Celebs Gone Wild; 2005's Weirdest Moments...

To think we thought Brad and Jen were the ideal couple! That Tom Cruise was normal! That Nick and Jessica and were in it for love — not publicity! And that Michael Jackson might have been guilty!

This year opened our eyes all right — although we probably wished we had kept them shut.

Check out some of them:

2005 Year in Review: Strange Celeb Events

And the Year's Review of the Best Movies, Best Albums, Hookups & Breakups in the world of glitz and 'ollywood:

2005 Year in Review

Jingle All the Way; Merry Christmas!

Believe it or not Jingle Bells, one of the most famous American Christmas songs, was originally written for Thanksgiving! The author and composer of Jingle Bells was a minister called James Pierpoint who composed the song in 1857 for children celebrating his Boston Sunday School Thanksgiving. The song was so popular that it was repeated at Christmas, and indeed Jingle Bells has been reprised ever since.

The essence of a traditional Christmas is captured in the lyrics of Jingle Bells and the sound effects using the bells have become synonymous with the arrival of Father Christmas or Santa Claus to the delight of children of all ages!


JINGLE ALL THE WAY

Dashing through the snow
In a one horse open sleigh
O'er the fields we go
Laughing all the way
Bells on bob tails ring
Making spirits bright
What fun it is to laugh and sing
A sleighing song tonight

Oh, jingle bells, jingle bells
Jingle all the way
Oh, what fun it is to ride
In a one horse open sleigh
Jingle bells, jingle bells
Jingle all the way
Oh, what fun it is to ride
In a one horse open sleigh

A day or two ago
I thought I'd take a ride
And soon Miss Fanny Bright
Was seated by my side
The horse was lean and lank
Misfortune seemed his lot
We got into a drifted bank
And then we got upsot

Oh, jingle bells, jingle bells
Jingle all the way
Oh, what fun it is to ride
In a one horse open sleigh
Jingle bells, jingle bells
Jingle all the way
Oh, what fun it is to ride
In a one horse open sleigh yeah

Jingle bells, jingle bells
Jingle all the way
Oh, what fun it is to ride
In a one horse open sleigh
Jingle bells, jingle bells
Jingle all the way
Oh, what fun it is to ride
In a one horse open sleigh

Life, as if grounded

This week's beginning has marked my worst illness in months.

I'm feeling totally blowed out with a 102 F temperature and a severe flu & throat infection. Headache, body pain, shivering & nose + eye-water flows have been the natural followers. Miserable it is already if I donot recover soon, it'll be adding more trouble in form of University absentees.

Although, there doesn't seem to be any eatable thing, that I have ever showed dislike for, however, this time I don't feel like having anything at all. I hope it's normal in case of such an illness.

Winter has been rough and dry this time around resulting in widespread coughs and running noses. We hope to get the first rain of the season, soon, that will help reducing misery of the poor beings...

For me, until I recover from this fever added infection, life's as if grounded...

The Hectic Times!

This previous week has been quite a hectic one, making me unable to come online or writing anything.

We are having our home renovated with additional wood-work, texture paints and carpet-makeovers. It's been nearly three months since we started this. As for those living in my country, there's no disagreement about labor giving a tough time to the renovater. It's really a damn hectic job to get things done here.

The Kill Game...

Killing your own citizens by assuming them as terrorists, attacking sovereignity of other nations with wrong intelligence on WMDs, under the cover of dealing with terrorism; It's getting uglier for the people ruling this country...

"Rigoberto Alpizar, a 44-year-old US citizen, was killed in the air bridge after running out of the plane pursued by marshals who had broken their cover.

No bomb was found on Mr Alpizar whose wife had tried to explain he had a mental illness, one witness said.

Mary Gardner, a fellow passenger, told local television that the man had run frantically down the aisle of the Boeing 757 screaming while his wife tried to explain he was ill.


"I did hear the lady say her husband was bi-polar and had not had his medication," she said. "I saw the woman... she was hysterical."

Mr Alpizar had arrived in Miami, Florida, from Ecuador and was boarding a flight to Orlando at about 1410 local time (1910 GMT).

Local police and federal officers are investigating the incident, but officials say so far there is no hint of any links to terrorism. However, as a precaution, federal air marshals were deployed in airports across the country.

Television images showed police and emergency response officers surrounding the plane after the incident."

News coutesy of BBC NEWS

Possible, positive effect of a tragedy

It's nice to hear about the two arch-rivals coordinating with each other in this moment of sheer destruction.

Pakistan and India have set up 5 crossing points for exchange of relief supplies on the LOC (Line of Control) in disputed territory of Kashmir. Plans are to open these points also for the citizens of both Azad and Occupied Kashmir to help reunite families in distress.


This may be the first of steps to improve relations with each other and to resolve all of mutual conflicts including Kashmir.

