Matt W Cook

Todd

Noseless, Tear-ductless, and friendless, Barbjohn resolved himself to squint up the tree with a vitality which only comes at this exact point in the story. In the distance, and engaged in intense hand-to-hand combat with what appeared to be a cross between a duck and a meerkat, Shan was slowly being backed off the edge of a limb on the tree. Gathering up his courage, and his jet-pack, which he purchased at a thrift shop from What’s Her Face for $5.21, tax included, Barbjohn hit the shiny red button, which he had installed for an extra 6 cents, and propelled himself into the first branch on the tree at close to the speed of sound. Needless to say once Barbjohn could hear again, he resolved to push the shiny yellow button, which is programmed to propel the user automatically to the nearest Shan. Paused in the middle of their deadly duo, and eyeing eachother ostentatiously, Shan and the duck/meerkat cocked their heads at exactly the same time, and at exactly the same angle (47 degeres) to hear the soft classical music which the engine of the jet-pack created slowly growing louder. And since duck’s/meerkats despise classical music (as any good woodlander knows), this particular composition by Bach assaulted his ears in such a way so he disengaged his fight and fled up the tree. Unfortunately for somebody, the duck/meerkat was also named Shan, and when the flying Barb-John careened up the tree the engine decided to target the duck/meerkat (whom we will now refer to as his proper name Duckmeerkatus). Barbjohn impacted with Duckmeerkatus at approximately 1 billion miles per hour, which is possible because I’m writing the story, creating a deafening explosion and a tremendous fallout of feathers, teeth and Bach. When Barbjohn came to, Shan was shaking him violently. Before passing out again, Barbjohn’s eyes locked on the tree trunk, which displayed in Times New Roman font 43.5: Level 1 Billion 4 Thousand and Three. All Barbjohn could recall about that number was it had something to do with…

Finally!

Guess what? I just changed my web service here in Kunri and I finally have some pictures up for you all to see!

Joseph enjoying his bath.

he tomb of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, in Karachi.

A very charming snake charmer at Clifton beach.

My mother-in-law with her two grandkids.

A lovely view from my roof.

Me and Ruth, lookin’ good.

More to come later!

News from the East

There’s no need to tell you what happened in Pakistan last week, I’m sure you already know. I should let you know that we’re totally fine here, the quake wasn’t even felt on this side of the country, at least not physically. Images of the damage caused by the earthquake are all over the news, and I think there are two good questions we need to ask and answer.
“Do you think these Galileans were worse sinners that all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the other who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.” Do you think the people in the affected areas are under God’s special judgment? Not likely, but unless you repent your fate will be worse.
And a very important question to ask: “What is the Christian’s response to this?” I don’t mean, how can we explain this so God doesn’t look like a bad guy, you and I have already read good articles answering that question. I’m saying what should we do about the quake? Here’s a partial answer:
1 – Weep. Weep with those who weep, let this touch your heart, even though it’s so far away. Think about those in Canada who have friends and family in this area.
2 – Pray. God uses these things, He always does. Pray that the damage might be lessened, that good can come from this. Pray for the families who have lost people. Pray for the Good News that can go there.
3 – Give/Go. Give a cold cup of water to the least of these. You will by no means lose your reward. The early Christians were known not only for taking care of their own, but for taking care of everyone too. I wonder what we are known for today.
4 – Praise God. Praise Him that this is not the norm. That these disasters are rare, even though we call these things on our head every time we sin. Even in all this, God is merciful. Praise Him that He will bring good out of it all, that the weeping lasts only for a night, there is joy in the morning.

After waiting a few moments wracked with intense pain, barbjohn did the first thing that came to his poor scrambeled mind; he picked up the rusty pitchfork and began to brush his hair using short, brisk, strokes. Thus engaged, he began to relay the situation over in his head “I’m really in no place to be doing anything, not only am I an invalid, but I just fell from a 900 storey tree, and not only that but I’m an invalid (barbjohn’s reasoning tended to be rather circular at times.) So sighing to himself he began to cry (tearless crying of course since barbjohn lacked tear ducts as well.) Hearing his cries afar off a sad, little, puppy came to investigate the matter, upon seeing the poor creature moaning in the hay, the sad, little puppy went over and placed his paw on Barbjohn’s knee. He looked up and saw the little animal and queried “will you be my friend?” Well, with a knowing smile and a flick of the tail, the little puppy bit of Barbjohn’s nose and trotted off into the sunset.

Twist and shout

A day in the life of a Canadian in Pakistan. Hot.

They tell me it’s unseasonable hot these days. I believe them. September is the month in which it’s supposed to begin to cool down, but I think that it’s getting warmer. It’s all good though, our little house has good air flow and whatnot.

The Bazaar is a really neat place. Once you go there enough times you can always tell where certain people will be. My buddy Muhammad and his buddy Muhammad are always by the big ‘Allah’ sign in the center of town. I always know who I’ll run into in the covered Bazaar a few streets away, even though I can’t pronounce or remember their names. Yep, it looks like this town is becoming my town. All is good.

