A week of sickness

Posted on November 22, 2009 by umbreen

Been sick for almost a week. Aside would tossing and turning at night in fits of fever sweat and shivering sickness also means watching a lot of movies since I didn’t have much energy to see / do anything else. I don’t have malaria, but I tell you the P.dot virus is stronger than the Canadian kind because I haven’t been so sick in a long while.Here is a round up of the movies I watched:

Inglourious Basterds

So the thing I hate about Tarantino movies is his gratuitous violence (yes I know its Tarantino) and his apparent glee are showing women being violently brutalized. But ASIDE from that, I did like Inglourious Basterds. The mise en scene (thank you film studies 101) is beautiful and the plot line has choppy pacing that is great.Also, I’m not Jewish (obviously) but I can only image the deep rage Jews must feel (deep inside, festering, uncontrollable) about what the Nazi’s did to their people. (Kind of like what most people of Muslim heritage feel when they see hooded prisoners, secret jails etc.) So the end action of the movie offers a great cathartic relief, as if you spend two hours fighting with the past and for once you’ve won.According to Wikipedia, all the movie posters / websites had to be changed for Germany since all Nazi iconography is illegal to use. Did not know that…I’m not sure if that good, or bad because it offers and easy way to not have to deal with your own past.

Madagascar 1 & 2

I can’t stop talking about the penguins in Madagascar – they are too cute. As a result, I liked Madagascar 2 better since the penguins get more screen time. My favorite scene is when the penguins are negotiating ‘with the commie bastards’ the monkeys, who want maternity leave.

Madagascar Penguins

Harry Potter & The Half Blood Prince

I can’t believe Professor Dumbledore dies!!!By my surprise you would know that I didn’t read any of the potter books. They are tomes / tomes I tell you and I don’t have that kind of time or strength for fictional books. I think this episode was meh for the most part except – I do like that I could actually follow what was going on without getting super confused by the back story (i.e. who is the good guy, who’s the bad guy…) I am kindda getting sick of the whole ‘gosh darnnit – we 3 kids are always getting into trouble bit’ but I’m loving the sophisticated cinematography as the series progresses.

Marketing 360 gobbly gook

Posted on November 10, 2009 by umbreen

There is a very popular marketing forum in Pakistan called marketing 360. Someone told me to get on the list when I moved here because this was apparently where all the marketing peeps connected. Here is a recent post:” The telecom company you are talking about believes in Ethic-ism rather than Intellectualism and ethics are beyond logic & reasons but based on pure experiential wisdom in other words one can call it mannerism of relationships. In ethic-ism its always a real natural benefit and embed in society and culture. Intellectualism is finding the reason n logic and creating a benefit which might be natural or forced when its natural in essence it works like great wisdom but when forced it’s meaningless hence increases the failure rate.Both ways are fine but ethic-ism is more stable, natural and beneficial to the adopter. My experience says ethics sells more!Kindest Regards,Ali Mirza “Now, I have been known to invent words myself – but umn? ” Ethic-ism “ what with the “ism” dude. Maybe you mean Ethicism?Never mind that, he goes on to say… “ethics are beyond logic and reason” .. wha wha whaaaa? In a 5 word sentence he’s x-ed out a long history of moral philosophy that starts with Socrates – based on logic and reason.I can’t even understand what the rest of this mean means… “ethics are … based on pure experiential wisdom in other words one can call it mannerism of relationships”.What the hell is mannerism of relationships???Also, I hate to be nit-picky – but NOWHERE in the definition of “intellectualism” does it mean “finding the reason n logic and creating a benefit which might be natural or forced”. WHAT?!I think the scary part of this goobly gook is the utter defeat your feel – you can’t really argue with someone if they have no logic in their argument.

Pakistan Fashion Week

Posted on November 7, 2009 by umbreen

Went to the Friday night showing for the ‘First Annual Pakistan Fashion Week’. Okay, I will skip all the general commentary about contrasts in Pakistani society, conservative vs. extremely un-conservative…blah blah blah.The show was good.(Un-conservative: that’s going to be my new work for opposite of conservative given all the heavy meaning and language politics words can have.)Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take any “unauthorized” photographs (not that I would have anyways; way to look like a newbie) – so there isn’t much to post about.LOVED. This once girl (crowd) was wearing this lone vertically stripped poncho/long loose shirt off the shoulder type things. She also had a clutch in similar vertical stripes but thinner – which I LOVED. I was planning to pull a Sartorialist and be all like, I have a fashion blog can I photograph you? But the crowd after the show was insanely packed.Also loved the show for Sanam Chaudhry; it was full of flowing fabrics in amazingly vibrant colors. A lot of the peices were very vintage-y which I loved. Here collection was definitely very wear-able even if it wasn’t that innovative.I also really loved Maheen Hussain’s show which was basically scarfs and bags. I really loved the way she styles and showcased her products, and I the color combination were mouth watering-ly delicious.The last show was Rizwan Beyg and it was amazing – in all white with pearl embellishments and hand crafted his pieces were a work of art. Obviously, totally un-wearable but all about what clothes as art.The show was really well organized; even when the ‘bijli went out’ – the organizers did a great job. I also liked that they had awards for the best dressed women / men in the crowd. It was fun to get the interaction; an also all about how fashion is people own personal style.A LITTLE LESS LOVED.I was annoyed about the bored people looked at the time as if they didn’t really want to be there. Booo to the jaded socialite look. Also, boo to people that were clapping a little too loud and hooting! OMG.I was really enjoying the music too – especially whatever was playing during the Ismail Farid men’s wear collect. I can’t stop my body from moving when the beat is so good; but as expected everyone else was just sitting there with a bored look.Regardless – the fashion show was great. Hope to see a lot more of them in the future!