October 8, surely will be remembered as the darkest day in Pakistan's history, however, if in its wake we are able to resolve this 58 year-old dispute with India, it would become a blessing in disguise...

Map courtesy of BBC News

In memory of my toothbrush, OB...

Dear OB,

I hope this letter finds you in the best of hygiene. I am doing fine but things aren't the same without you.

It came to me as a shock, when I was unable to find you in my brush-cup in the toilet that unfateful day. Your mysterious disappearance made me feel so sad that I still haven't been able to go for a replacement. Tears fill my eyes, and I cannot resist the pain whenever one of my finger touches the aching tooth during early morning finger-pasting of my teeth.

Although the toothache is to be blamed for the suffering, however, your absence surely is a substantial enhancer.

Immediately after the discovery of your disappearance, I had informed the concerned authorities. Investigations are going on with all those who use or even have entered my bathroom mistakenly.

I still remember the day I nick-named you my dear OB. Oh, and the way you always showed your likeness for the nick by giving me a sparkle on your Oral-B logo, using the bulb-light, has made me cry a many times.

O! OB, your services to the hygiene of my teeth have been immense and they, surely, cannot be forgotten by me so easily.

I know, what you are trying to say; that the life must go on. And it should better be, but let me tell you one thing, that no other toothbrush can take your place as my dear OB. I'm always going to miss you just like my very first teeth that I lost to the Tooth fairy in my childhood.

May God keep you shinning and transparent as ever.

Yours,

Hasan; Sparkle too Good

Know when will you be dead!

Won't it be interesting to know when will you be dead or to see how many seconds of your life are left!

Do share your feelings after calculating your death-date and watching the countdown of your life at DeathClock...

You scared to click??

Symptoms of Addiction to Internet ! ! ! !

1. A friend stops to see you since your phone has been busy-----for a year!!!!!"
2. You forgot how to work the TV remote control.
3. You see something funny and scream, "LOL, LOL."
4. You tell everyone, that after surgery, your mom went to ICQ ......instead of ICU!
5. You sign off and your screen says you were on for 3 days and 45 minutes.
6. You placed the refrigerator beside your computer.
7. You buy a laptop and a cell phone so you can have ICQ in your car.
8. Tech support calls YOU for help.
9. You beg your friends to get an account so you can "hang out."
10. You get a second phone line just to call out for pizza.
11. You purchase a vanity car license plate with your screen name on it.
12. You say "he he he he" or "heh heh heh" instead of laughing.
13. You say "SCROLL UP" when someone asks what it was you said.
14. You find out divorce papers had been served on you 6 months ago.
15. You talk on the phone with the same person you are sending an instant message to. (uh oh...I've done this! LOL)
16. You look at an annoying person off line and wish that you had your ignore
button handy.
17. You start to experience "withdrawal" after not being online for awhile.
18. You say......."Where did the time go??"
19. You sit on ICQ for 6 hours for that certain special person to sign on.
20. You get up in the morning and go online before getting your coffee.
21. .....You end your sentences with.....three or more periods.......
22. Your shoes are suddenly 2 sizes too small.
23. You think faster than the computer. <----Not difficult for me
24. You enter a room and get greeted by 25 people with {{{hugs}}} and ** kisses**.
25. Being called a newbie is a major insult to you.
26. You're on the phone and say BRB.
27. Your teacher or boss recommends a drug test for the blood shot eyes.
28. Your answering machine/voice mail sounds a little like this...."BRB. Leave your S/N
and I'll TTYL ASAP".
29. You get up at 2:00 AM to go to the bathroom and turn the computer on instead.
30. You need to be pried from your computer by the Jaws-of-life.

The Exam Fever

Starting from yesterday, I've totally been stuck in my mid-term exams.
The first one was of Business Law and I'm writing this when the next one, Macroeconomics, is just round the corner.

Hope to perform well and be back in time to update you people with the latest of my ideas, thoughts and favorite things...

Wish me best of luck!

Review: 'Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire'

If the third film in the Harry Potter series, last year's "Prisoner of Azkaban," seemed frightening with its soul-sucking Dementors and its German expressionist aesthetic, then the fourth installment, "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," will have kids quaking in their seats and perhaps wishing they had an invisibility cloak to hide beneath.

This "Potter" earns its PG-13 rating a first for the previously PG series about the boy wizard as Harry grows into adolescence and learns more about his powers and his past. Of course, young fans have already devoured the J.K. Rowling books that provide the basis for the films, so they know what's coming. (The author is up to No. 6 out of seven planned.) But reading it on the page and seeing it on the screen can be two entirely different experiences, and several scenes will be disturbing to viewers regardless of age.

