I have permanently moved to a new wordpress blog on my own website:

http://mahdi.milanifard.com/blog/

I have moved (check the previous post) all the entries and comments from this blog to the new one. Please subscribe to my new RSS feed. I will not be posting here anymore (so you can remove the old RSS feed). See you at my new place.

Are you fed up with 360? (the crowed goes "yes")

Are you annoyed by all those stupid bugs that are left alone in 360? ("yeah")

Are you fed up with the fat-ass bastards in 360 team that keep promising the new ultimate Yahoo profile with blah, blah, blah features and won't give you a freaking deadline? ("hell yeah")

Are you anxiously waiting for them to release that "export" thing that lets you copy your blog content elsewhere? A peaceful wordpress blog maybe? ("yeah sure")

I might have a solution for you. I wrote a piece of nasty code in python that exports my 360 blog into wordpress export-file format (extended rss). It transfers posts, comments, images, dates, etc. If you are familiar with python, won't bother me with questions, can handle exception, ... drop me a line at m.milanifard {<[at]>} gmail, and I will send you the code.

If you are super familiar with python and have a few free hours, then maybe you can help me out clean the code and release it.

For the win ...

So many tickles, so many crashes, but only one long-lasting crashing love ...
Grow up kid! Get over it!

Enough, enough now
-- Love Actually

Let's get to the point here. I'm writing this as some sort of practice for the TOEFL test I have tomorrow. I will have to write some text as for the writing section of the text, and as you probably know, I need to get the spelling right. There is no spellchecker for the exam (lame!) and thus I need to practice to make sure I know the correct spelling. I will try to talk about my recent trip to University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. But I will write long and incoherent. Ignore this post unless you have some time to kill and there is absolutely nothing else to do. I will be using unusual words and phrases, just to make sure I get the spelling correct. So this may look unnatural, in a way.

Last week on Wednesday, we had a lab meeting at 11:30. I had a flight to Detroit at 4:00 and I was asked to be at the airport two ours before the flight. So After the talk, I grabbed my stuff and headed off towards the airport. I had to take the metro and then two buses to finally get there. I was there almost at 2:00 pm. [Oops, my neighbors just arrived and they were talking about Iran and Russia while passing against my door. I wonder what they were talking about.] So I arrived at the airport, not knowing what to do to get to the flight. I had already checked in my flight on the Internet and thus I only needed to show them my passport to get it stamped and get the my luggage checked in. [I still don't know the terms correctly.] So I went to a North West Airlines desk and got it done. Then I had to pass through the US customs. I was not expecting to do that in Canada. Rather I was expecting to have some sort of interview (or maybe an interrogation if you will) in the US. Anyways, I had to to through the US customs and it was still about one and a half hours to the flight. So I thought I will have enough time to seal the deal on time. But guess what, it was not that easy. Ironically the moment the officer at the customs office saw my passport (I think he saw the cover) he said: "Look at that passport", with a big stress on "that". And I obviously smiled in bitterly on the comment. Anyhow, the guy looked at my stuff and guided me to some special room, apparently a waiting room, asking me to wait until someone calls me. So I waited and waited. Officers went here and there with holding cups of coffee, and me getting worried at the possibility of missing my flight. Finally after about an hour someone called my name. And there it started again. Where are you going to? What is this about? What is that about? Where are you planning to stay? Give me the number of the person you are going to meet. Etc. And the officer was literally typing using two fingers. So I kept checking my watch and getting more and more frustrated at the officer's poor job in handling the process. So finally he finished the thing and I got the stuff stapled in my passport and was set to go. Just to make things worse, the gate I was supposed to pass to get to the plane was the furthest one and thus I took me about five or ten minutes to get to the plane. I was even paged on the way and I was not sure if I can even make it on time. Finally I got on the plane, as the last one to do so, and the plane took off after a few minutes. The good news was that I could get a seat next to the emergency exit doors, with lots of room for the legs, and no one was sitting next to me. So I enjoyed the flight, reading a couple of papers that I had received the day before.

In Detroit airport things went on smoothly. I only had to wait for an hour for Eric to pick me up at the airport, on a big red Jeep! We had to collect another friend, Ralph, that was coming on a domestic flight. While we were waiting for him, a special police squad came and blocked the road ahead of us for cars that were passing by. We were still waiting when they got what they were looking for. "Hands on the wheel", shouted the police officer. "Now get out of the car". I couldn't see what was going on, but as the first time to see the American police in action, it was quite meaningful.

So we went to this bed & breakfast, where we stayed for the nights during the visit. Ralph was staying for a month and I was staying for a week. The rooms where nice and beautiful and the breakfasts were spectacular. I'm not sure about this, but I think I had some sort of food allergy that caused sores to appear in my mouth (you know, those white dots that appear in your mouth every once in a while and then disappear.)

The weather was not really good. It was cloudy all the time. It rained and snowed, actually for the first time this year. I was making this joke that the clouds have been following me from Montreal, and that Ann Arbor did a great job at making me feel at home.

Random words:
discrimination, disgusting, technical, excited, of course, first of all, to sum up, on the whole, whatever, physical, physician, psychiatrist, phony outrage

Some quotes :D
They fought together and bled together, and some of them died together under the same proud flag. They did not serve a red America or a blue America. They served the United States of America [crowed cheering up].

America, this is our moment. This is our time. This is the time to show that we are still that last best hope. This is a defining moment in our history.

I can afford a week of sinister attacks. But America cannot afford four more years of the same old politics and failed policies. We need a new direction for this country. We need true change.

I think I covered most of the words I use in a typical writing. I hope nothing unusual comes up and things go on well tomorrow.