This is not a blog

2009-02-28T20:17:00.001-05:00

My blog is being held hostage by strangers.

2008-11-29T23:37:00.003-05:00

Waking up to a dark room, being conscious of the existence of objects around you, which threaten to make the room look darker if you turn the lights on.

There are two pressure points on your throat.

EOM

The past-me

2008-11-05T23:35:00.003-05:00

I wish I hadn't stopped writing here. Regardless of how little I wrote in the past, I can see that this diary has managed to record moments, slices, images which are somewhat revived when I glance over them and recall the feeling that I had when I wrote each of them.

A while ago I received a "future-me" email that I had written to myself a year before then. I remember I wrote another future-me email after reading the first one. But I don't recall what I have written in it at all. I'm so longing to get it back in my mailbox. I want to know what I'd have to say to myself. The today-me needs someone to talk to him, and the past-me, I'm sure, is the best person for the job.

So let me record another image for the future. I wanna note down that today I couldn't stand watching people having sex in a movie. I felt like I wanted to turn my face, just the same way you'd want to avoid watching a horror scene in a scary movie. It was like the thought of intercourse induced an emotion too strong for me to handle. My vocabulary is coming short, but I wanna note down suspense, jilt, and trauma.

I don't like that I had to write so plain and naked. But it doesn't matter. It's for a good cause. It's for the future-me.

Restless morning

2008-11-04T13:50:00.007-05:00

Why weren't I told about what I had truly shown that I can hear? I know I had built enough trust, enough confidence, enough security... way more than enough.

The images that could have been shared with me on a good day, why did they have to end up haunting me in disturbed dreams on a restless morning?

I've learned that I have shared something without knowing. I've learned that I have been deprived of the share I should have had in something. My share is set to be in the restless mornings.

There is a magnet on the fridge door with cartoon faces for different feelings. I know I can't choose any single one. I know I have mixed feelings. But I know the bad has become so big it doesn't even let me daydream about a way to keep the good.

This is not a blog, but it's all mine.

2008-11-01T18:52:00.003-04:00

My hit counter shows that nobody read my last post. That's comforting to know. It helps me relax and think about what I would like to say, without being distracted by thinking about who will see it. I know people will read things eventually, but they will read it at a different time and things are different at different times. Time changes everything.

A Slice of Golestan

2008-10-31T04:30:00.002-04:00

I've got a lot to say. I've got a lot to write about. And this was never a blog. This was never the place to write about what matters the most.

Perhaps I can just note down how happy I was to see Florida again for a few days. There was not enough time to see the foggy mornings, or the rainy afternoons. But the greener grass was everywhere. And I could readily see and smell the freshness in the land and in the air.

I played volleyball with friends for an hour. I never thought I could be back so early when I left. I missed my friends there.

I forgot to take my old university ID with me. I couldn't ride the bus. It felt surreal. It felt like one of those recurring dreams of the past where I dreamed I'd go back to Iran and then just remember that I have a class the next day, while I don't have some documents ready to go back in time.

Everybody in real life

2008-01-12T04:15:00.001-05:00

I watched "Dan in real life" twice in a row tonight. I like Steve Carell. He has some kind of believable character in this type of roles. I have a somewhat similar feeling toward Ben Stiller. I just looked up his name on the internet. I hardly remember people's names.

I watched the movie with two different audiences. At 9:00pm and at 11:30pm on a Friday night. There was a big difference in the two audiences' reactions. The first audience were much louder. They laughed out loud at many more scenes. However, the second audience seemed to be paying more attention to the finer points. They seemed to behave like they were more introverted. I am wondering if there is any correlation between being introverted and having the tendency to get involved in late-night activities. Yeah, I can pull correlations out of, err, nowhere, if you had any doubt about that.

The movie was the kind of funny that I like. But what resonated with me more was that flavor of loneliness that it carried all over. Especially that type of loneliness where people are not necessarily upset or disappointed, but they are consistently self-conscious about their loneliness, which has so much impact on how they react and on what matters to them. Most people are so lonely in a way. I don't know how we ended up like this. Is that how we are supposed to be? We come to life alone and we die alone. Is that a good enough reason why we should live lonely lives as well? On the other hand, realizing this is a a bit comforting. I think we should really learn not to take loneliness personally!

2008-01-02T04:16:00.001-05:00

I am back, and it just means I have complaints to make and nagging to do. Writing things down doesn't make them solved. But at least the first few minutes of writing are relaxing. Let's just hope I can get rid of this headache and go to sleep before I finish this.

...

Ok, this didn't work out. I got stuck in the middle of a paragraph. I'm too unfocused to be able to write now. Maybe I will write that later. Maybe tomorrow. But I post this anyway. Even though I can't write something coherent, I am sure the future me can look at this and remember. Actually, a while ago I sent out one of those futureme emails to myself. I don't remember what I wrote in it. Perhaps I should write another one.

Léon

2007-09-22T06:51:00.000-04:00

I watched "Léon, the professional" again. I had watched the movie once before; about 3 to 4 years ago I guess. But I'm surprised I'm so moved by it this time. I hadn't forgotten most of the story, so this comes to me as a surprise. Meanwhile I'm thinking "so, I must have changed". The climax of the movie, for me, was the scene where Leon helps the girl leave through the hole in the wall, especially where Léon portrays the life he is going to have. I actually cried for a couple seconds, and I couldn't help it. Cheesy, I know. The thing that passed through my mind in those few seconds--quite surprising to myself--was martyrdom, and specifically "Ashura", and that's surprising because the movie seems to be about anything but that. I think it's for the very first time that I understand Ashura. I can now see what they are trying to say, and why the story should exactly end the way it does. I don't take pleasure in discussing my stance on religion, especially revealing that I know myself to be an atheist. But that is part of the point here.

I keep thinking... if the people who bring sorrow and grief upon themselves during those religious ceremonies--if they do deeply feel something similar toward their heroes, then I am truly happy for them, and whether what they believe in is true, or most probably not, has nothing to do with it. I'm just considering the chance that this might be the case for some, even though I can't imagine it to be. Yet I do know that I don't know about everything.

2007-09-02T20:59:00.000-04:00

pooshaali

Random lines on a diary

2007-08-17T18:46:00.000-04:00

This is my last Friday here. After work I had a beer with Dan and the new Jr. system administrator (I just noticed this reads on his badge). It felt good to again drink at work on campus with friends. -- Today I rode a bus after a long time. -- Today I called my ex girl friend and admired how well she could articulate herself. -- Today I listened to online radio without headphones. Today is Friday. This Friday is different from the last Friday. -- I realize I must have grown up a lot.

Ba Charkh dar Golestan

2007-08-11T06:06:00.000-04:00

(Title translated: On my bike in Florida)

Attention: dairy-like post. The real subject of this post is not its story. Rather I'm trying to write down as many details as possible hoping that it would later help me recall my current state of mind.

I'd been wondering how come I never get caught in the rain while it rains so often here. A few nights ago it eventually happened to me. It was raining so hard that a few times I had to stop the bike just because I couldn't keep my eyes open! I was 20 minutes of biking away from home and it started raining 5 minutes after I left. I would usually stop somewhere waiting for the rain to slow down, but it was dark and I was already soaked, so I thought I can as well go on. In few minutes I started to feel the water inside my shoes and the excessive weight in my jeans. I thought I was already soaked, but I was weighing more by the minute.

On a side note, the funny thing is that I was still thinking like I was struggling to escape it. Then I realized that it was already done, and then I started to enjoy the remainder of the ride! There is not much joy into it really, but at least I no longer had to dodge the water on the ground like the other days. Besides, looking at the people inside the cars, I thought I was the only person on that street who didn't have to worry about hiding from the rain any more. Let's get philosophical here and assert that fear of something is more frightening than the something itself!

On another side note, I was thinking tonight that there is a direct Persian translation for the word Florida. It must be Golestan! Florida comes from the Spanish "flor" for flower. Golestan literally means the land of flowers in Persian and it's actually the name of a province in Iran. I'd never been used to living in small towns before, but I've really like it so far here in Florida. Another advantage of living here, I believe, is being away from the mass of California style Persians with their peculiar life style. I have never been to California, but I can imagine the horror that it should be, from what I have seen in friends who fall prey to the trend of following the most visible features of their perceived American life style. Whoa, I got cynical again! Bad dot, Bad dot!

I ended up writing more than what I intended to. At any rate, I would like to confess that despite being soaked, I still believe that riding a bike on a daily basis is the best thing that has happened to me in United States so far. I just love it and I can't get enough of it. I hope the guys at the campus free bike repair don't read this, because I've been frequenting them more than frequently recently.

Ciao!

I'm the dot in sports

2007-08-03T20:39:00.000-04:00

I played some un-american football on campus today. I was on the illusion that I would be ready for some game now after running 3+ miles every other day. But I ran out of breath after a few minutes and I injured my foot right in the first game. So practically today I watched some football on campus with a bag of ice on my foot.

Once in high school I broke a bone in this foot while playing football without even noticing it. There was some pain for a week, but it didn't seem that serious to me. A good six months later I got curious about a small bump on my foot and got an x-ray to find out that it was a fusion point. So I hope I have not fractured my foot this time, because if I have, the only thing I am willing to do about it is to watch Sicko over and over again for sympathy and encouragement.

The other thing I got unlucky about today was that the teams played in "shirts" vs "skins" since there were no jerseys. I was looking forward to being on the skins team to show off the abundance of my body hair. Now they will have to wait another week or two for that one. I know, I know. I just can't do anything about it.

Double Lost

2007-07-24T00:36:00.000-04:00

I have been working for some place other than my own department for more than a year now. It has two buildings. I have been to the other building only a few times and mostly for meetings. I always feel like an alien in there, because I can't find my way around in the hallways. They usually have me stay at the front desk and somebody would come down and get me. I believe I was expected to be lost on my own.

This other day I went there perhaps for the last time. This time the director of my own building was with me too. They had us stay at the front desk so somebody would come down and get us. After the meeting, on our way out, the director tells everybody that he can never figure out which way goes where and he that would get lost on his own.

Turns out, I was never an alien. However, this is my last month at the job.

2007-07-16T20:32:00.000-04:00

I don't usually link to stuff I see on the net, but this one is interesting.

"A researcher in the United States claims that the reason for the obesity epidemic is more than just the calories we eat and the lack of exercise. It's a substance that food manufacturers are widely using."

Here, you will find a 30 minute interview where the researcher explains this theory. I liked it because it has a completely scientific perspective. He explains the body's built-in negative feedback mechanism which is supposed to help you balance your weight, and how this substance (fructose) is messing with it. It is also the first time I hear some explanation why exercising is so effective in losing weight although you burn only so few calories doing it. He is really good at giving speech. I bet he is a good teacher too.

I found this on slashdot, where you can also enjoy a heated debate between people who have no clue about the subject and don't bother reading the linked article before they start commenting. Nonetheless, it's always pretty interesting and informative!

2007-07-07T00:18:00.000-04:00

She's crazy, but she can't be any more right:

"tu in donya hichi mundegar nis
na ghamesh na shadish"

He doesn't mind.

2007-07-06T04:39:00.000-04:00

He is cool. He is outgoing. He is an allnighter. He is a student. He is married. He is an internet celebrity. He has many friends. He has few close friends. He doesn't miss them. He is relaxed. He is apathetic. He is void of hatred. He is void of love. He is likable. He can create love. He can create hatred. He can ignore questions. He can promise and forget. He is selfish. He doesn't mind telling. He doesn't mind hiding. He doesn't mind deceiving. He likes to seize the day. He says he is exhausted. He is not exhausted. He is cool. He can lie. He can't lie well. He is not a liar. He likes to explore. He likes to have fun. He is fun. He doesn't have a best friend. He is cool. He doesn't care. He is not concerned with matters farther than a close distance. He can change according to his distance. He can be shallow. He thinks of his wife as a tool. He thinks of his roommate as a tool. He is weak. He is frozen. He is gone. He is so far away. He thinks he is going to go back. He is not. He is gone.

Relax, I'm unarmed!

2007-06-29T12:35:00.000-04:00

I've been looking around for a used car for a while. This other day, I saw an ad on craigslist from a dealer and I called him and we set a time for a test drive. He was from one of small towns around here. The moment I called him I noticed his strong American accent and to tell you the truth I was a bit anxious about meeting him, you know, thinking he looks like one of them cowboys! Have you seen the movie "The Big Lebowski"? He reminded me of that narrator character with big mustaches and the cowboy hat who talks to the dude in the bar. I like these guys actually, they resemble our own "luti"s in a way!

Anyway, I met him and everything went smooth. While in the car, he asked me where I am from and I went to to answer "from Iran". Then he asked me where I have graduated from and I said from some school in Iran. He asked if the education is good in there and I explained to him that there are smart students but the facilities are not on par with the schools in here. He then somehow managed to ask me something along the lines of "Have you ever had any encounters where you get reactions from people because of your origin?" I don't remember his exact words, but I understood what he meant. I told him that I have never felt that I'm being treated differently here. But he reminded me of the fact that I have had this unanswered question for quite a while. I wanted to ask him "should I expect to be treated differently?"

I have heard all these stories about middle easterns being judged because of their origins. Anyone who knows about Iran knows that everything about Iranian people is different from the neighboring countries, but with Ahmadi Nejad and the fundamentalist clerics on the news all the time, I don't expect anyone to see that difference. So I have always wondered, are these stories really true? Do Americans look at me and think with themselves "Huh, this is one of them jihadis with fundamentalist beliefs?" But I have never felt anything like this. Does this mean that it is more likely happen to people who look differently or those who express their beliefs? Or am I emitting atheist waves which helps people get the right ideas about me. Or perhaps I am being treated differently, and I just can't tell, because, you know, I have never talked to a cashier from inside an American person. What makes it more complicated is that in this country there has been a very fresh history of fighting against racism, so people are taught from young ages not to reveal any personal feelings toward people of a different race. So I have always wondered about this and it just bothers me that I don't know. The best answer I have got is from when I had this discussion with my American colleague and he said that this is a college town and people are more used to seeing foreigners. He basically said this mostly depends on the diversity of the environment.