"Goblet of Fire" features the return of the dreaded Lord Voldemort He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named the dark warlock who killed Harry's parents and tried to kill him, too, when he was just an infant. (Having survived the attack is what gives Harry a certain mystique among his professors and classmates at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry; it also gave him his trademark lightning-bolt scar on his forehead.)

As played by an unrecognizable Ralph Fiennes, Voldemort appears hairless and noseless, hissing and threatening in the moonlight a smooth, almost effeminate incarnation of the Devil, surrounded by cloaked minions.

Even scarier, though, is the maze Harry must navigate as a competitor in the dangerous Triwizard Tournament. The giant hedges that serve as the maze walls aren't just tall and the pathways aren't just narrow they're also predatory, collapsing violently on their inhabitants, sensing and feeding on their fears, trying to swallow them whole. (Bet Stanley Kubrick wishes he'd thought of that when he made "The Shining")

While these are the most extreme examples of the movie's intensity, they're also the ones that are the most emotionally powerful. Director Mike Newell has crafted a film full of images that are vast and wondrous, but strangely detached and obviously artificial, similar to the look of the "Lord of the Rings" movies. You can appreciate the enormity of the visuals, but they seem so distant, it's difficult to feel engaged by them.

But with Newell at the helm the first English director following American Chris Columbus, who did the first two parts, and Mexican Alfonso Cuaron, who did the third and best thus far "Goblet of Fire" seems more in touch with the innate Britishness of Rowling's books, both in its sense of humor and in its boarding-school setting.

Read the Full Review here...



Watch "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" Trailers and Clips

PIA creates world commercial aviation history

Pakistan Inter-national Airlines (PIA) has created world commercial aviation history by flying newly-manufactured Boeing 777 LR (Long Range)-- the first airline in the world to fly it from Hong Kong to Heathrow -- the wrong way around the globe.

According to a press release on Thursday, flying from Hong Kong it went overhead Japan, then across the Pacific Ocean flying over Hawaii to overhead San Francisco, then onwards across North American continent to overhead New York, flying still farther across the Atlantic Ocean to land at Heathrow Airport, London, non-stop and in one giant leap lasting slightly less than 24 hours.

The trip which broke 18 minutes flight time record of Airbus 340 and also Boeing's 747-400's record from London to Sydney, flew 12,600 miles or more than half circumference of the globe.

Flying at 83 Mach or 17 Mach less than the speed of sound, the 35 persons onboard, including eight cockpit crew members, witnessed two sunrises and even had scheduled sleep timings in the bunkers onboard. Among five Boeing pilots were Capt Susana Darcy, Boeing 777 Test Pilot and Capt Frank Santoni, representing the Boeing Company.

Along with five Boeing pilots, Commander Asif Reza, senior vice president flight operations PIA, was in command and assisted by Captain Mohammed Ilyas Malik, designated as check pilot Boeing 777 in PIA, to fly the aircraft as Boeing's "Launch Customer", pending delivery of this very first plane to PIA, registered in Pakistan AP-BGY.

A Singapore Airline pilot was also on board, as the Singapore Airline is evaluating buying this airplane after PIA.

The event was reminiscent of another such record breaking flight by PIA nearly four decades earlier, when commander Abdullah Baig, the most famous pilot of PIA flying newly manufactured Boeing 720, eased into a jet stream during cruise with consummate skill to break the London-Karachi flight time record. staff report.

Source: Daily Times Newspaper

The Tsunami survival!

I was on a comfortable vacation at a paradise island. Music, cocktails, beaches, Palm trees, sun n' sand, all were quite plentiful there. I can remember how enjoyable was each moment spent on that heaven.

But, then, it was that unfateful morning. After having a good night's sleep, I came out of my personal cabin facing the shore of a beach and found out that the waves were behaving strangely.

I, actually saw the height, size and force of the waves increase by each landing on the shore. In no time, I could figure out that the next one's going to thrash the cottages. Worried and terrified, I ran into mine, locked it and got hold of one of the two steel poles supporting the roof. And then, it was the one big water splash that went through the wooden walls of the cabin by breaking the cottage into shatters. With eyes closed, I could feel water lifting me up from the ground. It felt like I had slipped into a deep cold-water swimming pool. Despite loosing solid land under my feet, the grip on pole was strong enough to prevent me from being washed away back to the sea.

The sea was calm, once again, and, I was lying on the same beach but with nothing except ruins of wood and steel in view. As I managed to get out of the trauma, the best thing that happened to me was that I woke up!

Man! that was one freaky dream...

