Messages

61

Entertainment & Culture Discussion / Re: Trinidad & Tobago authors

« on: March 13, 2021, 10:16:54 PM »

My paperback was released today.

On March 1 no store was carrying the book. By March 12, nine in the US and one chain in the UK.

One bookstore bought 59 books on March 10. I get my figures on delay so no idea how the first day went but I am expecting about 130 sales for the first 24 hours.

There are many options for a paperback, your local store can order it for you and it should arrive in seven business days.

You can also check Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Walmart.
Numerous e book options including Kindle.

https://www.amazon.com/dont-work-kitchen-Surviving-Afghanistan-ebook/dp/B091YKT6ST/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1619284491&sr=8-2

VB

62

Entertainment & Culture Discussion / Re: Trinidad & Tobago authors

« on: February 06, 2021, 07:27:35 PM »

https://vbhoolai.wixsite.com/veersenbhoolaiauthor/bhoolai-author-book-afghan-war

Excerpt 3
https://vbhoolai.wixsite.com/veersenbhoolaiauthor/excerpt-3-4-afghan-memoir

63

Entertainment & Culture Discussion / Re: Trinidad & Tobago authors

« on: January 29, 2021, 02:22:03 PM »

https://vbhoolai.wixsite.com/veersenbhoolaiauthor/bhoolai-author-book-afghan-war

64

Football / Re: Thread for USA vs T&T Game (31-Jan-2021)

« on: January 28, 2021, 05:49:51 PM »

I understand not having a lot of dates and wanting to blood players on the periphery but when they are THAT inexperienced vs a team like the US at home.....

Would hvae been nice to Joevin and Molino on the squad, would have been less pressure on our defence for sure.

VB

65

Football / Re: Thread for USA vs T&T Game (31-Jan-2021)

« on: January 28, 2021, 05:47:10 PM »

The ascendancy of Williams and Griffiths III is ... meteoric.
[/quotG

The ascendancy of Williams and Griffiths III is ... meteoric.

Griffith who could even be a starter on the last under 17 improve so much ?? .....nah.......

The elephant in the room boss. The elephant in the room. 

66

Entertainment & Culture Discussion / Re: Trinidad & Tobago authors

« on: January 24, 2021, 11:02:53 AM »

Link to an article by the TT Express on my book.

https://vbhoolai.wixsite.com/veersenbhoolaiauthor/bhoolai-author-book-afghan-war

67

Entertainment & Culture Discussion / Re: Trinidad & Tobago authors

« on: January 20, 2021, 08:11:59 PM »

https://www.facebook.com/100138052024696/videos/403878080875417/

the link above is a video I posted on FB about my book. I hope you guys can see it.

Excerpts can be read here
https://vbhoolai.wixsite.com/veersenbhoolaiauthor/afghan-memoir-excerpt-1-2

68

Entertainment & Culture Discussion / Re: Trinidad & Tobago authors

« on: January 18, 2021, 09:49:59 PM »

https://www.facebook.com/100138052024696/videos/403878080875417/

the link above is a video I posted on FB about my book. I hope you guys can see it.

69

Entertainment & Culture Discussion / Re: Trinidad & Tobago authors

« on: January 08, 2021, 10:27:08 PM »

With the web page being up for only a week and the Release Date March 13,
the book jumped up 214 000 spots on Amazon.ca rankings today (paperback) and 209 000 spot (Kindle).

In amazon.ca rankings of the Hot New Releases - with both peraprback and Kindle mixed in, it stands at number 2 and 3.