On a side note, what is it with my fellow Iranians answering "Persian" whenever they are asked about their origin? I mean, come on, do people from Italy go around and say "I'm Roman?" I have never introduced myself as Persian, though I understand why someone would do that. They way that works is by taking advantage of the fact that most people don't know the relation between Iran and the ancient Persia. Persian is associated with some fine things like Persian cat, Persian carpets. But Iranian is associated with Ahmadi Nejad and Mullas. Still I think when you say "I'm Persian", you are implicitly admitting that there is something wrong with being Iranian. I know that when I say I'm Iranian, the image that most people get is nowhere close to who I really am as any Iranian. In spite of that, I prefer to be judged for the wrongdoings of the leaders we have failed to choose properly, than allowing myself to remove parts of my identity.

Structured Procrastination

2007-06-27T12:27:00.000-04:00

I remember I was going to write about something before I write the second part to that Bus-based Theory of Ethics (also referred to in the lit. as the theory of infinite parallel worlds), BUT, I don't remember what it was that I was going to write about.

Anyway, I came across this thing called Structured Procrastination. Being a HUGE procrastinator myself, I completely understand how it works, and I have completely believed, for long, that there is no cure for it. But I just read about this structured procrastination thing and it seams to be no BS at all. For the very least, it is not trying to persuade me into imitating one of them non-procrastinators! So I liked it and I really decided to give it a try. Which is exactly why I ended up here writing this blog post instead. You'll just see why if you read the article. But if you do, it means you are not lazy and in that case this whole thing won't be of any use to you. So at any rate, excuse me for having wasted a few minutes of your life.

By the way, according to the latest update, this not-a-blog is not expecting visitors in the first place! I'm so thinking about removing the comment link and replacing it with a static blue Comment (0) text. I just like the way it looks; so inviting me to write without worrying. And don't tell me that I'm gonna be deceiving myself, because that article you won't read says I can just do that, and it is a good thing too.

Now, back to being lazy.

2007-06-26T17:02:00.000-04:00

Man! I wrote a post and I explicitly asked for comments, and I got none! This is really cool in a way! It means I can write stuff that people actually won't read. I'm really excited! Oh, wait, but what about later? You can always go back to read the previous posts. Hummmm.... but something is telling me that if people don't read what I write now, they sure as hell won't read what I wrote before. I mean, come on, I don't!

Moreover, have you heard this motto: "Nobody reads your blog!"

Dot's Bus-oriented Theory of Ethics

2007-06-22T17:38:00.000-04:00

More often than not, you run into this fundamental question that "Who is right here?". Some other times you ask yourself: "Is doing this justified?"

I had put this on draft earlier and now I'm trying to continue writing it. But what does that question mean anyway? Truth be told, it seems vague even to me now. But I remember what inspired me to write this post, so let's start from there...

Observation:

A) How many times has it happened to you that a friend of yours was mistreated by somebody?
B) How many times has it happened to you that a friend of yours has mistreated somebody?

A's are significantly more. I am not asking you to include the cases that you only hear about. Even if you just look at the cases that you are personally involved in, you see more A's than B's.

A) How often do you witness a relative or an acquaintance doing somebody a favor and not receiving the appreciation they expect?
B) How many times do you come across a relative or an acquaintance who receives a favor and doesn't return it?

I believe we all see more A's. But in both examples A and B are just the two sides of a same thing. Shouldn't there be some kind of a balance here? Where is this imbalance coming from then?

End of observation.

This whole thing is a not a big deal anyway and I have long had an explanation for this phenomenon. But what I've been more interested in recently is some other conclusions that follow from that explanation. Before I get into that, let me explain what I think is the reason for this imbalance.

Observation #2:

When I was in high school, I had to ride crowded buses everyday. Most of the time, all seats were taken and I had to stand in that narrow space between the seats. It's barely wide enough for one person and yet people are crammed in there and you are lucky if you find a spot on the bar above your head to hang from. The streets were pretty crowded too and the driver had to use brakes a lot. So from all these constant shakes to the bus, you occasionally bump into the seated person next to you. And I was very careful not to. But sometimes you are so busy holding a fixed position against all the pressure of that standing crowd that you don't notice that you are slightly bumping into the shoulder of that seated person. Sometimes when I did this, the seated guy gave me a look, like "you are a careless idiot for invading my space here" and I always thought how can't they see that there is no space here, and why are they so touchy about it.

Then some other day, I was on the bus and I was lucky enough to find a seat. During that rush hour and in that damn slow traffic, all I could do was to immerse myself in my thoughts, thinking through all sorts of stuff like it's a journey. You start from somewhere and you can't tell what you are going to end up thinking about. All you know is that when you get off that bus, it seems like you have been anywhere on this planet but on that very bus you were riding. And then just imagine what big of an annoyance can a standing passenger be if they lean onto your shoulder all the time and keep ripping your threads of thoughts and bring you down from those clouds into that noisy atmosphere.

You can see the point here, right? But the "real" point is that I wasn't seeing the point for quite a while! I mean, come on! I was always careful not to disturb the seated passengers, but these guys, the just didn't care. I would never bump into them repeatedly, but some of these guys they were like they didn't mind seating on my back! Believe it or not, it wasn't until one of those thought journeys on one of those buses that it was revealed to me that these are the two sides of the same thing. I was a standing passenger on some days and a seated passenger on some other days, but I never saw these two experiences related to each other. It might seem difficult to understand now that I have contrasted these two so clearly, but this simply was the case. These were two totally different and unrelated problems to me. The mind provoking fact is that this is what actually happens to us in many other different situations, yet we are totally unaware of it.

The explanation is simple. It's because of the different environments. When I was standing between rows of seats, that was my environment in there. The seated passenger was riding with me on the same bus, but they were in a totally different environment. In this case, the two environment are even physically separate. My environment was like chaos. Whenever the driver used the brakes, I had to stand against a lot of force from other passengers. But on the seats, things were much softer. It was calm and steady. For me, a slight contact with the seated passenger was barely noticeable, because it wasn't comparable to all that force from the standing guys. But for the seated guy, it must have been like a hard push, which is totally unnecessary. The conflict is exactly where these two different environments meet. You are in one environment and they are in another environment and yet you are "interacting". This is a really fine point if you see it like this.

And lo and behold. The real world is just one big bus with not only two, but as many parallel worlds and environments as the number of people alive! This is really true. The sole fact that you see two people next to each other, does in no way mean that they are in the same environment. We are all at the edges of our personal environments when we interact and conflict is always imminent. So this is what I have been preparing the grounds to talk about. But I guess this post got really long already, didn't it?

So let me just point out some of the conclusion that follow this "theory" and I hope I can write what I was really going to write in the next post.

First, the existence of these different environments is the reason for that imbalance I mentioned in the beginning of the post. The fact is that, someone can be mistreated, without somebody mistreating them.

Second, what happens to ethics if you look at things like this? I mean look at us humans. A lot of who we are is determined by our genes and our upbringing when we were kids. These are substantial parts of our personal environments. Can we really hold someone responsible for the damage they cause, when we know that they are acting in the context of their individual environments? I assure you that most of the time people genuinely believe that what they do is right.

Write to you later! By the way, if you read this, please leave a short comment so I can tell if anybody is waiting for a second post!

2007-03-08T11:31:00.000-05:00

Seems that sometimes I come here to escape myself. You know I get fed up with repeating me... being plain... falling prey to the tricks my mind plays on me about how I can let go... and all that. Then, it kind of feels promising to come here and start writing something to let it out... which by the way translates to writing something vague which is borderline incomprehensible, yet sounds like it means something. Anyway, you come here to do that, and then tada! I have already said it all. Look at all these posts! It's all been the same thing for quite a while. I've been repeating that I'm repeating me. How's that for a sign? That's gotta mean something, really. Something, I apparently don't like to understand.

So, there you had it. Negative Wave Inevitable III striking the whatever-the-thing that this non-blog is.

P.S. If only I could nag this freely and fearlessly in real life too.

P.P.S. I guess I was a bit too sleepy when I wrote this. I was at school and I had just 90 minutes of sleep the night before. It sounds too cynical to me now. I'm not going to take it down. Who cares! Anyway, after I wrote this, I had a meeting which turned out to be very good. Then I got some rest at home. Now I'm having a can of sweet corn and watching a good movie... I don't know if it's really the corn or watching the movie that is sweet! I've got a lot of work to do tomorrow morning. I have the right to eat sweet corn and watch a good movie, and I'm not afraid to experience it.

2007-01-12T02:47:00.000-05:00

Today, I won a tennis match against my roommate! Now that deserves a post, because I have been playing with him since the beginning of the previous semester and this is only the second time that I have won. Last time I won the match in a tie-break, but this time I won 6-4! (Yeah, we play one-set matches.) He was surprised that I was not as excited as the previous time (and didn't do weird gestures on the court when the game was over). Well, I think among the myriad of probable reasons behind this, there is this one possibility that I might have gone pro! (What a sentence.)

Ok, you see, I'm never good at writing a positive post. So I'll get back to you when the next negative wave strikes! Until then...

2007-01-08T16:10:00.000-05:00

I am Jack's restless mind.

Yalda game confessions

2007-01-03T17:32:00.000-05:00

I was not tagged by anyone, so I tag myself. Here's five things you didn't know about me:

1. I often see a strange nightmare where I am nude and I can't hide.

2. I have been blessed with an abundance of body hair, which is perhaps why I'm going to go bald in the next few years.

3. I am said to have refused to be breastfed by my mother.

4. I have always believed that I have a feminine side within me. Apparently this has not affected my sexual preference, but has helped me realize why one can't understand women (see my previous post).

5. This is not a blog, for reals.

Hereby, I grant 5 tag-yourself certificates to anyone who wants to claim it. Offer expires in 21 days, or until arrival of a similar public game, whichever comes first.

Will choose later

2006-12-30T21:18:00.000-05:00

If you have been here before, you know that I usually post when I am feeling somewhat down! Well, another day has come.

I feel my writer's muscles are pretty feeble now, after such a long period of infrequent visits to this blog. Anyways, I'm here once again to weave my scattered threads of thought and let them materialize into something more clear, and perhaps readable, on this scratch pad.

In fact! This is exactly where I should start. Why is it that I need to spend this much effort to even see what is really going on in my own head? I have been pondering this question this evening. I usually find myself capable of looking around and seeing the connections in my environment. People know me as someone who has good analytical skills. Well, I admit I perceive the world as something somewhat simpler that what it really is, and I have never been good at understanding people. Again, perhaps because people are much more complicated than what I usually imagine. Part of that is because I'm quite plain myself and then naturally that's how I envision other humans. This is not what I am going to rant about. The thing I have been pondering is that I have come to realize that my ability to understand me, myself is disproportionally lower than my ability to understand my environment. Well, I said I'm not good at understanding people in general, but when it comes to myself, I feel my knowledge of what goes on in my subconscious is orders of magnitude lesser than what I hoped it would be. I still observe myself as an outsider. I look at my own reactions, feelings, and behavior as an outsider. Oftentimes I find it extremely difficult to predict any of these, even when I have somewhat complete understanding of the situation I'm going to be in. Put even more simpler, I don't know myself very well!

How is that so? That's a million dollar question, I guess. I see traces of this fact in many of the struggles in my life. For example, I am a huge procrastinator. For the longest time I have been trying to figure out some clues about the characteristics of the tasks I find myself willing to postpone indefinitely, despite the severe consequences. As another example, I know I don't have good social skills, but there are certain patterns for when I fail myself beyond my expectations in my social interactions. The point is that I see the pattern only after the thing has happened. The list goes on. Now the dilemma is that I believe I am a plain and simple person. How come I remain so unknown to me? This speculation became stronger in the past few years after I occasionally took some totally unrelated fun or otherwise serious personality and psychological tests. Have you seen those tests like "What kind of operating system you are"? Even in tests as irrelevant as these I repeatedly saw unusually accurate references to some of my personality traits. Now if by asking a few simple questions these tests can tell me about myself so well, why is it that I remain so unknown and unpredictable to my own conscious? Perhaps I am a bit in denial about some of my weaknesses and insist to ignore them? Perhaps I have never really looked to find any?

The more I look at it, the more crucial I find it to be. I think this extends to other areas of my life. Back to my non-24-hour-sleep-wake-cycle, sometime in summer I began writing down my going to bed and waking up times; attempting to measure the average length of my sleep period and the average daily drift. I think I forgot about it in a week. The consequence is that up to now I have only some rough idea about those two measures; no numbers. Could it be that the reason I don't know myself is similarly because I don't care to look well enough? I think the fact that the behavior of my subconscious is more difficult to measure than the length of my sleep period does not sound like good news here.

By the way, speaking of news, it appears I'm in love! Did I mention that? Perhaps that's what really made me think about this all today. I think I know exactly when I fell in love, and I think I know the event that initiated the sequence of reactions that made me end up here, but what I don't know is what was the main factor behind that seemingly irrelevant event. I'm looking for the switch in me that such an event could trigger. The issue is that I can't make the connection between these different phases. It seems I'm removed from some state and then spawned in some other state. I don't quite see where I make the transition. I am aware this is perhaps the most complicated of the issues all people face. You are afraid of falling in love, because you know it happens beyond your control, and knowledge. But that's not the issue here. What occupies my mind at this moment is the reason why I need love. Good thing is that I am aware it matters to me more than it matters to the average person; But I don't know which part of it. No need to mention, part of me wants out. So at the same time, my conscious is in search of the switches that have made me fall out of love in the past. Too bad there are fewer of these, than those that make you come in.

I believe I ranted enough. I'm sorry I have been out of touch with you guys out there. I know some of you have quit your blogs. Only few of you I know are still writing. Well, keep writing! I'm sure Thomas Tipp is right. "People will read again"! The most prominent of them being you, yourself!

ice machine is frozen

2006-09-26T00:25:00.000-04:00

ice machine is frozen. that is not the blog. that is me. i am bitterly realizing, a few moments before firing up this browser, that there are some feelings i can never have. there are some states i can never have. there are some outlooks i can never show. it is surprising how this whole thing is staying with me now matter how old i get. ok, that was not the issue here, but "time" is supposed to change everything. that's the rule. yet here i am. frozen as hard as a stone.

ok, this is not a comment for you out there to read. this will be a reminder for me, if i happen to read this blog later. don't i realize the clear relationship between certain hollow feelings and the [surprisingly hopeless] thought impulses? ok i have to post this now for i'm not in the mood to make a happy conservative ending for this one... fucking whatever.

p.s. i didn't change from me even when i wrote this post. i would have written this in the same exact way, no matter how i'd tried to "sound". this is full of me. my life is full of me. i am bounded by me.