My life in a poll

Posted on November 5, 2009 by umbreen

Some of my peeps would know that I’m in a ‘virtual cold war’ with a certain someone. I decided to do a survey of what my response should be….

Umbreen's Survey

The results are in. Seems like the consensus is that I should call it a truce of sorts. I have equal parts of peeps who would recommend I act like the US (impose embargoes) or like North Korea (truth bombs).

Survey Results

In reality I will attempt to write this certain someone a measured and thoughtful email. But I’m am delaying it for now….

If you haven’t heard: We are facing tough economic time(z)

Posted on November 4, 2009 by umbreen

For most of my 5+ years of working career I’ve been on the media side, first on the classifieds end (BuySell.com) and then on the classifieds + content end (Autonet.ca ).On the media end your energy is divided between building interesting content (so that the people come), figuring out how to sell the advertising around that content (what do the advertisers want? how do we efficiently use all out inventory?).In between there is lots of planning, building and tracking metrics, internal politics and fighting for resources – much like anywhere else.Now I’m working on the agency side the experience has been very different and eye opening. I’m generally lucky to be working at a digital agency where we do both planning, buying, strategy, web applications, social media et al. so the work is interesting and varied for the most part.Things I wish I knew back that that I know now: (I dare you to say this 10x)The benefits developing a close relationship with the buying agency (And umn… no I don’t mean in the kick-back kind of way…)It always surprises me how little interaction the local media sites (for the most part) have with us despite the fact that we probably account for a large portion of the overall online buys.I guess it’s because generally the online industry is so small here, it’s not enough revenue to really matter. But if you are spending significant money to build an online platform – you should be spending at least a decent amount of time trying to figure out how to effectively monetize it!My non rocket science advice:1. Please don’t place ad spots at the bottom of the page as studies has shown that fewer eye balls see them2. Please try to make your ad placement in BigBox (or LREC as they call it here) because it offers the most design options.3. I would also love to see some interesting creative size like the half page ad; I tried it on Autonet.ca where the ad spaces could support both a BigBox or a Double Big Box (for the same CPM rate!) but for whatever reason it did not become popular. I guess you have to be a site like the NY times for an advertiser to want to make special creative for you. I know from out end; we would be happy to include it in the plan to see what the response was like.I do have some junior level rocket science advice (develop a network by partnering with other sites; find ways to track users and serve them ads! take over the world! no wait… scratch the last one) but that’s for another post.On the other hand I’m glad I’m NOT on the media side right now. As a digital agency we focus a MOST of our attention on strategies for developing engagement directly with the customer through both Facebook and web applications and connecting directly via Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, WAP sites, SMS contest, developing blogs or even content portals.Once media was such an important component; now it’s increasingly irrelevant.Tough economic times for my favorite sites like NYTimes and TorontoStar.Although I haven’t been to either site in at least two weeks; but I did spend most of my ‘downtime’ today getting to level 21 on Mafia Wars and streaming the new episodes from The Daily Show…

Fishes&Huge Waves = Net Loss

Posted on November 1, 2009 by umbreen

Yesterday I went to Chernai which is an island approx. a 2 hr boat ride from French beach – for snorkeling. A little boat came to pick us up from french beach and we all hopped in with our snorkeling gear bags and food to be ferried to bigger boat.The two hour trip to Chernai was amazing – the sun was really beating down and I enjoyed a nice nap with the rocking waves. Snorkeling I saw at least 6-7 different types of fishes, none of which I know the names of.There were schools of little back fishes with purplish color on the side; bigger silvery gray fishes, little electric blue fishes and most amazingly I saw hidden between two crevasses a really big multi-colored fish AND someone speared a squid and it had to be clear by the side of the boat where all the ink was ejected out.The day ended in a slight disaster for me; as we were riding the little boat back to the shore the waves were much bigger and we got creamed. More importantly my camera, cell phone and ipod got creamed. The bag they were in was full of water, I had to fish them out of the submerged boat.I was really my fault, I should have been holding the bag with these things in it as at least they would have not been as soaked in water.Anyways, I have all three things drying in uncooked rice right now. I really really hope that works, if I have to replace all 3 items its going to cost me…ipod = 16,000 Rps.Blackberry = 22,000 Rps.Camera = ?? 25,000 Rps.Yikes!*** Update ***Looks like ipod is a goner. As in, I can pay 10,000 Rps. to send my existing one to Singapour where they will check if its under warranty still and if so, give me the same ipod. Oh – and they don’t guarantee any time lines of when it will come. Or if it will be under warranty. Umnn… I think not. So I’ll probably by the new ipod nano 8GB. It’s 14,900 Rps. They don’t have the purple one in stock so I gotta wait for it… which is GOOD cause I really gotta see what the damage is on the phone.

