"Every man dies. Not every man lives."

I like that. I want to live. But I'm locked in a 9x5 office 50 weeks of the year. At least I have a window now. There's a new recreation store around these parts. They got nifty tents and other survival gear. I need to take a hike.

Ramadan Mubarak all! We're already 10% done. I failed my first test of the month on the way to Tarawih Sunday night this rice boy cut me off and I high beemed him and uttered some colorful words which haven't yet made your favorite 64-count Crayola box. Alhamdulillah I recognized my flaw right away and sought forgiveness.

I have to admit I am afflicted with some road rage but Sunday night made me realize that a middle finger after the fact doesn't really do one any good.

Its a blessing that Ramadan heightens our sensitivities to personal flaws which we might not ordinarily pay attention to. Hate to be cliche but fasting definitely isn't about starving oneself but controlling our nafs. We might be able to blame shaytan 11 months of the year but we can't blame anyone but ourselves during this Holy month.

I pray that everyone takes the opportunity to build upon this month for the rest of the year and the rest of their lives.

We had dinner last night at my parents. They have about 25 clocks in their home. About 20 of them run on electricity so it really sucks when the power goes out. But what sucks more is Daylight Savings. I still don't get why they invented that. But anyway my mom took the opportunity of my being there to have me set back all the clocks in the household. Two days in advance mind you! So as I was setting back the clock on our first VCR (yes we still have our first Sanyo; but it doesn't go as far back as you might think as it is not an audio/video component with wood trim). Any way, my father was like "Don't these gadgets have a mechanism where they can set them themselves?" I smirked and responded "Shyeah right." Pops took it the wrong way and thought I was belittling his collection of old electronics. "So your stuff is better than mine eh?"

Having a degree in Electrical Engineering, I'm supposed to know how to repair microwaves and install ceiling fans. OK I have installed all the ceiling fans in my parent's home. But for some reason the light switch doesn't quite work with the fan as my mom would like. Of course, she wants the dimmer control to control the light and not the fan. Unfortunately, the instructions for the ceiling fan have nothing about dimmer controls. So when she dims the lights, the fan slows down. I hear about it every summer. As for the microwave, my mom feels my degree is worthless.

What's happenin' Rerun? RIP Fred Berry.

You first saw it in Scarface. Your father had one. You started seeing this fashion statement all over the place in the 90s. You dubbed it the "Members Only Jacket" and you didn't even know why. One day we were sitting around at UVA and one of those PSA kids came by and said salam. I had to say it: "What's up with the Members Only jacket?" At that moment, everyone knew. It was worth a chuckle at the time. Years later, I had come to find out that the "Members Only" reference was rather common. There's something about those jackets which speak volumes about the wearer. What's up JC Penny's?

Last night whilst watching The Practice we saw an ad for Trivial Pursuit "The Last 20 Years" edition. It was like a walk down memory lane with lots of Pop culture references. Basically they had a montage of 80s video clips with a voiceover thanking some of the displayed icons.

On that note, I would like to say:

Thank you ALF.
Thank you Balki, with all due respect to Beef, Where's The.
Thank you Chewbacca.
Thank you Deathstar v1 and v2.
Thank you Eurithmics.
Thank you Fat Albert.
Thank you Gremlins.
Thank you He-Man.

I recently saw this Paki kid with a bouffant do. Blow dried and hair sprayed to perfection. On its own, it was enough to garner second and third glances from the crowd. But this kid had on a sparkly purple dress shirt and green contacts. Not that there's anything wrong with that. On second thought, everything is wrong with that. I wrote a haiku about it...

Hey liberaci,
Out of your closet, green eyes
gaze. Jeeti raho.

Ever get the feeling that this guy is falling? Eerie huh?

I've not changed Nuriya's diaper in a while but I have been dreaming of whirled peas.

Looks like we're not balling tonight. Weather's getting cold, sun's setting earlier. Plus the uncles have reserved ADAMS center bball court for badminton. I am a natural born playa when it comes to that sport. I had never played the sport until that one fateful Field Day at Glen Forest Elementary. Got me a blue ribbon. Awe yeah, Ivan Lendl had nothing on me.

I think our family bought one of those cheap nets for our backyard once. Man I was ripping serves like anything. Beware though, shuttlecocks can hurt.

So I want to find a racquetball court that's free. Racquetball balls are cool as hell. Its too bad they come in sets of 2 so I can't show off my juggling skills. Maybe I'll stock up. One can never have enough of those blue balls.