High-res images of Iran cities in google maps!

2006-06-22T23:01:00.000-04:00

I'll be damned! I don't know when this has happened, but now google maps has high-res images of many Iranian cities. A few days ago I noticed that high-res satellite images of the american city where I am were added, and then tonight I felt like paying a visit to Tehran, and I was like wow! Even when these images were low quality I tried hard to spot places and now it's so clear it's unlike anything I have ever seen. I've been browsing Tehran streets for more than an hour now and it's wonderful. Many of the streets do not have the topology I always assumed they have when walking in them. I may have passed by the Azadi Square a few thousand times, but I never knew it doesn't have a fully symmetric shape. Anyway it's fun trying to find your homes on the map. But don't come to me if you felt nostalgic or something!

Here are a few anchors: Azadi Square, Mehrabad Airport, Sharif University, Enghelab Square, Sadeghiye , Shahrak Gharb, Namayeshgah, Parkway, Tajrish Square, Vanak Square, Park Laleh, Valiasr and Enghelab, Park Mellat, Valiasr Square, Emam Hossein Square, and last, but not least: Azadi Football Stadium

The biggest biggest-lie-ever, indeed!

2006-06-18T01:13:00.000-04:00

I believe I have mostly been writing here whenever I was feeling somewhat down or pensive. And boy I kept writing for a long time! Now does that mean something!

[Rants about my sleep disorder moved to another post]

So I was telling... it seems I'd been writing here as a way to relieve myself of something. Perhaps at that that specific moment, the feeling is that I'm alone and there is nothing to do to change the subject in my mind, or to at least to change the dynamics of the equation that is being munched in the back of my head. You know sometimes when you just talk about something your own perception of it moves and changes. If you talk about what you're feeling, or if you go and watch a game, or if you listen to someone else talking to you about something, you leave that state that you had and you enter another new state.

Today something took me back to when I fell in love 6 years ago. I won't tell you stories here. I was not in a relationship with this person and barely knew her. I didn't even remotely think that I could like her like that. Yet it happened and was the strongest thing I have experienced till today. I don't have such a feeling now, but that person is sure still different to me. And I don't quite understand what makes a particular girl this much different for someone, because after all we are not really particular. That girl looks like yet-another-girl to virtually everybody else. The question is, what is the message that my brain tries to send to me about this particular person by making me feel different about it. Let me see if I can find something.... No I couldn't!

So I have to put it together myself. I think Schopenhauer said that the passion that you see between a man and a woman in a love affair, that's the manifestation of a child's desire to be born. I think he said you would think there is something particular about your affair, but it's the to-be-born child that is trying to come into existence.

That's not what I'm trying to say and you may want to debate on that, but this I know for sure that we have been wired to make our species survive and evolve. A lot of the things that we do that we feel like we're doing for ourselves, is actually there for the good of the species. Just like the cells in your body have individual lives, yet their raison-d'etre is to keep you alive.

Now if you have seen the movie "March of the Penguins" somewhere in that movie the female penguins approach the male penguins and choose their mates. The narrator says we don't know what they are looking for in a mate, we just know when they have found it. Later in the movie you see that the males have to keep the eggs warm while the females walk back 70 km/miles to the sea to bring food. You realize that based on their instinct, the females try to choose a mate who can have a good teamwork in making their relationship successful: that is, to let a child be born.

It could be just like that for us humans. When you feel more passionate about someone, it perhaps means that your instincts think that you will have higher chances of having a successful relationship with them with regard to the child to be born. I don't know what exactly it could be, but it could be giving birth to a better child, or securing a better environment to raise them. Perhaps this is the desired harvest of the feelings that our brain induces about such a particular person.

I think I'll break this post in two parts.

ZZZZZzzzzzzz.....

2006-06-18T01:09:00.000-04:00

I took this out from the above post to make them look more cohesive.

Atmikha asked about my sleep. I don't know why I don't see her comment anymore. But I recently found out that my sleep disorder does have a name. It's called Non-24-hour sleep-wake syndrome. This means my sleep wake cycle drifts over time. There is another disorder called Delayed sleep phase syndrome which is for people who tend to go to bed late and wake up late. These people can not function in the morning, but they sort of have a routine. Whereas in my case if I'm left to myself, I tend to have something around 24:40 day-night cycles, so I wake up a little bit later everyday.

This problem got intensified when I moved to here, since I am living alone and there is no external event or routine which could make me sync myself with the outside environment. So here I experienced my go to bed times drift to 10am and beyond. Back at home, usually what I did to restore the schedule was to skip sleeping for one night and then the next day I was tired enough to go bed any time I wanted. (Are you really reading this far?! This was not intended to be such a long post.) But here, I experienced another way to get back to schedule. For the first time in my life I tried to complete a cycle by keeping the rotation in its forward direction. I literally went to bed at 2pm and woke up at 10pm. Then I was almost there; I was going to bed at 6pm and waking up in middle of the night. At any rate, no matter what the approach and the process is, it is a total disaster! Anyway I'm doing better right now.

Dot coming back, or yet another biggest-lie-ever?!

2006-05-13T21:22:00.000-04:00

I'm too sleepy to write. I was just thinking to myself that I remember all you guys out there.

"Thomas Tipp was right.

People will read again."

P.S.
Five points to anyone who figures the quote source.

P.P.S. Fifty five points to anyone who could have reminded me that no one reads this blog no more.

Disconnected from the world

2006-01-09T20:00:00.000-05:00

Hi there

I feel like pronouncing these words in a vacant room, where I can hear the echo of my own voice.

I'm in florida. I'm not sure if it's actually where I'm supposed to be. but I hope I can tell in a few more days.

Re: Wandering

2005-10-08T06:10:00.000-04:00

Here is a comment I got in the mail back in April from a reader. I wanted to post it here, but since I believe I should have asked for his permission first, I'm going to keep his name private for the moment...

Bonjour Dotty,

Very interesting your thoughts. And you can make yourself clearly understood.

As you said you do not have the answer to the question whether you learn by experience or not. I do not pretend to have the answer to this riddle, however, coming from a totally different background than you, I take the liberty to say something about it.

We learn from experience, everybody knows that. But if you have some imagination, you might be able to think about dangerous or unpleasant situations and try thus to avoid them, before they actually happen.

Unfortunately, experience is not everything. Imagine you live in a house with a low doorstep. You might learn - the hard way - to bend a bit when entering so as not to bang your head. Nevertheless, it will happen, from time to time, in spite of your experience. Boum, bang! It does not mean you are stupid but only that you are a human being and not a goddam machine.

You say, you have a tendency to repeat mistakes.As you do not give any example, nothing specific can be said about that. There are mistakes, you are not supposed to make, not even once. For instance, my hobby is paragliding. I am supposed to control my harness fixtures before taking off.. If I make the mistake of not controlling this I am dead. So I have to control this point, any time, Total interdiction not to control!! But there are other things, minor ones, where I repeat old mistakes, because it is not so important and because I am a goodam human being, not a machine.

Last thing: there are mistakes you can hardly avoid making because of your character, your upbringing, your internal structure. You have to live with those ones. No need to consult Doctor Freud. And no need to be upset, that's you, old Dotty, alive and kicking. As the French say: "Chassez le naturel, il revient au galop". Meaning, some mistakes have a tendency to come back. You have got to live with them.

I'm back

2005-10-02T07:59:00.000-04:00

Hi,

How are you doing? How have you been?

Long time no see.

I intend to write some more in this place. But this time between trying to write coherent posts (which never turn out to be so) and writing plain-whatever-nonsense-that-passes-thru-my-cluttered-mind, I'm going to choose the latter.

Wandering....

2005-04-23T13:03:00.000-04:00

Hi there,

Everybody's fine out there? I've not been writing for such a long time. Right now I was thinking of something, and I thought perhaps by writing here I can organize what's going on on my mind.

Last night I was talking to my best friend, who's been my best friend for more than ten years now. I was talking to him about whether we do really learn from our experiences or that's just a hoax. I kind of feel the mistakes I've made in the course of my life, greatly tend to reoccur. So what's the benefit of them? If they just happen and cause trouble, isn't it really better not to experience at all? On the other hand there is another assumption, which appears to be logical. When we face problems which we've got to solve, we put ourselves to work. There are invisible muscles we use to solve such a problem and by using these muscles we allow them to grow and develop into stronger ones. For example if I am born in a poor family and I don't have the things I want in my life, then I have to earn them myself. But I would have had them automatically just if I was born in a rich family. So this rich person in the rich family does not need to make any effort to gain what he already does. However the poor person has to think; to work; to try to earn what he wants. So the poor person has this advantage that he uses his invisible muscles much more. So although it's not that much obvious, the poor person has more space to play. And the growth he earns in the course of earning what the rich person already has, puts him in a better condition, which enables him to be much more successful in any other aspect of his life; because he's got stronger muscles. But on the other hand, the rich person does not need to attempt, and when there's no attempt, there is no mistake! So in "earning things" the rich person has this advantage that he never makes any mistakes. And he does not suffer any consequences of making such mistakes. I don't know if I were able to put myself clearly, but this is the question in my mind which quite sincerely I am NOT able to answer.

Another question I can ask is: why do I repeat my mistakes? I admit it may not be easy to notice that you're repeating a mistake, because sometimes they change on the surface. But is it lack of knowledge? Is it lack of faith in your knowledge, that is, the knowledge you gained from last time you made the mistake. Or perhaps sometimes it has roots in your value system, which you can't or don't want to change? For example, about honesty, you won't find a person who doesn't say I'm honest and I care for honesty. But I strongly believe that something between 80%-95% of people are not honest when it comes to the real world, beyond the world of words and humanly gestures. And it is obvious to me that whether you are the only mad person in the town of wise men, or you are the only wise person in the town of mad men, you are the one who is mad! Because others have got a system which they understand and can live with. Based on that system, you are mad! no matter what! Because you don't act "wisely", that is "normally". It's just this simple. Now if for example you see strings attaching all your mistakes to your putting too much value on honesty, or some other value, what are you gonna do about it? Is it that you take the route to repeat the mistake? Or you begin questioning the value? Isn't it that in any case, you're the one who's going to face the consequences?

Update, 24 Apr: Some related quotes I found by accident:

"Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes."
"Experience is one thing you can't get for nothing."
--Oscar Wilde

"Experience is a dear teacher, but fools will learn at no other."
--Benjamin Franklin

"Life is the art of drawing without an eraser."
--John W. Gardner

"What one has not experienced, one will never understand in print."
--Isadora Duncan

2005-04-21T09:47:00.000-04:00

"Human beings are perhaps never more frightening than when they are convinced beyond doubt that they are right"

2005-04-07T19:34:00.000-04:00

What do you call a piece of web page on which you exercise writing quotes of no particular subject at all? scratch paper? right. and definitely not a blog!

2005-04-07T19:33:00.000-04:00

"The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality."

--George Bernard Shaw

2005-04-07T19:18:00.000-04:00

"The man who insists upon seeing with perfect clearness before he decides, never decides. Accept life, and you must accept regret."

--Henri Frédéric Amiel

2005-03-24T16:41:00.000-05:00

"Happiness belongs to those who are sufficient unto themselves. For all external sources of happiness and pleasure are, by their very nature, highly uncertain, precarious, ephemeral and subject to change." --Arthur Schopenhauer "Happiness belongs to those who are sufficient unto themselves. For all external sources of happiness and pleasure are, by their very nature, highly uncertain, precarious, ephemeral and subject to change." --Arthur Schopenhauer "Happiness belongs to those who are sufficient unto themselves. For all external sources of happiness and pleasure are, by their very nature, highly uncertain, precarious, ephemeral and subject to change." --Arthur Schopenhauer "Happiness belongs to those who are sufficient unto themselves. For all external sources of happiness and pleasure are, by their very nature, highly uncertain, precarious, ephemeral and subject to change." --Arthur Schopenhauer "Happiness belongs to those who are sufficient unto themselves. For all external sources of happiness and pleasure are, by their very nature, highly uncertain, precarious, ephemeral and subject to change." --Arthur Schopenhauer "Happiness belongs to those who are sufficient unto themselves. For all external sources of happiness and pleasure are, by their very nature, highly uncertain, precarious, ephemeral and subject to change." --Arthur Schopenhauer "Happiness belongs to those who are sufficient unto themselves. For all external sources of happiness and pleasure are, by their very nature, highly uncertain, precarious, ephemeral and subject to change." --Arthur Schopenhauer "Happiness belongs to those who are sufficient unto themselves. For all external sources of happiness and pleasure are, by their very nature, highly uncertain, precarious, ephemeral and subject to change." --Arthur Schopenhauer "Happiness belongs to those who are sufficient unto themselves. For all external sources of happiness and pleasure are, by their very nature, highly uncertain, precarious, ephemeral and subject to change." --Arthur Schopenhauer

This was the first quote I read from Schopenhauer; and it was sufficient to make me fall in love with his words.
If only faith was attainable through experience.

2005-03-23T16:12:00.000-05:00

Instead of icemachine, I could have named
this blog the missmachine. nothing suits it better.

2005-03-23T16:05:00.000-05:00

I hoped I would never return!

2005-03-23T16:00:00.001-05:00

Uh! I've got confessions to make! Later!

There were no exclamation points necessary for these sentences. Have no idea why I'm going to leave them there.

2005-03-23T15:55:00.000-05:00

It is so strange that I look at the posts on this page which I have written a few months ago and I can't understand them. It is sooo strange.... Isn't it? Then who's supposed to do?!

I don't like this blog

2005-03-23T15:39:00.000-05:00

no more!

Dot Suspended

2004-10-30T17:31:00.000-04:00

This is the time. Like Dodgy Bongo said, there is certainly a blogger’s good bye vibe around, as a few of you have decided to stop writing in the past few days, and just coincidentally, I’ve decided to suspend this blog for a few months; five or six probably.

The main reason is that it’s the applications season again. I once wrote about my graduate studies story, and that was the only post that I took down on this blog shortly after. So it seems just logical not to try to delve into any more details. …. I just deleted a long sentence here. In fact, let it be unsaid, if that’s the way it should be. Anyway, I realize I feel the anxiety sometimes, and that’s a good thing against this frustration I’ve been through, which has resulted in my being resistant against any decisions on making further moves. The anxiety appears to be a positive factor. It has proved good, practically. But it appears that I’ve usually used writing in this blog as a way to calm down this anxiousness. So, it is just that I need to deprive myself from this valve.

