Monday, May 8, 2006

The Night of Ahmed Hassan (part 2)

...the conquest for Kashmir to re-take its land. Yes, Ahmed H was now representing an entire nation of people. He had something to fight for. Something to take back to the villages of Kashmir so he could yell in Braveheart fashion, "BIRYANI ZINDABAD!"

Well, okay, so maybe it wasn't that dramatic, but definitely not too far off. But where Taha and I originally placed our doubts in Hassan, soon turned into a quiet sense of awe. He was now 3/4 of the way done with my cheeseburger. I ignored and in fact denied my own hunger pains and desire for that burger so that I could bear witness to this man being a man. He was like Conan the Conqueror. He came, he saw, he conquered. If only the cow that was slaughtered knew what AH was doing, it would've willingly gave up its entire progeny in his honor.

Before we knew it, Prince Ahmed Hassan ate the entire burger. So, to recap, he ate a plate of biryani that could've fed an entire army of starved Punjabis, at least three cheese sticks before the biryani, some fries from my first burger, most of the fries from my 2nd burger, and finally the 2nd burger itself. And don't forget the mango shake to top it all (should I be saying, "MashaAllah" now?). You should know that while not built like the chiseled and I'm-too-sexy-for-my-shirt T-Man (Taha), Ahmed Hassan is not really fat either, which just adds to my confusion and/or awe to this feat.

Unshaken by this, the three of us then headed out to our mini-golf tournament of champions. But on the way out of Italian Express, AH bent over and hurled like there was no tomorrow. Or at least that's what I thought. Right before exiting the door, he bent over and leaned on me making a ghastly, "Uuuugggggggggggggghhhhhhh" noise to which I thought the poor kid was gonna die and so I - momentarily - freaked out like a little girl. After the "uggh" aftershocks wore off, I soon realized that he was totally joking around because nothing came out of the kid, but a big old smirk across his face saying, "Ha ha!" (think The Simpsons).

We finally arrived to our ghetto mini-golf/batting cage park 10 minutes after our meal and immediately headed for the 18-hole range. From the very beginning of the course, Ahmed assumed the lead and T.Ghani was a close second followed by me at a close third. Or, at times, a place far, far away type-of-third place. You see, my initial swing at the beginning of a hole was usually pretty good. In fact, I was the only one that scored a hole-in-one the entire night. But anytime I was within a three feet of the hole, I'd waste a good four to five strokes trying to get it in (umm...no innuendo implied, fellas; let's keep this kosher). Taha was off and on with the small game, but it was the leader of the night, Ahmed Hassan, that was Mr. Consistent and Mr. Rico Suave. His most impressive round was the 17th hole. You had to try to hit the ball across this narrow plank of wood otherwise it'd fall into water. Well, Taha and I never got it on the first try but Ahmed Hassan sealed the deal on that hole by getting it done the first time around without breaking a sweat. It was just inevitable, I tell ya; Ahmed was unstoppable that Friday night.

After officially spanking Taha and I (that's right, Taha, he spanked you, too, alright!), I then saw AH break into his victory dance: The Shimmy. It was...It was...well, very white. Seriously. The guy's victory dance looked like he was some sort of white 90 year old that 1) looked like he just took some viagra 2) looked like he was convulsing and experiencing a serious adverse event to some trial medication for Alzheimer's or 3) looked like he was trying to dance after a hip-replacement surgery. It was very funny yet also very scary to witness. A transformation of sorts that you must experience yourself before you die. And while I say all that, I must admit that it's also highly contagious. Randomly, I find myself breaking into The Shimmy for no real reason other than to just do it because it makes you feel cool; cool like a cat and specifically, Garfield. Yeah, I don't get either. But just trust me.

