What's the plan tonight?

It's new year's eve tonight. Barobax will be partying all around the world. I know some of you are now in Iran, and some in Dubai. Many of the barobax in Canada are now in Montreal ready to dance the night away in the well famous nightclubs and streets of this French city.

The rest of us back in Waterloo, probably are wandering around confused. Not knowing what to do at all. There'll probably be fireworks in downtown Kitchener and very few clubs might have new year's party events. It's up to us to figure I guess. So if you're reading this in time and you're stuck in Waterloo like I am. Gimmie a buzz and we'll get together tonight.

Before I end this post and before we all start planning for fun, I'd like to say one last thing. Around this time, last year, Bam was crushed in one of the strongest earthquakes in Iran's history. About 40,000 people died and many are still struggling to survive. This year, just about Xmas time, yet another devestating earthquake shook the earth. This time the death toll has reached over 130,000. As we get ready to party tonight, many are searching their sorroundings for their loved ones and something to eat. Each and every one of us can make a difference by making a small donation to those in need. Please click on the following link which is provided by Google and use your credit card to make a donation. Even if it is 5 dollars only, it can still make a difference:
http://www.google.com/tsunami_relief.html

Your new year's would be happier, and you'd will feel much better in the inside once you do so. Trust me. Happy New Year barobax.

Barobax Update!

It was a long while since I made any major updates to the site. Today I uploaded over 300 photos. Most of them are from our trip to Atlanta.

I also made a minor change to the page where each picture shows up. At the top of each picture, now there is a blue bar. Sometimes when I need to add comments for each picture, I will enter it there. Currently only a few of the pictures from the new albums have comments. I will try to use this feature more frequently for future albums.

Hi Y'all...Wanna get some grub?!

Today is Friday. Our last day of stay at Atlanta, Georgia. This trip was great. We visited most of the attractions here in Atlanta and we cruised down all the major streets. Hopped into all major clubs and dined at all types of restaurants. We got amused by the Georgian accent: "Hi Y'all". We noticed that cars here don't put a plate number at the front. We got lost in the curly streets of Atlanta and we were astonished by the awesome architecture in this city. We pulled by a car from Texas which had a "Kerry" bumper sticker and said: "We're proud of you". Here's some of the places we went to during our visit:

The CNN center. The World of Coca-Cola. Johnny Rockets. IHOP. Krogers. CVS. Vision Night Club. Tongue & Groove Club. Halo lounge. Crown Plaza Hotel. Bank of America. Driving & Motor Vehicle Licensing Center. Dunken Donuts. Cavas Mexican Restaurant. Atlanta Botanical Garden. Lenox Mall. And many more...

I will upload the pictures as soon as I arrive at Waterloo. That'll be boxing day I think.

Cheers Y'all, hope you had a great Xmas Holiday too.

Vision: First Night @ Atlanta

Say goodbye to Canada and a big hello to Atlanta. 12 hours in to this city of once black slaves which now has a mix of races from Black and White Americans to Chinese, Indians, Persians and Europeans. Last night we went to a club called Vision. Vision was nothing like clubs back in Toronto or Waterloo. Vision was built on 3 different levels. Blue and black lights along with awesome glass archetecture which divided this huge club into 5 main sections with different bars and music. Looks: 9 out of 10. We entered the club at 12:00. There were many people on the dance floor but we were not impressed with the numbers; there were still a lot of space on the dance floor. People were packed in one of the rooms watching American Football, Atlanta playing some other team. 12:45 The dance floor was booming! Crowd almost trippled by 1 AM and everyone though not too formal but looked extremely well dressed up. "Dress to Impress" as I like to put it. Guys and girls both looked amazingly good and again we were surprised by the looks of the people comparing with the people back at Rev, Louies or Docks. Crowd: 8 out of 10. As we stayed in the main hall we only listened to the music being played there. Over 5 DJs playing all sorts of dance music, be it techno, house, hip hop and even rock! DJs were awesome, connecting with the crowd thanking them all the time and bringing the best of the grooves to the club. I absolutely loved the music: 10 out of 10.

The club had lots of VIP sections, lots of couches to sit on and a lot of bars. It was one hell of an experience. I never thought any club would ever be better than Revolution. But I must say, this place definately proved me wrong. With the dance floor being PACKED up to the last moment at 2:45 when they stopped the music, and the music booming at this sexy looking club. I must say, I was impressed with my first night here at Atlanta and what it had to show off to us. Way to go. Vision Nightclub & Lounge 1068 Peachtree St. Atlanta, Georgia.

Winter 2005 Tuition Fees

Tomorrow is the last day to pay your fees for the Winter term without penalty.

News Update

I deleted 1280 comments off of my website today. Spam is not only a problem for email accounts but online commenting systems too. Advertisings for Viagara, Penis Enlargement and Prozac had filled the website like crazy. I deleted them, but it needed a cure not a treatment. So I decided to make some changes so that each time visitors want to submit a comment, they enter a keyword in a specified field. This would have prevented bots from submitting auto comments. I spent 5 hours on Movable Type's comment scripts and I had no luck figuring out how the hell the code works. The scripts are written in Perl. I hate this language. I could not get the code to make a simple string comparison check. I even tried doing it using Javascript, but that didn't work either! I eventually gave up.

I called the university today to make sure the Philosophy course I am taking next term is a credited course. I had taken PHIL100 before and I enrolled in PHIL100J. Noticing they are not antireqs I thought I can take it. After contacting the university I realized they are not antireqs because they are the same damn course! Now all bird courses have their classes filled up and I'm stuck with only 4 courses for Winter. If once again barobax are taking some bird course, I am willing to take it with them. Let me know if you've found any good ones.

