I was in Hyderabad yesterday, to attend a friend’s wedding, umm actually it was a Valima. I enjoyed the wedding  a little and had to go through a major travelling mess.. no kidding.. add to that the effed up situation at the Intercity Bus Stop.

I went with a few other friends from my Dubai work place, and yeah I knew Riaz from there. So it was me, Tauseef and Shahzeb. The first trip from Karachi to Hyderabad was alright, since we hired a car to drop us there. From there on we called Riaz’s friend in Hyderabad, who picked us from the stop and took us to the Hall. We were among the first to get there, so a long boredom session was in place.. Thank you

Anyways, a little later we started see some familiar faces, that was nice we got to do some catching up with folks from Dubai plus it was a bit of help from the boredom session

Once we were done with food and stuff we headed to the bus stop from where we were called back and were asked to travel with the bride’s family, which was a pretty nice gesture.. 15 minutes into the journey back to Karachi this guy starts talking about god knows what, but what I liked was that when I was playing NFS on my iPhone I was gathering up crowd.. iPhone loves crowd. Then this guys starts to talk about iPhone like he knows the world about it, it was easy to shut him up, which was what I thought an accomplishment, but guess what.. he didn’t shut up.. he started playing “Name Place Animal Thing” on voice with kids on the bus.. I was like “F**K No” what followed was a three hour noisy crappy game.. What we were left was a bad head ache, not to mention a backache from the journey.

I would congratulate Riaz on his wedding, Mubarkaan.. and oh I m not going to attend a wedding in a different city on a bus.. unless it’s a very cool one.

Congrats to you bro.

Cheers.

Tags: dubai, hyderabad, journey, karachi, riaz, shahzeb, tauseef, travel, wedding

It’s been a really long while since I wrote on my blog I think, was time I should update this baby of mine.

I’ve been in Karachi for about more than 2 months, and to tell you the truth I love it here more than I liked it there, sure I had drums and all, but this place is a blessing I tell you, for one I can enjoy Bar B Q’s till the morning instead of having to wrap it up by 11pm, that seriously sucked.

Anyways, I got my new Macbook sometime back and boy it’s awesome, it’s like super awesome, plus it looks even better with my magic mouse. My old Mac I handed to dad since he had fallen in love with this machine. So he’s finally getting on the internet you ask ? Internet.. he’s on Facebook, imagine that.. within a week… He was on PC for more than a year and hated it.. now he loves it and he’s metting up new people, it’s awesome.

I have also managed to escape a close iPhone snatching.. I swore at the guy.. how cool is that

Also I’ve been made a Founder at a deviantart group ‘dA-Pakistan‘ , if you’re an artist and are on Deviantart, you should definetely join us.. the crew involves Umar and Anam.. awesome people I tell you.

Coming back to the present times, I attended the blog awards yesterday, man it was awesome, even though I wasn’t feeling well, I decided I would go.. I had some suggestions on some of the topics being discussed, but I decided not to speak, again I wasn’t feeling well.. But I should’ve screamed about them. Pictures here.

Thats all for now.

Tags: awards, blog, fun, incident, iPhone, karachi, mac, snatching

I m in Karachi people. I’ve been here since the 19th of Feb’10. I apologize for not letting a lot of you know that, honestly I wanted to surprise :P

From the day I landed everything has been pretty energetic+super busy. Friday when I landed was the day I shocked my family, that was pretty neat I tell you

From then onwards things got pretty busy. We’re working on a new design for our main website www.xuqa.com, which is due out soon. The current design I think has taken away all the user experience, I plan to put that experience back in, so obviously alot of thought is being put into that.

But most of the problems+major improvements will come in once the new design is out.

Our Game Ventures office is officially open in Karachi now, and we have quite a team I tell you, for me a major addition is Arif Kamal, whose work I immensely admire.

On a personal level I’ve got some more work for myself, I m working on the new design of my blog, which is due for quite some time, and also another project which will be revealed in due time.

