I can see clearly now…

Well, yesterday, for the first time ever in my life, someone called me up to tell me that my order was ready earlier than scheduled and that i could go pick it up whenever i wanted to.
I couldn’t believe it. How come ? I mean, things like that never happen. It’s normal for delays to happen, but for something to be ready before schedule, that’s impossible.
Anyway, it was true.
And i’ve already filed this occurrence for consideration in the Guinness book of records.

Well, what was ready ?
My new pair of eyeglasses.
So, i went and picked them up after work, and spent all night trying to get used to them. I still think i look a bit weird in them.
But, this morning as i walked in at work and said hi to everyone and chatted with some people a bit, almost nobody noticed, so that’s cool. I’d rather they don’t notice than having them burst into laughter 😛

Anyway, as for myself, my eyes are still adapting to the new glasses and all, but one thing that crosses my mind is this Jimmy Cliff song that goes something like this:

I can see clearly now the rain is gone
I can see all obstacles in my way
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind
It’s gonna be a bright, bright sunshinin’ day

Oh well, not that i didn’t see well with the old ones, but the vision is clearer with these.

Lazy Pakiland Days

Oh, how much i long for one of the old days i used to spend in Islamabad / Pakistan.

I visited Pakistan about 4 or 5 times back when i was a teenager; as my dad used to work at the Tunisian embassy there.
It would be summer time, and as soon as school ended, we’d be picking up our baggage and leaving Tunisia to go spend the summer with my dad in frying hot Pakistan while tourists were flooding into Tunisia to enjoy the summer and the sea.

Back then, Islamabad was one of the most boring cities on earth. Even though Lahore and Karachi were great.
So, my daily schedule was as follows:

  • Wake up at 1PM.
  • Have lunch.
  • Watch a movie.
  • Play computer games while listening to music.
  • Take my bike and go out to the library, music store, video rental store, ice cream store at Jinnah Super Market where i respectively buy magazines, grab some new tapes, rent some new movies, load up with some ice cream.
  • Go home.
  • Watch a movie.
  • Play computer games while listening to new music.
  • Have dinner.
  • Watch movie.
  • Watch another movie.
  • Watch MCM (French music channel) until 7 or 8 AM.
  • Go to bed.

It was really great 🙂
I created my own lazy schedule and spent the whole summer that way.
Did i suffer from routine ? Nah, it was just perfect that way, lol…
Plus, i’d change a bit in my schedule every now and then, for example sometimes i’d go to Radio City to get movies and tapes instead 😛

Now, as i look at how hectic my life has been this past period, i really wish for a few of those old days to come back…
Oh, that would be a delight…

Shopping vs. Buying

I really think shopping and buying are totally different things.
I hate doing both, but they’re very different.

Shopping is when you go out with no specific goal and you just go around from shop to shop, wasting time and looking around with the possibility that you might find something you like and that you just might buy it.

Buying is when you go out with something very specific in mind, and you go from shop to shop looking for it to buy.

So, if you take this idea one step further, people can be classified in 2 kinds: The Shoppers and The Buyers.
As for me, I’m a radical Buyer.
I go out with something very specific in mind, and i try my very best to buy it from the first shop i go to.

Yesterday, i went out to buy a new pair of eyeglasses (at last), and luckily all the optics shops were closing (i don’t get it, these people shut down earlier than chicken).
Anyway, i only found one optics shop open, and so i went in with the will to buy and get over with it all.
Maybe i should have waited and checked out some other shops today and all, but well, being myself i just had to rush and buy them yesterday from that first shop.