I know I have quite few readers and I know it would have not been that much different if I were to keep blogging, considering the quality of my recent posts (this one below is a good example!), but I want to thank you all for considering me a part of the circle and sharing your thoughts and concerns with me. You have no idea how much valuable they are to me.

I have been speculating about writing posts on my recent obsession with Arthur Schopenhauer upon reading a few of his words, and about my passion for exploring philosophy in general, an also linguistics, and that I’ve learned these are in fact correlated with my particular interest in computer science, and about my realization of the fact that during the past year and so, I’ve somehow unknowingly entered into a mode where I never find enough reasons to approach any girl, despite my profound emotions for them, and that I spent a night reading English translation of some extremely great quotes from a famous religious leader, and emphasizing the fact that the essence of the quotes were in fact not in accordance with the typical believer’s perception of him, and that my cell phone is still off since its charger got broken 7 months ago. But this is no big deal. I’m going to be writing about all these!

Take care everyone

2004-10-29T18:26:00.000-04:00

This is not a blog, but I'm Jeffery Lebowski.

Saal-haa-ye Door az Khaane

2004-10-25T08:59:00.000-04:00

I've got nothing special to say. As far as it seems I've written almost all of my posts at midnights. But now it is 4:30pm. I'm at work, and I so badly feel like I want to go home. But I just got here at 1pm. No one will say a word if I go, but it just feels strange. It's really difficult to type with these cold hands. I feel like going home, because I don't find my brain functional. If I get in a car, I'll be spending around one hour sitting in the car, waiting to reach home. That would be a good break. That's something normal to do. Apparently, I have difficulty articulating the subjects. But that's not a problem. Even when I didn't, I didn't usually say something useful!

So, I'll spend a few more minutes typing, and then I'll part. Part? or is that depart? I don't no. The thing is, I'm practically on the schedule of wake up at noon, go to bed at dawn. Why do I feel so cold in my fingers?! Anyway, the thing is, there are a lot of reasons why I should change this schedule, and live like anyone else. Wake up at the morning and go to bed at night. But whenever I tried that, it is like everything is naturally against making that change. I mean, as if I am living naturally, and I'm trying to take an abnormal [or some other adjective] approach [and some other noun].

A few months ago, for a week or so, I woke up in the morning everyday, but it was just crazy. In terms of transportation, finding a taxi at 12pm and 8pm is so much easier. And the streets are quite sparse(?). Therefore I usually spend less time in traffic. But it is horrible if I were to do the same at 8am and 4pm. I remember having to wait up to half an hour in line for taxis. And the sun! Yeah. Usually when I'm out, the sun is either absent, or its rays hit the earth with angles larger than 45 degrees. But when I went to work at 7-8am and came home at 4-5pm I always had to meet the sun in one of the horizons. It was so cruel, especially in the summer. I remember a couple early mornings I had to take a long walk to reach some certain place, and I walked the entire path looking at my shoes, because I was walking directly toward the sun, which was shining in my face with horizontal strong yellow rays. It was the same when I was in a car. Practically during those hours, out of the four possible directions, only one is safe. It is so nasty when you are in a car and the sun shines from either sides.

And last night I went to bed at 11pm. So soon. But didn't wake up sooner than 11:30am. And... let me write a few more ands! And, and, and, and, and. To compensate for the sentences that I start without one! It is so difficult to type consecutive ands with cold fingers! Try it out yourself. Anyway, everytime I change the hours during which I sleep, especially as a result of one of those forward-shift-accelerations, that is the two-day-one-nights, I end up seeing horrible dreams! I just saw two bad dreams this morning. I woke up from one and then saw another one. And I don't know why the taste of the dreams persists in the background during the day, no matter how much nonsense and off-topic they are.

So, I tried to compare my living routine with the so-called normal one, in terms of how natural they really are, and how well they are received by the sun, the cars, and the dream world, in order to conclude that I gotta put my cold fingers in my pockets and go home now. You see, I too have got a sense of logic.

I know

2004-10-18T17:38:00.000-04:00

I know, I nag too much,
but I don't nag enough.
Wait a second... this sounds familiar... something like:
I said too much, I haven't said enough...
I don't remember where I've heard that.
Anyway, I nag too much,
and that's not about to change!

Involontairement

2004-10-17T18:15:00.000-04:00

« Il y a un volontaire ? »
Quelqu'un soulève sa main.
Quelqu'un incline la tête.
Mais, on peut toujours se reposer et observer, comme moi.
Mais chaque fois, je me demande
pourquoi personne ne m'a demandé
si voulait vivre,
avant de m'introduire dans cette vie.
...
« [mon nom], commencez »

2004-10-14T18:45:00.000-04:00

get me out
i want out
get me out
or in, for that matter
i'm equally interested in both outlets.

Dot Red

2004-10-12T08:33:00.000-04:00

This is how I feel about my life at the moment: dissatisfied. I don't know, or maybe it is discouraged. There have been times when I've been sad, happy, determined, bored, motivated, heartbroken, confident, or even unhopeful. But now, all I feel is just dissatisfaction. Nothing more; no feeling of making changes, and no feeling of suffering. Actually, I'm keeping watching with dissatisfaction. With my fingers crossed behind my head. I have never been in such a mode before. Such moveless observation, and all of it while I know all the rights and wrongs around me, and that there is zero deviation between my attitudes and attributes, and the things the happening of which I've been speculating in my mind. It feels so calm on the outside, but there is insensible uneasiness on the inside. It is like seeing someone scream, but not hearing anything. It's like being in a dream where for some reason you don't happen to do what you want to do. And the new set of colors on this page, that's the color of it all.

The Bar

2004-10-05T18:17:00.000-04:00

I’ve noticed some of you are a little dissatisfied with the new Blogger bar on top of your pages. I believe the Blogger guys have been playing it cool recently. They replaced the banner ads with this narrow bar, they have made it possible for the bloggers to take part in the AdSense program, and they now allow for uploading photos for the posts. So I’m really hesitant to publish a method for removing the Blogger bar. But on some of the templates, this new bar fails to open up its space at the top of the page and ends up covering some portion of the title. So, I’ll just close my eyes and type and the rest is up to you! What’s interesting is that they have made it quite easy themselves by assigning an ID to the bar, while it is not used anywhere by the Blogger scripts themselves. This makes it possible to modify the bar by assigning any particular style to this ID in the CSS section of your template. And I can’t imagine what else it could be devised for!

You can add this line in your template somewhere below the tag that says <style type="text/css"> and before the closing </style> tag:

div#b-navbar{position: absolute; z-index: -1; top: -100px; visibility:none;}

Khodaayash bebakhshaayad!

Adulthood

2004-10-05T18:04:00.000-04:00

I need to grow up. I want to become an adult, to catch up with my age. I need to live like an adult, and what’s most important, to think like an adult. I’m tired of having to constantly interpret myself with a different mindset just to find out how I am looking on the outside. Just to find out what this specific behavior of mine or that particular decision of mine means if I were to have a pure advantage-seeking mindset, as every adult supposes every adult does. It drives me nuts when they nod their heads as a sign of confirmation, while inside they can’t believe you’re doing something just because you like it, and without any consideration of how much tangible profit it entails. On the other side, it is also disappointing to forget the fact that everybody is supposed to put themselves first, and then feel that you’ve been taken advantage of. Because this is no fairy tale story, and that’s indeed how the adult sees the world. I like the way I am. But I’ve got tired. I can’t describe how much distasteful (for the sake of avoiding too much negative words) it seems to me to be such a creature, always caring about these so-called benefits and profits and always having to seek them. But I assume I will think otherwise if I do grow up, because no one hates themselves, no matter how they live, and how they think.

2004-09-23T17:54:00.000-04:00

Why do you keep telling me that I shouldn't be hopeful?
Why do you keep telling me that I shouldn't be hopeful?
Why do you keep telling me that I shouldn't be hopeful?

Love

2004-09-02T20:24:00.000-04:00

I’ve been avoiding writing about the subject. I still am. This is too much of a word. And any post about that would be too much of a post. Maybe I’ll write about it some day; the day I ask so many question.

But I just came across a web site, called wikiquote. This is a sister site to wikipedia, the open-content encyclopedia. Wikiquote offers a directory of quotations organized by source and subject. I’ve been very interested in quotes since a long time ago. I’ve written about my favorite program, fortune, earlier.

I didn’t find wikiquote comparable to fortune in terms of the quality of quotes, but it’s much more diverse. Anyhow, I came across these two quotes which I found worth repeating. There are things we believe in and we live by them. There are things we prefer to believe in but we actually ignore. There are things we can’t afford not believing in, because the impact of it would be so unappreciated and unwelcome. These are things difficult to distinguish, especially to the one possessing the belief her/himself. So oftentimes most beliefs are expressed with similar words and sentences, regardless of their nature. The limited power of words just adds up to the ambiguities. But just sometimes some words can reveal the lines. Read the following quotes like taking a sip of soda. The 1.5 liter bottle might be in the making!

"Jealousy is a disease, love is a healthy condition. The immature mind often mistakes one for the other, or assumes that the greater the love, the greater the jealousy --in fact, they are almost incompatible; one emotion hardly leaves room for the other."
--Robert Heinlein in Stranger In A Strange Land

"Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own."
-- Robert Heinlein in Stranger In A Strange Land

You are not alone!

2004-08-31T11:31:00.000-04:00

There is believed to be this parallel world where the inhabitants live primarily through the dark and quiet hours of the midnights; through moments which are never perceived by their then unconscious neighbors. While the population of the species in this world is estimated to be in the tens of thousands, to date no scientific explorations have been carried out to prove their existence or to shed light on their life style. This is mainly due to the fact that the inhabitants of the above mentioned world do not experience known forms of social interactions or humanly communications, as these are usually on decline during the above mentioned hours!

Quite interestingly, I came across a guy who blogs from this parallel world! Here it is.

Just in: Old scientists have found an old painting on the walls of an old cave which shows the vampires have actually descended from the ancestors of the above mentioned species!

The unsaid

2004-08-27T22:20:00.000-04:00

The gun in my hand,
and a lie on your lips.
And your attention span,
that passed over me,
when I was crying out the unsaid words,
buried under the many passed voiceless nights...

So many words,
and you couldn’t imagine,
how incautiously
your attention slided away.

...

The empty gun on my hand,
and the restless look on your face.
And I was amazed how much I still cared
and how much safe you still felt in my arms.

Diversified Me

2004-08-25T20:45:00.000-04:00

This is an excerpt from the announcement page for the new release of some popular software (KDE is major free desktop environment for linux and other operating systems alike):

“Reflecting its international team and focus, KDE 3.3 is currently available in over 50 different languages… During the past six months, Qt gained increased support for Indic languages, and languages as diverse as Farsi and Frisian were added. With 89 different languages and full localization support, no other desktop is as ready to serve the needs of today's global community.” (emphasis mine)

Now apparently Farsi is the local name for Persian, the language of Ferdowsi’s Shah-Namé, Divan-e Hafez, and tens of other literary masterpieces, the language people actually use when they are referring to country names like Tajikistan and Pakistan.

If you are curious about Frisian, according to encyclopedia Britannica, although it “was formerly spoken from what is now the province of Noord-Holland in the Netherlands along the North-Sea coastal area to modern German Schleswig, including the off-shore islands in this area, modern Frisian is spoken in only three small remaining areas, each with its own dialect. These dialects are West-Frisian (ca.375.000 people), spoken in the province of Friesland in the Netherlands, including the islands of Schiermonnikoog and Terschelling; East Frisian (ca 2000 people), spoken in Saterland west of Oldenburg, W.Germ; and North-Frisian (ca.8000 people)...”

I don’t believe we should be praised for what our poets and our scientists have done centuries ago, but has Persian really become so miscellaneous that supporting it is as odd as it is the sign of diversified language support?

I’m not blaming it on anybody, especially the creators of the great KDE, but now I believe that in every contemporary Persian dictionary, under the entry for diversity, it makes sense to have cross-references to the words revolution, and isolation.

Analyses on Linguistic Approaches to Infrequent Blogging

2004-08-19T21:56:00.000-04:00

…in the new millennium!

Don’t worry; it is just a title to cover the rants inside! We all know that nothing feels better than ranting up a blank page and hitting the publish button! By the way, I guess I should make a visit to that old “guide on using the exclamation points”. Apparently I’m using too much of them.

So last time I was seen here, I was talking about the French class. The notion of it brings a few unrelated ideas to my mind. Let’s see if I can organize them here. After all, I’ve truly forgotten how to blog!

Not only that, but I have also forgotten how to write using paper and pen. I realized it after taking my first page of notes in this class. I write just about 7-8 lines of text on every page and I have almost filled up a 100 page notebook by now. My respect for the baselines on the notebook is way comparable to that of our drivers for the lines painted on the streets. One of my classmates believes I’ve got talent in medicine after witnessing my handwriting (is it the same with the doctors all over the world?). I guess this would naturally happen when you have equated writing with typing in your vocabulary. Guess what? I’ve already got the French keyboard layout installed!

The class is unbelievably fun. I really enjoy being there. We are laughing out all the time and I barely notice how the time passes. It is quite lively and, according to the teacher, one of a kind! Class times are from 6pm to 8pm. Most students have got jobs or other serious work during the day and it’s like we’re going out to the pub at night! You gotta see the show that it is when it comes to repeating the conversations between the characters of the course video. And I wonder where else could a novice learner be taught French words for girl friend and boy friend, how to sign letters with big kisses and hug you tightly, and practice as the sample conversation how to ask someone out!

I believe the vivacious atmosphere of the class should be primarily attributed to our teacher’s relaxed and uncomplicated attitude. I don’t know how good her French is, but she’s so patient and enthusiastic about her work. According to the school’s regulations we are not allowed to speak Persian in the class, but English is ok. And our teacher knows very little English. So we have the perfect ingredients for what is called mutual understanding. More often than not, it is possible to guess the meaning of the words from their similarity with their English equivalents and from the context. When we say an English word she doesn’t hide her curiosity to learn it. You need to be an Iranian to know about our teachers’ general postures. She’s so uncomplicated that she can’t hide that she’s somehow interested in one of the boys! (Unlike her, I’m complicated so I’m not going to let you know that it makes me jealous!)

