Another belated update! Gee-whizz, balogna livers! I've been super-busy revising, doing a little bit of writing (hint: I finally finished that story)

(hint 2: It's on MFN)

(hint 3: Please read it)

(hint 4: I'll stop this soon enough. I can take a hint.)

I'm talking to a good ol' friend of mine on MSN while typing this, whom I otherwise would not be able to talk to. The Internet is cool that way. Plus, you don't have the embarassment of buying over the counter girlie mags.

Um... What I mean to say is... well... er... Poodles are nice dogs.

Yep.

Well, I'm also checking prices for this 'OMG SUPA COOLEH BADASS L33T PL85M@ TV OMG'

For those of you with more than one working brain cell, here's the translation - I am comparing prices for a plasma television. It is boring and sucks harder than a vacuum cleaner in space, but I want a damn good set-up to watch my favourite movies on. Clean movies, that is, like 'Star Wars' and 'The Matrix' and 'Ghostbusters', as opposed to dirty movies like 'Deepthroat' and 'Predator' (okay, it's not X-Rated, but that ugly bugger's face should be censored. Not the Predator's. Arnie's). 

Uni's the same as always, though I did muster up the courage to give 'zat gurhl I laak' (translation: 'that girl I like', in an Ahnuld voice) a gift. Nothing very romantic, you romantics out there who actually give a toss. It was this paper pad she'd wanted from ages ago. Not quite up there with a box of chocolates and a bunch of roses, but it's the thought that counts. Or something.

Well, it wasn't supposed to be romantic. Just a gift. If I wanted to be romantic I would have sung her 'When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie that's amore', before phoning up Dominos.

Anyway, must dash. Revision calls. Like how nature calls, except I'd actually rather go to the toilet than read my notes. Goddamit I'm crazy.  

Hey guys and gals. Sorry for this delayed update - I've been really bogged down in coursework and other assorted crap of the world of academia. And by 'other assorted crap' I mean practice exams. I had two yesterday in fact - and I can safely say I think I failed the first one, the Contract Law exam. See, one of the questions concerned whether a kiss could amount to an acceptance of an offer, since a guy had said 'I'd give anything for just one kiss, even my Porsche.' So the woman says 'agreed' and kisses him and wants the Porsche, but the guy doesn't want to give it to her. And yes, I am aware of how strange this all sounds, but what do you expect, it's a law exam. So, anyway, I forgot to mention that this could not be a binding contract since there was obviously no intention to create legal relations. And so, I've probably made a most humiliating mistake, since I ended up saying there WAS a contract. Bugger.

The second exam, Constitutional and Administrative Law, was okay. Well, compared to the first one. I mean, compared to a flunk anything is okay. I'm glad these are just practice exams that don't actually count towards our final grade. But something I'm doing right now that does count towards our final grade is coursework, and lots of it. Whoopedy-do-dar, whoopedy-day.

Ah well. On the social side of things it's been pretty good. A lot of people have been asking me for help with assignments and things lately, and some guy I know even said that I am 'your man - if you need help with anything, [Muezzin] will help you out.' 

Which was quite nice actually. I don't consider myself a saint, but whenever people need help, I tend to give it to them, cos that's just the way I am. I am what I am, to quote Popeye. But if it were a direct quote it would probably sound more like 'I yam, what I yam'. Maybe. Either way, I'm glad to be of help to anyone requesting it, and getting some sort of recognition is a spiritual bonus. Seriously. Even though I try to brush it off with some amusingly sarcastic reply (well, I think it's amusing - I tend to ignore eye-rolling), I really like stuff like that. Even my family tend to come for me for help. For instance, I think they were watching the Passion of the Christ (I of course was using this time to go on MFN for a good two hours ;)), when suddenly I hear my mother calling my name. I walked to the sitting room where they watching the movie, and she asked me what language the actors were speaking. 'Aramaic, Latin and Hebrew' I answered. I'm not even sure if they were speaking Hebrew, but it was just the fact that I'd been asked by one of my parents... I was TEACHING my mother! Need I even go into the Freudian undertones to describe how satisfying this is?

It does get kind of annoying sometimes, when I could be working and someone kinda bugs me for help. But normally I'm quite receptive and glad for the break. I've a very short attention span when it comes to my work you see. I'm like a goldfish.

Or rather, a human in a goldfish bowl. However the hell that works.

