The reality of reality television

If you watch television on almost any weeknight, you will mostly likely come across one or more reality television shows. In-fact the highest rated television show right now is American Idol, which averages over 31 million viewers per episode. It seems these days, the major networks will produce any type of reality show in an effort to attract viewers. The latest craze is with game shows.

Two new game shows have attracted my attention, Deal or No Deal and Are You Smarter than Fifth Grader? I think these shows have reached a new low in reality television. Both shows have super perky, hyper, annoying contestants. In the show, Deal or No Deal, the whole concept of eliminating numbers to get the million dollar briefcase is based solely on luck and requires little intelligence. Even more annoying are the contestants family members trying to assist the contestant, I just wish they would shut up.

I cannot believe the lack of intelligence of the contestants on Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader? One contestant was not sure what country neighbored the United States to the north (sigh). The most annoying part of the show are the contestants high-fiving the kids who help them answer the questions ... it just aint kool.

I remember the good old days of television, bring back the Fresh Prince of Bel-air, Growing Pains, Cosby Show, Family Feud, and Seinfeld. Those were good quality television shows ... ahh those were good times, I must be getting old ;-)

The office

One of my favorite all-time movies is the Office Space, a story about the day-to-day lives of office employees. Many issues common to office workplaces are discussed and explored. Recently, a comedic series called The Office staring Steve Carell, (who is brilliant in the show) also discusses the office politics of employees. My office environment is fairly tamed compared to the afore mentioned television show and movie, however, recently I came across an office-space like situation that I want to vent about.

Every office has printers that employees use to print documents. Most often employees abuse these resources. The frustrating part of this misuse is the impact on our environment. We waste so much paper on a daily basis. I have witnessed people printing most of their e-mails frequently. My biggest caveat is the printing of unnecessary colour documents. A single colour document can cost an average of $1.00 per paper. Last week, I went into the printer room to pickup my colour print job and had to wait till someone elses 30 slide PowerPoint presentation finished printing. After realizing the print job would take another 10 minutes, I left the printer room in disgust. I went back to my desk and started working again. This time, I struggled to get staples into my stapler ... arggg, just another day at work.

I could not find a "clean" The Office/Office space moment to relate to my blog post, sooooo here is a random video from The Office.

The next Y2K

The US government decided in 2005 to change the beginning and end of daylight savings time. The following changes occurred:

• Previous start: first Sunday of April (1 Apr. 2007)
• New start: second Sunday of March (11 Mar. 2007)
• Previous end: last Sunday of October (28 Oct. 2007)
• New end: first Sunday of November (4 Nov. 2007)

Since the Canadian economy is heavily dependent upon the US economy, our government has also decided to follow suit on these changes. The rationale behind these changes is increased energy savings, due to greater sunlight during the day. I have discussed the rationale behind daylight savings time in a previous post.

These new start dates will catch most people and businesses by surprise. Especially, in the business world, many IT systems may have the incorrect date for three weeks.

This issue is similar to the computer problem encountered during the turn of the century, known as the Y2K bug. People were afraid that computer systems would not process dates correctly after January 1st, 2000. Fortunately, there were only minor issues reported. However, the business world at that time took advantage of the panic of consumers to cash-in. This time, there has not been much awareness made about the daylight savings time change and I expect there will be disruptions to many services. For those people who are responsible for IT systems, I recommend you take your vacation during the week of March 11th ;-).

Hockey night in Pittsburgh

I spent the last week in Pittsburgh, PA, a city situated at the crossing of three rivers (Allegheny River, Monongahela River, Ohio River), headquarters to Heinz corporation, and the hottest team in the NHL; Pittsburgh Penguins. The latter, which I was able to witness first-hand.