One of the readers of the previous post has asked why people who have experienced the beauty of English should bother learning another language like French. I can’t agree anymore about English being a decent language. However, having enjoyed the benefits of knowing a different world through a second language can be quite of a motivating factor for repeating a similar experience. Personally, I found French to be an elegant language. I especially like the way they pronounce the words. Like Persian, It’s rhythmic. Besides, it’s reasonably easy to learn, considering its substantial similarity to English (as far I’ve seen). It’s interesting to witness these similarities one after another, and to realize that you can utilize what you already know in a different domain. In addition, there are many French words in English, like genre, passage, costume. Also in Persian, for most of the concepts which we have imported from the outside world, we have adopted the French words and the French way of pronunciation. It’s interesting to know the original language where they come from.

I remember once when I was in high school, my friends and I had this discussion about the neat shapes of the Latin alphabet, and that with their framed bodies they look stylish in the writing. A few years later when I could practically use English, I realized that it’s are no longer “their” alphabet, when I could use them too. To make it possible for me to sleep at night, I’d better mention here that we have the fine art of Persian calligraphy and the artworks are quite gorgeous! Now by learning a new language, one is going to have a share from the culture, the literature, and the background which is associated with it. I don’t expect to become fluent in French, although that would be wonderful. As far as I’ve seen, it’s not possible to master a language, unless one really needs it. I have not taken extracurricular English courses, but my round the clock interaction with the computers and reading a lot because of them (text books, documentation, online articles,...) has been the major factor in letting me learn it along the way. When I was trying to get something to work and I encountered a new word, I couldn’t care to which term of the English language curriculum it belonged! Anyway the method has some drawbacks too, like I can give a lecture about some software, but I don’t know how to greet people.

That certainly is not a problem with French though, as I have seen “bonjour! ça va? enchante!” a thousand time by now! Bearing in mind that by continuing this post beyond this point I’m going to become the sole writer and reader of it, I conclude it here with some quick facts about the French language, just in case someone finds it useful. Adjectives come after the words they describe, like Persian. For a lot of the words, the last few letters are not pronounced at all! unless the word is followed by a vowel in the sentence. When in a sentence, the words are pronounced like they blend in each other, yielding a rhythmic tone. Verbs take different forms when they are conjugated for different persons, but it does obey some certain patterns. French is a sexy language, because almost for every adjective, there are separate male and female forms. It’s the same about the articles and the possessive pronouns too. These last two characteristics are like Arabic. By the way, Persian is such a great language. It’s the only language that I know that does not differentiate men and women anyway. And its pronouns don’t need different forms: my book = ketab-e man, to me = be man, I go = man miram. In fact, I go to bed = man miram bekhaabam!

Dot ne parle pas français

2004-07-23T17:33:00.000-04:00

So far I have attended 7 sessions of my French class. I remember I first had this interest in learning French about two years ago. At that time, I browsed some online training materials and from that I learned a single word: sortie, which means exit. The rationale behind this is that when you are going to get into something, the most important thing to learn is how to get out! Anyway, I can’t really tell what happened that I actually enrolled in this class but I know that I like it very much. I can’t foresee any practical application of the French language for me in near future, but personally I think of a foreign language not only as a means of communication, but as a new way of thinking. And also as a way of knowing how some other people in the world perceive things.

Speaking of application, I remembered something. Early in the current year, I developed a web application for a French company. When the application was ready, I sent them a file containing all the textual phrases of the program and they translated them to French and sent it back to me. It was quite interesting for me to see my program in French. In a sense it felt like I was the creator of the French interface, since most messages in that file were incomplete phrases and they couldn’t tell where in the program they were going to be used. So this could be one of the factors in renewing my interest. What’s more, the language school is just a short walk from where I work. The class is from 6pm to 8pm. Usually I leave my stuff at work and go to the class and then return to work and work for one or two more hours before going home.

It is good to take your notebook and pen and go to the class like a school kid! I believe I even don’t refrain from being showy to my co-workers about being a school kid! Eventhough what happened to my plans for graduate studies a few months ago was completely out of my control, I admit it doesn’t keep me from feeling guilty for it. This class helps me feel better about myself, in addition to being an external tick to remind me of the passing of the borderless weeks. Two ticks = 1 week.

This is already too long for a post. I’ll write the rest in the next post.

There Could Be a Manual

2004-07-19T06:47:00.000-04:00

In spite of all my ongoing questions and all my doubts, I've realized something about my life that I have become so certain about it. It is that I will definitely be living my whole life like the child wandering in the wonderland, who can't know of even a fraction of the rules governing his surrounding world and has to approach everything just by using intuition and trial and error while never knowing the true beliefs, the correct methods and the right decisions beforehand and while expecting to be surprised any time and to conclude that what he had believed in so far and the approaches he had chosen so far are wrong or inefficient. I already know that even when I become aged my progress on this won't be more than minuscule. The level of experience that I would gain in the course of life, is not comparable to the level of knowledge that is required to live it right. I have to live in the context that I don't know much about. And there is no manual. I am never going to know the answers to 9 out of every 10 questions I have. And I'm going to carry most of my uncertainties with myself indefinitely. Because there is no one available who could possibly tell the answers.

Definitely difficult to title

2004-07-09T12:02:00.000-04:00

I’ve officially forgotten how to write in this blog. I remember an adage saying “keep a diary, and someday it will keep you” or something like that. This diary has already kept me, before I kept it. Uh... this is not what I was supposed to write about. But speaking of diaries, a couple weeks ago I was looking for a very important document in my stuff and I couldn’t find it, but I knew it was there. I searched between the pages of all the books, scattered the piles of papers untouched for years, looked inside every envelope or container, and I did this three whole times, but I couldn’t find it. Reorganizing my stuff usually leads to spending a couple hours reading the old things. I hardly ever throw out any paper. So there is always something to discover there. But this time, as a result of the repeated and careful inspections, in various places I found some old writings of me from years ago which I had never seen in the past few years. Just a glance over any of them was sufficient to remember what they were about, but I didn’t dare reading them actually! Ah, I lost my thread of thought. By the way aside from the lack of subject and content here, I’m wondering why I feel so convenient to write incoherently! This is so unlike me. Perhaps I have found my style. I hope not!

12 days ago I rode the last wagon of an intercity train whose air conditioning didn’t work. I watched the converging railroads from the very last window. And my co-worker’s father passed away in her wedding ceremony. Fortunately she’s got along with it and is fine now. I participated in the Euro 2004 predictor game. I made good predictions, but most damage came from Greece. Every time I said “they are going to lose this time” and every time they won. I’ve taken a French course and I’m taking the notes in a notebook which was a diary a few years ago. Here is what is written on its first page: “agar yek rooz delet khast khateratat ra benevisi, yani daftare khaterat dashte bashi, aval bayad ghol bedahi yek vaght pare’ash nakoni!” Apparently it must be unsafe to take notes in this notebook!

So anyway, I’m back
until further notice
or lack of, more precisely.

1 more cent on mail

2004-06-26T18:47:00.000-04:00

Well beyond what I could expect from it, hotmail too is going to boost its free 2MB mailboxes to 250MB. The next thing I predict to happen in the series of responses to gmail is for the groceries around us to sell the strawberry ice-creams half price. That would be an incredible advance in the experience of the users of webmail services.

2004-06-19T04:38:00.000-04:00

I’m the sonorous echo,
of a musical note,
played in a vacant [un]inhabited room,
by a serviceman,
tuning a piano.

I’m a glitch,
caused by the sudden eruption
of a finite number of electrons,
in the rusty worn out circuits
of a gaming console.

I’m one of the countless
rays of light
emitted from a burning match
ignited to light a lantern
someone forgot to oil.

"I am, so I am."

Looking back,
I see I was there,
from the very beginning
of everything
and I
was the purpose
of it all.

"I am, so I was."

Looking forward,
I’m indulged to see
a mighty God,
bound,
by definition,
to resurrect me,
his supreme creature,
just the way I am now.

"He is, so I will be."

I'm a human;
the blatant resonation
of existence.

2 cents for mail

2004-06-15T10:59:00.000-04:00

If you are easily entertained like me, check out the new Yahoo! mail interface.It's so soft and cute! Also expect your quota to be increased to 100MB in the next few months. Isn't it cool when the giants fight to give us a better service!? I like this new interface.

11pm: Update: It is already 100MB! It seem they did it gradually. First just the login page was changed. Then I noticed the interface change in the middle of a session. Now you also see some notification about the new changes after you login. Come on gmail. It's your turn now. I need to be amused!

2 cents for football

2004-06-15T08:20:00.000-04:00

This site makes computer simulated replays for the key incidents of the euro 2004 matches. For every match they compile about five replays, 5-10 seconds each. Unlike online video, these simulations are quite light-weight and load quickly. They are artificial, but the level of details is astounding. You can watch the scenes from different cameras and also from the viewpoint of any of the players in the field. You can never see this latter one on the TV!

P.S. It will automatically install Macromedia Shockwave if you don’t have it. Shockwave takes about 15 minutes to download on dial-up. No registration is required, but you are asked to enter an email address on the last screen.

Dot Revealed

2004-06-12T19:49:00.000-04:00

Photo removed on June 19

Here is the photo from the hiking day, as I promised. I’ve got more photos, but there are also my coworkers in them and I don’t feel good about posting them without their knowledge. I’ve not told them about this blog either. In fact there is almost no one who knows me and reads this blog. Which is why I’m going to ask for your permission to remove the photo after few days. It makes me feel more comfortable to write freely. I know it won’t last forever, but let’s treasure the moment! Now, who said I’m anonymous, or I was going to post a photo of objects?! Where on your blogs are your photos now?!

Please note that I don’t guarantee that the person in the above picture is me! In fact, you’d better know that the Internet is a scary place! Nowadays, there are lots of people with fake ids and fake photos on the Internet, writing anonymously in anonymous blogs, calling themselves colons or semicolons or question marks or possibly many other things! Beware!

4am, Yesterday or Tomorrow?

2004-06-08T19:37:00.000-04:00

4am. Was in bed for an hour. Couldn’t sleep again. Will head for work early today. Gosh I just had another forward shift acceleration the day before yesterday. I don’t know if I should call that yesterday or the day before yesterday, since my notion of days is non-linear! I think this year I have had more of these two-day-one-nights than any other year in the history of my non-civilized sleeping routine. Well, not willing to admit it, but it could be because of the why-entailing troubles out of which I've managed to survive!

Well, going to read a paper now. Let's make something out of this.

Fortune: Wisdom

2004-06-08T15:43:00.000-04:00

"He who stands on tiptoe is not steady.
He who strides cannot maintain the pace.
He who makes a show is not enlightened.
He who is self-righteous is not respected.
He who boasts achieves nothing.
He who brags will not endure.
According to followers of the Tao, "These are extra food and unnecessary luggage."
They do not bring happiness.
therefore followers of the Tao avoid them."

Justice

2004-06-05T20:11:00.000-04:00

So it’s either “natural selection”, or “justice” that you can believe in. One doesn’t need to believe in any of them, but you can’t believe in both. The only way to believe in both is to conceive the former as the true realization of the latter, which I doubt if anyone does.

On Anticipating a Quake

2004-06-02T21:57:00.000-04:00

I won’t be exaggerating if I tell you that I’m not afraid of dying. I can also say that I’m even neutral to that. This probably stems from my beliefs and disbeliefs which I’m not going to elaborate on here. On the other hand, I’m afraid of being shocked. Ok, this is going to get complicated any time now. So first things first.

As I said, I was asleep when the recent quake happened. Those 1-2 seconds that I felt the quake were quite strange. I was neither asleep nor awake. I got up in my relatively dark room and I couldn’t see any of the family members. I felt like I had heard a scream a few seconds before, but I didn’t know if it had been in my dream or for real. I understood that it was a quake, but I was not conscious enough to understand what the quake means or entails. But I got out of the building in a few seconds. Later, I was really amazed by how quickly I had reacted in that uncertain situation. I think it’s because I had this experience with quake in 1990, when Tehran was shaken by the Roudbar earthquake. In spite of that, in those few seconds I didn’t have enough time to feel the fear. It was just the reaction. The moment that I was spawned into the middle of a quake, it had a strange feeling. Until 1-2 days later I could revive the feeling by reviewing those few seconds, and I can tell you that it sure included some excitement! I don’t know why, but maybe I just appreciated its seriousness.

I was not afraid after the quake either, and I guess you can see that in my posts. The whole city was talking about another quake at night. But I slept like a child. Basically because the likelihood of a mishap is completely irrelevant to the people’s realization of its possibility, and more importantly, there is no basis for this likelihood to suddenly increase right at the night after people have realized the possibility of its happening! I did laugh at the people interviewing on the TV and tried to inspire my sis and mom and explain for them that they don’t need to be worried.

Now a few days after, we hear the predictions of the quake in Tehran from the oracles, the scientists, the mom-i-wanna-be-famous’s and essentially anybody. Some say it is going to happen by the end of the next week. Even on the Internet people are spreading these predictions. And tonight suddenly I’m afraid. Actually I’m afraid of being afraid. I’m afraid of being shocked. I’m afraid of facing it. If you ask me, I say all of these predictions are baseless. It is not going to happen in the near future. But the fear lies in the anticipation:

“Most of the fear that spoils our life comes from attacking difficulties before we get to them.”
-- Dr. Frank Crane

It is funny that I’m writing this at mid-night and just because it is silent and nobody’s around, I feel like I can write as much as I want, as if nobody’s going to read it! So, I’d better tell a story! About two months ago, someone whom I barely know sent me a link to a web page. It contained a flash movie which seemingly asked me to identify some numbers between the colorful circles, to assure me that my eyes can distinguish colors! To the one who sent it to me: if you are reading this, don’t worry, it was not your fault! I really mean it. I was told that it was funny but I just imagined it differently. At the last screen, there was an image full of circles but there was no number in it. I thought it expected me to type in a number and then tell me there was no number, thereby the fun! But when I clicked on it, a horrible image of a bloody face came up on the screen, and some screaming sound came out of the speakers. It was the midnight and quite silent and I was really shocked. For a while after that, sometimes when I looked at still photos of people in the web pages, or a still screen during a movie, I was afraid maybe it was going to change into something bad any minute! Now this is what I’m feeling about this quake thing tonight. I’m afraid of facing those 30 seconds. I’m not afraid of dying for some reason. But I know it’s going to be a horrible time when it is shaking as I am going to be worried about my family. I can’t imagine them being afraid and shocked. And if the quake is going to happen, I’m going to go through that phase. That’s more fearful than the aftermath.