Anyway, I seem to be blowing my own trumpet as it were (and I do not mean that as some sort of phallic statement, those with corrupted minds ;)), so I'll try to balance it out with some well-placed cynical humour. I had this kinda weird comedic quarrel with my -ahem- crush yesterday. See, one of my friends was going to be all alone in an exam room (i.e. not with us), because his last name starts with 'N', not 'A - L' like most of us guys who would all be in the same room. Now, he'd be all alone - with Amanda Wragg. I think I mentioned this lecturer in one of my earlier entries. So anyway, I say 'Hey man, are you gonna get it on with Amanda?'

To which my crush made a strange face. And so...

Me: By 'get it on' I meant something entirely clean. You know, I meant...

Her: I know exactly what you meant.

Me: Pfft. You're impossible.

Her: You're a lad! That's worse! There's only one thing going through your minds...

My friend: Sounds like a lover's tiff.

To that I made an extremely puzzled face. Inwardly I was laughing hysterically. Well, not really, but I saw the humour in it. I just tried to keep a poker face about the whole thing. I love having these little flirty quarrels. They're so damn funny.

Lordy! My stomach just rumbled like a Mammoth in the Bronx! That's what I get for skipping breakfast. I'll have a look in the Student Union shop - I've never had a cheese salsa tortilla for breakfast before.

But actually, I've got to prioritise - I'd better get back to work now (i.e. I'd better START work now). I've got to revise for the Criminal Law practice exam we have tomorrow. Yay is me.

See ya, peeps.  

Sorry for the belated update. Nothing much happened this week. Except for that shitload of coursework we got. Well, actually we got the coursework questions like, last month, but it's just sunk in that I've got about four essays to do in the next two months. w00tness as some Internet stereotype or other might say. Though w00t sounds more like a sound a train would make. To me at least.

Well, I just got some of my homework for next week finished off in advance so I've got time for this humongous 3,500 word essay that's in for two weeks time - I've still not started any research on the damn thing. Oh, well. Now I have time. Unless I get sidetracked by: 

a) the Internet 

b) girls 

c) noseless stick midget kung fu masters 

d) all of the above.

Knowing my luck (or rather, my tendency to just... not work), it'll probably be D for me. Heh, that rhymed. I could be a poet. If every decent poet on Earth suddenly died or something. Then I might be one of the subs.

Got a doctor's appointment on Tuesday, and I want to see how long it takes to walk there from the uni - so I'll be doing a test-run today. Yes, I really have that much spare time. I do have an ulterior motive though. See, on Tuesday I'd like to walk with a certain someone.

Who is a certain gender.

That starts with F and ends in E.

So, I just want to see if I can walk with her, and still get to the doc's on time. Jeez, I'm sad. Or obsessed. Or just nuts. Maybe I'm some sort of combination - saddo-nutzoid-kuri-fury-obsessive-passion-fruit-boogaloo-jimjam-man.   

Or not.

Anyhow, I've just been bizarrely reminded of this weird list-type thing my friend Martin and I did. We were in a tutorial, and really supposed to be working - but it was okay, I'd done the stuff already (Martin hadn't, but no one cares)

So he's on his laptop, sitting next to me, and he types:

''I sentence you to infinity and beyond!' said Lightyear, LJ'

Now, I'll give you a little key - LJ means 'Lord Justice', J means 'Justice' and R means 'Rex/Regina' (aka King or Queen).

I spotted his little Buzz Lightyear reference, and then wrote the following in response:

' 'Your sentence is death' said Dredd, J'

So started a massive chain of fictional judgements, the ones which I wrote being reproduced below:

'Off with her head' said Hearts, R

'GRAAAAAAAAAA [guilty]' said Godzilla, J, before eating the defendant

'I sentence you to truth, justice and the American way,' said Superman, J

'I sentence you to be my bitch' said Random Convict, LJ

'I sentence you to come again' said Nahasateenapetalon, J

'We sentence you to a most bogus probation order' said Preston, J and Logan, J

'I did not have sexual relations with your sentence' said Clinton, P

'What did the twelve jurors say to the defendant? GUILTY! I'm Rick James, bitch!' said James, J

'What's a sentence, Dave?' said Trigger, LJ

'I sentence you to one year... two years... three years... four years... five years... SIX years incarceration, ahahaha!' said Count, J

'SEE YOU IN HELL, MOLA RAM!' said Jones, PHD before throwing the defendant to death by crocodiles

Ah, uni-life's got its good parts. Apart from all the essays. Oh well, at least I've got the caption contest judging to look forward to. Hmm... what prizes shall I pull out of the infitessimal magic hat that is Google Image Search this time?

