Mehhh

I admit, I enjoy reading blogs more than writing in my own. I keep telling myself that from "tonight" I am going to write something new every 6 hours!! But honestly, I don't think I have that much material that would be interesting to others. It has happened few times that I start writing something, then I close the browser with a loud "sigh"! Well sigh/scream. You see, JUST right now, I was this close to click on the "x" button on the top right corner and end this post. But whatev, this post I guess is better than nothing, right? Please don't tell me nothing is actually better than this.

Anyways people, take it easy, always.

Elephants

Elephant: Huge;
Drunken elephants: dangerous!

Read here!

Someone should teach these elephants to know their limits.

Bush in 30 seconds!

Go here and watch these ads. Quite interesting. If you have a hardcore-Bush-fan friend, let them know about these ads. The messages are in very simple formats. You never know, there might be a change in their views.

Peace out.

Friends

Currently, I commute to work, driving at least 50 minutes each way. By the way, I hate commuting. I didn’t commute for 6 years (last two years of high school and 4 years of college) until last September. Anyways, during this long commute, I get to think about anything and everything. I think about how stupid that driver is, or how I wish I had a digital camera to take a picture of that day’s sky. I think about my future, and my last night. I think about having a girlfriend, or about how this world we live in could be fixed. I think about what I would do if I was Khatami, Iran's President, or about the time Iran will be free. I think about that blogger, or about the music that is on. I think about …
Ok, the list goes on and on and on. I am pretty sure you got the idea. I am going to start sharing some of these thoughts; the ones I think are worth it and are interesting. In that past few days I have been thinking about how sadly my really good friends of high school and college and I have already gone our separate ways. At the best, I might see my college friends twice a year. For now anyways. And my high school friends, I might see them once every three years, if even!! I share so many great memories with all of them that I have them in my mind quite often. But that is it, just some brain signals causing happiness first, followed immediately with sorrow. They say your best friends are from college and high school. "They" are probably right.
So to all of my great friends I say, if by any chance you find my blog, and you find out which Foad this is, then first of all welcome, and second of all, let’s meet up damn it!!

Cheers…

"Dictionary This"!!!

I am back. No broken arms. No broken legs. Nor any broken head. Thank God. I can say that I didn't have any serious crash or accident. Oh I only kind of ran into a lady while snowboarding down. But it was her own fault. Anyways…

Today, I came up with a brilliant idea. Do you know the Google Toolbar? If you havenit already downloaded it, go get it. The least it does is that it blocks almost all the stupid pop-ups. I have been surfing the net pop-up-free for 6-7 months and I am lovin' it. Anyhow, back to my brilliant idea. On this Google Toolbar, there are few buttons which you could click on and perform different tasks. For example, there is a button that if you are reading a website and you want to refer to it in your blog, you click on the "Blog This" button, you sign into Blogger, and KABOOM, you got yourself a post with a link to the website. So I thought they should have a "Dictionary" button so you could highlight a word in a webpage and then click on "Dictionary This"!! KABOOM, you have the definition. Getting all excited about the idea, I thought I should email them. But I thought I should check carefully to make sure they didn't already have a dictionary link, cause if they did, it would make look like a fool. I did search their toolbar and couldn't find anything. So I emailed them. After a few hours, here is what they wrote back:

"Hi Foad,

Thank you for the suggestion on improving the Google Toolbar by adding a
dictionary button. Please note that there is a link to a dictionary
website on our toolbar at this time. To use this feature, simply enter
your search term in the search box, then click on the drop-down arrow to
the right of the 'Search Web' button and select 'Dictionary' from the
drop-down list. We really appreciate thoughtful feedback from our users,
and we'll keep yours in mind for the future.

Regards,
The Google Team"


Ok people, which one is better, a lousy 'Dictionary' thingy (not button) in a drop box under 'Search Web', or a "Dictionary This" button?? But I guess I didn’t completely look like a fool, just a bit. Anyways, that was a story I felt like sharing with you.

Till later, peace out…

On the Road... Again!

I am leaving tonight. I am coming back Monday night. So there, I have an excuse for not posting anything. But this trip is due to a long weekend here in US. It is Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial weekend. I personally haven't had the chance to do some reading on him, but from my limited knowledge, he indeed was quite a character. I should read some books about him. Any suggestions?

Well till Monday night or Tuesday morning,
fare well...