The Shimmy didn't stop with AH after golfing. For soon after golfing, we noticed that inside the park's store, there was an air hockey table. Taha and I played first. He beat me. Case closed. Blah, blah, blah. He then played The Man of the Night and fell to his magic on the air hockey field. Hassan called me out, too, and while I put up a decent defensive strategy that was reinforced by Taha's yelling, I once again tasted defeat for the third time in one night (if you're counting: 1) losing my cheeseburger, 2) losing in mini-golf, 3) losing in air hockey). Enter more of The Shimmy.

I purposely am leaving out the part where the three of us tried to hit some baseballs in the batting cage because it was so brutal. We couldn't handle the medium pitch and came no where close to swining on time for the fast pitch (~75 mph). It was depressing for all of us, but we now have a new found respect for professional baseball players that can hit 90mph fast balls...

So, at this point, Taha was thoroughly disappointed at himself and looked like he just wanted to go home and call it quits. He couldn't possibly phathom how Prince AH's luck was so spot-on for the night. Personally, I don't call it "luck" myself. No, after seeing His Royal Greatness in action, I knew it was all an inevitable reality known only as Ahmed Hassan. Nothing more and nothing less.

Before I close and move onto other postings, I'll note the remaining activities we accomplished that night:
1) Dunkin Donuts. Hell yes. Thank God that in Chicago there are 24 hour DD's. Taha went with something like three BC's (boston cream, people; get with the lingo!), AH and I went with refreshing coffee coolatas and mint choc chip ice cream (obviously, this DD had a Baskin Robins in it). As always, Prince also successfully convinced the people at DD to hook us up with at least one free donut. Being a doctor and, what I think he should be doing on a full-time basis, a hot, hot model has its advantages. And free donuts is it, baby!
2) AH opened a new account at some random video store so we could pick up the classic and inspiring First Contact, which we forced Taha to watch even though he watched it before (every time he spoke during the movie saying, "Hey, I remember this part" AH and I purposely ignored him; we weren't about to let him ruin our evening). Engage!
3) Prior to watching the movie, we went to T-Man's luxury apartment located next to Millennium Park for swimming where we played water football. Basically, one QB, one receiver, and one defender. If memory serves me correctly (and this is my blog, so it does), I'm pretty sure it was the Taha-Imran combo that went the furthest, nearly scoring a TD. But our football game was ended when the front door man came by to let us know that throwing a ball in the pool area was dangerous. WTF? Like, how old are we?! (Note: I really think, though, that the door man just wanted to get a closer look at a shirtless Taha. I know what you're thinking ladies, where was my camera?! I'll never make that mistake again and leave it behind, that's for sure!)
4) So, we immediately hit up the sizzlin hot tub, which is one of the most relaxing things you can do in life. After a few minutes, these hot girls came by and...oh dammit! Wrong blog again. Sorry! So, after a few minutes, you could tell by our mutual silence that we were probably thinking, Why aren't we doing this with a girl?, but such is the single life of three acha buchas. :) LOL. (Sorry, it's hard keeping a straight face after writing "acha buchas.")
5) We finally went to AH's MTV crib-worthy apartment where we watched our movie and finally went to bed at 5am.

Sigh. I'm done now. What an unbelievable night. If you don't really follow on that, I guess you had to be there.

T-Man, Prince AH: Many more nights like that to come inshaAllah. Of course, let's make sure I notify my mom at least several months in advance, so let's write up that permission slip now. APPNA is not too far off...!

Cheers

Tuesday, May 2, 2006

The Night of Ahmed Hassan (part 1)

Hi

This comes just over a week late, but is definitely man.myth.legend.sufi.lover.fighter.punjabi-worthy...

Two Fridays ago, I had the distinct honor of crashing at Doctor Ahmed Hassan's luxurious downtown apartment. To be in his company, let me say, is like being in the company of royalty. In fact, some would rightfully call Ahmed a prince. Prince AH. The royal heir of Kashmir. And I, but his simple and humble Punjabi man-toy...err, servant, had the priviledge of sleeping on his Ikea-bought red sofa bed.