I also happen to meet alot of my dost, which was refreshing, had been wanting to catch up for quite some time, though one thing that I do miss are my drums. I miss those like anything, and offcourse the chocolate balls!

The rest is the usual.. getting into the Awesome Karachi spirit for a few months.

Tags: blog, karachi, office, visit, work

Hey.. so the last few weeks have been really really busy for me. In terms of activities, work, people and everything else in between or otherwise.

Just by the time Zulfiqar’s parent’s were back in Singapore, I had to fly out to Karachi, my cousin’s wedding was coming up, with a shit load of work on my plate. I completed some bits of it, and ten flew to Pakistan. After quite some months experiencing the power outage was kinda fun. Not only did I get to meet my friends, I attended a Tweet up (pictures), and appeared at CIO Pakistan for an interview.

The wedding for which I actually went there went pretty well. It was mostly a surprize for my relatives since I had told them I wont be able to make it, infact one of my cousin was really pissed at me, and called me the day I was flying, little did she know I was about to head for Karachi in a few hours They were nothing less than shocked & surprized (Mission accomplished).

Anyways, I had fun there with lots of stuff, my family and all though were a little angry that I spent less time with them, I hope I get to spend more time with them the next time.

Also on my way back to Singapore, it was the first time I slept on flights, maybe because I hadn’t had rest lately.

As soon as I was back I was smacked in my face with pending work, which I m finishing up.

Also as it’s in the spirit of the month. It’s the independence day of both countries I m linked to. Singapore on the 8th, Pakistan on the 14th God bless.

Tags: 14th aug, 8th aug, august, CIO Pakistan, dishum dishum, friends, fun, independence day, interview, karachi, kashif, media, saba, wedding

I was thinking of all the things I’ve learned professionally and at what level of capability, some times even considering not to learn, all in the goodness.

A few years back I preferred to freelance rather than take up a job, now I would say I m comfortable with both. When I first started off with jobs, Hassan Sarwar was working at a advertising/web/crap company ‘Dreams Quest’ these guys were looking for a senior web designer, and so I was called in and joined immediately, I wasn’t really impressed by anything there, but just the fact that I’ll be working with a team and a friend. One fo the most important things I learned was that people there sucked big time, no kidding. I ended up quitting the job some time later, and going back to freelance, Hassan had done so earlier than me.

It was quite an experience and I had decided I’ll work with people who consider value of the work that I do.

Again while freelancing, I decided to do my blog, and put it up, Hassan at his new work place opened up this blog, and other guys at the work place noticed it and were pretty impressed ( ), needless to say I was sitting in an interview room again, only this time it was a very cool place to work. I took up the job, and still cherish the time I spent at Creative Chaos. About 9-10 months later I decided I wanted to go and work for a company that had work to do other than the websites. What turns out is that one of my other friends was working in Dubai, UAE, and these guys were looking for artists too, and since I had spread the word I was free, I was in touch with the guys again, before I could leave Creative Chaos, I had 3 more jobs at my disposal. I opted to move to Dubai, not only because it’s nice to see places world wide, but also I wanted to see the place I was born.

What happens here is not something many employers would appreciate but, I left the company (Illusio Pvt Ltd) in a month, due to a strong political influence in the company a plus the crappy political thing they had running in the company, and add bad management to that. While I was going to leave this place I had another offer from a company “Peanut labs” who also wanted me to do their website (which as of now has been screwed to quite an extent) as a freelance project, let’s go back a little on this, while I was in Creative Chaos, I did a website “TimeSvr” as a freelance project, and since the CEO of TimeSvr and another company “Xuqa” which was co-owned by Peanut labs,  was the same, he offered me a job, which I declined since I wanted to go to Dubai. So anyways coming back to where I left from, Peanut labs offered me a job, I decided to take it up (yes good money was involved in that), so I flew back to Pakistan and started off. A few months down the road and a decision is made that the whole Xuqa team and later the Peanut labs tea was being moved to Singapore (WOW going out again ), being in Xuqa, I was moved here first, been enjoying since.

