Courtesy: Hugh Macleod, Gaping Void.com

If you are looking for some inspiration and are out of resources, subscribing to Hugh Macleod’s Gaping Void cartoons is a good place to start again. His cartoons, more often than not, hit hard the spots they need to hit.

His J.K.Rowling type of story definitely inspires, as do his daily thought-cartoons (above) and his book: Ignore Everybody.

Sometimes it’s all you need to get that kick you need.

The essence of his new book called  Evil Plans: Having Fun on the Road to World Domination is best summarised by the editorial review on Amazon: “Freud once said that in order to be truly happy people need two things: the capacity to work and the capacity to love. Evil Plans is about being able to do both at the same time. The sometimes unfortunate side effect is that others will hate you for it. MacLeod’s insights are brash, wise, and often funny. “

Another book to add to my “must read” list.

Stay connected for something soon.

So I haven’t written in almost 4 months. Disgraceful, I know. No good excuse really. Anyway, I was sent something recently that did make me want to take the effort to write; perhaps posting this information nugget will spur the desire to shake awake this blog again…I dunno. Anyhoo.

3 Indian boys have decided to take some time off to travel every state of India: 16,000 km in 18 days; according to the Limca Book of Records, this has been done in 19 days, 23 hours — the guys plan to beat this.

It’s not often that you read about Indians taking time off to undertake traveling feats. When I was sent a message by the boys themselves, it was such a refreshing read that it got me quite excited for them. I’m a slow traveler, so am not envious of them traveling through 28 states in 18 days (they’re not going to see anything!) — but hey, it sounds like a fun time-challenge that will certainly test their limits in numerous ways. They will learn a tremendous lot about themselves as well as about the roads in our Bharat mahan, and they may even become new record holders.

You can read more about their trip here on their blog that will be updated regularly from their journey that begins on June 16; you can also follow them on Facebook.

They also seem to have done some cool stuff in the past. Ummm…not quite sure what, but they have some awesome pics from whatever they’ve done that you can look at here.

Good luck, guys!

On a separate though relevant note,  a site worth checking out if you want to backpack around India: oktatabyebye.

In the meantime I’m leaving you with a liberating quote. Found it on Facebook;  Googled it, didn’t find it anywhere so no information on the who’s and when’s.

It’s in Spanish and translates to: “Life protects those who decide to be free.”

I’ve known Richard for over 10 years now; we went to university together.

He was a big-talker, and not a good singer (sorry Rich, but this line is key to the story). I remember listening to him sing at uni and thinking, oh dear, someone please tell him that singing isn’t his thing — maybe he should just pursue playing the guitar, or playing golf, that’s where he has scope.  But, crushing someone’s passionate ambition is the most horrible thing you can do to a person. He wasn’t as bad as the crackpots on American Idol. He’ll figure it out, I thought.

And he did. He knew what he wanted and kept at it; nothing could stop him. Belief in himself and sheer desire to write songs and sing, today has lead him to have two bands, regular gigs at public live-music nights, and a recent appearance on Dubai One TV (which you can watch here). He sounds fantastic. The song you will hear is one written and composed by him, and very him indeed. And I love it.

If you like what you hear, you can often catch him at Peanut Butter Jam on Friday Nights (at Wafi).

Lesson: Any talent can be nurtured. All you need is the desire and discipline.

After at least 5 years of pain (and procrastination), today I finally got two wisdom teeth taken out. Knowing that I was going to do it this week, made my week go quite bad. The thought of it gave me nausea and I didn’t have much of an appetite.The internet lead me to read many good but many more bad stories. I instantly bonded with people on twitter.com/oralordeal and, if nothing else, didn’t feel alone. And the number of YouTube videos!? Jeez. Didn’t have the courage to watch any of them. Why would you even put that on YouTube.

But I was really worrying for nothing! My fantastic dentist (Dr Sangram Singh at Canadian Specialist Clinic) pulled them out in 6 minutes flat. I kept my eyes closed the whole time. The only pain I felt was in the beginning when he was numbing my mouth with the injections; and when I saw the cotton gauze full of blood, I felt a little giddy – perhaps because that’s when you realize that a tooth has been yanked out that’s why you are bleeding. As you can see in the picture (sorry if I grossed anyone out), I had large wisdom teeth. But it’s not like they were giving me any wisdom. Why do we even grow things that are not useful? Like fingernails, or earlobes.

