April 22, 2003
Of Mohameds and moronic measures …
I don’t know if I should be talking about this since it’s second, or even third, hand information but it’s something which seemed in step with the times and so I thought I’d mention it here. An acquaintance of mine at work told me that her aunt had gone to the US embassy here in Colombo to get her visa and that there had been this Muslim guy in the next cubicle being interviewed by a visa officer. The guy had won the greencard lottery and was there to get his visa and had been told by the officer that "We don’t let Mohameds into our country any longer!" If true, this can only be one of most stupid and paranoid remarks I’ve heard but then again, I guess it is just a sign of the times.
America, which prided itself in being the melting pot of the Western civilization, has suddenly become a closed country. And looking at the world, it is ironic that many of the countries that originated with Britain are closed to some extent or another, whether it is Britain itself, America or Australia. Maybe it’s the whole immigrants-take-away-the-jobs-of-honest-hardworking-citizens bit or maybe it is just that we live in strange and convoluted times. There are arguments for and against both sides – I was too simplistic in my maybes in the previous sentence but I’m kinda just not in the right frame of mind to make a valid and reasoned argument for either side at the moment. Who knows any longer anyway? At least not me .. I am lost in this sea of human stupidity, ignorance, prejudice and basic lack of understanding …
Perchance to dream …
I’ve been having problems sleeping again. Part of it is my fault since I stayed up a bit too late for a few days and then got up early and if I don’t get enough sleep – it kind of builds up and I start having sleeping problems but part of it has also been the dreams. No, they are not nightmares – I never have nightmares 🙂 These are just dreams which leave me feeling so very tired the next morning – dreams which make me think that maybe I wasn’t dreaming at all but was living another life… Yes, I’m going into that crazy twilight zone again … let me come back :p The dreams are real enough – I just don’t remember enough of the dreams when I wake up though. Or like the other night where I was dreaming and thought, "Oh, this would make a plot for a wonderful story" and when I woke up, I remembered thinking that but I just can’t remember any details about the rest of the dream – and I *knew* in my dream that the plot made perfect sense. Ah well …
Then today, I got up in the wee hours – again something I’ve gone through before – and couldn’t go back to sleep. I finally did fall asleep but it was the kind of sleep where you are sure you are not sleeping – does that happen to you? I keep on dreaming and am aware of the dream and of the fact that I’m lying on the bed too – so I don’t really think it’s a dream so much as me thinking … or at least that’s what I think when I’m dreaming. So I wake up feeling as if I hadn’t slept at all and so very tired. I just hope that the waking in the middle of the night bit does not start all over again – I just hate that and it leaves me being so darn cranky :p
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Posted by Fahim at
6:36 am
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Samuel L. Jackson and the Power of Suggestion
Hmm … that title sounds like a Harry Potter novel :p Sorry about that – I just couldn’t resist it since it seemed to fit somehow. Anyway, movies do seem to have a great power over me – the power to pull me out of whatever funk I might be in and make me laugh, clap my hands and start doing roundhouse kicks :p I was in a bit of a blue mood due to lack of sleep and an abundance of dreams (more on that on another entry if I feel up to it …) and I simply sat down to watch "Formula 51" because I had nothing better to do in the evening but the movie simply pulled me out of myself.
It’s a tale about a collection of unusual characters – people you would not normally meet in day-to-day life. A master chemist named McElroy (Samuel L. Jackson) who is on the run in England after blowing up the drug lab of his employer "The Lizard" – played by Meatloaf, whose every movie appearance I enjoy if only because I enjoy his music … this was a bigger part than he normally plays .. or at least, I remember him playing – is the main character. He is joined by a female assassin hired by the The Lizard and a British gangster who is helping McElroy and who just happens to be the former flame of the assassin. The movie is violent, fun and full of sequence which just kept me wanting more – unfortunately all the fight sequences were pretty brief. But overall, it was an interesting movie – not a deep one mind you but an interesting one … which is always not the same :p Oh the title of my post? If you watch "Formula 51", you’ll understand …