And above everything, it’s about my sister. I think she’s afraid these days. I don’t know. But she says so sometimes. She’s just 15. And I’m 26, for the record. You have no idea how much close we are, despite the cat fights. I just wish I could put her out of this whole thing. I know my life is never going to be the same if I lose her. These damn houses are weak. I don’t know how much I can trust them. Even though I don't care about my life that much, I know what it means for my family to lose me. I can’t see my sister missing me. And much more important than that, I don’t want to see her afraid now! The quake is not going to happen, but this fear is real. And it disturbs her little world.

Sorry if my writing conveyed worries. Don’t worry! If you live in Tehran, or if you have family here, don’t take my writing as a sign of the validity or importance of the rumor. This is exactly the way the rumors and all those religious myths have worked themselves out. Actually my own fear is all gone now that I’m finished writing these lines. But again for the record, let it be published that I was afraid for a night!

Will get back to ya with my regular nonsense fearless posts soon!

In the meantime, enjoy watching this.

Automatic pings?

2004-06-01T16:08:00.000-04:00

Since yesterday, I have noticed that my blogrolling entry is automatically pinged every time I publish my blog. That is, I don’t need to do a manual ping after writing a new post. There are a few online services for keeping track of the recently updated blogs. There is weblogs.com, blo.gs and also the blogger has its own list for the blogs that it hosts. The blogrolling guys are probably using any or a combination of these services to automatically reflect the updates. As far as I can see, they are not soliciting the blogger’s list.

They may be doing this provisionally. Equally likely, the whole thing might be just an illusion resulting from my logarithmic sleeping routine.

Now if true, this feature is good and bad. It is good because it let’s us know when our fellow lazy bloggers have written something new. And it is bad, since whenever you publish, be it for applying a change to your template, or fixing a typo in an ancient post, you will move to the top in all the blogrolls that list your name. And they are going to expect something new when they click on your name. Your solution, in that case, is to write a new post at any cost. Way like what I am did here right now!

Update, June 03: Right now it is not working. But I'm sure it was then!

Fortune Cookies

2004-05-31T15:30:00.000-04:00

On how to use exclamation marks in your posts!

“Welcome to [my blog]! Enjoy your session! Have a great time! Note the use of exclamation points! They are a very effective method for demonstrating excitement, and can also spice up an otherwise plain-looking sentence! However, there are drawbacks! Too much unnecessary exclaiming can lead to a reduction in the effect that an exclamation point has on the reader! For example, the sentence

Jane went to the store to buy bread

should only be ended with an exclamation point if there is something sensational about her going to the store, for example, if Jane is a cocker spaniel or if Jane is on a diet that doesn't allow bread or if Jane doesn't exist for some reason! See how easy it is?! Proper control of exclamation points can add new meaning to your life! Call now to receive my free pamphlet, "The Wonder and Mystery of the Exclamation Point!"! Enclose fifteen(!) dollars for postage and handling! Operators are standing by! (Which is pretty amazing, because they're all cocker spaniels!)”

Men...

2004-05-31T09:41:00.000-04:00

whose whole lives revolves around being attached to a SO (significant other);
who think of being involved with one as the de facto sign of maturity,
way like people think of smoking as a sign of maturity;
for whom the people are divided into two clearly separated crowd:
the ones with SOs and the ones without (the halves I guess),
they are fully respected for their kind of beliefs and life style.

However, when they start to judge others according to this thinking
cap, it makes me sick!

Obviously I'm not talking about being in love or devoting oneself to it.
But about fixating on one's and others' affairs in every inappropriate
context.

I just had to miss a little something that I liked, just to avoid
someone having this peculiar mindset, for I know otherwise I had to bear
that judging system in my mind, to be able to understand their every move.
And the energy required to feed my mind with that crap would have
outweighed the joy of the little something.

Holy Shake!

2004-05-28T09:34:00.000-04:00

Those were the busiest 5 seconds of my life! Most importantly I woke up, which not only does it normally require special arrangements, from water jars, to white lies, but also the unit used to measure its time is quarters at best precision. In addition to that, I got up from the bed, run to the door while speaking unintelligible words which in my then understanding read as telling others that it is a quake, and got from the second floor to the street without seeing any stairs, or bars, or any other objects, to find myself in the street wearing red shorts, which you realize is a little bit too much fashionable! It was strong. I don’t know if it happened in Tehran or its center was in some other place. It happened about 45 mins ago. My xearth program, which has an option for displaying recent quakes, doesn’t show anything yet. I hope it has not created another disaster.

Update: here it is: http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/bulletin/neic_jaan.html

Pleased owner...

2004-05-25T14:36:00.000-04:00

of a plan for the next 21 days.

[yearly dose of imagery]

2004-05-24T14:25:00.000-04:00

The lane next to my company. Dec '03.

Earthly revelations

2004-05-22T15:36:00.000-04:00

(...not equipped with precision aiming obviously)

Do you believe that last night, in my dreams, I came up with a solution to a design problem I’d been dealing with recently? I even remember that I wondered why I had not considered that solution earlier. It is not as clear and thorough as it seemed to be in the dream world, but it doesn’t mean we can’t continue working on it tonight!

[Just to keep a history, the idea is to use preconditions and postconditions as assertions or triggers, instead of employing programming-level mechanisms]

2004-05-20T18:19:00.000-04:00

I’m not on track.
This is not going to end in where my little humble goals are.
It is simply not going that way.
That simple.
And I’m as numb as that lost boat,
that does not know how fast it is getting away from where.
I’m nothing like my golden days.
I need a plan.
My plan… where are you?
Come to me my darling!
I need you.
Dude! This is not a poem!
This is my naked life you are looking at.
This is my dilemma.
Having failed just one step off the destination,
I’m as wandering as a compass one meter off the south pole.
Is it why i don't feel the days and nights passing by?
Why have they taken my failure for granted?
Or is it me, myself?
I just don't know.
I know I’m lost.
My plan!
I need a plan.

The ultimate employee

2004-05-18T14:45:00.000-04:00

A few of my co-workers and I went out for a little hiking in “Darake” this afternoon. It all happened without any prior plan, but it turned out to be so fun. The company is located in Zaferaniye and it is fairly near there. I don’t remember the last time I went hiking, but I really enjoyed this one. Well, showing up at work at 3pm and then getting out for hiking at 5pm is cool! Especially if you are working on a something tough!

We didn’t exhaust ourselves by chasing the mountaintops. It all took about three hours. Nice weather, no direct sun light, the flow of water, and a couple of the girl colleagues going crazy and screaming on the mountains, it was all good. These places are usually so crowded on weekends, but today is a weekday and it was quite calm and silent in there. Oh, and we drank cold Doogh! Magnificent!

We also took some photos, with an analog camera. I’ll post one or two here when they become available. Who said I’m anonymous?! Well, anyone who said so, can’t be any more right! But I’ll post the photos. And I’m not anonymous, by the way!

Right now, I’m feeling tired and sleepy. You have no idea how much delightful it is to feel sleepy at night! I rarely have the opportunity to experience this! So I’m hopefully going to sleep early tonight. I had a couple more notes to add here, but I’m afraid writing them down will take away the joy in my head!

So that was it!

Fortune Cookies

2004-05-17T16:43:00.001-04:00

William Safire's Rules for Writers:

Remember to never split an infinitive. The passive voice should never be used. Do not put statements in the negative form. Verbs have to agree with their subjects. Proofread carefully to see if you words out. If you reread your work, you can find on rereading a great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing. A writer must not shift your point of view. And don't start a sentence with a conjunction. (Remember, too, a preposition is a terrible word to end a sentence with.) Don't overuse exclamation marks!! Place pronouns as close as possible, especially in long sentences, as of 10 or more words, to their antecedents. Writing carefully, dangling participles must be avoided. If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is. Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing metaphors. Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky. Everyone should be careful to use a singular pronoun with singular nouns in their writing. Always pick on the correct idiom. The adverb always follows the verb. Last but not least, avoid clichés like the plague; seek viable alternatives.

Me speaking: If I follow all these rules, then where is me in my writing?! Apparently I begin the sentences with “and” too much. And I like that!

Show Time, Still

2004-05-15T17:30:00.000-04:00

Either I’m obsessed with their music or it is somehow different. It is so lively and full of hilarity, and yet it is not childish, like the kind you see from Britney or Back Street Boys. Rather, there is some mature hilarity in their songs. I can identify that particular cheerfulness in most of the songs, even in the not-that-much-happy ones, and I don’t know where it comes from. “The Sign” is probably my most favorite. Also remarkable are “Life is a flower” and “Beautiful Morning”. Watching them induces the feeling of falling in love in me, for no reason. And it’s not a Pavlov effect!

They take me back to the family’s photo albums. I identify their faces, their clothing, and their gestures with those old photos from the old days; the photos that I see just once every few years. They show the life-style that I grasp from the photos. Again this is just the feeling, but it is really strong.

By the way, they have impressive looks, especially the guys. And excuse the profanity, but I find the lady in the front so sexy! And this one too suffers from that no-reason-ness syndrome. I even don’t know her name. What else did you expect from an ace of base addict? Well, I could search the web and find her name before writing this post, but I didn’t. What else did you expect from a geek then?

Show Time

2004-05-13T16:41:00.000-04:00

“How many times do you watch that trip video? You are going to get on my nerves” I tell my little sister when I recognize familiar words coming out of the speakers. “I’m showing it to Khaleh” she responds. “You can play that other video from the year before” I tell her. She agrees and I rush to find the discs while I’m thinking someday she is going to notice why I don’t like that video.

I return with a pile of discs none of which have labels. Well I’m going to label them someday. After all, that word, procrastination, which they have put in the dictionaries is supposed to have some usage. Who is going to answer our descendants if the word is extinguished?! So you see this is rather preservation of heritage and cultural values I’m doing here.

Anyway, I know the discs from their scratches and I find the video discs after making a couple unplanned visits to the prehistoric software archives. I load the disc and… wait a second… what is this folder doing here… and why is it named aceofbase? Double-click and Wow! Five ace of base videos! And that’s something for a once ace of base addict, especially if he doesn’t have a single song between the 30G of trash music on his hard disk. So what the hell was I thinking when recording ace of base clips along with an archival trip video?! I have no idea! But this is amazing!

“How many times do you replay the video? You are getting on my nerves” she tells me, while I’m nodding my head to the music with the computer “speakers” secured on my ears.

2004-05-11T17:28:00.000-04:00

he needs to blog.

he has to.

that he gotta write,
and they gonna read,
that's just
incidental

to his need
to blog

Mom! I've got you a new comment box

2004-05-10T02:46:00.000-04:00

Blogger has finally integrated a commenting facility with its blogging software. There are also plently of new templates to choose from. So if you are fed up with your current commenting system or with you current template, it is the time.

Update: I didn't like the Blogger's commenting interface. The visitor first has to click on the post's permanent link to be redirected to another page, just to find the "post a comment" link which in turn redirects to the actual form. (Click on the # sign below this post to try it.) In addition, there is no indication of how many comments each post has received on the blog's front page (you need to insert some tags in your old template to make them show up). You can optionally make your comments box open to unregistered users. But even then the visitors can make comments either with their blogger ids or under "Anonymous". There is no way to enter an arbitrary name. The good feature is that the comments and the post are shown on the same page. Moreover, their new primary interface for posting and publishing the blog is much more convenient and fresh. Bottom line: long live the buggered enetation and the ad-thirsty haloscan! YMMV.

Human intimacy, the bird version

2004-05-10T00:35:00.000-04:00

I came across this story and I thought I would write it here. Despite being a typical story, it sounded a little peculiar to me. Maybe that’s because I somehow know its author. Maybe because I know it’s for real.

Once upon a time there was a lonely parrot. Her wings were covered with colorful feathers and her face was so innocent. Everybody around here liked her so much. But she was not happy, because she couldn’t fly. Nobody expected her to fly and they just loved her as she was. But she was tired of living the same life everyday. She wanted to get out of their beautiful nest and explore the world around her. She wanted to be on her own. However she didn’t believe in herself enough to do so. She’d got accustomed to her life; spending most of her time reading the scribbles people had written on the boughs and going for a short walk to a tall willow tree near their nest every afternoon.

Far from her, there was a young swallow. His wings were blue and his chest pure white. He didn’t have a nest, but he was in love with flying. He enjoyed spreading his wings and letting the winds take him with them anywhere in the pale blue sky. His reason was to “discover new feelings, new places, and old friends”, as he once said somewhere.

One warm afternoon in the spring, the swallow came down for a short rest. He sat on a tall willow tree. Needless to say, it happened to be the same willow tree under which the parrot was walking. They got to know each other and gradually became friends. They spent many warm afternoons under that tree, talking about their past and their present and sharing friendly moments with each other. The swallow was upset with the parrot’s life and genuinely believed that she could fly and that she could be very good at it. “What if I take you to mount Notoria where many of my friends fly and then you’ll see that you too can fly well” said the swallow someday. “But I know I can’t. Nobody believes that I can” replied the parrot.

“Didn’t I tell you! Didn’t I tell you!” screamed the swallow when the parrot flied for the first time. “I can’t believe it! I’m flying!” shouted the parrot for joy. Nothing could make the swallow feel happier than seeing the joy and hilarity in the eyes of the parrot. “I’m never going to be able to thank you really!” said the parrot while tears were running down her face. “No, you did it all yourself! I just knew you could!” Thereafter, the birds knew the parrot as one of the other professional flier in that mount Notoria. Now the swallow and parrot were together more than before.