Humor from Great Minds

“As you get older three things happen. The first is your memory goes, and I can't remember the other two...”
Sir Norman Wisdom

“One of the most difficult things in the world is to convince a woman that even a bargain costs money.”
Edgar Watson Howe

“A true friend is one who overlooks your failures and tolerates your success!”
Doug Larson

“A harmful truth is always better then...a useful lie!”
Eric Bolton

“When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bike. Then I realized that The Lord doesn't work that way, so I stole one and asked him to forgive me.”
Erno Philips

“ I only go to work on days that don't end in a 'y'.”
Robert Paul

“We spend the first twelve months of our children's liv! es teaching them to walk and talk and the next twelve telling them to sit down and shut up.”
Phyllis Diller

“Laughter is the closest distance between two people.”
Victor Borge

“Start every day with a smile and get it over with.”
W.C. Fields

“Everything is funny as long as it is happening to somebody else.”
Will Rogers

“Always get married early in the morning. That way, if it doesn't work out, you haven't wasted a whole day.”
Mickey Rooney

“Women now have choices. They can be married, not married, have a job, not have a job, be married with children, unmarried with children.
Men have the same choice we've always had: work or prison.”
Tim Allen

“If you never want to see a man again, say, 'I love you, I want to marry you. I want to have children...' - they leave skid marks.”
Rita Rudner

“I'm not afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it happens.”
Woody Allen

“Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't.”
Erica Jong

“Don't take life too seriously, you'll never get out of it alive.”
Elbert Hubbard

“Always and never are two words you should always remember never to use.”
Wendell Johnson

“I've been in love with the same woman for forty-one years. If my wife finds out, she'll kill me.”
Henry Youngman

Balance Sheet of Life

Our Birth is our Opening Balance
Our Death is our Closing Balance

Our Prejudiced Views are our Liabilities
Our Creative Ideas are our Assets

Heart is our Current Asset
Soul is our Fixed Asset

Brain is our Fixed Deposit
Thinking is our Current Account

Achievements are our Capital
Character & Morals, our Stock-in-Trade

Friends are our General Reserves
Values & Behaviour are our Goodwill

Patience is our Interest Earned
Love is our Dividend

Children are our Bonus Issues
Education is Brands / Patents

Knowledge is our Investment
Experience is our Premium Account

The Aim is to Tally the Balance Sheet Accurately.
The Goal is to get the Best Presented Accounts Award

Choorian; the Eid colors

Choorian or Bangles are an essential part of Eid festivities. Made up of colorful glass, these bangles are most popular among girls and women of all ages.

As part of the celebrations, male members of the family buy this stuff for their mothers, sisters and children.



Choorian add colors to happy occasions like eid and marriages and are a sign of happiness and joy.



Well before the Eid day, street markets all across the city are full of colors and beautiful designs with women trying on & buying these as part of their Eid shopping. These are some of the views from Chand Raat; the night before Eid...

Eid Mubarak from Hasan Mubarak

Dear All,

Assalam o Alaikum

I would like to wish all of my family, friends and fellow bloggers a very very happy & prosperous EID.

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.•*´¨: *•. .•* *EID MUBARAK**•. .•
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_./'\._¸¸.•¤**¤•.¸.•¤**¤•.¸.•¤•.
*•. .•* * EID MUBARAK* *•. .•*
/.•*•.\ ¸..•¤**¤•.,.•¤**¤•..,.•¤**

_./'\._¸¸.•¤**¤•.¸.•¤**¤•.¸.•¤¤•.¸.•
.•*´¨: *•. .•* *EID MUBARAK**•. .•
/.•*•.\ ¸..•¤**¤•.,.•¤**¤•.*. ¤•..,.•

May this Eid bring you all the happiness, health and wealth. And may your life be filled with success and many more triumphant moments. Amen!

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Its EID!; Sharing a sad moment of happiness...

The moon sighting has just been announced which means that we, here in Pakistan, will celebrate the happy, holy occasion of EID tomorrow.

EID is to Muslims as Christmas is to Christians. It comes as a gift from God for those who kept fasting throughout the Holy month of Ramadan. It is for those who have 'actually' learnt something during this period of self-control and patience.

EID will be celebrated tomorrow. The early morning prayer ceremony will mark the beginning of the occasion. Later during the day friends and family will have reunions and celebrations. There will be charity, there will be sharing and there would be fun too.

But, in many ways, this EID will be different from the previpous ones. It is because EID will not be all about happiness for hundred of thousands of our fellows this time. It would, rather, be an occasion that will grieve them for the moments spent with their loved ones as many of them are no more.

We will celebrate with then as we are never going to forget our brothers and sisters in grief.

May God help them smile and celebrate again, forever and ever! Amen.

Photographer of the Year 2005

I just came across "2005 News website Photographer of the Year" competition at BBC NEWS' website.

My personal vote went to Tom Sullam for the above picture. I loved the above picture for its color contrasts. The silvers, greys and the goldens in this photograph are just mind-blowing.

What do you say about this picture??



You can also vote for your very choice at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4392574.stm

The Last Wish...

If you were in this situation, what would you last wish for?