SLR Lust

Posted on October 31, 2009 by umbreen

I did not think I would ever be one of these people…But I’m lusting after and SLR camera. YES, I really want to be one of those ‘amateur’ photographers that carries around a big camera looking very conspicuously like a tourist OR trying to pull it off looking like an artsy hipster.

Nikon D3000

I did some admittedly limited research and the Nikon D300 looks like the one to lust after. Ideally with a wide angle lens with automatic focus like this one…

Wide Angle Lense - 10 to 24mm (supposedly picture angle is equivalent to a focal length of 15 to 36mm in FX- and 35mm formats)

But I have to do some soul searching.

What I want is:

Be able to click and take a picture without the delay you get in point and shoot cameras.
I would also love to have a wide angle lens for great vistas without everything looking flat.
I want nice rich color pigments in my pictures.
Be able to take pictures in low lights without flash.

What I don’t want is:

A very expensive camera I have to worry about losing / getting stolen / getting ruined.
A big camera that is heavy to lug around.
I don’t really want to play with manual camera settings.

I currently have a Canon Cybershot and overall I’m very happy with the camera aside from the obvious limitations a point and shoot will have. (Again, why is the Canon site so lame? Why does it refer to film cameras? And why does it not have a picture of the actual camera I own. The image below is of an older version.)

Current Camera I Own.

For not I’m going to have to start saving money in soft mushy Pakistani Rps. and start converting it into some cold hard cash. Many things to save for till May 2011.

Delete, Empty Trash Can

Posted on October 29, 2009 by umbreen

So as of recently – oh say – past six months I have heard a lot of crazy things. Okay, crazy IMHO.Things like…’… so I asked my mom to pray every day so that jinns don’t put a spell on me…”… you cannot eat more than two types of desserts in one meal. It’s not religiously allowed…’Initially, I started writing these crazy things down. I would recount them to people – expecting to hear ‘that’s f*****g crazy!’.But I didn’t.And it freaked me out. Seems the crazy rabbit hole can be pretty deep.My new philosophy is; I pretend to not hear crazy speak. As in, I listen to people when they tell me things which are ‘CRAZY’ and I smile and nod. And then, I go into my memory database and press delete – empty trash can.

Dogs and the Brain

Posted on October 28, 2009 by umbreen

I saw the most disturbing things yesterday…I was driving around 8.30pm so the city was dark and as usual there were not streetlights working. On a busy fast moving street (sunset blvrd) the traffic suddenly started swerving weirdly.I was a dog trying to cross the street.I don’t think he made it un-harmed – he barely missed the car right in front of me only to slam right into the taxi in the next lane. When I saw him as I zoomed by, he was still up but I’m not sure he got to the other side.Makes me think – what exactly was the dog looking for on the other side of the street? Couldn’t he wait till like 2 am, when his survival rate would be better? He is dog after all – its not like he has to BE somewhere.The little doggy clearly did not have the proper crossing technique mastered. I see people everyday; women in buqas with kids in tow, old men, cross the ‘highway’ near baloch colony. You know they see you driving by when they are looking past your car into the distance behind you trying to gauge the timing between cars.I’ve been reading ‘A users guide to the brain’ (ha ha – I know! The title gets me every time).It seems surprising since we do it so easily; but at the brain level gauging speed and distance are pretty complex tasks. Our brains evolved so that we can quickly access data in the brain and make decision (cross or not) in an instantaneous gut-reaction instinct kind of way.Which is why humans are better at crossing the street than dogs.

Although dogs can do some pretty fun things…

Fear and loathing in…

Posted on October 26, 2009 by umbreen

… Karachi.

To start; I watched Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas on Saturday night. It’s been – oh I would say – at least 7-8 years since I first watched the movie.

Aside from MAYBE catching bits of it on TV (is that really likely?) I hadn’t seen it since. Definitely a different mind state from the first run – where I found the movie totally incomprehensible – this time some things really connected. I think I could appreciated the drunken, debauched, grossly sickening drug fueled adventure without having to bother about moralism (really me?) or rationalizing why that haven’t O-ded yet and was able to really wallow in both Depp and del Toro’s mind-blowing performance.

Dr. Gonzo Needs No Help

Also, since I recently read The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test I second degree mourned with the ‘wave speach’.. (What a time! Would I have been part of it if I was alive then? Sad Truth… most definitely probably not.)

And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting — on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. . . .So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark — that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.Source: Wiki-love

Which brings me back to fear and loathing in Karachi. (Kind of).The city is in high alert. All visible public places are to be avoided including… Cinemas, Markets, Restaurants, Hotels, Streets, Parks.. and yes ESPECIALLY schools. Its only a matter of time until a suicide bomb goes off and terror, terror is everywhere. I am here, right now. What should I be doing?… I think its a good day to go shopping; the stores will be crowd free.

Karachi streets - needs help.

Umbreen Tapal

That's my name. Don't wear it out. :)

Category Archives: Karachi, Pakistan