Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Aisam, Tennis, Songs

Unbeknownst to the majority of my readership, I have been keeping up on the blogword for the past few weeks. A subtle bolding now and then would have been your only clue as to the identity of the word. This post though, since I missed last week's blogword, I am going to be cheap and do TWO blogwords in ONE post: Forever (last week's) and Me (this week's).

On a side, I've had some issues with some of my older IM accounts... you know how you have accounts you don't use any more? Delete them. It prevents issues. Issues that could permeate newer accounts as well. Anyway, *cryptic warning terminate*

All is well in the online world once more.

Aisam Ul Haq Baby!! Yesterday he became only the second Pakistani EVER to win a match at Wimbledon. He beat some Englishman or the other and now gets to play Marat Safin... tomorrow, I think. A massacre in the offing, yes? Not necessarily. Aisam beat Richard Gasquet last week. The man is on a roll. After he's got Marat Saf-in his pocket (I know, weak, but give me some credit), he will send Roger home - another Fed-er...er... in his cap. (Hey, this is totally off the cuff... there was no thought involved. Can you even tell?)

Anyway, blogwords. For forever, I was under the mistaken impression that I would be Pakistan's star in the tennis galaxy. Aisam was supposed to be me. I was destined to be the next Ivan Lendl: The late bloomer who rose to conquer the tennis world through sheer hard work and perseverance. That was before I realized how bloody lazy I am. Hard work... meh. I'd rather be sleeping.

So I am clearly not a tennis pro... although for several years (i.e forever) my ego let me believe that there was a chance. I suppose I'll settle for a second rate blog and the occasional all beef hot dog. All beef hot dogs are good.

Getting Pavlovian for a second, the word "forever" makes me think of Mariah Carey and that old song... you know, with the high climax ending “You will always beeeee the only oneeeeeee.” The song was called Forever. Surprise surprise.

Just about every blogword relates to a song from my adolescence… I’ve said this in another posting too haven’t I?

*senses this post is fading fast*

And the word me? Haha. Take On Me by A-Ha. What else?

Take on meeeee
Take me onnnn
I'll be gonnnnnnne.

So sorry no fun story this week. This weekend promises to be entertaining though… 6 Ohio State students getting drunker than all get out in downtown Chicago. And me.

Thursday, June 21, 2007

Late One Evening In A Quiet Suburban Chicago Apartment

We have a really nice, corporate style, hotelesque apartment for the summer. Two bedrooms, two bathrooms, cable TV, internet, the works. Even dishes and crockery. Living it up in style in the North-West suburbs of Chicago, we are. We even have housekeeping come in once a week - included in rent - to change our sheets, give us fresh towels and clean the place. I want to live here forever.

So I was alone in the apartment this past weekend; Naynesh had gone to Indianapolis to watch the United States Grand Prix. I too would have gone but I was lazy. And Formula 1 without Michael Schumacher can hardly be called Formula 1. Although Sebastian Vettel (only teenager ever to score a point in a Formula 1 race, that too on debut) may rekindle my interest if he finds a team next year.

But I digress. As usual. So I was alone in the apartment Saturday night folding laundry, listening to Joe Purdy and digesting dinner when there was a knock at the door. "Ah, no doubt some pretty young thing who wants to keep me company and discuss Liverpool's chances of luring Samuel Eto'o away from Barcelona this summer" I said to myself, quite reasonably.

I moved noiselessly to the door - barefoot on soft carpet you see. I looked through the peephole and saw not a pretty young thing but a rather large gentleman of Hispanic appearance with a neck as wide as my waist sporting a shiny gold chain. He was in a bright yellow sleeveless shirt. His tree-trunks-for-arms gave me the impression that he wasn't the housekeeping kind.

In my mind, I ran down the list of gold-chain wearing, Latin American wrestlers that I am acquainted with. Short list. And Javier standing outside the door was most definitely not on it.

I did some quick math (as is my habit in situations of this nature)

Me, 5' 8", 135 lbs <<< Latin American Wrestler I do not know

Now I'm not afraid of much, if I do say so myself (only Samara from The Ring, truth be told). But if I have to choose between opening a door to confront an unknown man four times my size and cowering in a corner in a closet until he's left, I'll pick the closet every time. Call it an acute sense of self-preservation.

