Food!

Yes it is all about food. It was just by chance that i found a very splendid and artistically designed website of Sahara - a Pakistani Indian restaurant in Dubai. This website is worth a glance. And their buffet has a very reasonable price, just have a look at their menu! image courtesy Sahara

And if we talk about aromas of traditional spices wafting from a selection of delectable desi food, you would certainly name Biryani, Haleem, Fish, BBQ, Soft Puris and Tandoori Parathas. Wanna see how some Pakistanis are running this business in Australia? See them adding spice to the food right in their kitchen. Three video episodes of Food Safari Pakistan (ebedded below) - A proper production by some goras (?) who did a series on traditional foods of different places in the world, so click, you would not be confronted with traditional Samina's/Rubina's food recipes with not-so-unusual Nazreen ab hum is main blah O blah. Perhaps you would be pleasantly surprised to see a desi cricket celebrity in the second video.

As i have wasted thirty minutes on those, i expect you to do the same. Meanwhile i make a paratha (Third of my kitchen series) by following the self help rule, watch those videos! Just blame my laziness, Mr I has promised to bring me a stock of cooked frozen food tomorrow.

Antarctic

My love for antarctic landscape and passion to visit that place surfaced some two years ago. Things that attract me are huge blue icebergs, calm sea revealing an extreme depth with floating patches of ice of varying dimensions and its dark water, native animal species and ice laden land.

It started when i visited a website and found a stock of copyrighted photos of Antarctic. I contacted them for a permission to display them on my blog but they didn't allow me to do so!

Interestingly, those people were actually running a company whose sole business was to arrange trips to Antarctic. Being in business, they rather offered me to check their website for tour details and costs so that i may take photographs myself despite using copyrighted material and they literally mentioned it in their email.

My heart sank a little bit when i checked the tour charges, there were different packages, and on a rough estimate, an average tour was about twenty lakh rupees from Canada. Quite impossible, how could i collect such a huge amount? Only a miracle could make it possible, just like many other things that are outcomes of different miracles in my life; things i believed were never possible in my life -- turned into reality.

So, on those basis i am just not losing hope. Sometimes things make their way themselves. And i hope someday i would land there with all my excitement and sanity intact!

There i would row a boat in the freezing cold and dark blue waters; i would discover how does it feel to touch tons of colored solid ice with bare hands, something which has a history of millions of years, I would feel the blissful silence, see through the serene skies, breath in the purity of those moments, walk with the penguins and talk to those huge seals and whales. And then in future, if someone would talk about Antarctic's history, i would be a part of those millions of years; for once i was there and i shared the same space and time as its natives did.

May be you would like to click on a few images of Antarctic

Link 1
Link 2
Link 3
Link 4

The Driver!

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NatGeo's Gallery - Wallpapers

Life in Color: Purple

Operating room Twitter

Surgeons use Twitter to educate about surgical
procedures in real time. CNN's Elizabeth Cohen
Reports.

0.4mm

This 0.4 mm 'line-width' ballpoint has a very delicate
needle like tip. Sometimes i fear i might break it while
writing.

Burn Marks

Here is something interesting that happened to the this very
thin paper slip when i placed a cup of steaming hot tea and a
spoon on it - those burn marks. The cup itself was hot enough -
this is exactly what microwave ovens tend to do! While the
other side of paper remained unaffected.

Wordle

Create for your text/website/blog here.

Tag 48

1.WERE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE?
Yes

2.WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED?
Once upon a time ... there was a ....

3.DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING?
very much

4.WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT?
Lamb meat

5.DO YOU HAVE KIDS?
Yes, a son, less than a month old.

6.IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON, WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU?
Most probably no.

7.DO YOU USE SARCASM?
Quite often

8.DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS?
yes

9.WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP?
not at all. That might prove last jump for my weak heart.

10.WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL?
Corn Flakes.

11.DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF?
Certainly, or sometimes i just loose them slightly.