Hootan is coming to Waterloo on Friday around 4 PM. We are then going to Sanam's, and her mom is gonna cut our hair. I really need a haircut. I think I haven't had one in 6 months now. Then at 8:30 we're catching the bus to Hamilton to go to Mahdi's. Staying over at his place for the night. On the morning of Saturday, Dec 18, around 10:00 AM the three of us (Mahdi, Hootan and I) will catch the bus to Niagara Falls and from there cab it all the way to Buffalo Airport. Hoping we can cross the border smoothly. Damn this border! Whenever I wanna pass it, I feel like I'm passing "7 khaane Rostam".

I have skipped 3 meals already! Last night's dinner, Today's breakfast and lunch. It's 6:06 and I CAN'T WAIT TO GET MYSELF TO A RESTAURANT WHERE I CAN EATTTTTT. AAAAAAAAAAAAAA! Waiting for Farbod to get ready and then leave. This has gotten long enough. Good luck in exams barobax.

Rumble in My Head

Memorees rumble in my head like the footsteps of the soldiers of the Persian Empire. Threads of thought swiftly fly through the Neurons of my brain.
Chemicals of feelings flow through my blood vessels like fish in the river.
And I talk to me. Remind me of what went by. Regenerating the past for the sake of the future; now. Penalizing, punishing, warning my blocks of memory.
Memories rumble in my head like bombs hitting the heart of my city.
Threads of thought kill deeds in the memory of the past.
The feather did not fly with the wind.

Our World: Randomness <-> Survival of the Fittest

I'm developing a stronger and stronger faith that God has created this world by trial and error. Most probably my definition of God is not what you have in mind and that is something which I need to elaborate on at a later time. However, for the sake of simplicity let's consider the most simplistic arbitrary definition of God.

When I was a kid, I learned that God has created this world. It has created the earth and all the plants and the animals. It has also created us humans, the way we are now. In our Islamic religeous books this went further to say that all of this has been created so that humans can eat, and drink and perform good deeds for each other and for God. All that suggests that the world as it is today, was designed this way using a specified plan.

Now, let's consider what we have learned from astronomy, astrophysics and anthropology. The universe after the Big Bang. Then galaxies, then the earth, then primitive animals. For millions of years all of this went by. The universe filtered the successful entities, those stable galaxies remained, those stable elements were formed, those fit animals survived. There was also variations in each of them so that each time something new was born. Due to randomness? The variations built-up and different entities were born. This went on, until our early ancestors were born. Some entities totally vanished along the path. Stars died, galaxies turned into dust, dinosaurs got extinct. Then us humans were born. Then...

Think about it for a moment. Design? Plan? Sketch? Well yes and no. I have started to believe that if God had a design for our universe, then it must have been based on randomness and trial and error. It made my head hurt once I tried to imagine how randomness can be a plan. How survival-of-the fittest can be a plan. I mean in this world, only those entities that are fit or stable survive. Others don't. They vanish and are replaced by better, fitter, more stable entities. Is this God's design? How else would it be? Isn't it the case that if the world wasn't this way, then it wouldn't "be"? If this wasn't the way things worked then there would be no things!? Maybe this world exists because it is the only world that can exist. I read somewhere that a Philosopher once said that "this is the best of all possible worlds". Well, I couldn't agree more; I'll even make that more specific by saying that this is the best and the only possible world. If it wasn't then it wouldn't survive! This world has survived and it is getting fitter and more stable (better?) every second...

Hamed once told me out of his knowledge of Physics that the universe moves towards chaos. From the philosophical point of view, I would say that it's both true and false. It is true in a smaller scale. There is randomness in the universe and everything is moving towards chaos, creating variations. However, there is another force in our universe: survival of the fittest, which counters the effects of chaos. All the variations that are created by chaos are filtered by the second force so that only those which are better and more advanced remain. The rest are forever gone. In the long run, the second one seems to be stronger. If the universe moved towards chaos in the long run, we would now be nothing but "dust in the air".

A Frozen Unit Of Time

2:48 AM. Tueday December 7, 2004. Right in the middle of final exams period. I suddenly pause for a moment. Thinking of where I am and what I've been doing since I came to Canada. I like these moments when you just stop, freeing your mind of ALL concerns, worries and plans. You just look at yourself from the top, and the path before you and the moment you're at. I think of the friends I've had during the years. I refresh my memories for a second. All places I've been with them. The games we played, the conversations we had. My interactions with my dad. with my mom. with my brother. with my cousines and aunts. It's interesting, this life. Freeze the moment. It's fun.

It helps you relax, and make you realize that you're taking life too seriously. Shows you how deep you've drowned in the pool of everyday routines. It allows you to see how distanced you are from simplicity. It might also show you, as it showed me, that you are trying TOO hard to be happy, to be successful, that this extensive effort in order to reach happiness and success is totally diminishing your happiness. It's like fighting for peace. It's like fu**ing for virginity.

I read poems of Hafez, of Molavi, of Khayyam. I attended philosophy classes. I watched the Matrix. I learned from my parents. I talked to my friends. These brought me joy. It made me realize no one really knows what lies beyond life. Beyond this everyday life, what is hidden? Whose out there? Angels? Aliens? Gods? Heavens? Galaxies? Blackholes? What's in the dark out there? Whose there? What's gonna happen? Who are we? WH. WH. WH. WH. WH.....

I like this life. This is all I have. This life, this mind is me. That's it, and no more for me. "I want to live, when I'm alive."

Waterloo Night IV