Back to Pavilion

Hiya All. I should be glad to announce the fact that I’m back in ‘comfortable areas’. Not back home as yet, but after a whirlwind tour spanning 7 countries, the UAE seems almost home. I think a little bit of macro-level detail is allowed here.

So here I am, back in the UAE, after about a year. The roads are the same, the traffic is almost the same, the people are definitely the same and the nightlife has increased even more, if nothing else. Jumera Beach Hotel has even shorter skirts and whiter flesh on display, while Ski Dubai has more and more people packed into less and less space. Overall, there is a sone of slowing down, as I see it, but the people who were not slowed down are still going strong. Ofcourse, there is some scaling down of the middle-classes, but then again, those poor people are always scared by the class below them. George Carlin has some famous words on this (article). There is also a video clip of this, but I can’t find it right now (sucky cellphone, y’all).

Anyway, things have slowed down. I’ll most probably be actually back home round about the Eid holidays. But ofcourse, since we’ve got holidays, we’ll have to go somewhere right :p. Maybe I’ll sleep the entire week! But any idea how many hols are there going to be? I’ve missed the usual office-gossip, speculating on “If eid is on a Saturday…..”

The world is going around the same, I see. Shame it didn’t go on a hiatus when I did. A glance this copy of the Khaleej Times tells me that today the health minister is going to “kick-off the campaign” and be innoculated. With all respect, dear sir, I think the Europeans have it right. I, a mere visitor to their country, was given the vaccine, without any payment, because, as per the health officer “You’ll be walking around in crowds and eating out, you need to be safe dearie”. However, I don’t by any stretch, visuzalise the Hon. Minister walking around City Center and being in a position to be infected by a stray sneeze. And I’m sure the vaccination shall follow the heirarchy, right? Minister, Asst. Minister, Dty. Minister and so on, until after 3 months, and the end of winter (atleast here) common people shall get the vaccination.

And what’s the hulabaloo surrounding the vaccine? I’m hearing things here (in the UAE). That the vaccine is a live virus and it is untested and people shall be avoiding getting the shots and people get sick after the vaccination and it takes 7-8 months to be effective and blah and blah! Wowzer! Someone’s undies are in a knot!

Anyway, there are no qualms. I can only offer that I got vaccinated, and apart from half a day of pain in my arm (where i was injected), there have been no after-effects – and I have’t dropped dead, full of swine flue virii – till now.

Rest all is okay. Be in peace.

-FK

Remote Shores and Weird Feelings

TFK is not down and out for the count. True, that the count has reached 10, 9, 8, …4 and I have only 3 digits left, but I still don’t consider myself down and out.

I’ll start by apologizing to the readers who visit the page (or check their feeds) and don’t see an update or a post. Then I’ll apologize to the bloggers whose blogs I used to read, then I’ll apologize to my wife for leaving last night’s cake in her slipper and lastly I’ll apologize to my Workplace for me not appreciating the Oh-Lord-Wonderfully-Free-And-Fast internet connection that I had in my office.

Remote shores, where I am, are wonderful. While they are a tad bit weird (we are approaching summer where we are; winter is ending), the sky is a different blue, the sea is a different green and the air tastes funny. But still they are nice. But then again, being the un-thankful being that I am, I do miss a lot of things:

- I miss being a billionaire so that I can extend this vacation another couple of months.
- I miss not coming here before, so that I could have booked the better room down the hall.
- I miss Mum n Dad!!
- I miss the weirdly obnoxiously awesomely blinged out cars that slowwly drive around Shatti Qurum twice, with loud music, before driving away.
- I miss the strange strain of human beings that are found in City Center Azaibah on a weekend.
- I miss the Asian spin we have put on “Italian” dishes in Asia. Real Italian food is… it takes time getting used to!

And I also face some problems:

- I HAVE NO CONSTANT INTERNET CONNECTION!!!!
- In the last hotel we stayed in, THE WORDPRESS LOGIN PAGE WAS BLOCKED GODDAMMIT!!!!
- My foot hurts (We’ve have walked a lot.. a LOT)
- I have lost my iPod Shuffle (I think I left it in a taxi)
- The list of ‘gift items’ to take back home and the Amount of gift items is inceasing exponentially, making me think we’ll have to buy another airplane ticket just for the cargo.
- There are very few good cars here. Practicality takes preference over luxury (atleast where we are for the last 3 weeks)
- I still feel uncomfortable driving a moped.
- My wife is a better moped driver than I am!!!