Got a bit more of my story done by the way. Hopefully it will kick ass. Because the alternative is it will suck ass.

Or possibly blow ass, but don't no one wanna blow ass.

Anyway, I'd better be off. Ciao for now. Or however the hell you spell that.

Had the Eid party then - and I was wrong about a couple of things. Firstly. my brother and I were not bouncers; we did however tick people off the lists and ask for their tickets - quite a comedown, but hey, I'm not complaining; if we were gonna be bouncers, we needed earpieces, dammit. Granted, we probably would have no idea how to use the things, but it's the principal. Ah well. Doormen/recepionists/ticket bitches have no use for the things.

Secondly, there was no 'children's clown', but there was a children's 'magician'. Might as well have been a clown though - I mean, the kids figured out his tricks in about ten seconds so he just started juggling and making balloon animals. Well, I say 'animals', but I don't know what the hell one of them was supposed to be - it looked kinda like a minigun. To me at least. But then I'm strange. My cousin got what was undoubtedly the worst balloon animal ever - a snake. Wow. How creative. The kind of skill you need to be able to shape a straight balloon into something as dynamic as a snake must be enough to warrant an honorary membership to Mensa. To the magician's credit, he did give the thing two eyes and a tongue. At least, I think that's what they were - but they couldn't possibly be anything untoward, he was a kids' entertainer.

There was a charity auction too, which was a riot. Well, I found it funny. Maybe because nobody started bidding until the auctioneer said 'Oh, come on, this item is worth at least £20'. Or words to that effect. And when I say 'words to that effect', I mean he said nothing of the sort because I can't remember. I do remember there was a candlestick holder that went for about £30. I'm just glad I wasn't bidding - you didn't even get any candles with the thing. Without candles, it looked like some sort of desk tidy. 'Hey, I said I wanted a romantic dinner for two, not a bloody study session.'

The funniest thing by far was the 'mystery box'. Now, I was one of the guys recording who had bid for what, and I'm not really supposed to pass judgement on the lots, because of obvious effects on the punters - but when I heard 'Lot 23, a mystery box!', I could not help but burst into laughter. I was like, 'Yes, a mystery box, with a lifetime supply of oxygen inside. As long as you never open it.'

But people were bidding on the thing! I think the box had gift vouchers in it, something 'perfect for couples' (i.e. two money-off meal vouchers for McDonald's - okay, it wasn't that, but if I was packing that box it sure as hell would have been), and so about three married men's hands went up. Maybe they were trying to impress their ladies. Or maybe they just wanted to buy the thing so they could find out what the hell was inside it. Still, I wouldn't pay £50 for a box that I had more than a strong suspicion was empty, but it wasn't my place to judge - I just had to make sure the people paid up, gave their name and contact details, and try unsuccessfully to flirt.

Well, flirting wasn't part of the job description, but I tried anyway for a laugh. Luckily I laugh at my failures. I also laugh in a disturbed fashion when little children go for a pee on a wall. Which is exactly what happened. See, I was just standing on the side, minding my own business, when one of the staff came up to me and said 'Er, excuse me... do you know that boy?'

I turn around to see Chief Little Bare-Ass calmly piddling on the wall. My reaction?

'Err....'

I referred the staff to the kid's father. Let him clear it up. Quite literally.

Well, that's what I thought he might do. But actually he just went into the other room and came back with some tea.

The last part of the night featured a comedienne - Shazia Mirza, one of the only Muslim comediennes I've ever heard of, but she's not exactly as famous as, say, Chris Rock. She's not unheard of though. By that, I mean, I'd heard of her, and I quite like her dry sense of humour. The audience, however, was the very definition of a tough crowd.

My brother and I laughed at her jokes, since she was funny. However, to appreciate good comedy, you actually need a sense of humour. As Shazia said, our audience's sense of humour was still in its 'development stage'. Ah well. I laughed. Especially at this one, which I think she uses in every act, but it's so damn good:

'My non-Muslim friends ask me why I walk five paces behind my husband.

He looks better from behind.'

What a corker. She did a variation on it as well:

'Nowadays it's a bit different though - now the wives walk five paces in front of their husbands. Because of landmines.'

I was lovin' it.

The majority of my fellow audience members, however, were not. At least not showing it. Actually, I don't even know how many of them understood English. See, they were made up mostly of first-generation Pakistanis, Indians and a few Bengalis. Now, us second- and third-generations understood the jokes because we watch a little thing called television, but our older citizens are more inclined to things like Bollywood. I suspect that if she'd suddenly broken into song on stage they'd quickly warm to her. Course, I wouldn't be able to understand just what the hell she was singing, since Bollywood movies' songs are always in Hindi, but hey, at least I'd be able to laugh at the dance.