As I write this, the right side of my face is still numb. It’s a weird sensation. I can’t speak properly, my mother is finding it very entertaining. Eating ice-cream with a half numb mouth isn’t quite as enjoyable either. I’m told that once the local anesthesia wares off and the pain kicks in, that’s when I will be cursing. But, I’ve taken the medication, so hopefully it won’t be excruciating.

Anyway, I’m glad it’s over and I have a weekend to recuperate at my parents house with loads of TLC and ice-cream.

Yes, I will be putting them under the pillow for the tooth fairy!

Fantastic photos by Dubai based photographer, Alisdair Miller. More at the HuffingtonPost. (Via my bro)

I’ve had a tough and eventful year. Moving back to Dubai after almost 3 years in Spain was one of the hardest things I have done. Never do I remember being so depressed; it lasted for at least 6 months after I got back. Survived that, thanks to a crazy work schedule that kept me occupied, and family support.

Then, I decided to jet to Ecuador for a break and ever since I’ve been back, things have only been getting brighter. Highlights include: Moving to my own pad in the most happening address in Dubai, meeting (ok, standing next to) Amitabh Bachchan, attending TEDxDubai that was a kick of much needed inspiration, working on the launch of the Burj Dubai (Jan, 4), eating over 500 cupcakes, and meeting some fabulous new people. Really cannot complain.

Today I woke up at the crack of dawn and went up the Burj Dubai to get shots of the sunrise from the tower. What a spectacular way to bring in the new year — here’s a picture from the balcony on floor 124.

So, I’m happy to say that I feel really grateful for everything and am looking forward to this year. Lots to do, lots to learn, lots to travel, lots to live.

A few of my resolutions include: learning something new (tango, Arabic, photography, or guitar), writing lots more (especially here), and vlogging.

To those few who read here, thanks for your encouragement and I hope you stay tuned.

I wish you and yours a wonderful 2010. Live it up!

Honestly, I am not at all star-struck, never have been. But, when I saw Amitabh Bachchan get onto the carpet I was like a little child overwhelmed and excited by the tangible presence of one of the most saught after stars on this planet. At 67, he looks great and sounds even greater.

I was right up the front of the celebrity carpet where I was put to take a picture of every talent and upload to Twitter instantly. Amitabh Bachchan was the first celeb to arrive and the next thing I hear is “Abha, please walk Mr. Bachchan down the red carpet.”

WHAT!? ME? OKkkk! Omg. So awesome.

I stood next to him on the red carpet for atleast 15-minutes. Neither did he look at me, nor did he acknowledge my presence. I did give him the occassional poke when his publicist was pushing me to get him to move quicker through the media (very uncool), but those pokes were conveniently ignored. Obviously. I’m lucky he didn’t growl. Anyway, it was still awesome. I’ve grown up admiring Amitabh Bachchan; being physically next to him was surreal and just simply cool.

I have no proof or tangible evidence of this little event other than this ridiculous picture of the back of our heads.

I frantically searched online to see if SOMETHING was there that put me in the same frame has AB, only to find a video of him at the red carpet with, again, the back of my head. Argh.

It’s ok. It’s all in my head.

The second best highlight for me at the festival was being able to watch the world premiere of the first Emarati feature film on Dubai – “City of Life”. Excellent film about many realities of this city that are not often talked about. I will surely review it soon.

The Dubai Film Festival is on till December 16, so if you haven’t checked it out yet, do give it a look — some really cool films are playing.

Just when I was thinking of giving up meat and becoming a fishitarian (for no real reason but experiment), this simple meal told me that was out of the question.

Anyway, not much else really. The next two weeks are quite busy at work with DIFF and the Dubai Motor Show (so much for holiday season!), but I do want to push myself to write some substance on here, I miss writing. I feel a little restricted writing openly here for silly reasons such as urrrr.. it’s Dubai, it’s small, I don’t want people I work with and for to read my personal noise, and other rubbish like that that I need to get over. I’m also suffering from the subconscious resistance to turning 30 soon (HOLY F***), but more on that later. In the meantime, please bear with the odd beef post.

P.S: Strawberries and ice-cream for dessert.