Mellow Yellow Monday #1
My friend Drowsey Monkey has begun a meme where each Monday, you post a photo with a little or a lot of yellow.
Yellow - because that is her favourite colour.
You can visit her new blog at Mellow Yellow Monday.
Here is my first attempt at it:
I know it’s the middle of the week but there are a couple of posts by SpeedCatHollydale and Catz already out and I’d hate to not join ! Besides I already have more yellow coming your way !
When Drowsey was talking about the new meme on Twitter I was having a banana. It was later after I threw away the peel that I realized that it was yellow !
The other peel was thrown in by my brother who had a banana earlier in the evening.
Follow me on Twitter @maniar
Follow Drowsey on Twitter @DrowseyMonkey
Happy New Year !
Yes, it is me ! Since I started my break last week, I decided to take time off blogging as well.
Once upon a time, two weekends ago, I decided to upgrade my WordPress installation and take advantage of all the shiny new features it offered like threaded comments but in the process, I screwed up and broke my comments.php template.
So I spent 3 days fixing that and out of frustration, I decided to stay away from my blog for a while and enjoy life’s other side.
I’ve been spending the time catching up with friends, e-mailing old contacts, trying out the new Facebook, but I kept away from everything blogging related including reading your blogs and commenting.
The only thing I stuck to was sleeping, eating and Twittering.
Olga the Traveling Bra and all those who know her have been a ton of fun this December and so Twitter has helped keep my sanity to some extent.
No, wait, that’s an oxymoron !
continue reading →
Snow Unexpected
This past weekend was a bit chilly with temperatures falling to -13°C but with the windchill it felt like -20ºC. It was nice and sunny on Monday and I’d heard on the radio that temperatures where going up to +8ºC on Tuesday ! But this is not what I expected:
This is the entrance to my apartment building. My Superintendent goes all out with decorations for Halloween and Christmas. view bigger size
We were pounded with snow overnight ! The morning newscast was full of reports about accidents - especially tractor-trailers jack-knifing on the highway and spinning out of control. There was one serious injury.
The temperature this morning was -4ºC and it is getting warmer. Heavy rains are expected late this afternoon. So this is all going to melt by the time I get home !
5 point 1 Me
I’ve been a tad busier this past week to blog with an intelligent mind. So, I am going to meme again this week. I don’t do memes a lot because they come with “rules” to tag people and I don’t like to tag people !
Tag is only fun when you run behind another person and you reach your hand to touch that person and then you run back and and they run after you and try to reach their hand to touch oh shut up !
I was tagged by two people this time for two similar memes (which is rare). I was first tagged by for “8 random things about me“. n is also expecting her first baby ! So congratulations to her !
Last week I was tagged by Glenda Watson Hyatt for “5 Things You Might Not Know About Me“. Glenda is from British Columbia and has cerebral palsy which affects her speech and muscle coordination. She has authored a book, and her blogging and twittering is an inspiration and a lesson to all. She is also known as the left-thumb blogger.
I am going to change things around a a bit and instead bring you:
Quatrains to Sugar Snap Peas
Sugar Snap Peas
Sugar snap peas in sweet spring I seed
Aiming for green, aiming anti-weed
I digg stumble and crow on Twitter
Toiling for a score unguaranteed
Crunchy sweet nutritious and filling
Topped in salads, steamed or stir-frying
She diggs stumbles and chirps on Twitter
To swap with cheeps and friends indulging
Dona Nobis Pacem
Focusing attention on Mahatma Gandhi today, does not mean I endorse non-violence as a total solution towards peace. Neither is war nor democracy.
For a highly respected figure, I believe Gandhi is just as misunderstood. He was indeed a peaceful man but his fight was actually to defend the truth and bring justice - both in South Africa and in India.
Fuchsias on dinnerware
They are Fuchsias right ? enlarge photo
I’ve a dinnerware set - which dad and mom insisted on getting - that sport beautiful flower illustrations by an amateur artist named Caroline Maria Applebee (d.1854). The illustrations are now owned by the Royal Horticultural Society.
This picture was taken using the Color Reverse mode on the camera. Bright areas appear dark, dark areas appear to glow, magenta appears green, blue appears yellow and vice versa.
I think this way it looks way more interesting than the original.
Note: It is not very easy to achieve desired results on a shiny surface. You’ll need play around with the lighting to avoid reflection (shown darkest) and at the same time get the brightest colours.
Surviving a corrupt WordPress database
Yesterday morning, the first thing I did after opening my browser was try logging into my WordPress dashboard. But neither the blog would load nor the login page. During such an event, I check my server status at status.asmallorange.com (name’s Sam). But seeing all three oranges lit, I immediately suspected that something was wrong with WorPress.
After allowing the page load for a few minutes, I was redirected to a page telling me that a database upgrade was required. But it concluded with fatal errors.
Next I logged into the Control Panel provided by my hosting provider and poked my nose there. I found a button that said Repair DB and since that was what I wanted, I pushed it.
The repair completed successfully and I was finally able to log into the WordPress Dashboard. The home page also loaded fine but it was later in the day when I discovered that the post pages were not rendering. The so called “Repair” made things worse !