One day in mid-summer, when they were flying in the eastern woods, the parrot turned her head to the swallow and said with a weak voice “swallow! I think I have fallen for you”. The words sent shivers up and down his spine. He barely kept himself from falling down. “Oh my god! You know how much I want your happiness and how much I care about you. Our friendship couldn’t be anything better than this. We’re much closer together than any lovers. But loving hurts, and I don’t want you to get hurt” said the swallow. But the parrot didn’t say anything. They’d been friends for long enough to know many things about each other’s lives. They’d already talked about these things in the past. About the time when swallow was in love with a bird who never knew it and how much pain he’d gone thorough and that he’d been wary of falling in love since then. And about when a close friend of the parrot had left her all of a sudden, despite their many promises on not doing a single thing in their lives without letting each other know. “To be hurt in love is much more difficult than having a friend leave” said the swallow to the parrot. But the parrot just knew that she’s fallen in love for the first time.

Since then the swallow cared even more for the parrot. His fear of falling in love vanished when he realized that he can’t allow his lovely parrot to experience the same thing that he’d experienced. The swallow was willing to do everything for the parrot to make her happy. The parrot was so much passionate about the swallow and the swallow was so much caring for her, treating her better than what any lover could do. His goal was to realize every desire the parrot could have. No bird around them could really tell if they are just friends or lovers. But they were just happy and didn’t care about the title. Then someday, parrot told the swallow that she wants to be with him forever. “Have you forgotten that swallows have to go to the south before the winter? And I don’t have any nest. I don’t have a settled life. I can’t make you happy like this. At any rate, the other parrots won’t let me do this” said the swallow. The parrot got disappointed. “I don’t care about these things. I’ve never loved anyone more than you”. They didn’t really talk about it more than one or two times after that. But the swallow felt quite puzzled and couldn’t take it off his mind. He was wary of using the word love when expressing his feelings for her, but always told her how much pure their friendship was and how much close they were, considering what he had heard of or seen in the jungle. He could never forgive himself if he’d said something that he was not sure about, so he remained silent. Little did he know what he felt for her was just true love(1). But they were still happy, flying to very far places together.

Days came and go. The autumn had arrived. In a cold day swallow broke his right wing. Some other birds in mount Notoria who couldn’t fly as high as him made it an excuse for asking him not to come there to fly anymore. It was no big deal for the swallow, as he could always fly in the skies, much higher than mountains. But the swallow was worried about the parrot. Without the swallow, nobody was taking care of her. But he wanted her to stay there, since he believed in her and knew he could do anything on her own. Alas the parrot herself didn’t. The parrot sought her flight talent in feeling to be involved with some other fliers. The swallow told her that she doesn’t need them and they are not going to respect her. “You mean that I don’t know my own good? I’m grown up enough to know what I’m doing” the parrot told the swallow. The swallow just believed in what the parrot said, contrary to his own impressions. He was willing to see her parrot’s wishes fulfilled even if it meant he had to see her going through hardship, which was in turn more difficult than anything for him. It didn’t take more than a few days that the parrot came to the swallow while shedding tears because of being mistreated by the evil fliers. “I’m never going to go there again” said the parrot while sobbing. “Hey! Take it easy. Just forget it. They should go to hell. You are just the same cute parrot!” said the swallow and then made the parrot laugh with what he knew. He never reminded her of her mistake and just felt happy when the parrot wiped her tears with her wings while having a smile on her face.

But things never got to be the same. The swallow was quite confused and didn’t know why things didn’t work like the past. He tried everything from taking her to sit on the branches of the same old tree to asking her directly why she was still disappointed. But the parrot didn’t say anything. The swallow thought with himself “it must be because she feels she’s not going to have me and the winter is coming”. But he was reluctant to tell her about what he’d thought about since quite a while ago and about what he’d finally decided to do. It was just that the swallow didn’t want to talk about those sublime things in that sad situation. He was afraid that the parrot might think that his mind has changed because of what happened in mount Notorian, while he had actually thought about it long before that. Moreover, he’d always imagined how much happy she’d become to hear that and wanted to surprise her. He was used to do so, and nothing was more pleasant for him than seeing her laughter. So he decided to keep it for when they are happy again. Alas it was just never going to happen again. On occasions the swallow hinted her about his decision, but it was like the parrot was living in another world.

In the interim, one day when they were out, the parrot started an old conversation, however with an unfamiliar tone. “Look swallow. I’ve decided to start the next period of my life and I want it to be with you. Are you going to be my mate or not? Think about it and let me know”. The swallow was confused again. He’d imagined it would happen much more sublimely and didn’t want her to think that he’s forced to do so. He also couldn’t identify the request with the parrot’s attitude in those days. Nonetheless, the swallow had thought about it enough to be more than prepared to engage in a conversation. A conversation in which he found the parrot anything but similar to the same old parrot who enthusiastically talked about her willingness to undertake anything for such a life. Rather he found her magnifying the subtle misunderstandings that they had encountered in the course of their friendship: “My wing was hurt that day when I was flying and you didn’t help me. By the way do you know I’m more like an occasion?” The swallow just genuinely tried to answer whatever the parrot brought up and reassure her of what they both literally believed in. But apparently something was wrong. Something that the parrot knew and the swallow didn’t. They separated their ways and they didn’t talk to each other for a while; for the first time ever in their three seasons.

The winter had just arrived. The swallow tried to digest what had happened between him and the parrot over and over to find out any possible reasons for why things didn’t work, but to no avail. “She must have become frustrated. After all I’ve never really told her everything” the swallow told himself once again. Sometime in the first freezing days of the winter they got together under the same old willow tree. They kept talking and talking. They had missed each other so much. The parrot told the swallow how much difficult it’s been for her when thinking of not being with him and the swallow was just somehow obsessed to keep asking “are you fine?”. The parrot had shown very different from day to day. Some days she just kept talking about how much she loved the swallow and how much she believed that they are soul-mates and the other day just asked why the swallow had not helped her in that day. But that day it was just like they were lovers like ever. And he asked her the question that day. “Will you be my mate forever?”. And the parrot was surprised and enumerated the evidences that she’d always believed in that. But the swallow told her to think first. He didn’t know why she was had been so different lately and wanted to make sure that it is her genuine will. The parrot told him that she just needs some time and his help to work some things out and they left the boughs of the willow tree.

A few days later the swallow came to the parrot asking if he could help her. But he just found her in the same confusing mood. However he couldn’t ignore what she’d already told him. He knew that she was not strong enough to sort things out on her own.
The fact that he was confused why he found himself alone in solving those problems or that it was well into the winter couldn’t keep him from trying to finish something that had started. But the more he tried the less he achieved. “Not that I care about your being a swallow, but the other parrots will talk about us” said the parrot. The swallow didn’t know why he had to elaborate something that had once been a genuine belief for the parrot herself. “You hadn’t really thought about being with me. If so, why did you ask me to think first” was told the swallow, while he’d already proved her that he’d been thinking about it since a long time ago. “Then why did I have to ask you first. The parrots don’t ask first”.

It was in mid-winter that the swallow gathered that the parrot was never going to answer him about his offer. Their last communications were just a few notes written in each other’s absence on the boughs of the willow tree. The swallow heard that the parrot had decided to move in with a plutocrat bird from the next tree, who had heard about how well the parrot could fly. He could explain many other things in the puzzle when that piece was added but there were still many unanswered questions for him. The swallow told the parrot that he was never trying to have her just for his own good and it would have never happened unless he was assured that it was her will. “I want to live” responded the parrot. “So why did you ask me to be your mate?” he asked her. She seldom had any solid answer for the questions. In fact it was quite a while that she was not truly communicating with him. “I thought you wouldn’t want it” or “I thought you would leave” were things that the swallow could grasp between the incomprehensible lines. He asked her if she could do him a favor and just let him know what really had happened and what has been her will and what has been influenced by the other parrots, so that he didn’t have to keep those many unanswered questions in his mind forever. The parrot promised to show up below the old willow tree to talk about it once forever. But she never came.

But the thing that hurt the swallow the most was that he could no longer take care of the parrot. He knew her enough to know that she'd just made another mistake as she used to say herself. He just wished that she would be taken care of, but couldn't avoid blaming himself, for he believed he had apparently failed to help her fly high enough.

Today, the parrot and the swallow are both writing their blogs, probably on the boughs of the trees. They don’t know about each other’s blogs. In fact nobody knows where their blogs are. But we know that the parrot has probably forgotten that passionate friendship altogether. The swallow is probably far from getting involving in another intimate relationship in the rest of his life. He probably doesn’t write anything about that incident either. He may be writing about professional flight in his blog. The parrot might be writing about when a close friend of her left all of a sudden, despite their many promises on not doing a single thing in their lives without letting each other know. In short, they are both sharing their finer view points on humanity (the birds’ version) with their readers; probably a little bit more from the parrot. And they are also receiving a lot of comments from their readers who admire their finer view points on humanity; probably a little bit more for the parrot.

It's just that contrary to what you might have heard, the birds are all believed to be of a single species.

(1) "In real love you want the other person's good. In romantic love you want the other person."
-- Margaret Anderson

A very long post, apparently

2004-05-02T18:51:00.000-04:00

The post was expired. No rant survives more than a couple days anyway.

Your comments, on the other hand, last forever.

Dot Interrupted

2004-04-20T14:44:00.000-04:00

What comes to your mind when you hear the word interrupt? For me, it is something like the skull and bones on the pirate flag. In order to be able to handle an interrupt, you should either have multi-tasking abilities, or alternatively, have some dependable mechanism for suspending the [presumably] high-priority task that you have concentrated on at the moment, before the interrupt source is exhausted and begins to wave hands in front of your eyes to capture your attention, or diverges in the landscape while yelling and screaming in dissatisfaction with the quality of your service routine. If you agree, the multitasking abilities were not intrinsically included in our design, or designoid, depending on which one you believe in. And the reliability of that task switching mechanism is adversely affected by the degree of concentration applied to the current task at hand. So responding to interrupts can be troublesome. I hope you have agreed that this personal problem of mine is rather a world-issue and can potentially affect anyone! Sometimes my close friends leave me oral messages like “give me a call when you are back!”. Sometimes even when I am eating, I don’t hear anybody speaking. Nonetheless, you can’t ignore the fact the work will be of much higher quality when you are in deep concentration!

I am still involved in migrating those domains for that hosting company. I hope it is going to be finished by next week and I get rid of it completely. Actually we have done nothing yet. They changed their new provider once more. The new platform is considerably different and I had to make a thorough test to make sure everything is going to be all right. I’ve sent about 15 emails in the past two days to the person from the company who is coordinating this with me. The funny thing is that every few emails, he writes a P.S. telling me that we’d better speak on the phone about some particular issue. And I quite respectfully just answer his email providing a thorough analysis of that issue. I don’t understand why they are not comfortable with emails. I can answer 60 emails in an hour, but it takes 2 days for me to call someone back. Every time we speak offline, he spends the first and last 10 minutes repeating the facts about their current problems and enumerating his plans for better serving their one thousand users. I guess that’s because he has majored in business administration.

About two months ago, my cell phone’s charger got broken (=burnt in Persian!). I consider this an incredibly nice coincidence that I still have not got a chance to buy a new one. I can feel the rise in the quality of my life. Or perhaps, that’s simply the low-level defensive mechanism of my sub-consciousness to eradicate the interrupt sources upon witnessing the slightest potential of causing disturbance! Yeah, it's become a cruel world!

2004-04-15T18:41:00.000-04:00

Had this been a blog, I would have been no blogger after taking a can of 52% vodka. I hopte that's a corrcet sentence!,

bni roblem I'm going to take you dwn baly.

French Kiss Unleashed

2004-04-13T17:55:00.000-04:00

I'm going to share with you an invaluably baseless discovery that I recently made. There is an area in the brain called somatosensory cortex which is responsible for the sense of touch. I learned about its existence from a documentary and I found its English name after pathetically entering a dozen search keywords at a search engine. It is consisted of two strips in the two sides of the brain. Each strip receives the touch impulses from half of the body. Here is a picture of one of the strips:

Two more picture are here and here. Now, on this strip there are clearly identifiable areas for different parts of the body. That is, touch impulses from each region of the body are sent to the corresponding areas in the somatosensory cortex. It seems that the size of the corresponding area in the cortex is not proportional to the size of the body part, but to the strength of sense of touch (density of touch receptors) in that part.

So why do you like to kiss sth/sb that you like? Look how unusually big the lips area is. When you kiss someone, although the contact region is small, you are stimulating a considerable area in your brain. Involving the tongue can make the area larger. As shown in this picture, the above mentioned kiss can stimulate the somatosensory cortex more than a hug!

Please nod your head to the following license agreement before you leave:

This post is provided "AS IS" and without warranty, expressed or implied. In no event shall we be liable for any damages whatsoever resulting from the application of the post content. You can not apply the post on more than a single processor…err… partner at any one time. Should you not agree with the terms of the licence, you should have not read it from the beginning.

Who moved my cheese, Who cheesy-fied my nick

2004-04-12T19:34:00.000-04:00

Why have I called myself Dot? Actually I didn't. Or perhaps I did. But what does it stand for really? Let me see if I could make anything meaningful out of that. Could it be Department of Transportation? I remember when I was in elementary school the TV had a cartoon named "The Bus No. 99". I liked it very much. I still can remember his cute face when he was happy or sad. My first yahoo id in 98 was somehow based on that name, but this Dot can't have anything to do with transportation. So what about Deed of Trust? Or Date of Termination? Deep Ocean Transponder? Distributed Object Technology? Delivered on Time? Directory of Trades? Duration of Therapy? Or perhaps Disodium Octaborate Tetrahydrate?

Apparently this is not going to work. So I have no option but being the literal Dot, a nickname that I didn't really choose. In Blogger's registration form I entered my name as Dot Blue, a derivative of my second yahoo id. Later I said to myself "I don't like to be blue, so I gotta be… umm… Red"! And there I was; Dot Red. Only later did I realize that Blogger is putting my so-called first name from that naming game below all the posts. Or maybe Blogger is telling me how tiny I am! However Sun Microsystems used to have this motto: "We are the dot in .com". So there I am!

Girl Interrupted

2004-04-09T18:48:00.000-04:00

is a good movie. The problem with writing or linking to a review about a movie is that a typical review inadvertently summarizes the story of the movie. But it’s much more interesting to watch a movie without knowing the story or having any prejudice about it in advance. Most of the movies that I watch are from the archive of my friend, Hazhir. Usually I have no idea what the movie is all about, or even if it is a comedy or romance, or whatever. And it is much more fun.

