Absolute Random Nonsense

Layout supervisor  Rasoul Azadani  traveled to his hometown of Isfahan, Iran in 1991 to get a feel for the look of the film Aladdin. He took nearly two thousand pictures there. His name was supposed to be the incantation Jafar used when he approached the Cave of Wonders, but the idea was written out so as not to be such an in-joke. However, in  The Return of Jafar (1994) , the (here nameless) captain of the guards was eventually named in his honor.  

One Thursday before the last period, Mr. Jalaei called me into his office. I hadn’t done anything and wasn’t sure what this would be about. He lead me down to the prayer room and once we were there we noticed Mehdi, my former 4th grade classmate, lying down on the ground. Mr. Jalaei went up to him. “What are you doing here?” “I have a stomach ache so I’m just lying down.” “Who gave you permission to come here?” “No one gave permission.” Mehdi was sent back to class. Mr. Jalaei took out a pen and a piece of paper and scribbled something on it and showed it to me. “What does this mean?” It was a number, six digits in total. I thought it might be a phone number but it didn’t look familiar. I stared at it and finally said, “I don’t know what that is.” “Don’t play games with me.” “I don’t think I have ever seen this.” “You are actually capable of thinking?” I thought about giving a smart-ass response but judging by Mr. Jalaei’s harsher than usual demeanor I assumed things were serious, ev...

He’s best known by his first name…. Kia. His life is remarkable. Kia Zolgharnain was born in Iran in 1965. His family was wealthy and lived in a mansion with maids and servants. He was not allowed to play in the streets, so he watched kids play soccer from his window. He learned the game in his mind. When he was six, his father took him on a trip to Spain, Germany, and England where he watched professional soccer teams like Manchester United play. “That was the turning point for me,” he said. “It was soccer 24-7 in my mind. That’s what I wanted to do.” The family came to America where Kia said they were met with culture shock. “Our hotel had a television with like 200 channels,” he said. “I didn’t want to sleep. I wanted to watch TV.” He said watching shows was his motivation to learn English because he wanted to know what the “Fonz” was saying on Happy Days . By 17, he was coaching and playing the sport he watched from his mansion in Iran. In 1983, he turned pro right out of hig...

When I was a kid I used to bite my upper lip to the point where it would turn red and look like a third lip. Once someone asked me why I did that. I said it was because when I grew up I didn't want any facial hair so that my face could look young and this was my way of burning the yet to grow hair. They pointed out that if this worked it would only be effective for the area right above my lip and thus a bit higher, the sides and the entire beard area would still remain. I said I would just shave those areas. They mentioned that if I was gonna shave anyway why not just shave the whole thing instead of trying to allegedly burn some parts. I told them to shut up.  

Dareo Shahrdar was on Judge Judy twice. The first time he sued for the return of an engagement ring in which he was successful but in the counter suit he had to pay $3,000 that he had borrowed from his fiance for bail money. The next time he was on Judge Judy he sued his landlord who let him sit in jail as a result of her not fessing up that a gun that police found belonged to her and not him. She then evicted him and kept his rent money while he was in jail. He won $5,000.

I was in Boston visiting a relative. Once there they told my relative's friend that there is a restaurant that shows Iran's games and if I wanted we could go there to watch this one. So we got up at around 3:00am and went there and it was packed with Iranians (and one Australian guy). The owner kept trying to get the game on his TV but the signal wasn't working. In the meantime someone got on the computer and found a site that reported the game every minute or so. So he kept reading us what was going on and just about every line was an Australian attack. Finally Australia scored. The owner was still trying to get us a signal but was unsuccessful. The second half started pretty much the same as the first and when Australia scored the second goal (that again we only were able to read about) everyone pretty much got up to leave as we figured it was over. I came back and went straight to sleep but in the morning my relative started waking me up to tell me that Iran...