Absolute Random Nonsense

I had brought a Star Wars binder from the US with me to Iran. On one side it had a picture of two Storm Troopers and the other Han Solo and Chewbacca. The way Chewbacca was leaning forward and holding his gun made it look like his body was sliced in half and his upper body was hovering. I would bring it with me to school in the 4th grade mainly so we could practice drawing the characters. I had it put away until the summer of 9th grade when I went to Samar English classes. I realized I couldn't really use it as it was a 3-hole binder but papers in Iran had 4 holes. So we had to remove the original rings and put in a new one from an old binder. Once I stopped going to my English classes at the end of 10th grade I once again put the binder away. I had one last stretch of usage once I began college. But one day as we were in our chemistry class it slipped out of my hand and fell. Nemat looked at it and said, "If it were me, I would have broken." He was right. The binder fell...

Shahla Karimi is reimagining what commitment rings look like, and designing them for very modern relationships. “I’m your ring designer, therapist and friend,” said Karimi, who moved to New York from Louisville, Ky., in 2004, and created her jewelry brand, Shahla Karimi Jewelry, in 2014. A SoHo showroom followed in 2022. “Rather than sell you a diamond and a setting, I design pieces that reflect a couple’s relationship and emotion,” she said. Karimi, 44, has left a sizable female footprint in New York’s male-dominated diamond industry, and last year, created a self-funded reality series called “Diamond Divas,” 40 one-minute episodes that follow Karimi and the eight women who work in her showroom. They can be viewed on social media platforms like Instagram and YouTube. “I’d never seen a show about women in the diamond industry,” she said, “and what love and relationships look like right now.” This includes rings to celebrate a divorce or to reflect a nonmonogamous relationship — somethi...

Shiva and Roya Marandi were on Judge Judy. They were sued for trashing their friend's house after coming back from a bar. They damaged her sofa, carpet, television and toilet tank lid. Judge Judy ruled against them and they had to pay $3,000.  

One time in Iran our car was making a weird noise so I took it to a mechanic. I told the mechanic about the noise I was hearing and he asked me what kind of noise it was. I told him to come to the car so that I could show him. I almost immediately regretted it as this would have been the perfect opportunity for me to make some weird noises without having my sanity questioned. As it turned out it was the springs.  

When Mike Doustdar started as a summer employee making copies at Novo Nordisk—a teenager living in Austria after fleeing unrest in his home country of Iran at 12—he never imagined he would remain at the company for more than 30 years, let alone lead it as CEO. Doustdar now heads the Danish company that makes the popular diabetes drug Ozempic and weight-loss medication Wegovy, both of which contain the GLP-1 compound semaglutide. In January, Novo Nordisk launched the first GLP-1 pill for weight loss, marking a significant step in making the drugs more convenient and less expensive to take than the injectable forms previously on the market. It’s a critical test.  Doustdar was tapped as CEO last summer in part to restore the company’s presence in the diabetes and obesity space, after ceding ground to competitor Eli Lilly. Lilly’s weight-loss drug Zepbound comes at higher doses and so tends to produce greater weight loss than Wegovy. Novo Nordisk needed a chief executive with resilienc...

One time I was hailing a taxi in New York and this group pulled up in a limo. They called me in and every other word out of their mouths was 'dude'. We ended up going to a bar and we were all sitting around a booth. It was an empty, long bar, and at the end I saw someone with teased-up platinum hair, ivory skin, black nails, jewelry and a little midriff shirt. We were all drawing straws to see who was gonna go up and say hello. Someone else ended up winning and before approaching, poetically said, "Despite the doubt clouding my mind, I fuel the fire of my ambition and kept pushing forward."  

Realtor Mehrad Kabir had parked his car on the 200 block of West Sixth Street  before 5 p.m. on Sunday, May 3. He noticed a man on the street wearing a medical mask and looking at him in a “weird” way, but Kabir was more focussed on finishing his phone call with a friend. When he stepped out of the car a few minutes later, the man in the mask was still there. “And when I turned back, I saw that same guy behind me,” he said. “And at that point, he sprayed directly into my eyes.” The pain was unlike anything he’d ever felt, Kabir said. “I was totally blind,” he said. “My head, my eyes, my mouth were burning to hell.” Fearful that another more serious attack was coming, Kabir was able to get back into his car and close the door. The suspect fled. It wasn’t until a few minutes later that Kabir got out and called for help. A neighbor rushed to his aide and called 911. North Vancouver RCMP members arrived soon after, but unfortunately BC Ambulance Service paramedics were tied ...

In 1984 while on a plane they showed the movie Yentl. Towards the end where she reveals she is a woman I was instructed to keep my head down to avoid seeing the nudity to which I obliged although in an earlier scene where the guys go swimming nude I was allowed to continue watching. Years later I remembered the scene and out of curiosity searched for it online. It was extremely lame with nothing explicit shown. I felt seriously ripped off.  

An Iranian mother-of-two found dead in Galway after having her throat cut has been named locally as Masuma Sohrabi. Gardai are set to launch a murder investigation after the 31-year-old was found dead near the IPAS accommodation where she had been residing in Clifden on Thursday morning. Staff at the Waterloo House IPAS accommodation discovered the woman after being unable to find her. Masuma was found near the river on Waterloo Bridge on the Galway Road with catastrophic neck injuries. A man known to her was arrested near the scene and was taken to hospital for injuries incurred during the horrific incident. Gardai now want to question him on suspicion of murder once he is deemed medically fit. The victim's name was Masuma Sohrabi, and most pals in the IPAS centre knew her simply as ‘Athija’. She was mother to a five year old girl and nine year old boy - both of whom attended a local school in Clifden. Masuma was working in a hotel in the area, locals say, and had come to this cou...