The Blah Blahs and the Yada Yadas

Someone needs to put a leash on the smartphones before things get completely out of control. I, for one, am not amused by the way things are going. Call me arrogant, but I take pride on being intellectually superior to my inanimate stuff. I’ve never lost a debate with my shoes yet. From time to time, when no one’s looking, I like to bully my chair, or maybe even the calculator by going “Hey, you. I’m smarter than you. Oh yeah, you know it.”, and in my own mind, I can imagine them bowing their heads in shame. I [...] Continue Reading…

It takes a minute to say hello, and forever to say goodbye. Perhaps this is why it has taken this long to get this post up and running. Perhaps it’s because I have been kept busy with work. And then again, perhaps, these are just the fall guys who are taking the hit for the real culprit, my faineancy (And in case you’re wondering… If you are too lazy to look up what faineancy means, well, perhaps you’re faineant as well). It has been an affair to remember, but it’s time to say goodbye. This is my two finger [...] Continue Reading…

It’s been a while since the Hammy pen has jotted a movie review. Come to think of it, the Hammy pen has not been jotting much of anything these days. This doesn’t mean I haven’t been watching movies of late; just that I’ve been busier than Santa Claus on Christmas eve. But I’m scraping some time off from work just to pitch in with this review. And right now, there is no movie I want to review more than the recent (well, not recent recent) 3D installment of Resident Evil.

The original 2002 movie, Resident Evil, was a pretty good [...] Continue Reading…

I’ve come to realize a long time ago… Mankind is not looking for solutions. Man is not seeking to better himself. His quest is not for supremacy or superiority; not to enlighten himself; nor to blend in with society; or to fight for truth and justice. No. Man’s ultimate quest is for an excuse. We don’t need solutions. As long as we have the right kind of excuse, we are one happy specie. All the advancement in the world is brought about by people who didn’t think hard enough for an excuse. If Edison could have thought of an [...] Continue Reading…

I couldn’t believe it. It simply refused to register… The lobby was air conditioned. And I don’t mean they had slots on the walls for ACs. They had actual air conditioners. Working ones. The lobby was clean, the lines orderly, and even the glass planes looked like they got washed regularly.

I do realize that these are not the kind of facilities that I should get overwhelmed by in an airport terminal, especially an international one, but I have to assert that my arrival at the Abidjan International Airport, Ivory Coast made me heave a sigh of relief. I wouldn’t [...] Continue Reading…

Namaste, somebody said. It was followed almost immediately by another cry of namaste. Pretty soon, I had a cackle of namastes from both sides. I looked up from my seat. I was getting some shut-eye in the backseat, being driven to my work in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, and the popular Hindi word wasn’t something I had expected to hear on the way. Namaste, for those of you who don’t know, is a Hindi greeting welcoming someone into a new place or a new day.

As I raised my head, I saw the faces attached to the greetings. Street hawkers on [...] Continue Reading…

The English language in Nigeria has a life of its own. Especially when spoken to an outsider. I’ve heard them speak to each other, and it doesn’t have the same awkward twists and turns they employ when they speak to me. The difference, I noticed, is the way they pace the words. The accent is always thick, but when they speak to each other, the words flow smooth and free, like a seasoned driver going on a smooth highway. On the other hand, when they speak to an outsider – or maybe it’s just me – they suddenly become [...] Continue Reading…

Some of the so called ‘motivational phrases’ don’t address the full picture. When going gets tough, sure, the tough gets going, but what about the rest of us? It’s not good tidings for the rest of us, but nobody talks about that, do they? We’re people too, you know. And while the tough gets going without so much as a blink, it’s people like us who are trampled on, punched in the stomach, kicked in the pants and shipped off to Africa.

It’s been slightly over a month now since I’ve been told to report to Africa on a project. [...] Continue Reading…

My dad tried very hard to develop my interest in newspapers. It wasn’t easy. I always liked to read, but that interest never graduated to the daily print. Politics confused me back when I didn’t understand it, disgusted me when I finally was able to figure it out, sports never held any interest, celebrity gossip felt unnecessary, and when you cut down all of these elements, newspapers were nothing more than coarse wrapping paper, except less reliable.

And when interest finally dawned, it was restricted to the comics section. For years, I’d marvel at Calvin, chuckle at Garfield, empathized with [...] Continue Reading…

It was while I was somewhere between the grocery and junk food section in the supermarket, musing over random imponderables, when it came to my attention that despite being the most influential blogger within a radius of 10-20 meters, I’ve never raised a finger for improving the legal framework of our country. (Most friends tell me that the finger I raised at the meanie traffic cop doesn’t count)

After careful consideration, I move for capital punishment. And not just for the seriously violent criminals, but others as well… In particular, I want to pass a resolution that promotes medieval torture [...] Continue Reading…