IMHO, Valentine’s day revolves around the single most powerful force in the world today.  A force that can unite bitter rivals, or cause closest of friends to wage wars against each other.  A crazy little thing called money.  For the most part, corporations put on little song & dance numbers under the banner of Valentine’s day purely for the purpose of getting people to notice their brands a little more.  Why waste a perfectly good oppertunity to put your brand in the spotlight?  (That, and try to convince people that the solution to all life’s problems can be found by simply spending money.)

Me, I prefer to celebrate Valentine’s day the same way I prefer to celebrate any “day”.  Sleep late.  Unfortunately that is not the case, so my Valentine’s day usually begin with being woken up.  After a decent amount of caffeine has been interjected into my system, I am off to work.  If I’m lucky, the commute to work is fairly uneventful.

The full impact of Valentine’s day is felt at the office.  Primarily because I work at the ad firm; and ads tying a corporate brand to Valentine’s day that are still being “finalized” by some of the clients at the last minute, need to be done ASAP.

Throughout the ages, food has often been associated with matters of the heart; and usually around lunch time, I find myself remembering why.  Whatever artery clogging offerings at one of the various greasepits nearby usually constitute lunch on Valentine’s day.  (Then again, whatever artery clogging offerings at one of the various greasepits nearby usually constitute lunch on any day.)  I can almost hear my heart scream an assortment of expletives at my stomach everytime I’m out to lunch.

Post-lunch work is usually similar to pre-lunch work, except for the fact that the focus begins shifting from Valentine’s day to February 21st, “International Mother Language Day“.  Another banner to brand…  If I’m lucky, the commute from work is fairly uneventful.

Cliché as it may sound, my Valentine’s day usually nears it’s end with a prerequisite Candle lit Dinner?  Although, in Bangladesh it’s mainly due to the routine blackouts.  The candle lit dinner for one, is occasionally followed by a candle lit shower, also for one.  And then… I do the same thing I do every night…

…play videogames and go to sleep.

I just answered this Featured Question, you can answer it too!

Come to think of it the “Do do do D’OH!” would make an interesting ringtone now-a-days…

=^^=

Los Angeles is not very densely populated.  When a giant snake totals a city block, the giant snake is seen by no more than six people.  (Atleast for the first half of the movie.)
 
Children understand concepts of Destiny, Responsibility as well as Honor just as well as adults; and are willing to unquestioningly believe strange old men telling them about the aforementioned Destiny, Responsibility and Honor.

Heavenly beings are assholes.  I mean really… If I had to hide something highly valuable, I sure as hell wouldn’t hide it in a human being.  Especially if she starts blatantly advertising it upon reaching the age of 20, and the creatures seeking the artifact have ways of homing in on it.  Furthermore, I wouldn’t make it so that the woman has to die if it’s used.  (That kind of things usually make humans want to do silly thing, like rebel against the aforementioned assho heavenly beings.)
 
Everyone understands Korean.

 
The ancient Korean mythological armed forces bear a striking resemblance to the Gungan armed forces.

Scars can carry over from one life to another.  If someone gave you a nasty flesh wound in your past life, you’ll have it in THIS life.

 
Psychiatrists are assholes.  They lack any sympathy what so ever for their patients, and generally prefer to strap their patients in straight jackets and lock them away.

 
Strategic, conniving, methodical warlords often miss little things; like an ancient relic that may bring about their own demise, hanging around the neck of their arch rivals.

Heavenly beings will only grant you the power to defeat the forces of evil after you’ve been thoroughly beaten up by the aforementioned forces of evil.  Then, suddenly, there’s a bright flash of light and the forces of evil are no more.

The Police/Army prefers to hire only a select breed of “people”.  People that can miss targets the size of elephants, walking in a densely packed crowd.  “People” that prefer to keep firing guns instead of bringing out the heavy artillery.  Even when giant lizard thingies start firing rockets at the armed forces; even after taking down a few of the enemies with rockets; the armed forces choose to fight with guns.  GUNS FTW!!

XD

As some of you may already know, I’m learning Français.  I Signed up for an intensive course at Alliance Française de Dacca.  The course crams French 101 and 102 into a short 3 month course.  Not surprisingly, I was expecting notes & vocabulary by the buttloads.  Much to my pleasant surprise, there wasn’t any.

As our instructor explained, Alliance Française uses a different method.  Rather than starting with all the technical bits such as  vocabulary, grammer & such, and then moving on to conversations; we began by speaking a few lines, en Français, over and over.  When the instructor asked “Tu parles français?” we were to reply “Je parle français.”

I mean, if someone asked you “Do you speak English?”, you don’t exactly break down the question into grammer & vocabulary, translate it into another language, consider an answer, re-translate the words of your answer into English, make grammatical adjustments, and then reply… do you?

Well, neither do speakers of French.  So why should someone be forced to do all the unnecessary thinking?  While it might be a good idea from a logical point of view, your average everyday language usage involve very little grammatical construction.

So, from day one, we were instructed to not question what we were taught.  If someone asks “Comment tu t’appelles?” I should reply “Je m’appelle Saad.”  That’s it.  No verb conjugation.  No vocabulary memorization.  Just “Je m’appelle Saad.”  Further more, once you memorize a couple of lines, you start seeing similarities & connections by yourself.  It makes learning French a hell of a lot less intimidating than most people think it is.

