Displaced Hack

Get outta here

2008-06-27T14:10:00.000-07:00

This blog is dead. Please visit: http://www.amilniazi.tumblr.com

Thanks!

im in ur newspaperz

2007-06-28T09:15:00.000-07:00

http://onlymagazine.ca/Mental-Health/1126/blogging-on-paper

Blogging on Paperby Amil Niazi
Newspapers with Premenstrual Bloat

The Vancouver Sun’s Amy O’Brian is retiring her “Match Point” column for, amongst other reasons, more privacy. I can’t say I read the column regularly, but I think it’s a good move and hopefully a sign of times to come. Now that most everyone has a blog and what they’re bloggy about is real-life junk and relationship strife, do we need to continue to fill our newspapers with ever more Leah McLarens and Rebecca Ecklers?
The best and worst part of the Internet is its overwhelming democratisation of media. You can write stupid things on pictures of cats, inundate the world with your personal video diaries and keep a running log on every fight you’ve just had with your boyfriend. And so because we can write about ourselves in a way that is beyond self indulgent, we do. We fill endless pages with ramblings on our favourite breakfast cereal, what we loved about last night’s episode of Bones and why drunk texting is never a good idea. It’s the ideal forum for venting and relating, what with your audience so readily accessible. And again, the most redeeming quality of all this information porn is the fact that it’s not displacing anything more important or relevant, merely holding a spot somewhere in case you are so inclined to browse past.
So why, when newspapers are struggling to connect with audiences and find something to offer their readers that’s worth at least the 75 cents it costs to purchase, are they filling their pages with crap you can read for free anywhere? Most of these columnists address only the most ephemeral superficialities, covering what it feels like to giggle in hot yoga class or how annoying it is when your boyfriend brings a computer to bed. As women with editorial space in national newspapers they have an opportunity to educate, enlighten and at the very least entertain with their subject matter. But like the worst of recycled Sex and the City clichés, they just keep rambling on about shoes and chocolate, as if a tampon commercial were dictating their every move. No wonder both audiences and advertisers are dropping papers like a bad date—their lack of self-awareness is embarrassing.
When given the opportunity to go in a direction that affords readers access to the kinds of stories only a well-connected newsroom can obtain, they go with stolen puppies and retarded heiresses. Cute animals and gossip? That’s the whole reason the Internet exists, why try and compete with something so perfect? I would love to see the 500 words devoted to Leah McLaren’s oxygen facial go to an honest depiction of the housing crisis on the Downtown Eastside. Or how about giving us a fucking break with your goddamned kids, Rebecca, and writing something that has meaning beyond your ovaries?
With nearly everyone connected to media shouting on the rooftops about the changing face of journalism, newspapers should be heartily embracing the freedom these changes afford. Readers want news, they want to be informed and they are willing to pay for it if its well done. What they don’t want is another twenty-something writing about the effects of premenstrual bloat on her dating life, especially not if they just blogged that shit themselves this morning.
For all the worry about citizen journalism displacing the professionals it’s interesting to note that while the professionals are busy dissecting the latest trends in Mommy and Me pilates, citizen journalists are chasing stories on civic politics, international crises and government policy—on a third of the budget. If that’s an indication of the future of online journalism, then I say let our once revered newspapers go gently in to that good night and take those “lifestyle” columns with them.

The Secret - CBC Sunday Morning

2007-04-19T14:10:00.000-07:00

Hey, if you missed it the first time around - here I am on CBC's Sunday Morning discussing the wrongness of "The Secret."

http://www.cbc.ca/sunday/2007/03/031107_6.html

I got a new way to walk. Walk Walk

2007-03-23T07:44:00.000-07:00

I am considering some new career options.

- the scientist responsible for pouring blue liquid on absorbent materials like Always pads, Bounty paper napkins and Kotex
- scuba-diver
- renegade
- assistant to a whirling dervish
- mathlete
- chimney sweep (hazard pay!)
- hamster hunter

Oprah's Real Secret

2007-03-14T14:29:00.000-07:00

Last week's Mental Health. Suck on this Oprah!

