My 'Free' Gift to Myself (Only for Customers in Pakistan)

I am out of cash so I go to the ATM machine. I put my card in, punch in my secret code, and then the amount. The machine processes my request, spits out my card, and I hear that whirring sound that precludes the arrival of bank notes. I am expecting the cash to come out at any second, but, as KESC would have it, the electricity gets cut off, and the ATM machine shuts down. It goes completely dead.

So, there I am, standing with no cash, and an ATM machine with no power. I go into the bank, and find out that it is not a bank at all, just a convenient ATM nook in the busy market. A peon finally shows up and then disappears for another ten minutes to go turn on the generator. I wait for a while for the ATM machine to boot up, which it finally does after 15 minutes, and still no cash. I call up my bank and they tell me that the cash amount has been charged to my account. I assure them that I have not been paid, and they tell me to go sign a contest form at my bank's branch.

I go to my bank and sign that contest form. My bank tells me that since I was using an ATM of another bank, I would probably have to wait another 15-20 days for the cash to be reversed into my account.

I go home and order some books for myself from Amazon.com for the same amount that I just lost in the ATM machine. Amazon.com tells me that my books will be delivered within the next 15-20 days.

So, in the next 15-20 days, I will get my books, and also the money back that I used to pay for them, completing the illusion that I got the books for 'free.'

Note to all: This 'scam' can only work in Pakistan and is a product of our prestigious award system also known as load shedding.

Video Kills the Radio Star

Have you seen the big screen super LCD television screen that they have put up on Shahra-e-Faisal right in front of the Regent Plaza? Man it's bright! I would love to tell you what it was showing but I can't. I saw it last night only for a millisecond but then I had to look away because the brightness burnt my retinas, rendering me completely blind for the next few seconds. I am going to take a better look at it tonight, as I am going to be prepared wearing my extra-dark sunglasses.

The thing that I find extremely funny is that there is a strict ban being especially enforced on Shahra-e-Faisal, where cops give you a ticket for talking on your cell phones while driving your car. But apparently watching big screen television while driving poses no real threat and its a-okay.

I think the RJs have finally found their match.

Radio Ga Ga

A lot has changed in Karachi over the past ten or eleven years, but the two things that have really changed a lot are cell phones and FM radio. I remember that a up until a few years ago there was only 1 FM channel, FM100, bidding Asalamwalikum to Pakistan (Karachi, Lahore, Izzlamabad), and cell phones were big and rare. Cell phones used to be a status symbol rather than a necessity that they have become today. Only the rich (because the phones and their services were so expensive) and the muscular (because the cell phones were so big that they required their own carrying cases) could afford (and carry) cell phones. This was the time when people would pretend to talk on fake cell phones in their cars to show off that they were rich (and strong) enough to own a cell phone. Things have changed now because there are way too many people with way too many cell phones and also mostly because people now avoid talking on the phone while in their cars because it is very much likely that if you are seen using your cell phone in public, someone is going to come up to your car, tap his gun on your window, and make with your cell phone.

There are also way too many FM radio channels broadcasting way too many advertisements being played by way too many idiotic radio jockeys, many of whom sound not only like they have just flown into the radio station straight from Toronto but also that they spent all their lives there fraternizing with gangster rappers. They have these weird accents, a weirder lingo, and can absolutely talk some real trash. For instance, have you noticed how these RJs suddenly become experts at giving relationship, political, environmental, health etc advice as soon as they start blabbering in front of their microphones? Of course, I am not talking about ALL the RJs on the many FM radio stations; I actually happen to even like some of them when they are not actually talking and are more concerned with just playing songs. The worse of these creatures are those full of bubbly excitement and high-pitched crackling voices who think that the radio airwave is their own private teenage high school pajama party. These are the ones who have given me such ‘expert’ advice on how to live a happier life by waking up at 6:00am on a Sunday morning and opening up my curtains to ‘embrace’ the rising sun; how to get into the ‘weekend party mood’ by listening to trance songs during lunch time on Thursday afternoons; how to make my girlfriend love me by giving her flowers, cakes, chocolates, balloons, and teddy bears, all ordered through the TCS Sentimental Express; and of course, how to win back my girlfriend who already loved me but is now leaving me because I sent a pink courier truck to her house.

