Rising Star

The Rising of a Star from the Ashes

The Olympics display some of the best amateur and professional athletes from around the world competing against each other. Most of these athletes are under the age of 26. Each of these athletes has worked hard to get to where they are today and have, at one point or another, been touted by observers and peers as a rising star. They had potential. They turned it into kinetic.

As I grow older, I feel more and more like I’ve failed. Watching the Olympics on television, I know that in some aspects, I have failed. I’ve never really been considered a rising star at anything I did and now, at the age of 26, there really isn’t much left that I could be considered a rising star for. If I was to be a star at anything I did, it would have to be now or the moment has already passed me by… a fleeting moment where someone may have thought that the ceiling was high for myself and that I’d be among the best.

Maybe there was once a time that I was touted as a rising star in academics but that day passed a long time ago. Engineering, academically-speaking, was a failure and my university was prepared to give up on me repeatedly. Only through perseverance did I manage to make it out of that crushing environment.

I was never physically gifted enough to be considered a rising star at the sports I played but I work hard and push myself to try to be more than I am. Alas, I’m now at an age where most start to decline unless they put in even more effort to improve. I have to make big, and perhaps even humongous, strides to be at a star’s level now and that’s rather unlikely.

With academics and athletics now out of the picture, I can only hope that my “rising star” status will come through my career. It’s all that I have left now for which I’m still young enough to establish myself at. I strive to improve as a person and as a Muslim each day but those are universal tenets of my faith that are absolute minimums to begin with.

I wish to be a rising star again…

Procrastination is My Friend

Just Another Day Studying

I just had an accounting exam this past week for which I was supposed to be studying for. I had a few days off work to do it yet I couldn’t seem to get into any sort of rhythm and found ways to procrastinate instead.

• My mother and I spent some time throwing grapes in the air and trying to catch them in our mouths. Neither of us was very successful considering how many grapes landed on the floor instead yet my mother insists that she and her siblings used to be quite good at that as kids…
• I watched The Simpsons and Family Guy for a little while… it’s always the same episodes shown Global Television! Daah!
• I watched some of the Summer Olympics coverage on television before realizing how incredibly boring speed-walking was. How is this even a sport?!?
• My brother and I moved an old television cabinet and an old television set outside. We placed it at the corner of our driveway hoping that someone would casually walk by, see the items and decide to take them home for themselves. As I spied out my window waiting to see who’d take interest, not one person who walked by gave it a fleeting glance! It’s free, people, free! Take it!
• I spent time trying to figure out how much it would cost to buy a new LCD flat-panel television set. The time spent doing this turned out to be enough to determine that maybe I should go back outside and reclaim the old television set…
• I watched three movies – Hancock, Wanted & 88 Minutes – and all of them turned out to be pretty flawed. That was a combined 6 hours of my life that I lost that could have been better spent preparing for my accounting exam.
• I looked outside my window and noticed that the old television set was gone! Yay, someone took it!
• My brother and I decided to try and play an old Super Nintendo game…

And then I wrote my exam… now, I’m free to do whatever I want and don’t have to “study” anymore for it. Phew!

There Lived a Certain Man in Russia Long Ago

Death After a Long Day at Work

Over the last several months, I’ve been reading a lot of the books and have made a concerted effort to read regularly. I recently finished The Romanov Prophecy by Steve Berry which, for all its flaws, I found to be a fun read. The plot was a bit silly and the implications unlikely but what made this book so interesting was that it had a LOT of historical accuracies and truth to it.

Through this book, I learned a lot about the Tsar dynasties of Russia before the Soviets took over and the death of the Imperial Family of Nikolas II in 1918. Everything from the death of Rasputin to his prophecies to the mystery of two missing bodies believed to be those of Crown Prince Alexander and his sister Crown Princess Anastasia were covered… and it was extremely close to being accurate. It’s not everyday in fiction that one comes across a book that really makes you learn about history.

I recommend this book to anyone who wants an entertaining read and appreciates Russian politics. You’ll get that with this book. For those who don’t care for Russian politics, this book may change that once you learn what transpired with the Romanovs… besides, anything involving Rasputin is always interesting!

Bleeding Ripe

Blood Spatter

Forget Lost, forget Heroes, forget Grey’s Anatomy or whichever retarded show you’re wasting your time with… you need to watch Dexter!

I’m not one to get caught up in hype and hoopla – my boss at work thinks I can’t be phased or intimidated – so it takes a lot to impress me. Well, I’m definitely impressed by Dexter, and it’s far-and-away superior to anything available on television today…

Dexter is the type of show that really pushes the envelope and sets the standard. It’s the type of show that doesn’t push the envelope through extreme violence, extreme action or extreme nudity… it does it by simply having an absolutely amazing storyline and plot. It’s so damn good at what it does that it makes you want to be a serial killer… and as scary as that sounds it’s so refreshing to watch a show that can warp your mind like that.

If you’re anywhere as sick and twisted as I am, then you’ll absolutely love Dexter… and after watching the first two seasons, I’m dying – no pun intended – to watch season three which airs on September 28th, 2008 on The Movie Network (TMN).

The Difference

Lending A Helping Hand

In my effort to make a difference in the world, I’ve started to combine my professional abilities with my past-times in order to achieve more. I started I-Slam Hockey, a not-for-profit charity hockey league serving the Muslim community, in order to do just that. I got my friends involved – hockey’s a team sport so why can’t management be? – and we’ve rolled along from there.

We ran our first season from February 2008 to the end of April 2008 and it was a huge success. The league ran smoothly and it really seemed to make a difference. We donated the proceeds to charity and we created an environment which has people eager to be a part of.

In October 2008, we’ll run our second season. The expectations are higher and the goals are loftier but they’ll be accomplished, God willing. Our plan is to donate most of the proceeds to The Hospital for Sick Children in an effort to help a noble cause accomplish more. We want to show, both the general populace and the Muslim community, that we care about those who are in need of help. Too often the Muslim community forgets that while they battle various other problems – like determining who’s beard is acceptable under prophetic tradition.

Differences can be made in the smallest of ways but with the collective efforts of many people and a large group of addicts in need of their doses of hockey, we can accomplish more. In a time where so many are suffering, we need to make that difference. The cost of not trying is just too high.

Rise of The Merovingian

The Return Home

This is Target Theory.

Thanks to an insatiable itch that had to be scratched, I’ve returned to the blogging world under WordPress after nearly nine-month hiatus. It just became too difficult to not write my thoughts out for the public realm and much has transpired and changed in who I am today than I was then. Suffice to say, I still write in my patented style and continue to maintain my “trafficking of information” tendencies… hence, The Merovingian rises once again.

Much has to be said and much still has to be done but Target Theory lives on… though some elements of the prior incarnation of the blog on Blogger will not move forward. Gone are the randomized graphic banners at the top. Gone are the song lyrics at the bottom of each posting. However, I will continue to post the graphic art that became synonymous with my postings as WordPress allows more that can be done with these beautiful works of art.

Since my departure from the blogging realm I’ve immersed myself in a few activities but my abilities as a writer have suffered. I’ve forgotten how to write and I’ve forgotten how to communicate. All of my beautiful-yet-ultimately-meaningless observations were lost. All of my twisted-and-subtle metaphors and analogies now had no audience to entertain. This must change. It will change.

For anyone who’s a writer, they know what I mean. For anyone who’s not a writer, they should become one. It’s a thirst that has to be quenched and one can wander in the desert for only so long before they need a drink or collapse from dehydration. I tried stuffing myself with sand in hopes that a drop of moisture could be obtained to keep me going but that didn’t work. Sand doesn’t taste very good.