Fair Trade?!@#

People, I feel, are very adapt at making a mess of their lives, I think this is another great tragedy of our species. How is it that all the other animals in the world know exactly what is best for them...Except cats of course who often exercise bad judgement in terms of climbing trees and crossing streets. And all the silly fish who take the bait and end up served on plates or mounted on walls. Veering off the track. But my point is that how is it that mankind is so skilled at making bad choices?
Is this what it means to be the smartest animal? Or at the top of the food chain? Or having a thumb and being capable of thought and feeling? Wouldn't it be easier just to have basic survival instincts and less emotional baggage?
I mean, are we the only species that consciously does shit that's bad for us? That we know will upset us, destroy our lungs, fry our brains and short term memory and erode our liver? Do lions hang out eating poisonous animals trying to get a high? Do polar bears go looking for relationships with the polar bear they know will treat them the worst?
I think we waz robbed! The thumb in exchange for fatal judgment, mental hang ups and addictive personalities!
Fair trade?

Night In With The Boys

Guinness World Records Commercial Break Question: what's the largest lizard in the world?
A. Gila Monster
B. Iguana
C. Komodo Dragon
D. Some other lizerdy thing

Sameer questions from the recess of his bean bag in a cold and fluey voice: Does the Komodo Dragon breath fire?

Fahad: No but it's really big, like ten feet and it eats meat.

Mashal: That doesn't make it a dragon, I mean cats eat meat.

Sameer: I think the two essential qualities of a dragon are flying and breathing fire.

Mashal: Yeah this Komodo guy doesn't fit the bill.

Fahad: Yea but a cat wouldn't jump on you and start eating you.

Sameer: It would if it were a big cat.

Mashal: Yea that doesn't make a lions, dragons

Confusion.

Fahad: Yea but its a big fucking reptile that eats meat, you have use a reptile comparison.

Silence.

20 Minutes and two cups of tea later...

Sameer: Crocodile.

Un-Lived

Most people nowadays get so wrapped up in the 'things' they want or need or expect to achieve this elusive, insatiable facade of social acceptability that they forget who they are and what they are really all about. Just today my cousins and I were discussing how, increasingly marriage is becoming a matter of the right house, the right job and the right car...people get so caught up in all of this that they forget the precious little reasons they wanted to marry their spouses in the first place.
I feel so much young talent, vitality and energy gets sucked out of our community by this incredible pressure to conform and fit into this mould of banker, doctor, engineer... that even the handful of individuals who come back home looking to embrace something new and daring, soon give in to the pressure of our society's acceptable occupations and live their lives in quiet desperation.
This pursuit of a clone society seems to have left us without adventurers, without dreamers and explorers and artists. It seems have filled our ranks instead with the deep rooted dissatisfaction of lives left unlived, unexplored and dreams forgotten, unrealized.
Should, God forbid, anyone want to take a year off after college and go see the World our families and societies condemn them as lunatic, dropouts who will never amount to much, who are running astray and will never have a family of their own...why?
Is self discovery and the pursuit of personality so wrong?
What has this world come to when young people are required to stop dreaming, to stop aspiring to something greater, something new?
Will this world of ours ultimately kill the possibility of breaking new ground? Of growing and becoming? Of Living?
I must admit, this is a thought, a world, that terrifies me.
Cheers to all those out there living their dreams and hoping for something better.

Cinderella Men

So I was watching Cinderella yesterday. Yes the cartoon. I was working out and it was on, ok? But anyway I was watching Cinderella and the last bit was on, you know the bit where they are all trying on the glass slipper and Cinderella is locked in her room. Anyway I'm watching this scene, the little mice are risking their lives to get that key, Cinderella is crying her eyes out over the prince she loves and will never see again. The wicked step mother is all happy that she has once again thwarted Cinderella's dreams of happiness, Bruno the dog is being woken up and dragged up the stairs to fight the cat...and all the while I'm thinking that all this effort is being made for this Prince who never bloody did ANYTHING!
I mean he danced with her at the dance and looked all pretty but at the end of the day he isn't even out looking for her himself!
Fairy tales are really setting the bar low for men sweeping women of their feet. I mean what's this really saying? That if you have a few bob, a title and a pretty face, the girls and the mice and what have you will move heaven and earth just to be by your side? Are fairy tales the reason men today can't be arsed?