Having a cell phone handy has also affected my life in many ways. I remember when I was in my A-Level’s and our class had to arrange a picnic on a Sunday, all the plans had to be finalized by Friday afternoon. Everyone had to know exactly where to be at exactly the right time and exactly who all was to bring the food, chips, beach ball, etc a day before the actual event because no one had cell phones and last minute plans were unheard of. Boys and girls had a very hard time talking on the phone because many of the girls had strictly forbidden the boys to call them at their home numbers and most of the talking took place at night when the parents were asleep. People used to spend a lot of stressful times in restaurants thinking up until the second that their significant others showed up whether they were going to show up at all or if they had come to the wrong restaurant at the wrong time. Some of the most embarrassing of times were when you returned home late to find that your mom has been calling ALL your friends’ moms in trying to find out where you have been all night. Things were very different and analogue then. The kids of today would probably wonder how anything ever got done without cell phones, but they did; everything did get done. We were all still able to find each other in this same big city, and we were all able to pull off all kinds of plans.

Cell phones have come and changed everything. I seriously think that cell phones have worked to make us even more stupid as a human race than we were before. Now, no one is quite sure of what ‘the scene’ is until the last minute. We leave our homes to go to a party without even knowing where we are headed, thinking that we will call on the way and figure out where we have to go. We hardly ever know anyone else’s phone number as we are so used to dialing ‘names’ instead of ‘numbers.’ Many people have become so stupid that they don’t even know their own cell phone numbers and they have to refer to their saved number on their phones to tell you what their number is. Radio jockeys can now read every little thought that comes into their audiences’ minds through the SMS’ that they receive in between all the advertisements, promos, and time checks, and I find it a miracle that they are still able to squeeze in half a song every hour (which of course is interrupted midway by a time-check). I think that time-checks are the worst. They very rudely interrupt songs (especially if it’s a song that you love and have been waiting to hear on the radio for the past hour that you have been stuck in traffic talking to your girlfriend on the speakerphone trying to explain to her why there is a pink truck with flowers on it standing in front of her house) to tell you what time it is (even though you know perfectly well what time it is) and they never continue or replay the song after the stupid time-check is over. We ALL have watches on our wrists, clocks in our cars or in our cell phones. We DON’T need the radio stations telling us every fifteen minutes what time it is. And we definitely don’t need idiotic RJs telling us what to do and how to live our lives. In the same vein as cell phones making us stupid, I think the longer that you are an RJ, the more stupid you become as well. Why do I say that? Consider the words that I heard come out the radio while driving home last night:

‘Oh my god! My peeps! Holla and welcome back to ‘The Drive Back Home Show,’ the deliciously dandy show that is especially designed for all you exec-type-peepals driving back home after a hard day’s work at the office! What’s up my dawgs?! Yo, yo, yo, so keep tuned in da house for some latest tips on how to score buttons by trading in your beetens (whatever the hell that meant). For all our fabulous listeners out there listening to our fabulous show and driving their fabulous bums back home, today’s topic is about driver safety while driving your car. First things first my hommies: do not use your cell phones while driving your cars. It is extremely distracting and dangerous and many accidents have been caused because of distracted drivers who were too busy talking on their cell phones while driving their cars. So, all of you driving home back from work right now, do let us know what your thoughts are on this topic. Use those cell phones and call us at blah blah blah, or SMS us at blah blah blah, blah blah blah, blah blah blah.’

I rest my case.

From YouTube Till Telecom

So, that didn’t last long, this ban on YouTube. The funniest thing about this was how the Pakistani software engineers were able to mess up YouTube globally without even knowing what they were doing or what their actions might have beget. You might well imagine the surprise those people up there at YouTube must have got when they saw that some Telecom guy from Pakistan had ended up bringing the site down without even knowing what he was actually doing. What that one Pakistani was able to pull off was something that no other hacker had even thought about doing. It was by sheer stupidity and dumb luck of the blonde (who in this case turns out to be a Pakistani brunette, a man, and not just dumb but completely deaf, blind, armless, legless, and bald as well) that the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority was able to bring YouTube down globally for a few hours. I am not sure of the technical details of how he were able to do that but some of my developer friends have told me that this kind of a cyber attack is unheard of simply because it is unthinkable that someone would even try this kind of a hijack. You ever hear of that saying about grabbing your nose in different ways, where you can either grab the nose simply by pinching it with your right arm in front of your face or you can pinch it by taking your right arm, twisting it around from the back of your head and holding your nose from the left side of your face? Basically, this means that there is a simple way of doing things and a roundabout way, which no one really does because it is just too awkward. In this case, Pakistan Telecom did the awkward part, holding the nose from the wrong side, only this time, instead of the nose they got the kidney.