I took the advice of the hotel concierge to avoid purchasing tickets online and try to purchase them before the start of the game through scalpers instead. This strategy seemed to backfire as I did not see any scalpers. As I started my reluctant walk back to the hotel, I walked by a person trying to sell his ticket desperately. I purchased the ticket for a double-digit amount ($30 below the box-office price). I sat six rows from the ice. A seat that costs over $400 for a Toronto Maple Leafs game at the Air Canada center.

The game was full value for the ticket price, where the Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Chicago BlackHawks 5-4 in a shootout. The winning shootout goal was scored by Evgeni Malkin. The Pittsburgh Penguins are the most exciting team in the NHL, with talents such as Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Jordan Staal, and Marc-Andre Fleury. They are reminiscent of the 1980 Edmonton Oilers, a team consisting of many talented players such as Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier, Jarri Kurri and Grant Fuhr. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, but was able to take some photos with my cell-phone.



I would not mind going to see another game in Pittsburgh ... it is only a five and half hours drive from Toronto.

Technology overload

I remember in 1999 when I created my first email address. It was not something that I was pressured into doing, nor was it popular at the time. As years passed, everyone I know has created an email address or two and checks them frequently throughout the day. Email has become the preferred way of communication at school or work. It has become so prevalent that the good old fashion phone call or face-to-face meeting is becoming less popular. Obviously, phone calls and face-to-face meeting still have their place, but aren't we using email more than we should?

How many times have you exchanged an email with a group of people attempting to resolve an issue, where each person responds with a short comment? If someone had picked up the phone and called the person directly involved, the situation would be resolved quicker.

At work, I am usually surprised when I get a voicemail or if someone calls me because it happens so infrequently. I rarely check voicemail either, I wonder if I should create a more interesting voicemail message, probably something as funny as George's voicemail from Seinfeld.

George's Answering Machine: "Believe it or not, George, isn't at home, please leave a mes-saaage at the beep. I must be out or I'd pick up the pho-one. Where could I be? Believe it or not, I'm not hooome.

I wonder what would be George's out-of-office reply or vacation response, the email equivalent of voicemail.

The opportunity

If there was one word that I could use to describe my Hajj experience, it would be patience.

patience pat-ience noun

The capacity of enduring hardship or inconvenience without complaint.

In-fact, the Arabs even have a hand gesture to represent the word, which people in North America may confuse with the "how much you want" hand gesture.



The Hajj patience was a quality that I lacked. I would complain about many things. When the food is not on time, the bus arrives late, air conditioning is too high, or heating is not high enough. However, I quickly learned that if I wanted to complete Hajj that I would need to develop the Hajj patience. So, what is the Hajj patience? well, consider the following:

• In the apartments we stayed, the water would finish every two hours and the elevators did not work most of the time, so I always had to take the stairs to my 6th floor.
• The government buses that transported pilgrims from Jeddah to Mecca, and Mecca to Medina would take at least five times the time it normally takes.
• Our flight to and from Jeddah end-to-end took one day and a half.

I hope these incidents do not discourage one from going to Hajj because everyone will face trials. For each trail, you need the Hajj patience and understand the ultimate goal that you are there to do, which is completing the rituals of Hajj in a safe-manner.

There was one moment in my trip that stood out for me. I was sitting at the harem in Mecca waiting for the prayer to start. I greeted an elderly man sitting next to me and started a conversation (conversation actually occurred in Urdu).

Ozair: Is this your first Hajj?
Elderly man: Yes
Ozair: Did you come with your family?
Elderly man: Nope, my kids could only afford to send me. I have been awaiting my chance to go for Hajj
Ozair: Why?
Elderly man: In Pakistan, pilgrims wishing to perform Hajj are put into a lottery system, where names are drawn to select the people who will go.
Ozair: Oh wow, so Allah has invited you to his house this year.
Elderly man: Yes (man started to cry)

At that moment, I realized that Hajj is not only a trial, but an opportunity to have the chance to pray at the most sacred place for Muslims. This man waited patiently his whole life for this opportunity, I was fortunate enough to go the first year that I made the intention. I just hope that all Muslims, around the world have the opportunity that I did.

