One personal frustration that bothers me more than it should is this: when I think up a great comeback days or even weeks after an initial remark. Conversely, one of the most satisfying feelings is when I do successfully respond in a timely manner. Thus, the following incident was immensely satisfying in a weird, inane way.

I was in Ottawa after one of my weekly cross-country flights from Vancouver. I was speaking with a friend, who had recently graduated from University of Waterloo. Somehow, we started discussing the quality of tap water; apparently, it is much better in certain parts of Ottawa then others. I mentioned that Vancouver tap water was good. The Waterloo graduate then said, “Man, the water over in Waterloo is terrible.”

Quickly, my reply came, “is it because the Water comes from the Loo?”

Toilet humour, but it made me laugh no less.

Moral: Not every story needs a moral.

And with that irrelevant anecdote aside, I am going to take a break from Irrelevant Opinions to sort out some thoughts, focus on Ramadhan, and work on some personal projects.

May you all benefit greatly from the blessed month that is upon us. Ameen.

It’s amazing people still fly anywhere.

* * *
Awaiting my flight at the Ottawa International Airport, I passed by a drink stand and asked for a bottle of orange juice.

“Sure,” said the cashier. “But because of the new restrictions, I’ll have to pour it out of the bottle and into this cup before I can give it to you.”

“Um, okay.” I replied.

The cashier pulled the bottle off the shelf and began pouring the contents into a plastic cup. She looked up and smiled.

“Don’t worry, we’re fighting terrorism.”

* * *
I can’t bring deodorant on a plane, but I can bring a Dell laptop that may explode.

* * *
An Iraqi American was refused entry onto a flight because of Arabic writing on his t-shirt.

The story: Arabic T-Shirt Sparks Airport Row | BBC News
The personal account: Back from the Mideast | Raed in the Middle

* * *
Panic erupts on a flight bound for Ottawa because of a flushed iPod.

The story: iPod prompts airport scare in Ottawa | Ottawa Citizen
The reaction: Flying the Paranoid Skies | Ottawa Citizen
The personal account: I played a game, I became a terrorist | World of Warcraft Forums

* * *
A pilot flying from Ottawa to Winnipeg locks himself in the toilet in the middle of a flight.

The story: Canada pilot in toilet trip drama

* * *
There were six well-publicized crashes in August 2005, making it one of the worst months in commercial flight history:

• Air France Flight 358
• Tuninter ATR-72
• Helicopter Crash near Talinn
• Helios Airways Flight 522
• West Caribbean Airways Flight 708
• TANS Peru Flight 204

August 2006 began with the uncovering of an alleged plot to blow up a number of commercial aircraft at Heathrow Airport. There were two major commercial airline crashes in August 2006, followed by another on the first of September.

• Pulkovo Airlines Flight 612
• Comair Flight 5191
• Iran Tupolev 154 Crash

And yesterday, a British Royal Air Force plane crashed, killing all twelve soldiers on board.

* * *
Well, at least we won’t be subjected to the threat of an Arabic t-shirt on a flight.

Update 9.06.2006: Another amusing story out of Ottawa:
Speeding Driver blames lack of goats | Reuters

Not related to this post or worthy of it’s own blog entry, but I just had to put it somewhere.

For nearly a week, I had lost access to a number of entries and could not log in to the Blogger service. This just happened to co-incide with recent misgivings I’ve had about the very idea of publishing my thoughts to a worldwide audience, and I thought that perhaps, it was time to say goodbye. It wasn’t the Blogger technical issues that would have put me off; it’s against my nature to give up on something because of a technical issue. But I often wondered whether Irrelevant Opinions was making me a better person in any way. It succeeded in reviving my passion for writing after my many years of engineering studies, but having met that goal, I wondered if there was anything else I wanted from it. I couldn’t think of anything.

Strangely, however, I missed it during the brief absence. Even though I will often go over a week without writing anything, I felt like something was missing by the fact that I couldn’t write anything here even if I wanted to. In a certain way, this site and the handful of readers had become quite important to me. As someone who only sees his home for only a day or two per month, this site and the loyal readers provided a much needed permanency that my mobile lifestyle lacked.

This site was still collecting statistics during the downtime, and brought up some very interesting results. I typically get around 40-50 unique visitors per day, mostly in Canada, but there are some regular overseas readers as well. My referrers log showed that some of them were actually digging through my site using Google cache and the Wayback machine, salvaging posts that would otherwise have been lost. That dedication amazed me. In addition, I heard a great deal of protest at the idea of closing this down from family, friends, and strangers who find all this irrelevance somewhat relevant.

All that being said, I wouldn’t continue only because other people want me to; I would only continue if I want to myself. I haven’t fully decided.

I am satisfied with the content I’ve been able to put out thus far. A lot of other blogs are full of copy/paste work, teenage angst, and general nonsense. I’d like to think that IO is a little different.

Thanks to all my loyal readers thus far. We’ll see where things go from here.

Obviously, something is seriously wrong, since I’ve lost the last six months of posts and comments.

Update 8.22.2006: The good people at Blogger, responding quite promptly to my support e-mails, have rescued all my irrelevant opinions thus far.

After strenuous weeks of tight deadlines followed by long, uncomfortable flights, it is getting increasingly frustrating to return to an empty home more uninviting and devoid of life than any of the foreign hotel rooms.