But, to have had this high honor of sleeping in his two-bedroom downtown apartment located in the heart of Museum Campus, I had to first experience why in fact The Prince is the prince...

Oh, by the way, Taha was also a part of this night. But that's most definitely not the point here...

Simply put, he showed us how he owned Chicago and everything therein. It started with a traditional meal: Italian Express (IE) on Devon. I went with what's been my recent usual at IE, a cheeseburger (okay, so I ordered two). Taha and AH went with chicken biryani. When the biryani came out, each individual plate could have literally fed an entire army of hungry Gujuratis (note: I don't really know what that means, but what I am trying to say is that it was a lot of biryani for one man). To accompany our food, it was only right while on Devon to have refreshingly cold, yummy, and thick mango shakes.

So while waiting for our orders to come in, the time for salat al-maghrib came in. This maghrib prayer was 'special' though in that it was the first jammat (congregration) between the three of us. And so we prayed inside of IE's psuedo masjid/musalla in the back of the restaurant. From a spiritual perspective (in the end, the perspective that counts) that was probably the highlight of the night. Taha was the chosen imam and soon after, the three of us engaged in some hardcore dua. But I have a feeling that many of the duas were focused on winning the impending mini-golf extravaganza for the night. As fate would have it, only one man's duas were manifested into reality that night. But now I'm getting ahead of myself...

Throughout our pleasant conversation of the evening, which also consisted of a lot of mini-golf trash talking and random talks with our waiter about who looks like the best mini-golf player (note: for the first time ever, I won something. The waiter said I looked like the best player, followed by T-Man, and then AH dead last), we all made steady progress in eating our meal. Actually, to be honest (and don't tell them I said this), I didn't pay a word of attention to Taha or Ahmed while eating because I was enjoying my friggen burger way too much. So, at least 30 min into it, Taha starts to slow down in finishing his plate of biryani. Not a surprise as I've always doubted my man's Punjabihood. In the meantime, I had successfully killed cheeseburger #1 and the side of fries and was now ready for #2. Hassan, in a world of his own, finished the plate of biryani that could've fed an army of hungry Greeks that just came back from fighting for Troy herself (huh?) and then proceeded to munch on my fries. As I started to feel my stomach expanding to places outside of the known metaphysical realm of existence, I made a costly mistake and took what was supposed to be a 20 second break from it. Upon sensing my momentary weakness, the Kashmiri Ka Bucha (that's Ahmed; my reference for him throughout this posting will continuously change) immediately seized my plate like an army of...okay, okay no more of the army anecdotes...

Secretly, I was happy that he did this. I was trying to finish the burger just for bragging rights. To prove my manhood. All that heart-stopping (can we say cho-les-ter-ol?) type of fun. Taha and I were dumbfounded at The Hassan's actions. We looked at each other. Passionately. Lovingly. Oh shoot, wrong blog! Sorry... So we looked at each other, grinned, and told AH that he didn't have the guts to eat my burger and fries after eating the entire plate of biryani (not one grain of rice remained on his plate). Hassan smiled back. A self-assured, don't-mess-with-me, cocky type of smile and emphatically said that he could sooo do it. Thus began...

*** To be continued ***

Thursday, April 27, 2006

Adventures in Madrid...

AA / What up?

Alright, so my latest adventures -- if you weren't in the know already -- are on Google Video. This time, I come to you from the recent trip to Madrid:

http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=madrid+imran

Eventually, I'll get to posting my adventures in Madrid and London, but for now you will all have to settle for this. Be patient and remember that my time is more important than yours. ;)


Chow!

Monday, April 24, 2006

Lady Caliphs -- The Real Ballers

AA

This is a pretty interesting ESPN piece I remember watching a couple months ago. It's on a high school women's basketball team, but Muslim women who observe the hijab, mashaAllah. (Thanks to Mehboob for providing the link.)

peace

Sunday, April 23, 2006

An Ode to Jessica...