If you’re thinking why I wrote this.. just cause I felt like it

Tags: creative chaos, dream quest, dubai, game ventures, good, illusio, jobs, karachi, office, Pakistan, places, singapore, work, world, xuqa

6th March 2009, the day active bloggers in Karachi met again to discuss various issues affecting our nation online and offline, organized by Google Pakistan, CIO Pakistan and Wateen Telecom, turned out to be quite some resolutions and suggestions, thoughts and valuable brainstorming.

I reached the venue a little late, since I was coming straight from work, and particularly because the taxi driver took the longer route for some reason. *Curses the evil taxi wala * Any how as I reached that place I discovered most of the people were already there, I recoginized some faces instantly (Ali K. Chisti, Awab Alvi, Batool, Jehan Ara, Rabia, Badar, Salaina). It was a little surprize that most people know me, I m not much of a proper blog, I mostly write crapy stuff, but anyways..

I was delighted at the fact that this meet up was to discus activism issues, my blog isn’t about activism but what I do like about the idea of activism is that it gives people what’s rightfully theirs and they get their voices heard.

After my arrival, soon Imran Hussain and Umair K. Jadoon were there too,  it was the first time I met them properly, the first time I met them was at the First bloggers meet up, but I didn’t get time to get to know them properly, until obviously we had a great online blogger meet up. Great ppl.

The topic that we discussed was about how to get a better image back to Pakistan, since we’re getting all the negative publicity recently, be it the government or the militants, it’s just not good, so we thoughts it’s time for all the nerds to take the situation into their hands (j/k)

We discussed matters of importance, being it sponsoring bloggers from the outside world or setting up proper resolutions and following them, the sponsoring bloggers idea was brought int light by Badar Khushnood, while Salaina suggested that she could draft a national PR policy. Farhan was of the opinion that we could all put up Pakistan’s flag on our blogs to reflect our love for the country (I came up with that graphic, that I allow anyone to freely use on their blog, but please host it on your own).  I suggested that bring out the positive image, snap along the way and upload the beauties of the country, be it people, places, events or anything on the positive side.

After our discussions and all, we moved to the Bowling area, where some awesome refreshments awaited us..it wa already time my tummy felt the need to get a top up

So we had out tiny snacks, some coffee and then.. yes right then we bowled our heads off.. didn’t make for some good score but had fun.. I had Awab Alvi, Badar and Rabia as my competetors.. It had to be nice and surely it was.

The picture right at the begining was a snap shot that was taken while lights went out for a bit. Thanks to Rabia for the picture.

Related:

Blogap – Bloggers Association of Pakistan

‘Karachi Blogger’s Meet up’ [Highlights]

Highly energized Bloggers meet in Karachi

Tags: 09, activism, ali, ammar, awab, Badar, bloggers meetup, blogs, discussion, fun, Imran, karachi, plans, Rabia, resolutios, thoughts, umair

Singapore is one amazing place to be, and I’d love to be back there in no time, but honestly the only thing I miss when I m there, is the food, my family, my love and all.

But right now  I m in Karachi, and I m enjoying every bit of it, except when I had to go to the office the night I landed actually that was nice too

I m enjoying the food mama’s makin and obviously meeting all my mates, haven’t met all of them though

Oh and here are a few of the pictures from my appartment.

Tags: appartment, bit, karachi, love, moments, pictures

I’ve been bloggin for quite some time now, I used to do it ona friend’s hosting service before I got my own hosting for work reasons, it was much of a freedom after I had my own hosting. Blogging for me helped me to stay calm and all, you see I could say anything I want on my page, and no one could order me to bring down things, which is the best thing about writing online, you’re your own complete staff, so anyhow, it’s obvious that I would have been pretty excited about this event which was being hosted by Google Pakistan and CIO Pakistan. They had called for all the bloggers in Karachi, and people had come from even different cities to attend this event, which in my opinion is very awesome.

