I read somewhere exactly how to get a free iPod nano in doing so. The way it works is, you have to close an account at some other bank, and open one up at TD. You also need to setup a Direct Deposit or 2 Pre-authorized payments for that account. This will only get you an iPod Shuffle however. To get the nano, you have to be approved for a TD Visa Gold credit card. Of course, this card comes with a heft annual fee, $99 to be exact. To have that fee waived, you have to make sure that the account you opened was a Select Service account. Funny thing is, this type of account itself has a monthly fee of $24.95. BUT, and there’s always a but, in order to waive this fee, all you need to do is keep a minimum balance of $5000. Do everything I described above and you’ll be the proud new owner of a 1GB iPOD Nano!!!

So it really is true, that the best things in life are FREE, in more ways than one

Then again, we’ve all heard the saying, ‘There’s no such thing as a free lunch’.  A topic to be discussed at some other time in the near future.

You ever get this addiction to any one thing?… ok, i’m not talking about the kinda addiction that you smoke up, or drink, or any of that sort… more like… the addiction to collect something… for example, a long time ago, i was addicted to cards- sports cards to be exact… I wanted every single card out there no matter what… and i’d save up all my money only to blow it all on them… at the time of course, you don’t feel as though you are wasting or blowing your money… u think of it more as an investment… well, 15 years later, its probably the worst investment i ever made…

and now, my new addiction is collecting books… yeah you read write right… i seem to want to buy all these books lately… every month or so, i’m buying like 5 or 6 of them… and its not like i’m reading any of them either… i started this book called ‘angels & demons’ about 3 months ago, and still haven’t finished it… today, i bought 8 more… my bookshelf is so full right now, i think i might have to buy another one… i think i have an idea what the problem is tho… its this damn website that i keep going to called www.bookcloseouts.com… they have some really cheap books, cheap as in, 50-75% off the cover price… and most are new or really good condition… anyways, check out the website… just do a search for a book that you’ve been wanting to read and they just might have it…

Welcome to ‘Random Ruminations of My Mind’, version 2.0. I totally gave up on that shitty excuse for a blog called MSN Spaces. I may still use it to post pictures and what not, but its definitely not worth my time to update it as a blog. About the only thing that’s good about it, is the fact that you can share pictures, and also, every time you update your blog, people on your messenger list will know about it. But I am really liking this new blog called ‘wordpress’ which is what you are seeing here. So many things you can do to customize it to your needs. It does however require some knowledge of PHP, but nothing too difficult.

Anyways, along with this new blog, I’ve created a sister ‘photoblog’ which can be viewed at ‘www.vividrealism.com‘. You’ll see the latest photo from that site on the sidebar. At the moment I only have pictures that you probably already have seen if you visited my MSN Space. But rest assured, I will update that site more often. Reason being, it requires less management time on my side. I just upload the files I want to post and put it on cruise control. Every now and then, a new picture will show up.

So yeah, let me know what you guys think. Any and all suggestions/improvements are welcome. Thank you, come again!