12.WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM?
pineapple/chocolate

13.WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE?
their facial symmetry, Their Accent

14.RED OR PINK?
red.

15.WHAT IS YOUR LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF?
Intellect these days, it is approaching zero.

16.WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST?
Childhood, Home

17.DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO COMPLETE THIS LIST?
not really, I don't think many people would be interested in it, already same sort of activity is going on these day, as i have noticed.

18.WHAT COLOR PANTS AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING?
None of those! Shalwar is quite comfortable, Thankfully i am not too much used to Dhooti, that is way too comfortable.


19.WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW?
Khoey Aankhain (Zeeshan Khakwani)

20.IF YOU WERE A CRAYON, WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE?
Bright Orange

21.FAVORITE SMELLS?
Many but for the sake of pointing out here, A specific aroma in air planes. Was never able to figure out what it was, from their kitchen, some air freshener or interior? But i've always felt it there.

22.WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU TALKED TO ON THE PHONE?
Wife

23.DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU?
No, i copied it from a blog. It was a relatively interesting and easy tag so i copied.

24.FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH?
Once it was football in 1994, then cricket and today none.

25.HAIR COLOR?
black

26.EYE COLOR?
blue! No just joking, it's black!

27. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS?
Spectacles

28.FAVORITE FOOD?
All desi - craving for Palak Gosht with Paratha. I hope to cook Palak tomorrow provided i find it in grocery shop.

29.SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDINGS?
Happy Endings

30.LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED?
Ice Age 2, year ago.

31.WHAT COLOR SHIRT ARE YOU WEARING?
white

32.SUMMER OR WINTER?
Summer

33.HUGS OR KISSES?
Depends!

34.MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND?
Hasan Sb!!

35.LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND?
Wife - in terms of leaving a comment here

36.WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW?
A couple of course books

37.WHAT IS ON YOUR MOUSE PAD?
Bed serves the purpose if mouse pad! And i am in my bed.

38.WHAT DID YOU WATCH ON TV LAST NIGHT?
Havn't watched tv for months now, though i watched latest episode of cell 224 something on youtube last night

39.FAVORITE SOUND(S).
Can't think of any, somg playing in headphones is quite melodiouss!
And pigeons in the courtyard adjacent to my room make much nose in the morning. Certainly it's not something favorite.

40.ROLLING STONES OR BEATLES?
None of these.

41.WHAT IS THE FARTHEST YOU HAVE BEEN FROM HOME?
My present location.

42.DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL TALENT?
I could bet i had many of those - everything is past now.

43.WHERE WERE YOU BORN?
Bahawalpur, Pak.

44.WHOSE ANSWERS ARE YOU LOOKING FORWARD TO GETTING BACK?
Let's see who wants to respond.

45.HOW DID YOU MEET YOUR SPOUSE/SIGNIFICANT OTHER?
We worked in the same office, i fell in love and proposed. haha, nops, Family ties, first cousins!

46.DO YOU BELIEVE IN EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL INTELLIGENT LIFE?
Not at all.

47.HOW OFTEN DO YOU REMEMBER YOUR DREAMS?
Not so often.


48.HOW MANY MORE YEARS DO YOU THINK YOU HAVE ON THIS EARTH?
Years? Life is too unpredictable.


I think Sawj can do the tag. If he obliges, i am sure i would be able to take credit for a chain reaction!! Interesting, just now when i checked his blog for link up, i found his farewell post! Who to tag? Let us see if someone agrees! Cheers!

Labels

Listening to : Khoi Aankhain (Zeeshan Khakwani)

Label from Lyrics: Bikhri Sochain

Keep Shut

Internet -A Mess

This internet and tech has messed up our lives - my life, to be more specific. I think more about internet then anything else. Let me summarize it:

• News updates

• Email boxes - google, yahoo,
  

• Facebook status

• What friends are doing

• Anybody on yahoo, msn, skype?

• What my next post would be?

• How dare he/she said that in response to my comment. Tit for tat. IS ki to ...

