Posts from — August 2008

The folks over at Warner Brother realized that maybe the Superman Returns movie wasn’t as good as it should have been. From a Wall Street Journal article: Warner Bets of Fewer, Bigger Movies

‘Superman’ didn’t quite work as a film in the way that we wanted it to,” says Mr. Robinov. “It didn’t position the character the way he needed to be positioned.” “Had ‘Superman’ worked in 2006, we would have had a movie for Christmas of this year or 2009,” he adds. “But now the plan is just to reintroduce Superman without regard to a Batman and Superman movie at all.

So… this could mean a Superman movie that will block out all memories of Superman Returns!

Here’s my wishlist for a probable Superman movie:
- The Superman portrayed should be a Post-Crisis Superman.
- No illegitimate children of Superman hanging around. Please.
- Lois Lane should already know Clark Kent is Superman - I mean, c’mon, we should be past this by now.
- No Kevin Spacey. He didn’t play Lex Luthor in the last movie, he played Gene Hackman playing Lex Luthor.
- Superman needs to show some expression now and then.
- The plot can’t revolve around real estate. You would think that this is common sense.
- Different director. Sorry Bryan Singer, you had your chance.

Keeping fingers crossed.

I recently read the book How Does it Feel to be a Problem: Being Young and Arab in America.

It was a pretty good book in which the author, Moustafa Bayoumi talked with Arab youth from Brooklyn to discuss their life in this post-9/11 world. One thing that got me was that a few of the people go on a trip to the country where their parents emigrated from, such as Palestine or Iraq, and feel something. The country tugged at them and the trip strengthened their affiliation with it. They are Palestinian, Iraqi, or [fill in country here].

I read all this and felt a twinge of envy. I’ve been to the country of my Parents, Pakistan, and have not felt the slightest bit of affinity with the country. Why can’t I feel anything with something that is part of who I am? (No, I’m not soulless so no comments in that vein of thought :p)

Anyways, good book.

Previously, I wrote about taking my first Arabic class at Pacific Arabic Resources in SF. After I finished this first class, Introduction to Arabic, I moved on to Modern Standard Arabic 1, the next class in the series. Today was the last day of MSA 1 and I’m moving onto MSA 2, which starts in two weeks.

Learning Arabic has always been one of those things that I always wanted to do but never really got around to. It’s something that is best learned in an immersive environment - the most ideal way to learn Arabic is to move to an Arabic speaking country for a while and take classes there. However, I’ve never had the opportunity to do something like that and as obligations increase, chances of doing something along those lines gets slimmer and slimmer. I finally realized that learning it little by little is better than nothing and in this manner I can still attend to my responsibilities, which is why I finally decided to enroll in classes.

A couple of weeks ago, I was sitting in class, going over homework with everyone else when it hit me: One day I will know Arabic well. I got so excited at that thought. It was just such an amazing feeling that I will one day actually achieve a goal I’ve had for myself for quite a while. I have a ways to go*, but InshAllah I’ll get there. I must now exude patience…

*Pacific Arabic Resources has classes all the way up to MSA 8 so you can imagine how much further I have to go.

Taken from the iPhone, felt like sharing.

A couple of months ago, I was sitting in the living room over at the Kimchi Ninja’s, place hanging out with a few people when I was asked if I wanted to watch America’s Best Dance Crew.

“What’s America’s Best Dance Crew?” I asked. I almost thought they were joking as that couldn’t possibly be the name of a real TV show.

There was a pause as everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at me.

“You don’t know what America’s Best Dance Crew is?” someone asked. I don’t remember who but everyone was thinking the same thing so what does it matter.

I went home later, confused about this show I never heard of. I chalked it up as some random show that only my friend and a handful of people watched.

That was the first time I ever heard about the show. Turns out, it wouldn’t be the last time.

The next day I turned on the TV as background noise as I worked on my laptop and MTV was showing America’s Best Dance Crew. My sister came home later that day and mentioned that she wanted to watch America’s Best Dance Crew, which was on the DVR. Later, I found out another good friend watched the show. The whole world was watching ABDC but me. It’s like no one ever told me because they knew I would make fun of the show before grudgingly accepting that it was good.

Before I knew it, I was hooked too.

I became quite attached to one crew in particular, Supreme Soul. Not only were they from the Bay Area but I really like their style. A couple of weeks ago, they were booted off so I dedicated my voting efforts to make sure that the other crew I thought was cool, Super Crew, would not suffer the same fate - getting voted off the show while other mediocre crews stayed on.

Last night was a pivotal episode as Super Crew was pitted against Fanny Pak to determine who would get to go on to the next show. Meanwhile, the third crew, So Real Cru, was already safe as they had the most votes despite the fact that they are not as good as the other two crews. A travesty as this was entirely unfair.

Both crews danced awesomely last night and despite the fact that I was favoring Super Crew, I thought for sure that the judges would pick Fanny Pak to move on to the finals. But they went with Super Crew. I was happy to see Super Crew move on but sad that this was the end for Fanny Pak.

Until next week…

Vote for Super Crew folks. They MUST win over So Real Cru.

The following includes views on death and religion so if you’re not interested in either subject (which is fine) step away from the entry…

Yesterday, my brother in law’s (Vasim’s) father passed away. He’s had some sort of cancer for a few years now and in these past few months, he took a turn for the worse. He finally succumbed to his sickness yesterday after being bedridden for a while. He had suffered quite a bit all the way up until the end.

We have this thing in Islam that 1) everything happens for a reason, even if you can’t see why and 2) and any kind of suffering endured in this life - which could be something as simple as hurting yourself when walking into a door - is less suffering one has to go through in the afterlife for his/her sins.

Trust me when I say that the above makes dealing with things a lot easier.

At the funeral prayer yesterday, people were making the obvious comments of comparing him to my dad - their sicknesses, how it all ended, etc. I understand that it’s not always about my dad and he’s not the father to die and all that, but I just couldn’t help thinking about him yesterday and missing him so much.

I remember that when my dad died, I took solace in the fact that he wasn’t suffering anymore. It was so hard to see what he had become in a span of 3 months and I knew he hated it. The only way I was even able to deal with what was happening to him was my belief that things happen for a reason and therefore there was some reason he had to endure his tumor and subsequent suffering.

I saw Vasim’s mom yesterday and my heart went out to her. It will be a while for her and her family to be able to move on. I wish their family the best right now and hope that things get better for them, InshAllah (God willing).