Oh, dear. I'm making fun of my own culture a bit aren't I? Ah, that's alright, I make fun of everything. And believe me, once you've seen one Bollywood movie, not only have you seen 'em all, but you've also discovered the essence of comedy. The plots go as follows:

1) Boy meets girl.

2) Boy fights with girl. Girl swoons over boy. Girl breaks into song for no apparent reason.

3) Rival boy arrives on scene. Rival boy moves in on girl. Girl resists.

4)Boy has approximately 50 minutes of screentime as we learn about his family, and the fact that they do not approve of his lady-chasing antics. Suddenly, boy desires girl who, not two scenes ago, he detested. Cue another unexplained music sequence.

5) Rival boy beats the living shit out of random bystander. Boy shows up, beats the living shit out of rival in a totally one-sided battle with more fake blood than a round of Mortal Kombat, then, for no apparent reason, has a fifteen-minute long car chase. Think Herbie, not Matrix Reloaded.

6) Boy meets up with girl after quite possibly sending the rival boy to his death. Boy and girl laugh and dance over the murder... oh, sorry, over their love triumphing over adversity. Cue another song sequence involving beaches and Paris, even though the thing is set in India or somewhere. Hey, I don't make these things, I'm just telling you what they're like.

7) Rival boy's father finds boy, and wants revenge. Rival boy's father is an ex-convict gangster with grenades for teeth... So I'm lying about the grenades for teeth part, but that'd kick so much ass.

8) Rival boy's father finds boy's father and beats him up. Cue song sequence.

9) Boy returns, sees Rival Boy's father, and beats the living shit out of him as well.

10) Something really stupid happens (even more stupid than the rest of the damn movie - heck, Rival Boy comes back to life or something), and Rival boy's father and boy's family kiss and make up, and there's a big marriage ceremony that takes up the remaining 60 minutes of the four hour movie. Cue song sequence.

So there you have it - Bollywood in ten easy steps. Course, they're not so easy when you're watching them in action, but at least you can laugh at the dances and stuff.

This has inspired me to go and make a Bollywood movie of my own, with the excellent tagline:

'Just when you thought movies couldn't get any worse than 'Batman and Robin' - 'Batesh and Robinda, the caped crusaders of Calcutta''    

One of my aunts is throwing this Eid party tomorrow in some hall or other, and - get this - she wants me and my younger brother to be bouncers. Now, ordinarily I'd laugh, but she's dead serious. We've got to make sure the peeps have their tickets and do bouncer-like things like that - but the thing is, to be a bouncer, don't you have to be... well... bouncy? I mean, you see these humongous guys who could easily be mistaken for hippos standing outside nightclubs, ready to kick some ass if needs be. Or just give troublemakers a rough shove. Whichever's more convenient. Now, see, my bro and I aren't exactly the 'buff' type. I'm not exactly fat, but I'm not exactly thin either, and the withered things that pass for biceps would put a floppy-armed old lady to shame. My brother, on the other hand, has the physique of a refugee.

So, I'm not entirely sure how this is going to turn out. Hopefully there won't be any troublemakers - only loads of hot women. And God knows my eyes like hot women. God probably punishes me for that, but hell, it's worth it.

This Eid do - my aunt made all these flyers and stuff, and I briefly asked whether she'd like me to distribute them around the Islamic society at my uni. However, I then saw the programme of events - and when I got to 'children's clown', I suddenly did not want to give flyers out to 19-years-and-above students. I've a thing with humiliation. I'm like a big embarrassment-magnet. It's not to say I am embarrassing to others, but my foolish conduct always causes me embarrassment. What can I say - I'm sensitive. Like a tooth that hurts when you eat ice cream. Okay, maybe not that sensitive. But I really, really hate it when I embarrass myself - and my 'good-humoured' nature doesn't really help much.

Some of you reading this know me as a funny guy of sorts, and I think that any humour I do have is completely off-the-wall, weird, don't-show-this-to-your-parents-or-they'll-cart-you-off-to-the-funny-farm-and-top-themselves-with-tequila kind of stuff. And I love it when people smile or laugh at something amusing I say. But now and again, I just don't know when to shut up - case in point, a class back in college, before I came to uni. The teacher was talking about addiction to smoking.