What I liked about Girl Interrupted was that it does not try to narrate the story for you as a third person. It does not try to clearly depict the situation before bringing in the events and characters. Instead it allows you to experience the events through the eyes of the main character. You are surprised with what she is surprised with, and you have no clue about what she has no clue about. I tried to find some reviews for the movie, before writing this post. But I was amazed to see that many of the critics had paid a lot of attentions to the supporting actress (Angelina Jolie). I don’t know anything about movies, but I believe that the main actress (Winona Ryder) was much more brilliant, at least for this role. It seems that the movie has been nominated for Oscar for this supporting actress in 99! Dear critics! A producer or a director may have good reasons for having an attractive girl in the movie (although I don’t find her attractive). But your job is to review the movie not the girls!

Anyhow, a reasonably wise review of the movie is here. If you wanted to watch it without reading the review, here are the opening lines of the movie:

"Have you ever confused
a dream with life?

Or stolen something
when you have the cash?

Have you ever been blue?

Or thought your train moving
while sitting still?

Maybe l was just crazy.

Maybe it was the '60s.

Or maybe l was just a girl...
... interrupted."

Of me and work, or, The emergence of a new theory

2004-04-06T17:57:00.000-04:00

Sunday was my first day of work after two weeks of holidays. But the holidays were actually longer than that. My company moved to a new building a couple of weeks before the holidays. This new building was (and still is) under some minor construction, so there was not enough ready-to-use room to unpack everything. So I decided to take the monster device that I was working with together with my computer home so that I could work at home. So I was home for a bit less than a month. Not as much interesting as it seems at the first sight.

It was nice to see my colleagues again after that long time. “Basse harchi khordi khaabidi. Dige keyf kardan tamoom shod!” some of them tell me right after saying “Hi”. And I told them that I have actually had only one meal per day, which they didn’t believe, which I wasn’t surprised. We still don’t have enough free rooms. Almost all of us are working in one room. It’s actually quite cool to work in this environment. Now, you don’t need to walk over someone’s desk for a little chit-chat, or to call them naughty names. And someone like me who lives in his monitor, can have a share of that too. Fortunately I didn’t have a share from the cube sugars in the air part. This reading newspapers and talking to others experience of mine came to an end when we realized that the only place where we could install that device was in the manager’s room upstairs. Now I have to unintentionally listen to their talks about the multi-million bids and tenders. I never pay any attention to their corporate standings, and I’m so comfortable with that. I guess they are comfortable with it too. Who likes the artificial behavior?

BTW, four of my colleagues who were on a mission to China have brought me a good-looking shirt. I’m going to wear it to see how it looks, if it gets a little bit warmer. It’s a little bit cold again. The first day that I went to the company, there was some rain. There were also some dark clouds in the sky which had created a beautiful landscape. We always see a white background (blue I guess) behind everything. Now, the dark gray background behind the white tall buildings was more like a painting. Everything seemed more fresh and bright. [Notice how all of a sudden I have naughtily found nature-admiring eyes, after realizing that there are some people who miss this city!] Little did I know that at night these clouds were going to make the most massive thundershower and hail that I could remember. And I was asleep when it began.

Now if you are a reader of this “not a blog”, you should ask “Sleeping at night? How come you sleep at nights?” Well, “Ten points for Gryffindor” I reply! That fluid sleeping schedule of mine which I have described earlier, combined with one month of holidays could have taken my sleeping hours anywhere. I was going to bed in the morning and waking up in the afternoon. That’s why I had only one meal. It’s not easy to have something to eat, when you are hungry at 5am. Now, in order to get to work, I had to apply that old “forward shift acceleration” method; that is I didn’t sleep the night before Sunday. And when I got back home, I went to bed at 8pm. Then I woke up at 4:30am, spent a couple of hours online and headed for work. I was feeling very sleepy before the noon. My biological clock recognized those hours as my natural sleeping time. Then last night I went to bed at 11pm. And I woke up today at 6:30pm!

I couldn’t believe it myself. I woke up once at around 7am, and it was because I was hungry. I unconsciously found some cookies and put them in my mouth and went to bed again. Once again I woke up at 12. This time, I was conscious enough to take some fruit juice from the fridge too. I thought I will sleep one more hour. But I didn’t wake up until 6:30pm. It makes 19:30 hours. Have you seen that the shadows absorb each other? I guess that’s what has happened. For the first 10 hours, I needed to sleep. For the second 10 hours, I was biologically tuned to sleep in those 10 hours. Now, the day before, I had two hours before the start of the second one, and I managed to remain awake. But last night, I didn’t catch the chance!

Now after reading my absorbing dreams theory are you going to wish I had continued my (un)happiness trilogy instead or not?

Fortune speaks on happiness

2004-04-06T12:32:00.000-04:00

Apparently I'm believed to have developed some obsession with (un)happiness. So to conclude the previous two posts, I've included here almost every happiness-related quote I have from the Fortune.

Enjoy reading the ones you believe in. And be careful enough not to learn the other ones the hard way.

On a side note: Massive inclusion of the fortunes is not my practice. The quotes deserve more than being used for amusement, and including them in one place does not do them justice.

All quotes without explicit mention of a source are from an unknown source.

"It's pretty hard to tell what does bring happiness; poverty and wealth
have both failed."
        -- Kim Hubbard

"Your good nature will bring you unbounded happiness."

"Happiness is good health and a bad memory."
        -- Ingrid Bergman

"Happiness, n.:
        An agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another."
        -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

"True happiness will be found only in true love."

"love, n.:
        When, if asked to choose between your lover
        and happiness, you'd skip happiness in a heartbeat."

"Success is getting what you want; happiness is wanting what you get."

"For perfect happiness, remember two things:
(1) Be content with what you've got.
(2) Be sure you've got plenty."

"Happiness is having a scratch for every itch."
        -- Ogden Nash

"You give me space to belong to myself yet without separating me
from your own life. May it all turn out to your happiness."
        -- Goethe

"Happiness adds and multiplies as we divide it with others."

"If happiness is in your destiny, you need not be in a hurry."
        -- Chinese proverb

"Stop searching forever. Happiness is just next to you."

"Stop searching forever. Happiness is unattainable."

"There is something in the pang of change
More than the heart can bear,
Unhappiness remembering happiness."
        -- Euripides

"Happiness makes up in height what it lacks in length."

"Some don't prefer the pursuit of happiness to the happiness of pursuit."

"Happiness is rooted in misery.
Misery lurks beneath happiness.
Who knows what the future holds?
There is no honesty.
Honesty becomes dishonest.
Goodness becomes witchcraft.
Man's bewitchment lasts for a long time.

Therefore the sage is sharp but not cutting,
Pointed but not piercing,
Straightforward but not unrestrained,
Brilliant but not blinding."
        -- "The Tao"

"If your happiness depends on what somebody else does, I guess you do
have a problem."
        -- Richard Bach, "Illusions"

"Happiness is just an illusion, filled with sadness and confusion."

"If money can't buy happiness, I guess you'll just have to rent it."

"Money can't buy happiness, but it can make you awfully comfortable while
you're being miserable."
        -- C.B. Luce

"The secret of happiness is total disregard of everybody."

"Your happiness is intertwined with your outlook on life."

(Un)happiness, cont.

2004-04-01T17:32:00.000-05:00

[edited from the saved version]

When I look back, I can count a few things which have proved their ability in making me feel happy or unhappy. Don't bother reading if you are a psychologist. First for happiness:

- Being really busy day and night with creative work, especially something that I like, and being good at it.
- Doing my best for the people who matter to me, and reading happiness and appreciation in their eyes. I feel most happy when I know that I have been able to make somebody else happy. When I know that they know me as a true friend and are grateful for having me. I don't think I can explain it.
- Spending time with one of my old friends, his brother, and his cousin (nicknamed Hazhir, Dr, and Hassan, all for historic reasons). It's like we don't need any reason at all to continuously laugh out when any number of us are together. ROTFL is common practice. Our common vocabulary (called Pashtoo!) has become so big that sometimes an outsider has no clue what we are talking about. It just made me laugh now when I remembered the night we watched Scream with another gang and how frustrated they'd become since we were laughing all the time as if it was a comedy.
- Looking at my little sister (my only sibling, 12 years younger than me) and feeling grateful for having her. She's special. She is so cute and funny.
- Looking back and realizing that I have been able to do great things and pass difficult burdens in the past. This gives me self-esteem.

And for unhappiness:

- Change [requires a chapter of its own]
- Being treated carelessly by someone you have _faith_ in, especially if it has been someone from the second group in the above list. The problem is not that you lose a friend (or anything), or that you feel what you have done for them has been wasted. But the problem is that you have to get along with the fact that something unexplainable has happened. That it creates a lot of questions in the mind that are never going to have any answers. That you just feel paralyzed for continuing to live the way you believe you should live. This has brought me to my knees twice in my life.
- Realizing that I must be different, since what I want to do and what I want to be is not well embraced by the world around me and so I should expect to encounter problems. Expecting problems is not good. They just happen, with no hesitation.
- Working in a stressful environment, especially when you have to deal with people having unhealthy agendas. But any kind of work is much better than having no work at all.

I should add that it feels quite good when I write down my thoughts for this "not a blog". It's like they get out of my chest, at least for a while. But when I publish the post, I begin to doubt that it may be crap or it may have ego in it.

P.S. A while ago, I received a few from my visitors (love y'all!) telling me to adore the moments that I am in Iran. I left some questions in there, but I didn't receive any answers. I really wondered if it is possible to adore it for an insider. I did look around and tried to visualize what one should do that embodies adoring Iran (believe me, it is weird). I couldn't find any tangible way to do so. Isn't it that adoring something, which usually does not need any action, is best possible when there is a distance in time and/or space? There are a lot of people who fancy living in North America or Europe. Ever woke up in the morning and adored living in there?

(Un)happiness

2004-03-27T14:24:00.000-05:00

Something else… I turned out that last time I was here it was three and a half years ago. Speaking of happiness and unhappiness, there is always this problem that it can not be measured. Lord Kelvin says that if you can't measure something, you don't know it. We can not compare degree of happiness between different people, since no one is able to experience the feeling of someone else. It's just words that you hear from them when they try to express their feelings, and you know the limitations of the words. It seems that everyone's happiness or unhappiness is defined just as the distance of his current state with his expectations; with his state in the past; and with his perception of the state of the people around him. I'm not trying to lecture anybody, these are just my questions. You have no idea how much of the time I'm musing over these things. I remember a few supporting quotes from the fortune. I don't have the quotes with me, so I'll check them and add the missing names when I get home.

"Happiness is not having what you want, it is wanting what you have."

"Happiness is not something you experience, it is something you remember."
-- Oscar Levant (I guess)

This last one does really deserve hours of rumination. I don't feel happy right now, and there are reasons which I can't express on this site. But the question is, how happy I have ever been. How happy everybody else is. And how happy us humans are supposed to be, design-wise. Speaking of the distance between my current state and the past state, I'm beginning to believe that we are much less capable at measuring this distance than we think we are. If, for example, I'm dealing with a major problem at the moment, I may think of the time that I didn't have the problem and then miss those days and say "how cool it was", probably with a silly smile on my face. I can't really compare myself with myself in the past, because it was a different me. At those days, had I probably been celebrating the lack of this major problem, or I had been thinking about some other concerns and challenges? It is quite possible (if not frequent and popular) to fervently miss the days that you did never adore when you were living them.

The story is the same about success. The human being is greedy for achieving his/her ever-changing goals. At the risk of being called pessimistic, I should say that most of the time we think about what we want to have (which we don't have) and not about what we have. That's why we need to be always reminded that we should value our health, our family and our moments. Well, I do value them, but honestly not as much as when I would lose them. It seems that I have drawn some conclusions. Nonetheless I don't have the slightest feeling of finding the answers. But usually when I try to write down my concerns and questions coherently, it helps to find better answers in the following days.

[the last paragraph saved for a later post]

Safar-Naame

2004-03-27T14:21:00.000-05:00

So let's develop this underdeveloped blog a little bit diary-wise too. I'm at my cousin's place. Yesterday, one of his friends was also here and the three of us went to see their common friend in yet another nearby city. They have been together during the military service and now they are friends. My cousin warned us that his friend will definitely insist that we stay for the night, even though he told him on the phone that we won't. I’m usually not comfortable with small cities, but it turned out to be good. Their friend was a very cool guy and treated us with warmth and hospitality. We chatted and laughed for hours and then after the dinner their friend said that we should stay for the night. So the bargain began. Eventually my cousin said that we should come back since I have to return to Tehran the next day morning! And I cooperated and we returned!

It was a 60 minute drive. We returned with an old Peugeot. A minute after we got in the car, my cousin asked the driver if he could drive faster. He said he'd been driving for 35 years, and had had a lot of people complaining to him about driving too fast, but it was for the first time somebody thought he drives slowly. It was a small road, with just one line in each direction, and no separators. There was a parallel three-line autobahn but this road was less bumpy according to the driver. I wish my cousin had waited until we get out of city, before judging his driving. With his driving he scared the life out of me, at least. I was sitting right behind the driver and could see the vehicles, most of which were trucks and trailers, coming from the opposite direction. "One second, just one second and you will crash head to head" he proudly commented after overtaking a car and quickly sliding out of the way of a truck. "The asshole drives like Mir-Ghazab" he grumbled while looking at the diverging truck in the rear view mirror. The driver said he has to drive at nights, since in the day there are better cars and the passengers don't ride his car. I can't believe my own dad was a trailer driver at my age. It's really dangerous to drive in these roads. I remember being with him on the roads, but I was never afraid. I guess I'm beginning to age!

Fortune

2004-03-23T19:59:00.000-05:00

"This life is a test. It is only a test. Had this been an actual life, you
would have received further instructions as to what to do and where to go."
-- Unknown

Personal comments due on Friday. [note to self: remember these words: precious, past, current, relative, sister, lecture to friend,...]

2004-03-23T19:25:00.000-05:00

P.S. I didn't think I will, but I'm going to see my cousin in a nearby city for a few days. I have countless memories from the time we were kids and always had fun when we were together... that always we longed to see eachother. It's more than a couple of years now that I just promise to go for a visit and then just procrastinate.

another note to self: how dare you intertwine your own text with the fortune cookies?! [collision resolved by breaking into two posts]

P.P.S. I'm feeling down.

This whole mess reminds me of one my earlier visitor comments: "you call this a blog?". Nice word man. Nice word.