Cyrus Farivar

Ed: Well, my Tales of a Toubaab catching up didn’t really happen at the pace that I had hoped. But hopefully I’ll fill out all the stories that didn’t make it into writing yet this summer. This is Part IV of the Mali trip, continued from here. This episode describes the arrival into Bamako and our first day. Takes Place: March 31 2003 Written: January 15 2004 & June 3 2004 Bamako. The final destination on the fabled railway that…

Today after going to do an interview in the Mission district today I had lunch at a Mexican restaurant on 18th/Mission. I almost didn’t go in, because I saw it was so crowded, but then I realized that everyone was watching a Mexican soccer match on TV and thought that it would be interesting to watch with them. I sat down and observed. It was Guadalajara vs. Toluca (I looked it up, it was a semifinal match — Toluca won…

So the Chinese bus lines really do exist. Comprehensive list FAQ for Fung Wah (unofficial) (Round-trips) NYC-DC – $20 Hartford-Boston/NYC – $30 NYC-Philly – $20 NYC-Albany – $40

Things are pretty quiet, given that both Boyk is in LA and Rachel 40 miles to the south. Yesterday I went to a lunch at Buck’s in Woodside with Scoble and Dan Gillmor and some other geeks. Definitely interesting, although Scoble’s son seemed completely bored out of his mind the whole time. Following that, I had a 3 hour battle with Katie Hafner’s computers and trying to install Panther and MS Office 2004, I settled with one copy of MS…

I got an A- on my thesis.

Now this is a tax that I could really get behind. We would adopt a 50-cents-a-gallon gasoline tax, the Patriot Tax (along with my wife’s proposal: free public parking anywhere in America for any hybrid or other car getting more than 35 m.p.g.). A Patriot Tax would help pay for the Afghan and Iraq wars and help finance a Manhattan project to speed the development of a hydrogen economy, enabling the public to make a contribution to the war effort…

Doesn’t anyone want to go to the RCR show with me? C’mon . . . It’s only $10!

This man is my new hero. [Stolen from Saheli Datta] My only chance was to stay calm, I told myself. “Moo mishkilleh, ana sahafi,” I shouted — pidgin Arabic for “don’t worry, I’m a journalist.” It didn’t make any difference. I was frog-marched through the throng at a rapid clip, an Arab TV crew filming what was shaping up to be a juicy scoop — a live execution of a Westerner. Mindful that these might be the last shots the…

So I saw this t-shirt on the Persians LJ site today and was amused. And then when I clicked “To view other Arabic t-shirts” (even though that one was in Farsi, not Arabic) I came across listings for t-shirts that said: “Kiss me, I’m Arabic.” C’mon guys, get it right. Arab is the people, Arabic is the language. Is that so hard?

Well, this weekend was busy and fun. Friday night was spent with Aaron, first getting some Zachary’s on College, and then over at Paul Boutin’s place. Besides feeling really out of place by being at least eight years younger than everyone else, I did learn that Salam Pax has a movie deal. And speaking of which, what’s with this six week hiatus? Saturday, following picking up Rachel from the airport, I exchanged Lauren & Josh’s graduation gift for Season 1…