Since I'm home anyway...

As I sit here at home again recovering from Strep throat, I decided to do a little site update. OK, I lie, I'm going to do a BIG one, b/c hey, I've been home for two days, OK?

First off, GO HERE NOW: http://earth.google.com/

This is the single greatest thing Google has invented up to this point and considering all the things they've done up to this point, this is not a small claim. You can see my home and my work with eerie clarity. Baltimore is damn accurate. This is just one of the greatest things ever, ever. Check out the Great Pyrimids. Those things are f'ing HUGE. Add in the volcano feature and go by Hawaii. Awesome. Add the crime thing and look in your neighborhood. Creepy. I hope they can do a registered sex offender option soon.

OK, next up are two movie reviews for Land of the Dead. Check them out, unless you're scared.
And finally an email from an old high school friend who finally check out my site:

Hey Mohammad,
I'm doing great man. Just celebrated 5 years with my wife. Just finished my first year of grad school (2 more to go). I'm in Seminary at a school just north of Chicago. And that's actually what kept me from getting down to the 'boro for the reunion. I thought we were going to be able to squeeze it in - but for me to graduate when I need to I need to take a couple summer classes each year - and there was just no way I could get away from these classes this year. Believe me - I HATED to miss it. Especially after seeing your pictures.

Yeah - Director of Worship - I work at a church out here in the Northwest suburbs of Chicago. It's one of these contemporary churches with the rock and roll worship. I play guitar (or bass or piano or drums) and lead the band, work up the music, and plan the services with the pastors. I'm also in charge of the sound equipment and audio/video aspects of the services. I also do a fair amount of preaching. Before moving up here to Chicago last August we lived in Champaign-Urbana, IL (where the University of Illinois is located) for 5 years where I was the Pastor of Students (6th grade thru College) at a medium sized church and my wife (Melanie) did her Master's degree in Opera Performance.

And to answer your question - we will DEFINITELY be at the next reunion - whether it's 15 or 20 or whatever.

Ok dude - I'll talk to you soon.
Jason Carter


Well Jason, it was good hearing from you and knowing you are doing well. This is Jason's wife Melanie in the picture with him. If you wish to contact Jason, feel free to email me and I'll forward his information to you.

That is it for now, make sure you go to that link I gave you and down load the program right now, it's the bee's knees dude.

I have Group A streptococci.

And it blows. I'm off of work Monday and Tuesday now and maybe even Wednesday if the doctor doesn't think I'm better. The best treatment for Strep is Penicillin, in fact, it is one of the few things doctors prescribe PCN for anymore, unfortunately, I'm allergic (the only thing I'm allergic to in the whole world) and I'm on some shit that makes my stomach hurt. Damn!

I'm sick today.

I got sent home from work today because I am sick. At my job, I have unlimited sick days, which is great except...

When you get sent home, you have to go, even when you want to stay as was the case today. Oh well, there is always Monday.

Renegade Chris' Big Birthday Bash.

A few weeks ago it was Renegade Chris' Birthday. What a freaking night. We went, we drank, we drank. It was one hell of a night. Between bitter shots and my ugly bar tab, I was in tears by nights end. We succeeded into getting Chris trashed (even though he's waaaay to old for that shit) and had a blast. The Karaoke people sang was just right, meaning it was just shy of making me want to push my thumbs into my eyeballs and crush my brain until I passed out bad. Like I said, just right. If you check out the pictures, make sure you read the captions. I spent a lot of time on these because I figured a special day deserves some better shit than I could come up with. Enjoy Chris, and happy "One Day Closer To Death" day!

NOTE: Read the captions in order, I didn't go through several hours work so you could swing by and fuck it all up.

New York City! (said the way the guys on the Pace commercials would)

I just got back from a four day trip to New York City where I had a blast. I met a new friend (Andrea) a couple of weeks ago at my High School Reunion and I got the invite to come visit her in NYC. I, having just secured a promotion at work, and needing a diversion in my boring life, jumped at the chance to head out and enjoy myself.

While there I had the pleasure of eating some of the most delicious food I've had in quite awhile. I had Peruvian food for the first time. I can't say enough how much I enjoyed it. They choose to cook some of their dishes using citric acid, which, while sounding strange, gives the food an ungodly strong and new flavor that I loved. I highly recommend it!

I also saw another Broadway play while there. David Mamet's Glengarry Glenn Ross. This is a movie that I was turned onto by my friend Eric, and it has one of the best, best performances by Alec Baldwin ever. Since the play was only playing until August 28th and since it has won the best play revival for 2005 I had to see it. If I didn't, I would have seen Spamalot.

