Archive for category Personal
When Did the History Channel Become the Bible Apocalypse Channel
Posted by Nehal in Observations, Personal on April 19, 2009
Seems like the History Channel these days has more and more programming revolving around end-times. There was a program called Nostradamus 2012 a few months back and just today there was a program about the Seven Signs and Armageddon. And tonight there’s something about the “next” Nostradamus. It seems like it was only yesterday all you could see on the History Channel was stuff about The Da Vinci Code and the Bible Code. And it seems like weeks ago that the History Channel had programs about Jesus.
And it seems like eons ago that the History Channel had programming about history.
UPDATE: Here’s a breakdown of the History Channel’s lineup: http://graphjam.com/upcoming/?pid=11861
FatHelga Obama-ized!
Posted by Nehal in Personal, Stupid Bullshit on February 25, 2009
I just had to Obama-ize something and FatHelga (aka my alter ego) seemed like the right thing to do. I really have no desire to explain the etiology of “FatHelga” though I am asked constantly about it (especially on dates).
“So what’s the deal with ‘FatHelga’?”
“Is that the name of an old girlfriend or something?”
“Why the nun with the cigar?”
“Are you on drugs or something?”
Can’t I have a little mystery? Can’t I just be a tad quirky without having to explain my zaniness? Can’t I just be?
Like a complete unknown.
Like a rolling stone.
If you want to Obama-ize something, you can check out Obamicon.Me. It’s a great waste of exactly 2 minutes and 37 seconds.
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I Went to the Inaugural Parade and All I Got Was This Lousy Blurry Photo of Joe Biden
The word for the inauguration? Cold. Sure, you would throw out words like inspiring, hopeful, etc., but if you were actually there, the word was ‘cold’. And yes, I had tickets to the inaugural parade, which in hindsight, ruined my day because instead of sitting back and enjoying myself, I was worried about making it to the parade route on time. And on time we did, but the secret service shut down the entrance and there we waited…in the COLD…for an hour and a half wondering if we were even going to get in. What a relief it was to get in finally…only to sit on bleachers with the COLD wind in our faces. For a parade that ended up being an hour late. Well, I guess it was too cold for the president because apparently we ducked into his car and sped through the whole procession. So we didn’t even get to see him but through a limousine window. Joe Biden, the consolation prize, got out and braved the cold weather to greet the chilled masses. And when he did, I was shivering so much, I couldn’t even get a decent non-blurry picture.
But in truth it was an exhilarating day. It was a day I never thought I’d see. To see the end of the Era of WTF-ness and see a new president take office who promises a better presidency, a better America, than what we’ve become used to. So for now, I’m still cold from that day, but I expect that once the chill wears off, a spirit of hope will replace it.
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A Triumphal Return and a Non-Promise
I finally overcame my usual laziness and set up the rant on a subdomain (something I had been meaning to do for a long time). I actually started this process months ago but got lazy again and let it fester broken as it were. You may have noticed that when you went to http://www.nehalsha.com, you got redirected to http://www.nehalshah.com/intermittentrant. Not something I was really proud of, but I let it go. Now if you go to http://www.nehalshah.com, you get redirected to http://rant.nehalshah.com. The benefits are generallly personal: It allows me to organize my web files better plus I now have a clear separation between different applications. (And yes, I know it totally screws up my SEO, but since I don’t care about SEO, then…shut up). Of course, none of this is stuff you would care about.
I didn’t realize how painful it was to migrate an instance of WordPress. First of all, I had to update the wordpress files for some reason. Secondly, I had to do quite a bit of database work to change all references including changing inline links in the post body and the permalinks. Third, I had to change some references around in my Monkey theme. Fourth, I had to rebuild my .htaccess file for mod rewrites. Add to this the All in One SEO pack getting wonky on me because it was incompatible with the new version of WordPress (not altogether obvious) and you can see why it took me so long. (It actually took me all of an evening, but it took me several months to get work up the patience to trudge through all this crap).
So now that I’m back up, now that I’ve made my triumphal return to web publishing, I have to admit you probably won’t be seeing a lot of posts from me. I pretty much spent all the patience I mustered to get to this point. I don’t think I have enough left to be regular about it. But here’s the non-promise: I may or may not weigh the possibility of my giving thoughtful consideration to maybe putting up a post every now and then. Maybe. Who knows…stranger things have happened.
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Got My Wish
I wanted to meet Fareed Zakaria and I got to meet Fareed Zakaria.
He was on his way to do a taping of the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, but was nice enough to spend a few minutes to meet with me and to chat a little. We talked about his new book and about the state of the world in the coming years. I wish I could say I impressed him, but I’m sure I didn’t. What can I say? I’m just another brown man trying to make it in this crazy world.
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