• Oh he deleted the comment. tsk can't stand the truth. bast...

• What a nice blog and writer - Internet is a nice place to meet people.

• My laptop battery needs replacement. I don't want to spare hundred pounds.

• What's going on in US, UK, let's check CNN. Obviously it's my tea break.

• xyz is absent from his blog for many days. No update, strange. He is not even on facebook.

• No traffic / Oh someone visited my page!! I'll visit more blogs to get traffic. Be nice.

• Oh she/he again? No man. What a pissed up person.

• People on blogs normally want wah wah comments. Nothing else. And that too on extreme bullshit like : 14 Feb, Picnics, Chocolates, I will call you, gov is doing this, xyz an idiot , he must run goverment like that. (You "#¤ if you are that capable of running something why don't you jump into this business? And just s#¤" up - studying pol science doesn't mean you can run the business - "#%3).
  

• Do you have ipod?

• My broadband connection. Web hosting. Templates.
  

• Facebook wall message to person: I will call you in the evening! wow amazing! that was something mind-blowing i saw recently.
  

• twitter update for those who are sitting besides you. hey check your twitter

• And the tragedy is everybody wants to become a writer. Those who had been cramming A Cricket Match and A Trip to Museum in school now claim to be a writer. Sadly and secretly i was also one of those. I wrote whatever i wanted to write in previous four years and now it's over - almost over.
  

70 percent of life is mess just because of this technology, this computer and this damned bloody internet. See at 4.29 am what am i doing? updating blog. Real pity. Strained and unnecessarily stressed life is a gift of internet and tech.

Rickshaw

Artwork by an Indian artist for Pepsi.

more snow

Friday Lunch

Light Snowfall

click to enlarge.

Of Bananas and Cakes

This small post has something to do with the title - only a very little 'something'. Titles are necessary as i have realized it lately - otherwise the long opening sentences of the posts in archive menu don't leave a good impression on the neatness of whole layout. So, posts will have titles now.

And about bananas? No wonders, i eat more bananas in a day than the glasses of cold tap water i drink in twenty four hours. It has a few benefits in general, often people relate them to the even and odd numbers one must eat at a time. But here, they serve a purely different purpose. They are an instant meal, without juice and melt on the tongue easily - even you can gulp small chunks and burp twenty minutes later.

Procrastination is at its' peak. I must end this random post here -the reason being i) you are reading the blog of a procrastinator ii) his mind is blank at the moment iii) he wants to sleep iv) he has to think how to get back to work, for his fake love for the books vanishes easily if he ignores them for more than two days v) Just a five vi) -Blank - vii) he doesn't want to waste your time if you are still reading and admit that amid a lot of tension and anxiety (according to the post below)- he still has a lot of things to learn and go through. May be it will take a couple of years if he starts today?

Meanwhile just a few days old Ahmad has almost succeeded in telling others to change their routines as per his demands. And vows to continue this battle if they don't or stop doing that.

Did i mention cakes in the post?

Cattell's 16 Factor

Cattell's 16 Factor Test Results Warmth ||||||||| 30% Intellect |||||||||||| 34% Emotional Stability ||||||||| 30% Aggressiveness ||||||||||||||| 50% Liveliness |||||||||||| 38% Dutifulness |||||||||||||||||| 58% Social Assertiveness ||||||||| 22% Sensitivity |||||||||||||||||| 54% Paranoia ||||||||||||||||||||| 66% Abstractness ||||||||||||||||||||| 66% Introversion ||||||||||||||| 46% Anxiety ||||||||||||||||||||| 70% Openmindedness ||||||||||||||| 46% Independence ||||||||||||||| 46% Perfectionism ||||||||||||||| 46% Tension ||||||||||||||||||||| 62%

Take Cattell 16 Factor Test (similar to 16pf)
personality tests by similarminds.com

After every two or three months, just to verify whether we stay on the same level , we take those tests. Then curse a few things and try to forget it for another couple of months.