So I cowered in the bedroom... kind of. I ignored the door and folded laundry. Javier stood around for what seemed like too long. He was there two minutes later. But not three minutes after that.

It was all probably completely innocent.
Javier was looking for his cousin Manuela and had entered the wrong building by mistake.
No eres Manuela. Lo siento.(You are not Manuela. I apologize.)

Or Javier was visiting his old friend Paco and they realized they had no sugar for their tea.
Quiero azúcar por favor Señor. (I would like some sugar please, Sir.)

Even so, I scrapped plans of a late night grocery run and put on some old school Drowning Pool.

Let the bodies hit the floor.
Let the bodies hit the floor.

That's right Javier. Mess with me and the bodies WILL hit the floor.
*angry snarl*

Monday, June 18, 2007

Numb Me, Drill Me, Floss Me, Bill Me

Ten points to whoever caught on to the title of my post being the old Weird Al Yankovic parody of U2's Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me from the Batman Forever soundtrack. You know I still haven't seen Batman Forever... or Batman Returns... or Batman. I have however seen the TV show from the 60s *POW* with Adam West et al. *BIFF*

Holy Ohio State University College of Dentistry Batman!! So my student health insurance is supposed to get me a dental check up and cleaning for the nominal fee of $15, quite reasonable by any standards. I figured that'd be a good thing to do before heading out to Chicago. You know, dazzle the employer with sparkling, plaque free teeth and walk away with a full-time offer on the strength of that alone. That's the plan anyway. So far though, a week in, I see no signs of my pristine oral condition being any sort of advantage.

I'd like to talk to you today about my teeth and their experience at the highly regarded Ohio State University College of Dentistry (OSUCOD). In order to provide some context, I will recount a typical visit to a dentist's clinic back home, in Karachi.

Karachi:
*walk into dentist’s office*
Dentist: What do you want?
Me: Clean my teeth, dammit
Dentist: All of them?
Me: Yes, dammit.
Dentist: Alright then.
(15 minutes later)
*walk out of dentist’s office*

And now,

OSUCOD:
First, you have your teeth examined by a dental student. Then
  • Re-examined and checked by several qualified and experienced dentists (a couple of them looked a little senile... so incredibly experienced they must have been).
  • X-rayed. About 5 different ways. I've never had so much padding in my mouth. I must have looked like Arnold Schwarzenegger's bloated baby brother. There is not a bone in my mouth or jaw that has not been photographed.
  • Pressure tested or something crazy complicated. Six different measurements from each tooth.
  • Gum health type thing tested. I don't even remember what arcane tricks they pulled to get that done. There was all sorts of poking and prodding. I can't remember a time I felt so violated.

On top of this, they took a COMPLETE medical history. Seriously complete.
"Do you still have your tonsils?"
"I don't know. Look and see."

It turns out that I do still have my tonsils. It was my adenoids that were removed. Those are dangerous. They're usually only found in space, you know, orbiting the Sun between Mars and Jupiter. How they got up my nose, I will never understand.

"When did you have your adenoids removed?"
"When I was really little."
"Could you be more specific?"
"Not really."

That whole rigmarole took about twenty minutes. And the joy and happiness that was the rest of the lines above took all of three hours. Notice no cleaning was done. Because they knew right away that I was going to have to COME BACK FOR ANOTHER DAMN APPOINTMENT. New patient, teaching hospital, blah blah. All I wanted were shiny teeth. Instead I got 180 minutes of protocol. Anyway, I had no choice. I scheduled ANOTHER DAMN APPOINTMENT.

Nine days later I walked back in for The Long-Awaited Cleaning.

Which took almost three hours and twenty minutes… the length of the movie Titanic. What's sad is I can't decide which was the more painful experience. What's scary is that it sometimes takes TWELVE hours to clean people's mouths (so said Erin, the poor dental student forced to spend six hours with me). I was *lucky* to be done so quick. All I can say is Americans must have some terrible oral hygiene. Ha. Going to civilize the world and can't even civilize their own mouths. Ha.