Let me jot down how my I experienced it, I was there with Ammar (RONIN), an hour earlier, which is not quite how the regular Pakistani does it, but honestly we didn’t actually know the way to Royal Rodale we had to find it, turned out the route wasn’t difficult at all. As we approached the hall where this event was being held, we saw a couple of advertisement stands of Google, Wateen, CIO outside in the corridor. As we entered we were greeted by Salaina, who was rather amazed that we had come before time, she handed us our “Hanging Passes” and we walked right into the hall, where the stage was being set up with minor changes being made, then we saw Saad and Haris with their laptops, sooner people had started to walk in, and it felt like something really good was building up, we also got hands on a Red bull, for free

Let me now jump to the main event, the meet up started a little late because of the participants arriving a little late, which is a norm though a not so good one, any how, Rabia took the stage and made the announcements and called Dr. Awab Alvi and Sabeen Mahmud on stage, where they discussed various issues took questions and obviously answered them

Then the microphone was handed over to Badar Khushnood, the only Google representative in Pakistan, and boy he made his points clear and pretty nicely, his basic talk was about the introduction of blogging to people who donot know how to blog or dont know about blogging at all.

Then we had Haris and Saad on stage who talked about Sizlopedia and Sizzledcore, from which they earn thousands of dollars a month, which is awesome.. Jaw dropping for many.

It was a panel questions and answers then, which was after Ramla got to talk about her venture and after Ammar talked about Teabreak.

One of the most important things about the panel discussion was when Shazia spoke, Shazia was a blind girl who was blogging, which made a difference for us because we could understand how they blog and read, being a CSS kid I knew a bit about it, but it was worth more for everyone else.

Then we all went for a Teabreak, I mean a real one.

The event was one that was informative and a very good way to socialize with each other too. We got to know lots of bloggers and their opinions on different topics, I got to meet Ali K. Chishti who’s a lawyer by profession but a funky guy otherwise.

I would love to see those bloggers united agian soon, Inshallah, and I hope more of this kind of events happen across the country.

Pictures:

More Reviews:

Blogger Meet up 2008 (Karachi)

#Karachi Bloggers Meet Up! ’08 – My Kind of Partaaayyyyyy

KBM ’08: An Offline Get Together Of Pak Bloggers

کراچی بلاگرز کی نشست

Tags: 08, ammar, awab, bloggers, freedom, haris, information, karachi, meet up, saad, sabeen, sppech, stand, talk, united

I m here writing, just a couple of hours after I finally got the courage to say bye bye to my current so awesome job, to join another company for a different experience. As per the policy of this current so damn awesome company I will have to serve yet another month, before I can join the other company.

My new destination will be Trippert Labs, if all goes well, I should be joining it in a month’s time, though I was supposed to join in like 15 days time, but sadly that period has been made into a month.. :S

Any how, I m hoping the ride is going to be funfilled. I’ve already text-spoken to the HR, and the CTO, and they seem pretty nice people.

I know one thing for sure, I m going to miss this place as hell, I seem to have grown with this place, developed and polished myself a lot here. Fallen in love with the entire crew. Raised my standards, and learned alot or principals. Yes thats a good thing, progress is good.

So what now, right ? Well, thinking what to do, right now I haven’t spoken to my family about the resignation, it’s going to be a little bit of shock, but they’ll adjust, though my mom knows about this, almost nothing is hidden from here, but even she wouldn’t be expecting that I’d resign so soon.

Right now I m looking forward for good wishes, and a better carrier/future. Hope I get that.

On the other hand, we have a Teabreak meet up this Sunday, and we even have a Convention of the Creatives on the same day, lets see what happens, the Teabreak event is for bloggers and select folks only, where as the Convention is for everyone. A handful of people will be joining us on the launching event of TeaBreak. I hope it goes around good too… Right now I’ll head out of office with Zair to meet Ammar and Asim to discuss the whole event thing.

Prayers… Love you all.

Tags: creative chaos, dates, going, Islamabad, job, joining, karachi, living, offers, oppurtunity, resign, teabreak, trippert labs, work