Oprah wants to let you in on a secret. This secret, she says, will change your life! Shit is so huge she devoted two whole shows to it and the world still can’t get enough. Rhonda Byrne, the lady telling the secret, and the team she works with to lend her “credibility” want to convince you that all you need to go from trailer park to MTV crib, are some happy thoughts.
The law of attraction touted in The Secret certainly proves itself to be true in that fools will always have their false messiahs and for them, salvation has a price. This particular brand of life improvement the book wants to sell you is little more than yuppie pornography, a way to satiate material desires without getting off the couch. And Oprah has been peddling this smut for decades. First she allowed those horsey Rules ladies an audience of millions to convince women being themselves was one of many errors they were committing on the dating scene. She eventually unleashed Dr.Phil on the world, followed suit with a handful of other faux-perts with idiotic professional names like Dr.Robin and finally everything from that lying crystal meth addict to He’s just not that in to you to, Oprah has paved the way for. And does her audience ever call bullshit? Does the mainstream media ever take her to task for exploiting her access to billions of delusional housewives?
Oprah’s real secret is that she didn’t get to be one of the richest women in the world by ignoring marketing gold. She’s cashed in on every fault, vulnerability and conceit boasted by the unwashed masses. She never misses an opportunity to tell you what’s wrong with you and in turn hand you the book/DVD/yogic flyer that can fix you, with a hefty price tag attached. Even literacy is a cash cow for the TV baroness and you better read those fucking god-awful books because Egyptian cotton doesn’t run cheap. And as her massive shadow moves across North America, I ask myself, should this glutton of mediocrity really be granted the power of psychologist, marriage counselor, debt reformer and spiritual healer? At the very least Oprah has been the world’s greatest alchemist, consistently turning shit in to gold and for that her audience should revolt because they’ve been eating up that shit for too long.
So, in turn I’ve got a secret of my own I’d like to share. I will even tell you this secret for free, no DVD to purchase or affirmation diary necessary. My secret will unburden you from all the things holding you back. If you do what I tell you, you will save hundreds of dollars a year, lose that baby fat and regain at least a dollop of self-respect. My secret? Cause and effect. If your expenses exceed your income, you will be broke. If you eat more calories than you burn, you will gain weight. If you are an annoying nag or a charmless asshole, it will be hard to find a date. If you think that all it takes to make a million dollars is to visualize it, you’re an idiot.
That’s it, that’s the whole fucking secret, good luck.

Mother may I sleep with danger?

2007-02-27T13:14:00.000-08:00

New Mental Health (Only Magazine)

Breaking!!!: College girls kicked out of sorority house for being fat, ugly.

Holy shit, I can’t believe after all the hard work that went in to pledge week, those peppy spirits were rejected by the very same slightly thinner, and passably- attractive bunch that lured them to join the Delta Nus or the Alpha Betas or whatever, in the first place. Now that rag tag gang of pudgos and four-eyes, brace faces and minorities will have to feel, all too early, the cruel slap of reality sting their relatively plain-looking faces. But don’t count them out just yet, because every warm-blooded, bespectacled freak knows the only way to overcome the hierarchy of the Greek house order is to create your own! Nerds rule!

From now on nobody pushes the sistahood of the Tri-Thetas around. They are gonna show those bitches what’s what and remind them that Ugly Betty is running this shit. Not even that meddling dean or the prissy head of Gamma Gamma is gonna stand in their way. And they are telling you they are not going … to be left out of the glamourous world of sorority houses anymore. And even though the whole concept of sororities and fraternities is so outdated and irrelevant -surely you’ve never known anyone that has actually been in one or God forbid, wanted to be in one - that’s no reason we shouldn’t blow this story way out of proportion. I think they should demand their own reality show on MTV. Just like Sorority Life, except instead of body shots and one-night stands, there’ll be a lot of nerding around and cramming for math tests.

And instead of being so surprised that slutty college chicks want to entice date rapists from neighbouring frat houses by kicking out the unwanteds, these nerds should awkwardly fight back, lovably screwing up the whole way, chasing the big man on campus and winning his heart by becoming his tutor or taking all his tests for him and then putting out! But maybe these nerds don’t know the rules. Perhaps they are too young to appreciate the time-honoured tradition of picking on dorks in college, a tradition that goes all the way back to Animal House? Don’t they get that without nerd-segregation we wouldn’t have such classic cultural phenomena as the made-for-TV movies, Dying to Belong and A Friend to Die For?