Parliament Elections in Iran

1. I oppose the idea of people not participating in the election. Even though the current Parliament didn't do much, but at least it didn't help in limiting people's freedom. At least it was an opposing force to hardliners and conservative. No? The only positive out of people not participating in the elections will be a very low turn out, which of course brings up concerns regarding the government's legitimacy. But this awareness for other countries is useful if they put pressure on Iran's government. I personally think as long as Iran's government deals with foreigners, like US, which is not hard by the way, they don't care much about the legitimacy of the government. For example, if Iran gives the supposedly Al Qaida suspects that it hold to US, US will be happy and will get off Iran's back. My point is (sorry for the loooong point number 1!) we can not reply on foreigners to help us as their main interest is their owns, not ours.

2. I was quite happy with the news of some 80 parliament members having a sit-in protest against the latest act of anti-democracy by the conservatives, namely disqualification of many would-be candidates for the next parliament elections by Iran's Guardian Counsel. I got even more hopeful when Khatami said his entire cabinet will resign if the matter is not resolved. This of course would put a lot of pressure on the conservatives, and may result in some major changes in the structure of current government. But for the changes to happen, the reformist, or the so-called reformist (a term preferred by quite many), would need people's support. Big time. However, I have learned that people in Iran understandably do not care about politics any more. They just don't care. That news killed all my hopes. Without people's support, not much is going to change.

3. It was also in the news that Khamenei has asked the Guardian Counsel to rethink about disqualifying current members of Parliament. Basically saying satisfy these 80-90 people, and hopefully things will go back to normal. But I don't know what will happen next. Will the conservatives back up? Will the reformists be satisfied? Will people get involved?

4. Iranians are unpredictable. You never know, maybe the moments many of us have been waiting for is very close. Maybe when you wake up tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, or next week, you hear in TV that a semi-revolution has occurred in Iran. The government has changed, and has got closer to a truly democratic government.

5. I seriously hope point number 4 is not far from reality. What's wrong with being hopeful?

6. That is it for now.

Me need something...

You know what I need? I know you don't, just bear with me! I need a device to convert my thoughts, not all of it of course, to words and sentences. If I had such a device, I promise you I would have posts at least every 10 minutes. So that means 6*16 posts. But I don’t have the device, and I don't have nearly that many posts. I don't know how many people come to my blog and see no new posts and then never come back. That is a shame.
Anyways, the hot news of the past few days is that of Iran’s upcoming Parliament elections. Of course like many Iranians I have my own thoughts about the matter, but I haven’t had the chance *cough *cough to write about it. I have the chance now. So after posting this, I am going to write about it. So "come again"!

Donations for Bam's Earthquake

I just realized I never put a link for donations for Iran's earthquake. Even though I am sure all of you have already encountered links for donations, I still feel better by putting a link in my blog. So, if you can donate even $2, go to MercyCorps. They are the preferred organizations by many due to fear of corruption in Iran's governmental organizations. I will put thier banner in my side bar too.

Peace...

Thank you!

Pedram Moallemian has made a thank-you-note thanking all the foreign rescuers who went to Iran to help Iranians in Bam. Indeed we all Iranians should thank them sincerely. Also, we should thank everyone who donated money for the survivors. Those donation I am sure will go a long way. So thank you all! But if you are an Iranian and haven't done it yet, feel free to go to Eyeranian and sign Pedram's note. As I am writing this there are about 490 signatures and it keeps increasing.

The New Look?

How do you like the new look of this blog (not the dog!!)? Did you even notice anything different? I actually wonder how many people read this blog? Well anyways, I like the new look better. The changes are not that many and are not major, but still makes the blog look less boring. Bottom line, I like the changes...

Me Back Again

Ok I am not that lazy. I was away for 8 days. I went to Vancouver. It is indeed a beautiful city. It was quite cold when I was there. Rainy and snowy too. Mostly snowy though. I saw one of my best friends from back in the day after three years. We were classmates in high school. We couldn’t get to hang out as much as I liked since he was quite busy with a fund raising program for Bam’s earthquake. But it was ok. At least he didn’t ditch me for any stupid cause. It was a fun and relaxing trip. But now I am back, and I feel like I have missed quite a lot in the past few days. But it is alright, I will catch up.
I have two interesting posts (well I think they would be interesting) that I want to write about it. One is about Vancouver and my trip in that city. Another is about politics and about Iran’s upcoming elections. So stay tuned!!

Cheers…