After seeing it, I must say I was very, very happy. We sat 3rd or 4th row, very, very close to Liev Schreiber's piercing eyes and strong jaw. He even looked directly at me and Andrea during the performance. I tell you friends, I like this guy. If I were gay, he'd be my crush for sure, hell he is my crush. I always thought this man had a big career ahead of him, and his performance did everything to cement this belief for me. The rest of the cast was 100% fantastic too, as well as being all stars. Check out the official link and tell me what you think. If you get a chance, I highly, highly recommend seeing this before it's gone forever. If you can't make it up to NYC, check out the movie, it's great too. The only thing that bothered me was that Alec Baldwin's character wasn't in the play. If anyone but Mamet had made this change, or if the play cast hadn't been stellar I would have been screaming bloody murder, but since this wasn't the case either way, I'm OK.

Well, enough gushing about Liev Schreiber (you really can't blame me man!) and onward to some movie reviews. While in Gotham City (NYC is Gotham, of course, then again Metropolis is also NYC, so when they do those Batman/Superman team-ups, I have no idea which city they are in) I was the new Batman Begins. The short? See it. When I got back into town, Chris wanted to see a movie, so we saw The Longest Yard as it was the only thing I hadn't seen. I must say, I'm sorry Chris, I should have just watch Batman again. Be sure and check out the reviews of both films.

Promotion time!

I finally got that promotion at work I really should have gotten last year. Today my boss came by my office and told me I got it. Although I won't start getting paid for it until next year, the raise will be sweet. I wasn't really expecting to get this right now, but now that I've been told I have it, I've done nothing but think about spending the extra money. What will I get? Well I've always wanted that real looking Darth Vader costume...

Nah, forget that, that is crazy! I guess I'll do something normal with the money, like add a few more arcade machines to the collection.

Anyway, short update as I've now got some other work to do for work. I'm still very much working toward that new job a lot of you guys know about. I'll know if I got it or not in about 3 months. Keep your fingers crossed!

Hey Hon!

This year my room mate Jolene told my about Baltimore's own HonFest 2005. According to the website, HonFest is:

"...is a unique celebration that pays homage to the neighborhoods, the language and the people of Baltimore. The highlight of the day is the crowning of “Baltimore’s Best Hon.” What is a “Hon”? The term “Hon” is actually a friendly Baltimore greeting and comes from the word “honey.” However, the women who vie to become Baltimore’s Best Hon are a vision of the sixties-era women with beehive hairdos, blue-eye-shadow, spandex pants and something, anything leopard print!

This nationally recognized festival covers four city blocks on 36th Street in the neighborhood of Hampden. Hampden is a revered old-style Baltimore neighborhood, filled with quirky shops, quaint restaurants and endearing residents.

The Baltimore's Best Hon Contest began in 1994 and quickly grew into its own festival, aptly named HonFest. ...local sponsors have all combined their efforts to create this spectacular one day celebration known as HonFest."

Go to the website to read more. Needless to say, after living in the area for a little over four years, I felt the need to actually go to the HonFest. I told Jolene, yes and off we went. The festival was a blast and I got to see some really hot hons! I love the way these hons dress and talk and could easily see myself settling down with one of them. Now to find the right one...
As usual, my tiny Sony was with me and I snapped a bunch of random, bad angled shots for your amusement. Now, I must say, the most fun I have on my site is writing my picture captions. I usually will spend a good hour or two and come up with some of the funniest lines my limited comic skills will allow. I'd like to say, I did do this for the HonFest photo set. The problem is, as I was getting ready to save them, I accidentally erased the entire series. Damn you computer!!!!!! As it was, I really didn't have it in me to re-write 65 captions, so I didn't. What you have now, is about 10 of them, not so funny, but not so bad. Hey, what do you want from me? I don't get paid for this you know!

This just in, Mohammad's life not so interesting!

In other news, there is no other news. Not much happened in my life between yesterday and today. Well wait, I did finally switch to my new wallet.

For those of you that know me well, you know that me switching to a new wallet is akin to Halley's Comet passing through our solar system. What is going on is that I carry a lot of stuff in my wallet. I have the usual assortment of credit and identification cards, but my frugal nature forces me to carry and even larger assortment of discount and club cards.

Really, the average person probably has about 4-10, I have like 30. It's a case of my cheapness combined with my OCD. If there is a club card or some deal, I must have it. You know what I'm talking about.