If you look at it, with the exception of Sleeping Beauty (who's prince is quite dishy by the way) in which the Prince has to kill dragons and man eating thorn bushes to go wake her up, all the fairy tale princes make zero effort, turn up at the last minute to make an honest woman out of the princess and claim the glory. And why in this age of political correctness is no one bothered by the fact that Snow White never once even considered hooking up any of the Dwarves who were such devoted love slaves?

Come to think of it the Beast in Beauty and the Beast does make quiet an effort to win over and protect old Beauty but then he's supposed to be ugly so that doesn't count.

Film School Chronicles III: Zac Henderson

Trekkie with a passion for Spielberg! Zac is the kind of slow, methodical guy who in his own unobtrusive way gets things done to perfection.




It is widely believed that Zac holes up in his apartment for days at a time eating chilli, smoking watching Spielberg movies and shitting.
He claims he has a more exciting home life but weakly.
Zac like all of us is majorly into eighties soundtracks in fact when we were graduating he made a classic selection of 80's film songs including such great hits as Eye of the Tiger and other movie unforgettables.
A true SNL junkie Zac has the Best of Will Farrell collection (A Classic) and has probably seen every movie released since 1975.
I think the only two times I seen Zac anger was when Alien vs Predator was announced to be PG13 and when the guys in front of us at the opening of Kill Bill Vol II announced Uma Thurman's real name in the movie. Yes, that's what happens in film school you start to take your movies very seriously.
All in all he's a terrific guy with incredible talent, he's currently writing a zombie movie which I know is going to kick ass!

Hal & Me

We have a love/hate relationship. Hal's a complex character, at first it took me weeks to understand what made him tick, what pushed his buttons, what turned him on and all of that. But once I learned to negotiate the intricate twists and turns of his personality I began to feel quite comfortable with him and we learned how to work with one another, discovering together the many hidden facets of our innermost workings.
Hal is beautiful, it sounds odd for me to describe him that way but they are the only words I can think of, he's big and strong and resilient and yet surprisingly sensitive.
Sometimes he'll get mad at me and be stubborn and uncooperative. Other times I can't figure him out at all, it often takes something so simple to make him happy, something obvious and right under my nose. So when I finally hit the nail on the head, realizing how simple his problem was I end up feeling quite sheepish, he does this to me quite often.
At this point I feel we have been so much together, he was my strength when I was editing my thesis film. I was sick, fainting with fever, over tired from seven weeks of non-stop shooting for six different projects, nervous because my deadline loomed so close at hand. But Hal stood by me through all this working tirelessly through the night to making sure everything was just right, shouting out warnings when I would go astray, his quiet humming a reassuring presence in the darkened editing room.
I will take this opportunity to say I love you Hal.
I will also take this opportunity to tell you that Hal is the company assigned name of my G5 computer :)

A Dark Day

To the families, friends and loved ones of all those killed and injured in yesterday's earthquake,
Our prayers and sympathies are with you all. We too lost several dear friends in the Marghalla towers, God bless them and you in this tragic time.
Yesterday Pakistan, Kashmir, India and Afghanistan were shaken by the worst earthquake to hit the region in more than a century. Although help and support is being mobilised in our Nation's capital of Islamabad, there are entire villages, schools and regions which have still not even been reached with aid. At least 400 children died when two schools collapsed in the Mansehra district of Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province.
The death toll, already nearing 20, 000, is rising by the hour as are the numbers of those injured.