Since I have to present myself as a likeable person, I’ll have to include the list of things I’m lovin:

- The weather. Seriously, it is blissful. Get this weather to Oman & I assure you it’ll be the best-est place to be.
- Privacy in the middle of everything. You feel as if no one is trying to invade your space. You can sit in the same place for hours or you can jiggle and pop all day long, no one will notice or interrupt you.
- Diversity. I’ve found Indians, Sikhs, Asians, Thais, Europeans (duh!) and all sorts of people here. While that is not a very strange thing, but the amicablility and willingness to talk and be friendly is pretty nice. Strike up a conversation and you’ll, in 9 cases out of 10, get a smiling reply. The 10th person is usually drunk!
- Food variety. I had to spend 10 days searching for an authentic Italian Restaurant in Oman. (Eventually found the one in Grand Hyatt – Tuscany; Recommended!! )

So, all in all, here we are. Far away from the regularities of life. No work to do, no schedules to meet. The Mrs. says that she is going to start searching for a job soon, we;ve been here so long. And indeed, we have. The local money exchange cashier knows me and Oman by name. He even knows about Azaibah and Sohar now! Our hotel staff know our eating and sleeping habits pretty well. We’ve been here so long that I even started to look like a local!!

But I’ll be back. And we’ll be back on our blog posts. Matters of the world, politics, Oman, activities, local scene, all that jazz.

Till then, Ciao!

-TFK

Wishing you Eid Sa’eed

Since I am busy in all the weirdness of my last post, I shall not attempt to obstruct the Alice-in-Wonderland-like activities of mine, waiting instead for an Alice-in-UmbrellaCorp-like activity to end the monotony. Going through the past up & downs, I have assured my self that this blog can indeed survive without me, since my 15-day hiatus did not affect the incoming traffic. This is very good, as I am promised a steady stream of visitors; this is very bad since whatever I write (or don’t) does not have any effect on anything! I am disappoint!

I shall propose to extend my hiatus, taking advantage of the generous Eid holidays to traverse some borders, see some foreign lands. I hear there is a cold front coming along the Eastern Mediterranean shores, maybe I can use that. *nudge nudge* *wink wink*

After thanking you all my reader for this readership, allowing a glance of interest to fall on this very VERY small persona of mine online, making me sigh in satisfaction or astonishment whenever I see the amount of visitors go up or down by a couple or more.

So, after thanking you for all that, I wish to fall upon you a very happy Eid with blessings and benefits and lots of blog hits and exciting trips and inner satisfaction. Most of all, I wish upon all of you money, health & happiness (as my father says, pick two!).

-TFK

“I’ll Be Back!”

Real Life has a way with things. It looks at you, finds you, stops you, pushes you, sneaks up on you, bashed you on the head and then drags you away to where it wants you to be. And currently, Real Life (RL) does NOT want me to blog. I’ve pleaded, begged, hidden from, tried to bypass and even fought it, but it wins. I threatened it once, but then realized that was Not A Good Idea!

Blog or no blog, life goes on. Things are happening in the world and the world is happening to things. The silly political hoo-ha regarding Obama’s speech, the weird activities of Coalition forces in Iraq & Afghanistan (but why are they called coalition? Why was the word ‘allied’ dropped? How long are they going to come up with similies?), the death of Patrick Swayze, Serena Williams’ tirade at the umpire and more. While The Fark Knight sits in his roller coaster, watching these things zip by, wanting to stop or atleast slow-down to look at them with detail, Real Life wants me to sit tight and go at the pace it wants. I could jump off it and do things at a much slower pace, but the coaster wouldn’t stop. I’ll do that, doncha worry, but when time comes.

Anyway, you don’t do things like that on an empty stomach.

(Much Belated) Ramadhan Kareeem to all. Remember that there is a person behind this persona. Pray for him in your prayers in The Blessed Nights.

-TFK

Mutawwa-ing Second Life

As reported by Al-Watan newspaper on the 17th, the mutawwas and the PVCV of Saudi Arabia are growing in the virtual world of Second Life. Apparently, there are going to be lectures and “methods to excite the young people” on the virtues of Ramzan and its benefits. Also, apparently, (apparently coz I’m depending on Google Translate), using computers and Internet for this purpose was an Islamic no-no, but it was justified since “Arithmetic has a very large value in Islam”.

“Declared the island “Middle East” in a “Alexand Live” that for the first time will be held on Tuesday a lecture by a senior official in the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, has been the world’s second default under the title “Ramadan guys” to raise awareness of spirituality to seize the holy month.
The lecture will be delivered by Director General of the religious police in Mecca, Sheikh Ahmed al-Ghamdi, the default in the mosque, which was inaugurated recently in the “taste of Arabia” island “Middle East”, which belongs to participants from Saudi Arabia.”