'There comes a point where you can't go to bed without a cigarette,' she'd said, 'where you can't get up without a cigarette, where you can't go to the toilet without a cigarette.'

To which I could but add: 'Where you can't have a cigarette without having a cigarette.'

Brilliant. Comic genius. Amazingly amusing.

Yeah. I wish.

A girl (who I had quite a crush on at the time), just made this perplexed expression and said words to the effect of: 'You always say these weird things. We might be laughing at something and then you say something and we're just like 'what?' '

It gets better. The girl sitting next to me (who I think had a crush on ME at the time - and if she didn't, then what the hell was her explanation for all that creepy stalker-like behaviour?) says, 'YOU don't have to sit next to him everyday - he's so random.'

By this time, the other boys in the class were looking at me with some sort of amused consolation, the teacher looked sympathetic, and I was as red as a baboon's backside. And I'll tell you right now, I could have burst into tears. It's funny looking back on it - but at the time, I had just made a complete and utter fool of myself, the girl of my dreams had just aided in my self-committed downfall and I was not a happy bunny. I shut up for the rest of the lesson. I toned down my wisecracks for the rest of the term. But the thing that hurt the most was that the girl, whom I so admired and who I wanted to have my babies (oui, it's all about ze sex), had just said what she said, without a thought, without an inkling of consideration for my feelings. She may as well have carved my heart out with a rusty spoon before throwing it against the wall and getting the entire school to defecate on it. Well, maybe that's a tad melodramatic, but you get the idea. 

But, hey, I'm not bitching. I haven't got anything to bitch about - I've got parents and siblings who love me; I don't even need to rely on a job for income, and if I ever am in really desperate need of work since I can't find any anywhere else, I have a family business to fall back on. I've got it easy, I've been dealt a good hand, Fate smiled upon me and all that jazz. And yet, I was extremely upset because of - to quote the Joker - a WOMAN.

Don't get the wrong idea - I'm not some sort of misogynist. I love women. They can give birth; they have the power to, in essence, create life. They're some of the most beautiful creatures on the face of the planet for that fact alone. I'm just saying my heart was broken I guess. Nothing special. Happens all the time. But it hurts. And not like kicked-in-the-balls hurts. No, worse than that. But this post seems to be getting depressing - and I don't want you to get the idea that I became all moody and Darth Vaderish. I was just at a low ebb for a couple of days. I was still on good terms with the girl (but any kind of relationship beyond friendship was now strictly out of bounds). I saw her a couple of months later in a restaurant. I didn't talk to her, since we were both with our respective families, and halfway across the room from one another. But she saw me, and I saw her, and we weren't staring at each other with the kind of optical concusive force Cyclops lets loose every time his shades fall off, and that's all that matters. I think she went to university in London. I never saw her again after she left the restaurant.

So what's the moral of this story, you might be asking. 'Did it put you off girls forever? Have you never had another crush? Do you smash your head against the wall just for random laughter?'

The answer to all these questions (especially the last one - and you must be as weird as me if you were really thinking of that question) is a resounding 'no'. Now, a year down the line, I'm hopelessly infatuated with another girl - hopelessly because I know it'll just end in another broken heart, and it won't be some airy-fairy-tale ending where I get the girl and a shitload of kiddywinks (again, le sexe shows its 'ead, mes ami). But I just don't care. I'm ruled by my emotions. Kind of like a caveman. Except they could kill woolly mammoths with nothing but rocks and sticks, whereas I'm afraid of small dogs.

I guess the real moral is life goes on. We all have low ebbs. We all bitch and moan to a degree. But if just pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and take some affirmative action - we'll get on with our lives, and at least we'll know how not to muck it up next time. I know how serious this post has become, considering that I intended (and you probably expected) more comedy, and I'm aware how pretentiously didactic my little words of wisdom sound, but it's a philosophy I subscribe to. And I stick by it.

Like creepy dogs stick to people's legs.

But in a less disturbing manner.

I don't want a sympathy vote or anything either. This is just something I wanted to get off my chest.

Speaking of chests - I'd better get in shape if I'm gonna be doing this bouncer malarkey. I wonder if Red Bull combined with prescribed anabolic steroids, a treadmill, dumbbells, a rowing machine and a helluva lotta press-ups will be enough to boost my physique to Schwarzeneggar-like proportions overnight. Probably not. But I'll die trying.

...I wouldn't really try that. I'm not that stupid.

Or am I?

*breaks open a can of Red Bull and sprints to the pharmacists*