Are you Canadian?

As of January 23rd, 2007, Canadians are now required to have a passport to travel to the United States and vice versa. Canadians have been rushing to the passport office to get their passports, some even getting them for the first time. Unfortunately, those first-timers have learned that due to an obscure provision in the Citizenship act that states, if you lived outside Canada on your 24th birthday between 1947 and 1977 and did not fill the right form, you lost your citizenship.

For the complete article, click here.

I hope these "Canadians" do not feel any less Canadian, but what does it really mean to be Canadian? Canadians really do not have a "got to eat meal" like other places around the world, unless you count Tim Hortons. I wonder not having a "got to eat meal" is substituted by having a collection of "got to eat meals" from around the world, due to our multiculturalism, which I believe is what makes Canada stand out from the rest of the countries. Anyways, not sure if any of what I wrote made sense, but there is something Canadian I will be enjoying tonight, which is the NHL All-star game. It will feature the best player in the game (arguments will be accepted), Mr. Sidney Crosby, let's hope he puts on a show.

An experience of a lifetime

By the grace of God, I just had the fortunate opportunity to perform the holy pilgrimage, also know as Hajj. Hajj is one of the 5 pillars of Islam and is the requirement of every healthy Muslim who can afford it. Unlike, some of the other trips that I have taken this year, Hajj is no vacation. It consists of a series of trials; from rituals, overwhelming crowds, to government complexities. However, there are no words that can describe the feeling of being able to pray in the sacred places (haraam) of Makkah and Medina and performing the pilgrimage.

Makkah is a situated on a valley between mountains. In the center of Makkah is the Kaabah, God’s house, where all Muslims around the world face for prayers. It is estimated that close to 1 million people can pray in this mosque. One of the largest challenges of the pilgrimage is dealing with the crowds. Makkah is a city that never sleeps, people roaming the streets at any time during the day, you can think of it as daytime New York City without subway systems.

This pilgrimage saw the largest crowd ever; most people estimate the attendance between 3-4 million. The majority of pilgrims are from Indonesia, Pakistan, India, and Turkey. There are usually 1.6 million visa’s issued to international visitors; however, many locals attend every year too. This year saw the most important day of Hajj – Arafat occurring on Friday (jumaah) – the holiest day of the week, and deemed even more sacred. It is also known as Hajj Akbar.

To give you an idea of how crowded it was during the pilgrimage, consider the following:

• I am doing tawaaf (circling of the kabaa) and it is time for prayer. However, it is physically impossible to pray because there are too many people that you cannot perform the actions of prayer.
• To get a spot to pray inside the haraam in Makkah, you need to arrive 1-2 hours in advance. For Jumaah, you need to arrive 3 hours early.

For each trial that you encounter during Hajj, there are those golden moments that you will never forget:

• A father and son are changing into their ihram (clothing to be wore during Hajj) and the son drops his ihram into a puddle of water. The father takes his son’s ihram and wears it, giving his dry ihram to his son.
• A blind man performing tawaaf
• A man walking to stone the pillars representing Satan with both his legs amputated.

Hajj is one of the mostrewarding and challenging experiences of my life. Now that I am home and have had a chance to reflect, I can fully appreciate the tasks that I completed and the gratefulness of being able to arrive back safely. It has been an uplifting spiritual experience and hope to continue this momentum for the rest of my life. I hope to give some further insight into my experience in upcoming posts.

Blogging timeout

I will be officially taking a break from blogging for 2006. I will be away starting this week and will not return untill the new year. Hope everyone enjoys the holidays they will be getting, either from school, work, or leaving for a vacation. I will have lots to say once I return, hopefully, that "lots to say" can translate into blog posts.

On the GO

A few weeks ago, I used the GO Train to commute into downtown Toronto. I had a few observations about the people and their habits when riding the GO.