Alas, even though their parents are shelling out roughly $40,000 a year to keep them in toga robes and pocket protectors, it seems the one class not on Depauw University’s list is History. If it were, this wouldn’t have been such a big deal. Because everybody knows millions of people would not shell out $12 bucks to watch Legally Nerd, not to mention Legally Nerd II. Rexy blondes and roidy homophobes named Lockhart keep the Greek System afloat, not Mexicans and yo-yo dieters.

And so to the sorority reject who said to CNN recently that looks-ism is the new racism, I say, you’re ugly, but there’s nothing wrong with that – Nerds Rule!

human head!

2007-01-29T11:11:00.000-08:00

it is a well-documented fact that i hate lunch. i hate the food court underneath the broadcast centre that offers up inedible fare day in and day out without even attempting to understand what should and could make lunch so great. once i had a chicken salad at the salad place and after the first bite i almost vomited. threw the whole salad away. how do you screw up salad? by being a lunch place downstairs!!!

so today i gave in and tried the vietnamese place that's always super busy and waited in line (which i abhor more than lunch) and went with a hot and sour soup and two shrimp rolls. soup was great, i thought maybe that i'd found my noon salvation.

then i opened the shrimp roll box (2 for $2.50 what a deal!). i picked up a roll and dropped it right away cause it felt exactly like a limp penis. it also smelled like one and the texture was so blindingly bad - plus it's served with a weird brown nutty sauce, that i dumped both uneaten rolls in the trash. now it's almost three and i'm starving.

PATH

2007-01-29T07:14:00.000-08:00

path is the best thing in toronto, save for $1 hot dogs. it's like an underground vegas casino but it doesn't have gambling, just marble floors, huge fountains, controlled heat and shops. i love it. even though the people who regularly use the underground walkway probably rarely see the light of day and have trouble breathing fresh air. it's exactly the kind of thing i would build if i had to live in this city for a long time. an underground world for business people so that they never have to be exposed to the elements?! awesome.

Old man take a look at my life

2007-01-29T07:11:00.000-08:00

so last week i was riding the streetcar to work and i said down next to the window (my preferred spot) and picked up the Now that was beside me on the other seat. i'm not even reading i'm just flipping cause it's something to do and this old man in front of me turns around and starts telling me he used to write the movie reviews for Now. he's the guy on the streetcar you least want to talk to you because he won't stop talking. i'm being polite and nodding and all of that and he just keeps on talking, says he also used to write for the Toronto Star and how "that there's a real newspaper." then when he could see i wasn't interested he went back to talking at the driver.

when i got off it dawned on me that i could very easily end up like that guy. telling strangers how i used to be somebody and now i just ride the streetcar waiting for a conversation.

personae non person?

2007-01-16T08:21:00.000-08:00

ever get the feeling you aren't a person? not in a "what's this growth, am i a freak being?" type thing but more like, if there was an explosion at work and everyone on my floor died, would anyone still know who i am?
people say it takes about a year to really settle in to a new place, make friends and all that rhythm and blues, but i'm usually pretty good at meeting people. i think. or i thought. maybe it's because i'm a haggard 24 now and not an ethereal 20.

damn age. damn non-person.

Voulez vous?

2007-01-11T12:48:00.000-08:00

Is there something sick about being addicted to crime shows? Is it weird that I relish with squealing delight a night jam packed with L&O SVU, CSI:Vegas and Miami followed by Criminal Minds?

Am I pervert? AM I??

Working 9 - 5!!

2007-01-10T07:27:00.000-08:00

For the last six years of my life I've been convinced that work makes you sick. Not just in an emotional and mental way either, I mean like seriously ill. And now I finally have proof.

I just spent the last two weeks in Vancouver punishing my body. I barely slept, had maybe three glasses of water the entire time, and sacrificed my liver to the cabo wabo gods. And you know what? My skin never looked better, my hair was shiny and I felt great.

Two days back at work and I feel bunged up (ugh constipation), dried up, itchy and my hair looks like a tattered wall hanging. I think I can actually see the air around me and feel it going in and out of everyone else's sick lungs. Not to mention the soreness in my back and shoulders.