Nice! Now virtual lectures on how women should keep only one eye uncovered, why they should not drive, how to claim to be the bastions of Islam in the world and at the same time destroy all evidence of the objects present at the time of the Holiest figure of Islam. (article from 2005, even more damage now)

Historic Mecca, the cradle of Islam, is being buried in an unprecedented onslaught by religious zealots.

Almost all of the rich and multi-layered history of the holy city is gone. The Washington-based Gulf Institute estimates that 95 per cent of millennium-old buildings have been demolished in the past two decades.

Now the actual birthplace of the Prophet Mohamed is facing the bulldozers, with the connivance of Saudi religious authorities whose hardline interpretation of Islam is compelling them to wipe out their own heritage.

It is the same oil-rich orthodoxy that pumped money into the Taliban as they prepared to detonate the Bamiyan buddhas in 2000. And the same doctrine – violently opposed to all forms of idolatry – that this week decreed that the Saudis’ own king be buried in an unmarked desert grave.

A Saudi architect, Sami Angawi, who is an acknowledged specialist on the region’s Islamic architecture, told The Independent that the final farewell to Mecca is imminent: “What we are witnessing are the last days of Mecca and Medina.”

According to Dr Angawi – who has dedicated his life to preserving Islam’s two holiest cities – as few as 20 structures are left that date back to the lifetime of the Prophet 1,400 years ago and those that remain could be bulldozed at any time. “This is the end of history in Mecca and Medina and the end of their future,” said Dr Angawi.

The driving force behind the demolition campaign that has transformed these cities is Wahhabism. This, the austere state faith of Saudi Arabia, was imported by the al-Saud tribal chieftains when they conquered the region in the 1920s.

Here Comes the Bling!

With the general exodus of all sorts of people and things from the UAE, seems that a few of the oddities are also finding their way stateside. Recently spotted this little gem near the ministries area.

Now that’s some serious cheap bling! Apologies for the crappy photoshop.

-TFK

So, there’s this dude…

… whose name is Steve Oman! Oman! His name is Oman! How, what, why?! What does that even mean!? How did his parents come up with that name??

Apparently, there are 2500-odd unique last-name-Oman people in the USA. That’s pretty rare and pretty odd if you ask me.

The point of this post? Nothing!!

-TFK

I win!

I just got to know that I have won the first prize in an online quiz competition. Yay! Prizes, here I come!

-FK

Sexist PC

Today’s post is a good comic strip-site. (click to jump)

I Laughed. Is that bad?!

-TFK

H1N1: Schools, Ruwi & Lulu

Really brief. After the case of an Indian School student falling ill and passing away due to swine flu, the Indian Schools have closed for an extended holiday. That comes after an annoouncement that they would not close. But they are now closing.

The Pakistani School had announced that they would not close. But they had ‘off-d’ primary school kiddos. Seeing the severity of the cases (and the huuge amount of snot-nosed not-so-kids), vacations have been announced for another week, 15th to 22nd Aug.

Rwui Ruiw Ruwi has had a general sweep by the baladiyah, handing out masks and forcing the general shopkeepers and shopassistants to wear them. Gives Ruwi a sterile look. Now you can’t even identify the person who is giving you the eye (or the x-ray eye). Same for all medical centers, where HongKong-esque masked smoochers were seen by your truly.

Lulu is as much a cesspit of all kinds of virii as usual, human-type and others. I’m sure that if there is any place where H1N1 and H1N5 are going to mutate, that is going to be Lulu; where, this friday, I saw 200 people per minute (ppm) entering and exitting the doors. And Ramadhan shopping still has to commence, with people going starking mad, buying wholesale items (I saw a local buying atleast 7 cartons of red Jello, swear). Consider with that the amount of cars parked (in their newly opened multi-tier parking space), the humid, wet smell of coconut in the air there, open fruits (and flies) and you can get an idea of the genetic experiments going on in Lulu’s atmosphere. shudder. And no masks, mind you. When pharmacies are going to sell facemasks @ R.O. 5/- per box (50 pcs), why would Mr. Raj, with a family of 5, buy a whole box!? Especially when no one has told them that the friggin masks have to be replaced after a couple of days of use (the flimsy ones).

Here’s to me, heading for all the lonely places. Yo, beach up in Yeti, here I come!

-FK