WS

So, like, I don't even know where to begin? I can't tell you how excited I was (and still am, obviously) to see that some girl named 'Jessica' actually repsonded to my last blog entry's questioning.

Recall that the entry immediately below provided the world an update as to how popular and cool I really am despite vicious Internet rumors my two brothers are trying to create. My little video documentaries/adventures/journeys/etc. are being viewed on Google Video by the world at large and so naturally I'm turned on (and off) by this...

Anyway, in the prior entry, I posted the following questions regarding my 'audience':

who the hell are you? Where do you come from? What's your name? Why are you so interested in me? And are you a single, attractive, and nice Muslim girl? (If 'yes' to that last question, please email me!)
Much to my surprise and joy, Sister Jessica hollered back. Being a single, Muslim brotha, the first thing that pops into my innately immature mind is that, Does this mean that Jessica is a single, attractive, and nice Muslim girl?! I mean, look, I'm not tryin to sound like a jerk or typical guy (i.e., jerk, punk, and all that) here, but I just gotta be honest with you...

"Jessica" - if that's your real name - who are you? Where are you from? Do you like to bhangra? If you're not familiar with bhangra (i.e., buncha Pakistani or Indian Punjabi people dancing around by moving their shoulders in a hypnotic yet off the hook way), can I teach you? Do you think bhangra is haram? Are you married? What's your ethnicity? How old are you? Have I scared you as yet? How stupid/dorky am I to make myself known to everyone and now you specifically on how stupid/dorky I am? If you don't like bhangra, why not? If your name is Jessica, when did you convert (oh, welcome to Islam)? And finally, at least for now, why were you doing a random video search for 'Imran'? (Do you fancy the famous cricket player, Imran Khan?)

:) Okay, just know that I'm totally messin around. I hope if you really did see some of my videos that you would at least know that I like to have fun and kid around. Just my unusual way of saying Thank You for your comment; it was appreciated and welcomed at any time. We'll have to work on getting that .01% viewership up, though, but that'll come with time. Haha...!

I know after my brothers read this they're gonna hit me upside my head and tell me to delete this post. To that, I tell them, DON'T HATE, YO!!!


Cheers

Friday, April 21, 2006

My Videos : People Out There Love Me...

Hi All

Okay, I can now confirm that I have secret admirers, lovers, stalkers, and potential freaks that want me (or at least my friends). As you may know, I mashaAllah recently went to Madrid and London for a nice one week mini-vacation (well, Madrid was technically for work, but it wasn't like it was crazy busy or anything like that). So, tonight I finally had some time to upload some fun video clips from Madrid to my favorite website - Google Video - and decided to take a look at this "Reports" section for my account. Well, what's really friggen cool is that you're allowed to take a look at your Viewing Information and see how many people have viewed your clips and downloaded them, too.

So, now, this is the pretty cool and equally scary part of it:
My video clip called, "Imran's New York Trip" has been viewed a total of 1585 times. Look, I know that you're gonna say that about 1580 of those views could be credited to me, but I assure you (for once), this just isn't true. Further, the video clip (which has been on there since early January 06) has been downloaded 20 times!!

So people out there...who the hell are you? Where do you come from? What's your name? Why are you so interested in me? And are you a single, attractive, and nice Muslim girl? (If 'yes' to that last question, please email me!)

Haha, okay, I admit: it is a little presumptious and arrogant to think that 'random' people are out there doing this when it could (and is most likely the case) be my friends, but just allow me to humor myself. It's doing a nice number on my ego, man.

So the Imran's New York Trip clip is the one, from feedback I've received, that's the best b/c it's me 'singing' (though I have since learned that what I qualify as 'singing' is actually considered attempted murder in some states) to a Kelly Clarkson song and then I subsequently get really excited and very ghetto upon seeing the highway exit sign for Manhattan... [sigh, good times...]