Blogblast for Peace - Memeing the Movement
Her Royal Blogginess, Mimi Queen of the memes, held court here at ManiaRavings earlier this week with a Royal Entreaty for me to participate in Blogblast for Peace on November 6 2008.
—— copie below this line ——
Blogblast of Peace finds its humble beginnings to one autmn day in 2006 when, while observing the chaos in the world, Queen Mimi ruminated the idea of
…having every blog in the blogosphere post on November 7 with a simple title “Dona Nobis Pacem“, and with a picture of our big beautiful world in the body of the post and each blogger’s name screaming a great big GRANT US PEACE. Read more →
Backyards by the track…
…and a few acres of snow
This Canadian Pacific Railway line in Hamilton, Ontario, separates from the main line near the escarpment and crosses people’s backyards and busy streets in the lower city. It ends at the Stelco and the Arcelor-Dofasco Steel mills on the shores of lake Ontario.
I took this picture near Maplewood Ave. and Gage Ave. earlier this year in February.
Poverty’s vicious face - As mirrored in India
Today is Blog Action Day. It is a non-profit event where bloggers unite to to post about the same issue on the same day. This year’s theme is Poverty. I did not see myself participating earlier but I was tagged by Amy of the delicat journal, who wanted to hear about something global from me.
Amy is from Fredericton, New Brunswick which is only a boat-ride away, so we are pretty much in a local area. Let me illustrate -
To the geographically challenged, click here
Coming back to the real word, I consider myself very fortunate to have experienced and seen for myself life on the other side of the globe. I was born in India in a small town on the coast of the Arabian sea 200km north of Bombay.
View on Google Maps
I have never lived in India though, but I was fortunate to be able to fly back every year when I was growing up in Saudi Arabia.
There definitely was the excitement of meeting aunts and uncles and later hitting the streets with them cousins to play cricket. But there was no escaping from coming face-to-face with the other side of Indian society.
Decision 2008 : Focus on the Eh-conomy
Canadians will be going to the polls on Tuesday, October the 14th and choose a new federal Government. This is our third federal election since 2004. The previous election was held in January of 2006.
I used to write a lot on Canadian politics on my previous blog. But since then, I simply did not have the time to divulge into politics. Now is a good time to start again.
Since 2004 Canada has been ruled by minority governments, first by the Liberals under Paul Martin. But his government fell in January 2006 after a vote of no confidence. Then the Conservatives formed a new government under Stephen Harper. They won 40.3% seats, making them the smallest minority government since Confederation (July 1, 1867). But they were also the longest serving continuous minority government in history.
Canadian Prime Ministers can call an election anytime - followed by a minimum 36 days of campaigning. This time Prime Minister Stephen Harper called the election in hopes of turning his minority government into a majority.
There are five parties that represent Canadians at the federal level. Talk about all the choices and all the opinions and proposals to keep track of. This election is all about who to choose to steer Canada out of the current economic crisis.
If you find all that boring, tickle your funny bone instead by learning how good Canadians are at building bridges.
Food log: The first 24 hours after Ramadan
Stardate 62106.2
Made possible by popular demand. Well, sort of…
Men meeting and greeting after Eid Prayers
Ramadan officially ended last night and today was the first day of the month of Shawaal. It is called Eid-ul-Fitr (Festival to break the fast) and it is the most celebrated day of the Islamic year.
The other festival in the Islamic calendar is Eid-ul-Ad’ha (Festival of Sacrifice) and it will come around in the first week of December this year.
Both Eids are marked by a special prayer followed by a sermon after sunrise. One also recommended to recite the Takbir (testify God’s Greatness) throughout the day whenever possible. Fasting on both Eids is forbidden !
My little world in Twitterverse - TweetDeck
Many if not most of my friends know of my love for Twitter. Some like that I am willing to share bits from my life and stuff that I find online, some who are already on Twitter are glad to have me make their online experience more wholesome, while some have complained that I am the cause of their information overload and have told me to get a life.
But for me, Twitter has changed the way I surf the web and from where I get my information. It has helped me connect with other bloggers on a personal level and helped build stronger friendships. You can find and follow me on Twitter @maniar.
I’d like to start a series of posts about my activities on Twitter and the tools and services I use. This is not going to be a continuous series - so my next post dealing with Twitter may appear in the next 3 to 5 weeks.
Today, I’d like to talk about Twittering from a desktop application and in particular my favourite application - TweetDeck.
The last ten nights of Ramadan
Today is the 20th of Ramadan. But tonight will be the 21st night, You see, the day in the Islamic calendar begins at sundown instead of midnight. The last ten nights, especially the odd nights - the 21st, 23rd, 25th, 27th and the 29th are the most auspicious nights of the month of Ramadan.
Muslims believe, according to what is in the Qur’an, that the first verses were sent down to the Prophet Muhammad in one of these (odd) nights. That night is called the Night of Power (Layl-at-al-Qadr).
We don’t know what date that night falls on but instead we are asked to search for it through worship. Some scholars believe that it is the 27th night, but that is their opinion and I personally don’t take that seriously.
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