• The experienced GO train drivers know exactly where the train stops so that they are directly positioned in front of the door when it arrives.
• The cooler or younger people always sit in the upstairs area of the train. It reminds of taking the school bus in elementary school, where all the cool kids (like me ;-)) would sit in the back of the bus and the not-so-cool kids would sit in the front. Interestingly, in China, everyone on the bus sat in the front of the bus.
  
• There are the regular GO train riders who talk throughout the ride about every single occurrence of their day. Taking away from other riders any opportunity to get a quick nap or read a book.

Throughout all these observations, I do miss working downtown and not having to drive to work. I would take the GO train if it was possible for me. I do not like commuting at all, but I wonder if I did not have to drive, perhaps I could build some liking to commuting and even form my own GO train clique.

Beijing

This year has probably been one of my most blessed years. I have been given the opportunity to travel to many great places in this world. I will now add Beijing, China to that list. I just spent a little over a week in Beijing, China, where I had a chance to visit many unique places, meet interesting people, and learn about Chinese life and culture. I planned on blogging in Beijing, but the higher-ups at the Chinese government decided to censor my blog, in-fact no blogs on blogspot were accessible. I have lots to talk about on my journey to Beijing, and will not mention it all in this post. So, watch out in the near future for posts on Bargaining in China, Muslims in China, and Driving in China. In the meantime, I shall leave you with my pictures and some interesting happenings during my trip.

• Visited Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City or Palace Museum, Temple of heaven, Great Wall of China, and the Niujie mosque. Check out my pictures here.
• My tour guide got a call from the Chinese government congratulating him on being single … LOL
• Spitting is quite common with the locals.
• The cars have the right-of-way in China, not legally, but if you want to survive.
• Visited the Nuijie mosque, a blend of Islamic and Chinese traditions. It was built in 996 AD. Beijing is home to 250,000 Muslims, most of them living in the area near this mosque.
• Bargaining is quite common in China. The sales people will do anything to get your attention. For example, “Hello sir, you are quite handsome”, “Here, loookay, loookay”.
• Chinese people thought I was from India and were impressed that my English was so good.

What's in a name?

I was looking through some documents a few days ago and came across an interesting letter written by my dad. Here is a snippet:

Ontario Registrar Office

I would like to change my son's name from Ayyaz Sheikh to Ozair Sheikh
...

Sincerely

[my Dad's name]

I was shocked to learn that my parents had initially named me Ayyaz instead of Ozair. My dad wrote the letter to the Ontario Registrar Office to make this amendment. I took the letter to my mom and asked for an explanation. She confirmed the story and said that my grandparents actually preferred Ozair rather than Ayyaz. I was interested by this finding and queried my parents to the thought process that was occurring at that time. It was interesting to hear the other possible names that were being thrown around:

• Waheed
• Sarmad

I cannot picture myself with any of these names. There are people you probably come across in your life and concluded that so and so "looks like a Mohammad" or "acts like an Ahmed" without any reason.

If I had not been named Ozair than I would have lost out on my potential nicknames such as:

• Oz (My official Western name)
• Jose (My official American name)
  
• Ozwald (Unofficial name used by my high school friends)
  

and then there are the many times where my name has been mispronounced:

• Hozair
• Ozaaar
• Ogar (z looked like a g)
  

What's in a name ... there is a lot to a name, an entire life of nicknames, misinterpretations, and being called out to accept prizes, the latter which I am still waiting for ;-)

Sleepover at 24 Sussex Drive

Check out this snippet of Rick Mercer's sleepover at the Prime ministers house. Very entertaining! You can check out the full video here.

To read or not able to read

The avid reader of my blog should have noticed the addition of several new columns. Since high school, I have not read many novels. In-fact, I am not alone, most youth growing up today rather use the Internet, play video games, and watch television rather than read a book.