Donate with SMS

Ufone and Mobilink mobile users can donate 3 rupees to earthquake victims by sending an SMS with DONATE to number 346. You can repeat the process for whatever amount you want to donate. The money will be deducted from your mobile balance and goes directly to people suffering from disaster.

How to donate

If you wish to donate to the President's relief Fund, just deposit your donations in any National Bank branch all over Pakistan.
For further information, call the Prime Minister's Relief Cell at
051-9213891 or 051-9222999
The President Of Azad Kashmir's Cell can be contacted on 051-9209650

Relief Drive

LUMS is having a week-long charity drive (longer, if necessary) starting tomorrow to collect supplies for the Kashmir districts. While money is welcome, what is needed more urgently are dry goods- atta, sugar, daal and other foodstuffs, bottled water, blankets, clothes, medicines, anything you can think of. There will be a stall open on campus from 12 noon to 3 p.m.

If anyone has contacts with pharmaceuticals, food companies or anyone else that can help, please e-mail the LUMS Volunteer Society at lvs@lums.edu.pk ASAP.

Everything is going through a reliable channel and people will be receiving these supplies either directly through the LVS or an organisation like Edhi or Oxfam. Please donate freely

The Mekaal Hasan Band is holding an earthquake relief concert, all proceeds will be sent directly to the Presidents fund for spport and donations you can contact Sameer at 0300 8422845.

Film School Chronicles II: Freddy Marvasti

Freddy Marvasti, die-hard guilty pleasure addict, is one of the funniest and strangest people I've ever met. With his love of Rocky movies, Karate Kid movies and mocumentaries he's about the most laid back person I've ever encountered. And considering the people I know that's really saying something.

He coined our classes catch-phrase, getting "Chezzed" which is an abbreviation of the term dirty Sanchez, which means getting shit on your face which in turn means getting screwed. Now I'd never heard the term Dirty Sanchez so when its true meaning was graphically described to me with the aid of Nutella I was quiet horrified that such a thing was done often enough to even have a name. For those not in the know lets just say it’s a rather unhygienic version of a milk moustache.


(This picture Freddy & The Classic DS)

Things really got carried away with the whole chezzing business when we based our 35mm workshop commercial project on this concept...ugh ugh ugh...all I can say is that we were all perhaps overworked and at our wits end what with being weeks away from our thesis projects and all.

However in our class anyone going through a rough spot was soon known to all as Sanchez...this extended rather inappropriately to my thesis film, based on a young artist dealing with the death of his son and his wife leaving him and so on. When working with the actors we needed to come up for a name for the child which was neither present in the script or film. The product of late night rehearsals was the baby's moniker "baby Sanchez" providing much laughter to a somewhat heavy set, the film IN LIMBO was affectionately known on set as THE DEATH OF BABY SANCHEZ. I did suggest to Freddy that his thesis project should be a parody of my own :)

Rambo Trivia

Did you know that the third Rambo movie (the one where he single handedly saves Afghanistan from the Russians) is dedicated to "The brave and valiant freedom fighters of Afghanistan"?
I should point out that at the time these brave and valiant freedom fighters included America's most wanted Osama Bin Laden and the now evil Taliban regime. So lets get this straight when Osama and the Taliban were saving their homeland from big, bad Russia they were freedom fighters, poor farmers defending their country and now that the US has decided to take over the world starting with Afghanistan and Iraq these same people are now terrorists? Villains? Militants? Religious fundamentalists?
Now don't get me wrong I in no way support the ideals of the Taliban and other oppressive regimes, but I do wish to understand the one time, short-sighted support of such militant and extremist groups. I do wish to call attention to the fact that the Unites States is in fact fighting the very terrorists it created, funded and lent support to. A classic case of the dog biting the hand that fed it.
There was a joke being made back when some naive people still believed Bush and his buddies were really looking for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, it went something like this "Of course we know he (Saddam) has 'em...we have all the receipts."
Once again I sit here is disgust at what we, the world community, has allowed to happen in the last years. It is not only the evil of the superpower, but the weakness of man in this terrible age of war.