So it’s done, i have some new eyeglasses that will be ready by the end of the week. They’re very different from the ones i have now, so they’ll really change my look a lot, and even though i liked them for a fraction of a second yesterday and was convinced to buy them, i’m not sure how i feel about them now.
I just hope i don’t end up looking like a dumbass because they weren’t cheap, lol…

10 Things I Can’t Live Without

Yesterday, as i was driving home, i assembled a list of the 10 things i can’t live without these days.
Here’s the list i came up with:

  1. My Wife: Romantic, huh ? Well, it’s true 🙂
  2. My Family: Even though i might not show it a lot, but still family is very important thing to me.
  3. A computer: I’d go mad without one.
  4. An internet connection: I’d start itching all over if i lose this.
  5. My blog: My brain online, how could i live without that ?
  6. Music: The soundtrack to my life, without it, the world would be so dull.
  7. Movies: My number one fun thing to do and enjoy.
  8. My Car: I’m crippled without it.
  9. My Paycheck: Money, money, money. I hate to need it, but we all do.
  10. My Home: Where the hell am i gonna crash at night if i don’t have that ?

Bloggies 2004 : Voting Time

Well, my blog made it through the nomination phase of the Bloggies, through the Bloggie panel who chose what nominations to pass on to the finals stage, and now it’s up the on the Bloggies 2004 site among the 5 nominated blogs to win the Best African or Middle Eastern Blog.

So, i call upon all the loyal and unloyal readers of Subzero Blue to pass by the Bloggies 2004 website and vote for this blog.

Thank you all in advance 🙂

Working Daze

I’ve just found this really cool comic strip at comics.com called Working Daze, it’s truly funny 🙂

It’s mainly about life at work and all, and it really touches on some really funny issues from everyday work life, lol.
I’ve even seen or been through some of the situations the strip makes fun of, which makes it even funnier.

I’ll surely be checking this one out everyday from now on…

Frida

The main movie i saw this past weekend was Frida, a biography of mexican artist Frida Kahlo, who channeled the pain of a crippling injury and her tempestuous marriage into her work.

The movie was pretty good, especially the acting, photography and visual style of the movie.

I’ve always liked real life stories, they have this certain feeling of truth in them, which makes them more interesting for me to see.

This story was an interesting one, although i didn’t relate to it, but i liked the historical background it introduced.

All in all, i give this movie 7/10.

PS: The movie contains quite a number of nudity and sex scenes, so Salma Hayek fans should definitely see it, looool…

Blogless

Well, i wanna blog, but i don’t have anything to blog about, so what do i do ?
I blog that i have nothing to blog.

And what use is that ?
Well, at least i blogged, and now i won’t feel like i have to come up with something to blog, because i know i won’t find anything worth blogging.

Waste of time ?
Maybe, but now the blog-itch is gone, and i can enjoy the rest of my day without thinking about blogging 😛

Cya…

Programming Play

Recently, i’ve gone back to playing around with programming at home and trying out things that are either new or that i’ve always wanted to try but never had time to. And lately i’ve been playing around with Cold Fusion MX 6.1 and it’s Cold Fusion Components as well as it’s xml capabilities.

ColdFusion, i feel, is somehow the Apple of web programming languages, without the problems that come with Apple’s products. It’s great, it’s easy, it’s fast, it gives you the best time-to-market, but still it’s not as widely used as the rest of the web programming languages out there.

Anyway, Cold Fusion Components (CFCs), are simply great. They must be the easiest and fastest way to create a web service / class.
In ASP.NET C#, it’s really easy too, and i really like how it’s done there. But ColdFusion’s syntax which is so web-like makes it more intuitive.

I’m actually playing around with organizing / layering my code and creating different tiers using custom tags, includes, CFCs/WebServices and some xml files. And i’m getting really good stuff out of it. If i get to put more effort into this, i think i’ll be able to turn it into some sort of framework / methodology.
I’m also interested in trying out the same stuff with C# & ASP.NET.

Something else i’m looking forward to trying out is the ability to merge and cross between using ColdFusion & Java/JSP.
Ever since ColdFusion MX, Cold Fusion (CF) has become a layer on top of a Java App. Server, giving it more power and stability, and opening it up to use of Java classes, beans and JSPs.
I haven’t had the chance to test all that out and get something running as a hybrid CF/JSP app yet, but hopefully i will soon.
What’s so cool about the idea is that you could do all the classes and data-crunching using Java, and build the interface that consumes those classes and serves as a fa