Hidden Camera

http://youtube.com/watch.php?v=vEWLwz6JRNE&search=leno

Thanks to Ameen for the link.

Family Trip To Vegas

The day after I arrived in Pueblo, we started our family trip to Vegas. The distance ‎between the two cities is about 1500 kilometers. So, we made a stop halfway at a city ‎located near the border of Arizona in New Mexico called Gallup, and continued our trip ‎the next day. We went through Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and into Nevada. I ‎thought Vegas would be pretty dead for Christmas as most Americans would spend their ‎time at home with their families. I was wrong. Vegas was almost as crowded as I had ‎seen it in Summer. But the crowd was different. It was full of Iranians and Orientals. ‎There was going to be 3 concerts: 1- Ebi, Kamran & Hooman. 2-Googoosh and Mehrdad. ‎‎3- Shahram Shabpareh, Andy, Shohreh and Omid.‎

I went to the Googoosh concert on the 24th. It was in University of Nevada at Las Vegas’ ‎basketball court. It started off with some dances which were great. I had never seen such ‎good performances at Persian concerts. Then Googoosh appeared followed by Mehrdad. ‎They sang interchangeably, and often dancers showed up for some of the songs. ‎Googoosh performed 100 times better than what she had when I first saw her in Dubai ‎about 5 years (?) ago. Kambiz also performed two songs in the middle. The concert took ‎about 4 hours, and based on my rough estimate, about 7000 – 10000 people had shown ‎up. There were A LOT of Persians. ‎

The next day, it was Shahram et al’s concert and since my brother really likes Shahram ‎he insisted that he goes with my dad. And they went. According to my dad, most of the ‎crowd were teenagers and there were far less people than for Googoosh’s concert.‎

The rest of our journey in Vegas was spent looking around in the Hotels, Casinos and the ‎malls. It was nice to see things once again.‎

I’ve put up all of the pictures throughout the trip in one album. Some of them are taken ‎by me, but the rest are mostly taken by my dad. One of the interesting places that I hadn’t ‎seen before and we passed by was the Hoover dam. I believe there’s only one picture of ‎it, but it was quite fascinating. Unfortunately we didn’t get the chance to visit Grand ‎Canyon because of a security checkpoint at Hoover Dam which had created a 2 and a half ‎hour traffic jam.‎

I will be back in Canada on Friday, the 30th. Ebi’s concert is on the 1st. Sanam & I will ‎join a group of fun-loving, ghelyoon smoking, beer drinking, poker playing barobax for ‎this concert. All other barobax are certainly welcome to join.‎

O Canada

No, I will not try to sing the Canadian national anthem. But! I will tell you how God ‎forgot to install heaters up here and instead sent Santa to bring us candies for Christmas. ‎How good is a two dollar candy when your ass is about to freeze?!‎

Few minutes ago I “enjoyed” Air Canada’s special treat: a visit to Pearson Airport’s de-‎icing bay. You would wonder how one could de-ice something when de-icer itself is ‎stuck frozen. Longest flight delay ever – outside of our beloved Islamic Republic of ‎course. 1 hour and 18 minutes to be exact until the 37-meter-long Airbus A320 pushed ‎itself away from the ramp, through the de-icing bay and up in the air.‎

Let me give praise to the CEO of Aseman airlines. Not very far from me, the flight ‎attendant is serving something for the belly. As I stare at the small sized pizzas I am ‎quickly reminded that they’re not free. 4 dollars, Canadian or American. A good bargain ‎you’d get on the exchange rate, to be followed with a real rip off when you find out that ‎all you got is your worthless CIBC debit card sitting next to a bunch of all-green ‎currency: the American Dollar. I run my fingers through my wallet to grab a couple of 1 ‎dollar bills that Sobhan has made me buy from him when he returned from his free, ‎school-paid visit to Texas; for an overpriced rate of course. Why am I surprised for being ‎ripped off by a pure-mathy from Kerman? The guy’s brain functions in numbers. “37” he ‎replied when I asked him where he had put my box of donuts. 37 must have been the ‎prime version of the longitudinal location of the donuts. Later in the plane, the four ‎dollars in my hand are replaced with a pizza that the crew forgot to de-ice. Why did I ‎expect to get warm food when the microwave’s screen is flashing: “… . . . .. throw me a ‎jacket man!”‎

I pull out the flight magazine out of the front seat pocket which by the way is about to be ‎shoved down my throat as the lady sitting in front of me is under the impression that ‎she’s lying on her bedroom sofa and has pushed back the seat to extent of breaking the ‎Newtonic laws of stretching solid materials. The magazine says they’ll be showing some ‎cartoon but the screen in the aisle shows me nothing but white noise. The same sort of ‎white noise that you’d get back in Iran after you stayed up too late and you’d see the ‎news guy say good night. I continue reading the magazine…Air Canada has been rated ‎North America’s #1 airline. Must be due to their superb de-icing techniques. I bet they ‎even have a patent for it.‎