In my elementary schools days, I was an avid reader. In school, we had a program called book-it that rewarded kids who attained their reading goals. In high school, I worked part-time at Chapters and was allowed to borrow books from the store. During university, the only books I ever read were on Calculus, Economics, and Java. Hopefully, I can rejuvenate this reading passion with my current novel.

It has been a while since I have related a blog post to Seinfeld, so I shall leave this post with a quote from the Seinfeld episode where Jerry is fined for a book he has not returned since high school and George revisits his embarrassing atomic wedgie.

Jerry: What's amazing to me about the library is it's a place where you go in and take out any book you want. They just give it to you and say bring it back when you're done. It reminds me of like this pathetic friend that everbody had when they were a little kid who would let you borrow any of his stuff if you would just be his friend. That's what the library is. A government funded pathetic friend. And that's why everybody kind of bullies the library. I'll bring it back on time ... I'll bring it back late .... Oh, what are you going to do? Charge me a nickel?

*Nerd Alert* You got too much mail

It has been a while since I have “geeked” up this blog with a techie entry. It is a challenge to make technology sound interesting. I remember growing up watching a science show by Bill Nye the Science Guy. He tried to make science “cool” and fascinating with his over the top enthusiasm. At the other end of the spectrum you have that nerdy guy from the Simpsons, who is funny only because his geekdom is out of control. Hopefully, my techie entry will be somewhat in the middle.

Today, I will talk about E-mail spam. It is estimated that almost 80-85% of all emails sent in a day are spam. It is a common nuisance that bothers anyone who uses email. All email servers use spam filters, which block the majority of spam from entering into your inbox. Recently, I have been receiving more spam email, which the spam filters have been unable to block. All these emails center on a common theme of advertising “penny stocks”. The Penny stock emails bypass spam filters because information is contained within an image and most spam filters look for common key words in text.

The spammers goal is to use a fraudalant scheme called "pump and dump". They advertise these penny stocks in hope they will get people to purchase these stocks. The artificial demand drives the stock price up. Once the spammers see this rise, they will sell the stock and profit and when the market corrects itself on the true value of the stock, the penny stock investors will lose out.

Hopefully, no one has been coerced into purchasing a penny stock. As the old adage goes, if it is too good to be true, than it probably is.

Belated Eid Mubarak

A belated Eid Mubarak to everyone.

I am still accepting Eid ul-Fitr hugs up until Eid ul-Adha, but please no Eid hugs in public places. People unaware of the "triple-hug and handshake" dance step will likely raise an eye brow.

1. 
2. 
3. 
4. Shaking Hands

Ramadan Happenings

Tis the season of Ramadan and I have been collecting my thoughts for this month.

This Ramadan, Suhoor is later in the morning than past years, and I rarely get enough sleep because Tarawih ends late at night. There are always eventful happening at Tarawih as documented by Ali’s antics. Last week, after prayers finished, a man asked me where I went to groom my beard. After realizing the seriousness of the question, I responded that I shave and trim my beard myself. The man left and so did the awkwardness. However, I did feel flattered by the question. I work hard at grooming my beard and finally someone has noticed :)

Last week, I was in Dallas, Texas, where I went to Irving Mosque for Iftar and Tarawih. Irving Mosque is the largest mosque that I have seen in North America. The nicest perk about Tarawih at Irving mosque was the 4-rakaat tea break. People take a break for 10 minutes to get tea and rest. This idea is great; in-fact it should be extended to include more options such as: coffee, donuts, leftover iftar; the potential is endless.

Finally, I would like to end this post with a complaint. When praying you must stand shoulder to shoulder, when a spot opens up, a person must fill that spot. However, there are situations when there is no room and people are forcing themselves into a spot where they should not go. I always get volunteered to fit into a small spot and have to maneuver for positioning. It takes a prayer to re-establish my space, but then the "musical fill the spots" begin. Yes, I will fill the spots, but only if you give me acceptable space. Thank you.