Anyway, back on task. My wallet. No normal wallet can possibly hold all of my shit at first. Like a virgin, the new, tight wallet cannot possibly hold even one half of my items when first purchased. I must stretch it out over the course of several days, sometimes weeks, two or three cards at a time to get every last deal card in there. Needless to say, this disrupts my daily life ten fold. It goes without fail that the one freaking time I need that 4th punch for a free watch battery at the Jewelry Service Center, I have left it at home because the new wallet could not hold (true story). This pisses me off to no end.

For this reason, and the fact that I get really attached to things, I rarely if ever change wallets. In fact, I only do it when I absolutely, positively have to do it due to:

1. The current wallet falling apart where it doesn't hold my stuff. This is almost solely the primary reason I will ever change a wallet.

2. I get drunk and vomit on my wallet. I attempt major clean-up efforts before discarding my wallet though. Sadly, I can only hypothesize about this being a reason I change wallets because in two different instances, I still chose not to do it.

3. My wallet gets stolen or lost. Never happened, but I suppose I would have to get a new wallet in this case. Maybe.

Well there you have it, the only three reasons I see for changing wallets. Well why you may be asking, did I change wallets today? Simple, reason number one. About 2 years ago the stitching on my wallet started to come undone. Seeing this as a great opportunity to by for my "notoriously difficult to buy for" ass, my cousin Laela jumped on the opportunity to buy me something useful from Christmas. That was back in 2002 I think. Anyway, yesterday I figured it was time to open the gift up and actually make use of it. That and the fact that my old trusty wallet was having problems holding my stuff pretty badly at this point.

As I was transferring roughly 40% of my items into my new cow hide, I realized that I didn't need half the shit I had. I decided to take a stand. Instead of stretching my new baby out like a truck stop hooker, I decided to try and eliminate some of the things I carry. I began by canceling 5 credit cards. That helped a lot, but the real problem still lay ahead of me. The club cards. Which club cards would get the chopping block and which would find a new life of luxury in my fancy pants new wallet? Did I really need a Safeway and a Weis card when I never shopped at either? Did I really need a Blockbuster card when the last time I was in there VHS ruled supreme? Gym membership? Have you guys seen how much weight I've gained the last few years? Do I really need an ATM card for an account that only carries $20-30 dollars at any given time?

All good questions. If I was sane, the answers would be easy for me. As it sits, I'm slowly stretching out my new wallet to accommodate the 'ole club cards. After all, you never know when you could earn a free fifth watch battery!

I've updated my website.

Hey gang, I've spent a little time and updated my website. It is at www.mooshack.com if you care. I will probably cross-post articles to both spots so you don't miss any of the intense action, but pictures will always be at the other site. I guess I'll keep this blog up for people to make any interesting comments that they have, if they have.

So, go ahead, let me know what you think.

My High School Reunion

Hey gang. As you can see, I decided to go back to the old format of my web page (if you are reading this on my blog, ignore). I met this girl over the weekend that said something like, people would rather get kicked in the nads than make a change, even if the change is better. At least I think she said something like that. What I mean to say is, I'm going back to the way I'm use to doing things because I hate change.

The important thing to remember here is that I have survived my 10 year high school reunion. Yes folks, it was 10 years ago in Greensboro, North Carolina at Grimsley Senior High School where this hellion was released upon the world. Man, time sure does fly. How was the reunion? Well, I think I'll let the pictures do the talking.

I will say this. I almost didn't go. I mean, I almost went to Philly for a comic book convention instead. Sure, sure this was the biggest comic book convention on the East Coast, but I had been to it before. I thought to myself, how many chances do I get to go to a 10 year reunion? The answer came back to me in a flash; only once every 10 years Mo. Well, I didn't have to break out my TI-83 to figure out that one in ten is less than one in one.
I said, "screw the comic books and the scantily clad chicks man, instead I'm going to see year books and scantily clad chicks!"

And off I went. Moral of the story, go to your ten year. Even if you hate everyone from your school, at least you can make fun of them. Even if you can't, you can at least let them make fun of you and then take the high ground and tell them to grow up, they're almost 30 for chrissake!
Anyway, I went, I saw, I drank. I reconnected with some old friends. I made some new friends. I found out that not that many people actually show up for their 10 year high school reunions, but the god damn Whirlies do!

I also wonder if I'll ever see some of these people again. Some I most assuredly will not, cause they will be dead, others, probably not because they may avoid me at the next reunion. Still, some others, I may be seeing a lot of, since hell some of them live, like down the road from me. In the end, for me the biggest pleasure came from that fact that I went and it rocked, pure and simple.

Until next update!