With all the difficulties going on in the world today, I thought it was time to be a bit nostalgic.

In October 2001, with tensions still high after the attacks in New York and Washington a month earlier, I was riding on Bus 97 towards Bayshore with one of my closest friends. We were both wearing Saudi “thobes” on the bus, and were likely under suspicion already. Regardless, I was in a good mood, and things were soon to become brighter.

While still in downtown, a familiar face walked on to the bus. At first, I didn’t recognize him, but then I recalled him as one of my close friends in my CEGEP days; I hadn’t seen him in at least two years, and seeing him in Ottawa after knowing him only in Montreal was quite a strange coincidence. His name was Jihad, he was of Lebanese origin. Jihad is a common name meaning “struggle”, but is often misinterpreted as an evil word in the traditional Western lexicon.

So when I realized who it was, I burst with enthusiasm, jumped out of my seat, and yelled out on the crowded bus, “JIHAD!!!”

It wasn’t until the next day that I realized that I must have freaked out dozens of terrified passengers with an open declaration of holy war.

I won’t be replying to e-mails or checking my voicemail for the next five weeks, so if you don’t hear from me, it’s nothing personal.

Needless to say, there won’t be anything new at Irrelevant Opinions either until sometime at the end of May or June perhaps.

The Calvin and Hobbes comic at the bottom of the page will continue to be updated daily, though!

Have a great summer, everyone!

Wa salam,
Faraz

I was awoken just before 3:00am by the phone ringing. The caller was apparently from England, and had discovered my resumé on-line and was interested in meeting me for an interview. I rudely informed the caller that my only job at 3:00am was to sleep, and that’s what I was going to do. I hung up.

A minute later, the Englishman called back, claiming that there was some confusion. He listed my particular business qualifications they were interested in learning more about. Something was very fishy, and finally I realized in my half-awake state that I was the victim of yet another prank call. Llama and Polar Bear again, still smoking too much shisha in an Arab coffee shop in the middle of the night.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t sleep after that. I was up from 3:00am until the time I had to leave for work. This itself didn’t bother me that much; what bothered me was the fact that I had to go to a meeting at my downtown office in a very sleepy state. I hadn’t fallen asleep in a meeting for about 5 months, though I had developed a somewhat notorious reputation for falling asleep in meetings when I worked downtown.

But I couldn’t keep awake, and those same people who saw me sleeping in 3:00pm conference calls back in October and November saw me dozing off again. They must suspect that I can never stay awake in meetings, which isn’t the case anymore. I’ve all but overcome the meeting-sleepiness problems, but the prank callers caught me on the worst day for sending me to work on three-hours sleep.

I know who they are. I know their phone numbers. I know where they live. I know their parents’ phone numbers back home in Toronto. Thus, I request my loyal readers to offer suggestions as to how I can get back at this devious duo.

aswrwb!!!

sowwy i havent posted in so long!! but i’m vrey happy now as you can see!!!!

omg googel finally reelased google romance!! i am like so happy ad now giggly lolzz!!1111one

and scicents are making dragonz!!!!!!! that is so coool??? yay???

OMG!!!! im so happy rofll!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111111111

ws!!

“Cause it was happy and I was sad, and it made me miss you oh so bad…”
- Jewel (You Were Meant for Me)

It’s strange how easily I can write for this blog, even when I am at a complete loss for words for any other writing I need to do. Last week, I stared blankly at my word processor for over 10 hours across four days, trying to come up with something meaningful for the March issue of Muslim Link. I couldn’t. I wrote a few lines here and there, but nothing that stood out as something I was willing to have published.

Muslim Link prints over 10,000 copies per month and is distributed in three cities, so anything I write there has a fairly sizable audience. Normally, I don’t worry about audiences, but somehow I could not do it this time. The weight of my writers block was too much, and thus, I scrapped everything I had written and gave up.

The title “Irrelevant Opinions” works because it reminds me that I’m writing for myself. Whether I have an audience or not is irrelevant. Occasionally, I will write something that no one will understand, or at least, only a few will be able to interpret the meaning. And as far as I’m concerned, that’s perfectly fine. A friend once suggested an 80/20 split on the generality of writing: 80% should be easily understood by everyone, while 20% could be reserved for a “niche” audience. Often, I will go for the opposite, that 80% of my meaning will be for myself and a handful of others who might understand the background, while just 20% can be understood at face value. And I will continue doing this, lest I start worrying about the lowest common denominator.

Bill Watterson, the author of Calvin and Hobbes, refused to license his characters or his work for fear that it would become impersonal. Even though he had an audience of over 2,400 newspapers worldwide, he always insisted that he was writing the comics only for himself and his wife. That kept the characters honest and entertaining, as the comics kept a strong personal voice until the very last strip was published. He put everything he had into it, rather than sell out and run a massive media empire as Jim Davis has done with Garfield. And we all know how funny Garfield has been for the last 15 years.

Perhaps this is why the short film “More” meant so much to me. Last week, I came across this six-minute animated short that was nominated for an Academy Award. The movie is available on-line for anyone interested; Quicktime is required to view it. I’ve developed a number of different interpretations of this, and am interested to see how others view it.