There are a lot of personalized license plates in Virginia. I don't know what it is about this state. We are some funny people though. But sometimes we are PUNJABI or LAADLA. The Honda:Desi rep'n license plate ratio is nearly 1:1.

I got a story to relate about a friend of mine PHUNKY Z. We clowned him and his Amigo to no end about this. One can not get away with such a sociotraffic faux pas. Any way he wanted to change his tags to reflect the fact that he was "Just Chillin'". To give him credit, this was back in the mid 90s. Any way to his chagrin, JST CHLN was taken. So I came up with JSS CHLN. Hommy promptly got his tags. He has never given me credit for this and claims to have come up with the idea on his own. I like to goad him into arguing about it every now and then to the point where he's not JSS CHLN anymore. Irony. Anyway, he has since gotten married and dropped the tags for something like ZXY-5812. Marriage will do that to you. Personal reflection and not a commentary on said friend's marriage.

[NOTE: One of the biggest coincidences of my life occurred when I actually saw a Jeep Wrangler with the tags JST CHLN and my friend's Eclipse JSS CHLN in the same parking lot at Mason one summer.]

So yeah, every other car here has a personalized tag. Mine was 8RAIN until I sold my car. After getting it, I realized people might take it the wrong way and think I meant Brain. In reality it stood for A-Train (my nickname), but I accepted the unintended double entendre.

Glad I didn't get 4RUNNA (read: foreigner) for my old Toyota 4Runner back in the day. But whats up with RED BMW and BLUE Z4? Way to waste $10 a year.

So an imam walks into a bar right...

We visited my in-laws this past weekend and they had those aluminum cups you haven't seen since your last trip to Pakistan. I think I love those, dents notwithstanding. Nothing beats an icy cold Fanta in an aluminum cup. Goes down smoooth. Another plus is that you don't need ice to make the drink taste better, be it soda or water. I asked my mom where I can get those and she claims I'll have to import. I will have a set by the end of this year, mark my words.

So I finally got broadband a couple weeks ago. I live in Loudoun County (LoCo), VA. Its pretty much the internet capital of the world, home of AOL and MCI WorldCom and countless other tech firms. But the high-speed situation was pretty dry. No DSL, no cable (thank you Adelphia!) until two weeks ago. I hate Adelphia, but I hate 56k even more. So now I pay about 50 bones a month to download pages faster. I haven't gotten on the mp3 kick yet. I had broadband when I lived with my parents a couple years ago in Fairfax and used to download junk all the time. When I moved out here, I was stuck sharing a 56k AOL account with my sister and my wife's stepmother (my step-mother-in-law?). For those of you who don't know about AOL, only one user can be logged on at any given time. So we always had these battles kicking each other off. Of course it took about half an hour to dial in and half an hour for AOL to load before finding out the account was already in use. Basically, getting online was a drag for the past 2 years. Now I've discovered blogs and friendster and all this other stuff outside my 2-year routine of visiting espn.com, hotmail.com and cnn.com. So anyone know how to get mp3's and movies without getting busted? Holler at me...

Gotta represent my peoples. My wife Mariam is the love of my life. She keeps my head in the sky and my feet on the ground. Sometimes she even packs my lunch! OK I'm giving her a little too much credit there. But on the real, Mariam's my partna in crime and this line now rhymes. She's my original Nur from the land of light (Nuristan). Now she has blessed me with a light so radiant (Nuriya).

Then there's my sis Gizzy fo shizzy. She just passed the Bar and got a job, mashaAllah se. Things are on the up and up and we're all very proud of her. Especially my parents, ma and pa. Pa's had a good year, first grandkid (Nuriya), and he finally doesn't have to pay any school debts. Speaking of which, I'll set up a Paypal account for you to contribute to Nuriya's fund. Its never too early!

Ma and Pa go by Ammi and Daddy in real life but you don't know that.

My baby girl Nuriya turns 3 months old at 12:57 in the AM. Its been a blast and I wake up each morning looking for more. I keep tellin myself and others that I'm gonna set up a website for her. In due time, in due time. In the meantime, I've been snapping daily pics of her, watching her grow. It is amazing how they change in such a short time, subhanAllah. Matter of fact this evening we went to see my cousin's new kid Zainab and she is so tiny. I almost forgot how little my Nuriya was. I'm reminiscing already.

What is UP? Da boom boom room is now in effect. Suckaz need not enter. This blog will contain random daily (weekly, monthly, at my leisure [read: don't hit the REFRESH button looking for updates]) musings which may or may not relate to me. How is this different from any other blog? Well, if you're peeping this, you ain't peeping another.

Enjoy your stay and take off your shoes, or vice versa.