Does it work?  Well, after three weeks we’re writing a short paragraph introducing ourselves.  (Mind you, some of the students in my class don’t even speak/understand English.)

That’s about it.  And as we learned to say in class… Au revoir…

=^^=

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Okay, as some of you may know, I occasionally dabble in the fine art of video editing.  Nothing overly fancy, mind you; just a little creative re-dubbing.  You know, taking audio from source A and chop up bits of video from source B to go with it.  And I post it at http://www.youtube.com under the ID of “Mendicant”.

Roughly a year ago, I uploaded a re-dub of “Oops! …I Did It Again”.  Needless to say, from the moment I uploaded the video, the views soared.  In about a year or so, it even surpassed the magical 10,000 mark.  A humbling experience… I guess…

But here’s the funny thing.  Less than a year ago, I had uploaded a re-dub of Michael Bolton’s “When A Man Loves A…” and today I logged into YouTube to find it’s surpassed “Oops! …I Did It Again”…!!

At last login, it was Britney 10,574;  Michael 11,486.  I know, I know, it’s nothing compared to the multi-million-views of the *popular* content, but still…  Britney surpassed by Bolton?

REALLY!!

=0.O=

[17:30] [cousin]: soo desu ka!!!
[17:30] [cousin]: french no benkyo wa dou??
[17:30] [me]: Hai. Watashi wa France-go o benkyo.
[17:30] [me]: Tres bien.
[17:30] [me]: Je parle et comprende un petite de Francais.
[17:30] [cousin]: sumimasen.. wakaranai!!
[17:31] [me]: Je comprend un petie de Francais. => Watashi wa chotto France-go o wakarimasu.
[17:32] [me]: Je parle Francais. => Watashi wa France-go o hanashimasu.
[17:33] [cousin]: muzukashi desu
[17:33] [me]: iie.

Excerpt from a chat with my cousin.  She’s currently studying Dentistry in Nigata, Japan.

The IDs were changed to [cousin] and [me] for privacy purposes.  I was kinda’ hoping she’d start chatting in Bengali though…

That’s about it.

=^^=

Back when I lived in New York, was one of my favorite item to make was noodles with quartered fish balls.  The preparation is ridiculously easy.  The items are generally available in stores located in/near Chinese communities (i.e. Chinatown), and the entire process takes roughly 10 minutes.  If you optimize your processes, you can cut the preparation down to 5.

The first thing you need are some noodles.  Any type of noodles will suffice, but The Incredibley Amazing Saad Azim prefers shrimp flavored noodles in general.

The second thing you need are fish balls.  (Collecting seven of them don’t make a magical fish pop out of thin air, willing to grant you wishes.)  The aforementioned balls usually come in packs of 12.  (Once again, my memory is a bit rusty on that; it’s been almost five years since I bought a pack.)  Since they’re generally stored in the deep freezer, you might want to thaw them for a few minutes before cooking.  Otherwise your balls will be warm & crunchy on the outside but cold & frozen on the ins… LOU, STOP LAUGHING!!  *AHEM*  Thaw the fish balls before cooking them.

A third, optional item is a can of cooking spray.  Though, you can’t go wrong with your preferred type of cooking oil either.

Now, boil & strain the noodles.  That should be simple enough.  Then grab two to three fish balls.  Cut each of the fish balls into four pieces any which way you like.  (The Incredibley Amazing Saad Azim prefers four equal slices per ball.)  Pre-heat a little bit of cooking spray or oil in a non-stick frying pan.  Fry the quartered fish balls in low/medium heat until they’re lightly brown.  Add the strained noodles & stir for a few more minutes et voila!  You’re done.  That’s it.

You can serve the dish as is.  You can serve it with pasta sauce.  You can serve it with a creamy garlic sauce.  Hell, you can serve it with molten cheese dip if you feel like it.

That’s all I have to say about that.

Enjoy.

=^^=

Finished with my woman cause she
Couldnt help me with my mind
People think Im insane because
I am frowning all the time

All day long I think of things but
Nothing seems to satisfy
Think I’ll lose my mind if I dont
Find something to pacify

Can you help me
Occupy my brain
Oh yeah

I need someone to show me the
Things in life that I cant find
I can’t see the things that make true
-happiness I must be blind

Make a joke and I will sigh
And you will laugh and I will cry
Happiness I can not feel and
Love to me is so unreal

And so as you hear these words
Telling you now of my state
I tell you to enjoy life
I wish I could but its too late

A.K.A. the lyrics to “Paranoid”.

Either that or “…you’re next…”

=^^=

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Did you know I have an account at DeviantArt.com? Hmm? Hmmm ?? Well I do; and as luck would have it, once in a blue moon, I even post a thing or two to my DA account. (Just like I do at Xanga.)  My latest post just hapens to be photography.

Not just any old type of photography mind you, but experimental photography. (DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUUUUN!!)

Needless to say, my camera was problematic, I used cheap film, and to top it off, the negatives were processed wrong.  Yet, I was pleasantly surprised by the results.  The photos looked like they were old.  OLD.

Anywho, check them out if you’ve got the time. =^^=