So the night of the 12th was a pretty special night for Muslims here. It was a holiday called Shab-e-barat. This night is the Anniversary of the night that Muhammad was taken up from Jerusalem to heaven to meet God and the prophets of old. So the Muslims here stayed up all night long praying and fasting. Our land-lady tells us that this is the night that God ordains all that will happen throughout the next year. Very interesting. School was closed the next day to allow the teachers to rest up.

Internet is still unreliable, but I think I’m getting the hang of it. It seems to work great first thing in the morning, that’s about 7-8pm Canada time. Maybe we’ll see you on MSN!

Here’s a little Urdu lesson just in case you find yourself in need of potatoes while wandering around Pakistan.
You approach the Potato walla and say: Assalamu Alaikum, Bhai saab (Hey there bro)
Potato walla: Wa’ Alaikum Assalam, aap kya hal hai?
(Hey there, how ya doin’?)
You: Mein teek hun, mujhe aloo chahiye
(I’m fine, I need potato)
Potato walla: Acha, kittnay kilo?
(Giddiup, how many kilos?)
You: Sirf adha kilo
(just half a kilo)
Potato walla: Acha, yeh dus rupaay
(giddiup, that’s ten Rupees)
You: Yeh lijie, shukria
(Here ya go, thanks)

Cook out

Plasmodium falciparum

It started with a small hole in the mosquito net. A single mosquito flew in. This mosquito was a host to this parasite. At the bug plunged it’s little straw thingy into my sleeping body, the parasite-ridden saliva dripped into my blood stream. The little critters inside made their way to my liver, where they hung out until they felt they were ready to begin the hostile take-over of my red blood cells. It started out as a simply pain in the neck, literally. After that the pain moved up to the back of my head and I started to get a nasty fever and general malaise. Mr. doctor diagnosed my with malaria and gave me many a pill. It took a good week before I felt normal and I’ve lost a lot of weight (though I don’t think that’s a bad thing).

All better now, and I’ve got the Internet in my house. I’ll be blogging more often now. Talk to ya later!

Cook out

See the purple stuff? That’s malaria eating my red blood cells.

Matt

…they heard an ominous sound coming from below. It sounded strangely like a rusty brass-chainsaw starting up and digging into some wood. Shan had a momentary lapse of insight and commanded Barb-John to look down the trunk to find out what the noise was. But of course, dear Barb-John was deaf as a wet stump, so Shan had to wave for him to look.
Unfotunately, this also received no attention.
Fortunately, Shan possessed his trusty “Get Barb-John’s Attention” stick (which was basically a cattle prod that had a +1 electrical damage added on to its 1d6 base damage).
Unfortunately this caused Barb-John to tumble out of the tree.
Fortunately, Barb-John was wearing a parachute at the time.
Unfortunately, he lacked the intellectual fortitude to pull the rip-chord.
Fortunately, there was a large wagon full of freshly harvested cotton-balls below him.
Unfortunately, there was a nasty, rusty pitchfork sticking in said wagon.
Fortunately, he missed the pitchfork.
Unfortunately, he also missed the wagon.
And so Barb-John landed with a mighty mixture of a thud and a splat. What became of the rat, you may ask? The dear rat, it seems, had not only his own parachute but also the very intellectual fortitude that Barb-John lacked to pull the rip-chord, so he landed softly and was quickly reunited with his rather incapacitated and possibly dead fellow-sidekick.

Todd

So the three companions met early the next day at the foot of the great tree. Of course it took most of the day for barbjohn to remember who he was, where he was, which baseball team won the penant in 1963, and why his sandal was glued to his forehead. He happened upon the tree mainly because it was the biggest thing on the horizon that morning. A furious Shan let Gordan chew barbjohn’s ear while he himself attempted to help remove the sandal without a lobotomy (which I guarantee you was an option at this point { due to the brass chainsaw wedged into the ground nearby [which though rusty actually still functions properly ]}) In any case, after relaying to the writer how annyoying and grammatically incorrect his recent sequence of brackets is, Shan succeeds in ripping the sandal (and some scalp) from his sidekick’s head. The group wastes no time talking, since it would most likely end in a fight, or at least a barbeque. Instead they saunter (well barbjohn mostly tripped) toward the tree and climb up approximately fifty of its laboriously big branches before…

Ben

Shan had no friends, his unhealthy, un-normal, and downright uh, unhealthy lifestyle had scared off any potential well-wishers. One day however whilst performing his usual hamstring lacerations he happened upon a one legged, mute, deaf and blind child entitled barbjohn. Barb-john was not strong or especially talented (except of course the skill of having abosultely no clue what’s going on, at any time) but as far as side-kick material goes, barb-john was #1. So having no sidekick of his own except a nasty underfed lab rat on his shoulder, Shan took barb-john under his wing. Having promised him glory and supassing wealth and money and riches beyond measure and…a nice wife, he slapped his new sidekick on the back (which cause him to fall flat into gravel and mud) and declared “What do you think of that my fair weathered son.” Barb-john mumbled something about butterflies and tire-irons and struggled to his feet.

It is done

Well folks, I finally have some pictures up. Not many, and none that are really of Pakistan, pretty much cute baby pictures and a neat-o video. Check ’em out:

So…
That’s just one picture…I would have put more up, but unfortunately I’m not immortal and the upload time is killing me, one though…one day.