Crumb! This is just an awful way to live. Am I the only one suffering so?

Maybe it's Toronto's fault. With its stupid hard water and dirty air and ugly bugs.

My resolution? Build a personal bio-dome to be fitted around my body, allowing me to regulate my own temperature, humidity and cleanliness.

Things that aren't going to be awesome

2006-12-06T11:26:00.000-08:00

Holiday staff party

1.) it's in the building
2.) it's on a tuesday in the afternoon and only goes until 7pm
3.) 2 drink tickets each MAX
4.) itsinthebuildingonatuesdaycashbar

c'mon! it should be the law that staff parties have to be total debauch fests with the company picking up the tab - to make up for the fact that we spend most of our lives breathing in recycled air and getting office bum (for the record i don't have office bum YET, but i'm sure it's only a matter of time)
the last broadcaster i worked for held their "holiday" party in february and as cheesy as it was, there was tons of food and all you can drink champagne.
yet another dagger in the debate between public and private.

mouse poopozao

2006-12-01T09:35:00.000-08:00

Dream analysts claim that vermin (specifically rats and mice) represent the seedier, darker side of our subconcious. They allege that the image of rats in dreams calls up something so filthy, so tantalizing from the innards of one's mind that one has completely repressed these desires or thoughts in their waking life.

I have reoccurring and quite vivid dreams of rats and mice on an alarmingly regular basis.

For me the rats are representative of themselves. I find rats disgusting, terrifying and nauseating. The mere hallucination of one, scampering across my kitchen countertops is enough to send me in to a panicked state so intense, I have to keep a midnight vigil to ensure one such creature doesn't crawl up my butt while I'm asleep.

So you can imagine then, the horror I felt yesterday evening when I discovered tiny pellets of mouse poop behind the dish rack.

Really, I blame myself for having bragged across the city that I didn't have mice, not a one. Even after several naysayers claimed that everyone in Toronto had at least one mouse. Enraged, I said, "not me asshole." Well, hats off to you asshole, because I've got one.

I haven't actually seen the mouse, but I have thought I've seen the mouse at least twice now. Its mysterious brown droppings weave a trail leading to the back of the fridge, naturally the most inaccessible place in the whole apartment. And of course I can't get to the source of the problem, whatever mouse hole this disease-pig is crawling through to get in and out of his, no doubt, filthy mouse house.

So shortly after the poo discovery, or pooscovery as it were, I ran to the local corner shop to buy up their trove of mouse traps. Ugh, the inhumanity of choosing between sticky, rat sized fly paper or archaic and seemingly cruel (even for my most hated of all enemies) rat traps. I chose the more humane option of sticking a mouse in place via non-poisonous glue, left alive to scream its tiny screams of terror through the night. Of course if guilt gets the better of me, I can remove the mouse using oil. Preferrably scented lavender oil accompanied by a gentle, full-body mousessage.

As of this morning: Mouse:1 Niazi: 0
(meaning there are no screaming mice on any of my well placed traps. bugger!)

Only Magazine

2006-11-24T07:38:00.000-08:00

Read my bi-weekly column in Only Magazine here:

http://onlymagazine.ca/?c=Mental+Health

Penultimate

2006-11-24T07:33:00.000-08:00

To start: I am a 24 year old writer, broadcaster, producer, pretender, free loader. Just moved to Toronto from Vancouver to find myself (a job). I have a job and now I can't remember why that seemed so important. I live in a shoebox apartment on Queen West across the street from the mental health and addiction centre. As if to complicate the matter of too-little space, I share the view. The bed just broke and now I sleep on a mattress on the floor, which to me is tantamount to sleeping in a pile of rat crap and bugs (minus the actual rat crap and bugs), but I'm too lazy and busy to do anything about it. I went from hosting a music show, running an arts and culture magazine whiling away the hours living the freelancers life to working for the nation's broadcaster and sitting at a desk 9-5. This blog is about the marriage of need and desire, the weird purgatory most of us live in -- just between what we want and what we have. And for the longest time I thought penultimate meant the ultimate, but like more! Except that it's not, which maybe explains a lot.