The next most popular one is called Imran, Erik, Taha: Hoopage. Now, the popularity of this one I kinda resent. It shows Taha ridiculing me by addressing me as 'Hey, Fat Man' like I was some out-of-fashion former superhero or something. To upstage T-Man, I showcase some of my basketball, well, let's just say 'skills.' Anyway, you'll be surprised to know that my little talent show was received with vicious (snake-like, in fact) snickers by Erik and Taha. Jerks!

The third most popular Imran video clip is called Farooq & Imran: King Kong, Dawah. You know what? I kinda resent this one being so popular, too, because Farooq had the gall to draw parallels between my masculine physique and King Kong's. I'm not sure how I should take that? Specifically, after showing the Empire State Building in NYC, Farooq commented, "...and Imran's king kong ass is gonna climb that..." That hurts, man. How many people did you fwd that to, Farooq?

So, my loyal and most likely drunk 'fans', please continue to watch these video clips. I appreciate and value your committment to everything that's ME. In fact, just yesterday you people viewed the Imran's New York Trip clip 9 times as well as Imran Shakur vs Taha Ghani (hmm, wonder who viewed that second one, Taha?!). Soon enough, you'll all fulfill my dream of appearing on the 'Popular' or maybe even 'Random' links on Google Video. So, until then!

Alright, those were your higlights of the top three clips. Just thought I'd share that with all ya punks! Look out for four new clips from Madrid coming soon...!

Chow!

Thursday, April 20, 2006

Owwww!!! And Some Balle Balle!

Hi

I know you sit there at night often thinking to yourself, what would happen if the King of Pop (MJ) and King of Bhangra (Daler Mehndi) were to ever collaborate?

Well, this video clip will probably be the closest thing to that:

DISCLAIMER: THIS VIDEO IS HOT!!




:)

Thursday, April 13, 2006

Archived Internet Pages

Hi

This is pretty cool and seems like something Google would've come up with. Regardless, credit goes to Baseer for pointing this out. Here's the email he sent to us earlier today about it:

"this site is awesome: http://www.archive.org/ ...only goes back to 1996 cuz thats when they started the waybackmachine...brings back memories...

type in any site and click "Take Me Back" then click on the date

check out google 1998:

http://web.archive.org/web/19981202230410/http://www.google.com/

depaul 1997:

http://web.archive.org/web/19970205082525/http://www.depaul.edu/

uic 1997 (yukk):

http://web.archive.org/web/19970606093823/http://www.uic.edu/

have fun."

I'm havin fun with this one. I typed in my brother's website and one of his first web pages/design came up (www.umarshakur.com). That's friggen awesome (and scary??). I also checked out:

www.hotmail.com (first one is friggen hysterical!!)
www.yahoo.com (same comment as from hotmail)
www.sunnipath.com
www.darulqasim.org
www.madrasaprogram.com

Enjoy! Let me know if you think of any cool ones.

Word

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Islamic Video Clips

AA

Just thought I'd spread the love...

Very beautiful (though there's a delay in the video or something): Quran recitation

Also, you might be interested to know that those Islam: Empire of Faith shows are available on Google Video, too.

Further, from DeenPort, a blind hafiz, mashaAllah. There's a madrasa in S. Africa specifically for the blind. SubhanAllah. His recitation is so beautiful, mashaAllah.

Okay, this is tight.

And there used to be a better one of this online, but can't find it anymore, but still pretty good: Junaid Jamshed

Via Shaykh Faraz Rabbani, I found out that Syed Faseehuddin Soharwardi has some of the beautiful naats he sings on Google Video: 1) Ishq e Nabi Mere Dil Mein Bhi Sama. 2) Stand up for this one, people...Mustafa Jaan e Rahmat Pay Lakhon Salaam.

Okay, I'm done!

Allah hafiz

Slam Dunks Mayhem...

Holla

Click away...

1. Sick
2. And 1 Sickness Vol 6
3. And 1 Sickness Vol 7

Now be good and hope that I don't do any of that to you on the streets...

Peace!