But hey, 380 minutes in, I was done! Teeth clean. Two dental students and fifty qualified dentists at the Ohio State College of Dentistry officially know my teeth better than I would want to know them myself. Good for them.

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Things Economists Say

Well, AN economist. Our macroeconomics professor has a very... shall we say... laid back teaching style. You almost feel as though you're hanging out with him in his backyard on a Saturday afternoon. We did learn some stuff though... mainly about endogenous and exogenous shocks. I have tried for three weeks to think of a good joke I can make about a person's exogenous zones but have failed miserably. It would have been a bad, inappropriate joke anyway, so oh well.

Sometimes the learning was high quality. Other times not. I present to you some gems from the past quarter in MBA 820 - The Global Economy.

During a discussion on what contributes to a nation's GDP:
"Some people say prostitution is a bad thing. I say those people probably just aren't paying enough."

Talking about economic slowdowns:
"The definition of recession is like the definition of pornography. You know it when you see it. If you're like me, you see it everywhere."

Simplifying a model:
"In fine American fashion, we're going to assume the rest of the world doesn't exist..."

During a ridiculously boring lecture:
"This isn't interesting to me either."

Explaining his teaching style:
"Let me stumble around and mumble for a while. Then I'll ask you a question."

On the horrors of inflation:
"There would be no chili cheeseburgers for Dave. I would be s**t out of luck."

To an uncooperative PowerPoint presentation:
"Why are you such a jackass?"

Good times. Good times...

Wednesday, June 06, 2007

Exam Doctor Stud Lost

I don't really enjoy the "LiveJournal" type of blog posting where you say stuff like "I woke up today and ate breakfast" or "Then we went to Malmo's bar where Marmaduke got totally plastered" or some other completely unimportant rubbish of that nature. But today, it appears, I shall wallow in sin and blog in that exact manner. A different sort of unimportant rubbish than what you're used to:

I am officially done with half of my MBA education and my 21st year of formal learning.
Finals ended yesterday.
Drive to Chicago on Saturday.
Work starts on Monday.
Life in the fast lane. Right now however, I’m sitting in an examination room at the doctor’s office (you know, me and my cough). And I have been, alone, for 35 minutes. This happened last time too, so this time I was smart and brought my computer with me. There are no fast lanes in the American healthcare industry. Only unmarked dirt roads and really long rest stops. Interestingly, the case in our Strategy final exam also dealt with the healthcare industry. But we’re not going to talk about that. Ever again.

The male nurse who took my blood pressure told me it was “really good” and “very strong.” Haha. My blood pressure can kick your blood pressure’s behind. To be fair, despite the fact that you walk in a 26 year old and leave a grandfather, the Ohio State University Lung Center does provide high quality care with empathetic physicians and staff. The nurse went as far as to offer to mail me medication in Chicago should I need it. Now that’s service.

While we're on the subject, my stud fell out of my ear sometime last week. I don’t even know when it happened… I only realized it when I was in the shower, cleaning behind the ears you know, when I noticed I couldn’t feel any metal. I figure it’s a sign. For some reason God doesn’t want my left ear adorned this summer. I’ve been studless for about 6 days now. At this point, if my parents were drinkers, we would be seeing the busting out of champagne and the popping of the cork. But hah, don’t celebrate too soon. I have more studs and, if it turns out God was just being funny, the ear shall sparkle once more… well, it’s kind of a dull silver sparkle. I can’t afford diamonds yet.

By the way, Christophe finally has a new car. A nifty 2003 Hyundai Santa Fe; a gas guzzling, space hogging, road raging, truly American sport utility vehicle (Made in Korea). Let’s hope and pray this one doesn’t die on him.

So I started watching Lost, the TV series, about 15 days ago. From the beginning, Season 1 Episode 1 because, you know, it’s impossible to follow if you don’t. And this evening, by God’s Grace, I will finish Season 3 and be completely up to date and in sync with the Lost universe. That’s 3 seasons, 23 episodes a season… 45 minutes an episode… 52 of the last 336 hours of my life have been spent lost (hahahahaha) on "The Island." The only thing that annoyed me was that they kept killing the pretty girls off... I won't say any more... don't want to spoil it if you're still catching up.

I’m going to have so much free time tomorrow…

Smallville, here I come.