Ramadan Mubarak

Ramadan Mubarak to everyone who will begin fasting today, tomorrow, or Monday. The yearly "which day should we start" Ramadan questions encounters us again. I just hope too much time is not spent arguing with each other about the starting day (the arguments repeat every year) and instead focus on the month ahead.

Interestingly, I wrote a post last Ramadan on my current state and not much has changed. You can read it here again.

Below is a summary:

I think most Muslims agree that they suffer from the y=-x^2 imaan problem. Let me illustrate this point with the following graph. If you recall your basic grade 12 Math, you should notice this graph is an upside down parabola. It describes my imaan problem.



The y-axis represents my imaan level, and the x-axis represents the months in the year starting from the month of Ramadan. The first point on this graph represents my faith level level right-before Ramadan. As I progress through Ramadan, my faith level increases quadratically, until it hits its maximum level at the center of the graph when Ramadan ends. After Ramadan, my imaan level drops back down until Ramadan occurs again in the following year.

Inshallah (God-willing), I will take advantage of this month, do the good stuff and keep it up for the rest of the year. Who knows maybe next year I will use a different graph to illustrate my imaan level.

UPDATE (9/23/2006): My imaan level graph remains unchanged this year.

Down under

Last week I had a unique opportunity to spend a week and a half on the other side of the world in Sydney, Australia. It was an exceptional experience in talking with local Aussies and seeing the sites of the city, especially the Sydney harbour, which is quite gorgeous.

There were quite a lot of touristy things I did and captured with my camera. You can check out my photos here. Also, instead of listing the places that I visited. You can check out my itinerary here.

The most interesting part of my trip is identifying the unique parts of Aussie life as compared to my life in Toronto, Canada. Below are my observations:

Aussie slang

• 'You have done well' is good job
• 'G Day mate' is hello
• 'No worries' is thank you
• The word bloke is used to refer to a guy and shelia is used for a girl

Restaraunt etiquette

• I tried ordering a medium coffee with cream and sugar and could not be understood. Aussies do not put cream in their coffee, instead they put milk and they call it a flat white.
• Restaurants are not pushy to have you leave once you are done eating. In-fact, most places you have to go to the cashier and pay.
• No need to tip servers, since they are generally paid well enough to make a decent living.

Misc

• The Australian currency system does not consist of pennies and listed prices already include the sales tax. The amount in cents is always a multiple of 5.
• The Matrix movie was filmed in Sydney.

Random

• David Suzuki was on my flight to Sydney. He is doing a book tour across Australia.
• I was surprised to hear that students from the Philippines and India in Australia had heard of the University of Waterloo and their strong reputation for Computer Science and Engineering.

Tourist Athlete

Last week I was fortunate enough to spend three days in Vancouver, BC and two days in Whistler, BC. These two cities without a doubt are the most beautiful places I have ever visited. It is good reason that these cities were chosen as the location for the 2010 Winter Olympic games. There is so much I could talk about, but will just mention some points briefly.

Good

Weather: I was fortunate enough that it did not rain at all during the week. The weather and air quality is amazing. Imagine a light fan following you around the city with a nice breeze, that is how I felt.

Scenery: Spectacular mountains as you enter the city and a gorgeous waterfront. I had the chance to take a ferry to Vancouver Island from Vancouver and toured around Victoria, BC.

Bad

Homeless people: Vancouver has a serious homeless problem. It is a lot more evident than Toronto. If you ever visit, avoid East Hasting street, people are openly doing drugs, although there is a police station across the street from them.

Real Estate: The most expensive place to live in Canada.

Random

As I waited for my ferry from Vancouver Island to Vancouver, I ran into a friend from Waterloo also on vacation with his family. Talk about small world and coincidence. I will leave it to my readers to guess that person.

Pictures

My panoramic pictures that I assembled (click on picture to view full image):

• View of Rocky Mountains half-way up Whistler mountain

• View of Rocky Mountains at top of Whistler mountain

• View of Rocky Mountains from Vancouver beach