Miles and miles south of the border lies a city called Denver. As cold as, if not colder ‎than Waterloo and Toronto, not due to its latitude but its high altitude. Sitting 5280 feet ‎above sea level, Denver is the capital of the Rockies sate: Colorado. That will be my ‎destination if Air Canada manages to stay #1 only for rest of this trip. So, hail to the land ‎of igloo building Eskimos: Canada.‎

Yahoo Made Me Proud At Last

It was about time that Yahoo makes SOME move. I was never a fan of Gmail. (A big fan of Google search though). I don't know why. Even though relatively I was one of the early people who joined the beta testers (thanks to Ali B.), but I never got too comfortable with it. On the other hand, Yahoo was driving me crazy too. There were obviously some features in Gmail that I liked.

I'm a Yahoo! Mail Plus member. That means I pay them $20 bucks a year to get what Gmail users get for free. So my incentives for renewing my mail service with Yahoo were severely wearing out (I'm not even sure if "wearing out" is the correct way to describe it, but you get the idea).

However, in a surprising move, Yahoo showed a new face. Last night when I tried to login into my Yahoo Mail, a new page appeared asking whether I wanted to test Yahoo! Mail Beta. Curious to know what it was I clicked yes, and I was presented with what I would call a good improvement over what Yahoo offered before. I haven't played around with it much, but at a glance, it sorta looks like Microsoft Outlook, with interesting drag and drop features and loading emails on the fly. I believe Gmail also loads emails on the fly.

Anyways. I just thought I tell everyone about the Beta version. I know there are many Gmail fans out there and that's ok. As long as we like what we have, everything's good. Happy emailing y'all.

Girls Night Out!

About 3 weeks ago we had gathered up at Barobax HQ. I think it was right after Waterloo Night that the ladies alongside their gossiping turned to the guys and said (with girly accent): "2 weeks from today, we're gonna have a girls night out...we'll have funnn..and we won't take any of you with us."..."OK" we said.

Shortly after I challenged them by saying: "But you know what? I bet it won't happen." And all the girls shouted out loud that it will and we'll see.

Well by the support of my fellow brothers AND some of the ladies who are themselves dissappointed in themselves, here I am posting this message to remind you that we won the bet. What was it over? Drinks? Ice Cream? Hey, I'm even happy with a can of pop! Since that'll be no ORDINARY can of pop. It'll be DA CAN of pop. :D ;) Cheers to y'all ;)

Behnam

It was around a year ago that I met Behnam at Arash's place. He was Hamed's friend and at the end of the party when everyone settled down to relax a little, he warmed up the gathering by his warm voice. Many of those who were there surely remember him.

A few days ago Hamed told me that he has released an album officially and gave me one of his songs. It's a very nice song indeed, and I have uploaded it here so that you get a feel of it. Based on my understanding the album is available in Canada through Pars Video as well as other Persian music stores; so if you like this song, it would be a good idea to support him through purchasing the album. After all he's not a rich celebrity out there, he's one of us.

Hope you enjoy.

Behnam Jahanbeyglou - Do Roodkhooneh

Lost & Found!

Half pair of a glove has been found at Barobax HQ. (See Photo Attached!)

If it belongs to you, please bring the other half to claim.

Reward requested.

Thank You.

World Cup 2006 Groups Announced

I'm excited as HELL!!! Eager to know who are the teams we'll be playing against? Click on the following link and find out:

Reveal The Final Draw For FIFA WORLD CUP 2006 GROUPS

Exams

Of course. It's that time of year again. I just wanted to post a notice here and say that updates shall suffer in the days to come. Good luck to all those "exam-writing-barobax".

Below I will enlighten you with my exam schedule. Feel free to enlighten us back with your own schedule as a comment.

Dec. 9 - BUS 111
Dec. 12 - CS 360
Dec. 13 - PHIL 145
Dec. 19 - CS 480
Dec. 19 - CS 448
Dec. 20 - Pueblo, Colorado
Dec. 25 - Las Vegas, Nevada (?)
Dec. 30 - Toronto, Ontario
Dec. 31 - (?)

Anomalies of the world

It’s hard to look through a hole and see the ocean. It’s hard to look at the eyes and feel the emotions. It’s hard to look at a scenery and see the wind. It’s hard to regenerate the memories of the stars. It’s hard to think of what ancestors thought. It’s hard to sweat in the attacks of the cold. Let prayer be encoded in the words of truth. Let layers be unfold in the beauty of the rose. Let dream take over the poverty of the poor. Let equality take over the wealth of the rich. Let money sing you the songs of the future. Let money exchange into entities of thought. Let me say what I say in plain words. Let me tell you as these stories unfold. Let me delve deeper into blood pumping machines.

Yet another chat under the invisible glass. Yet another talk under the falling rain. Yet another discussion between known and unknown. Yet another exchange among the agents of existence. There will be a day…Oh she whispered…There will be a day…

God damn the anomalies of this world.