Amazon.com has it ranked as the number one ranked upcoming Canadian Biography.
And it has been fluctuating between Number 10 - 20 in Can. Bios.

https://vbhoolai.wixsite.com/veersenbhoolaiauthor/no-i-don-t-work-in-the-kitchen

VB

70

Entertainment & Culture Discussion / Re: Trinidad & Tobago authors

« on: January 07, 2021, 02:30:23 PM »

Kindle and paperback pre orders here:

https://www.amazon.ca/s?k=veersen+bhoolai&ref=nb_sb_noss

Please go here and check out the video promoting the book.

https://vbhoolai.wixsite.com/veersenbhoolaiauthor/no-i-don-t-work-in-the-kitchen

VB

71

Entertainment & Culture Discussion / Re: Trinidad & Tobago authors

« on: January 02, 2021, 01:06:53 AM »

Kindle and paperback pre orders here:

https://www.amazon.ca/s?k=veersen+bhoolai&ref=nb_sb_noss

72

Entertainment & Culture Discussion / Re: Trinidad & Tobago authors

« on: December 31, 2020, 10:32:37 PM »

https://vbhoolai.wixsite.com/veersenbhoolaiauthor/no-i-don-t-work-in-the-kitchen



Pre orders for Kindle and paperback are available on Amazon.

the book is also available on Barnes & Noble and many of the other usual outlets.

VB

73

Entertainment & Culture Discussion / Re: Trinidad & Tobago authors

« on: December 23, 2020, 12:58:52 AM »

You know I submitted Trials & Tribulations to Peepal about two months ago.
they said it was under review.
Your post reminded me of them. Went to the site, couldn't log in, said my email is incorrect despite contacting me on it when I registered in October.

Not a good sign. ;-)

EDIT My mistake, they had an alternative site for submission. It is STILL being reviewed.

VB

74

Entertainment & Culture Discussion / Re: Trinidad & Tobago authors

« on: December 21, 2020, 07:31:45 PM »

Congrats vb. Did not know You was a superstar. Looking forward to reading it.

Deeks,

you really didn't know! 

VB

75

Entertainment & Culture Discussion / Re: Trinidad & Tobago authors

« on: December 20, 2020, 10:19:53 PM »

Asylum,

actually this is my second book, the first, TRIALS & TRIBULATIONS was finished first but will come out later around Oct.

I am hoping to use the more international flavour of Afghanistan to get people's attention and then use any fame from that as leverage for the second book which is all Trini, sort of Biswas meets Miguel Street meets Angela's Ashes.

To be honest, I never thought of this as a book. I kept a journal when I was in Agh. because I thought it was historical. Some of my friends raved about it and thought it could be a book or even a movie. I never really saw what they saw. However, when I was about to finish Trials, my cousin encouraged me to make the journal into a book "it could be a bestseller," as he put it.

Only because of their enthusiasm I did so. However, I read excerpts of someone else's memoir re Afgh and found myself going from paragraph to paragraph without taking a break. So then I began to understand what they might have been referring to.

This is a different perspective, that of a civilian in a war zone not a soldier but in addition to putting up with the Taliban, you also had to put up with certain challenges from within, i.e., the very people with whom you worked and many times because of the colour of your skin or race despite very high ranking ID. If you can read the blurb on the back of the book you can see how crazy the life was. Also like in any huge organization, you have to deal with a host of characters some, rude/lazy/incompetent, etc.
 Most people spend about six months there, I spent three years.

Additionally, how many Trinis give an account of what it was like to live in a war zone.

The writing process was easy as I simply had to edit my journal. The writing style is laid back as I simply expressed my feelings from day to day.

I did some research into self publishing as getting an agent for Trials had been tedious.
I discovered a company called Tablo which is supposed to be pretty good in terms of handling logistics etc., I will say they decreased my stress level considerably. I am still in the process of getting it published so I will have more to say about them in the next few months.

VB

76

Entertainment & Culture Discussion / Re: Trinidad & Tobago authors

« on: December 20, 2020, 01:43:27 AM »

Discovered a critically acclaimed book by a Trini author here in Medellin: A perfect pledge by Rabindranath Maharaj.

Was curios as to other TT authors as I am presently working on a book myself.

Here's a list:

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/countries/trinidad.htm

Well after years of procrastination, finally finished the book back in April. All 61 chapters of it. Have been editing and getting the Letter of Query ready. Today I start approaching agents. Fingers crossed. ;-)

VB

Would you believe finishing a second book this weekend.
No I don't work in the kitchen.

My memoirs based on my three years working in war torn Afghanistan.

Covid 19 slowing yuh boy down. But hope to have both books published in 2021.

VB

Should be out on March 13, 2021. Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc.
Web page to go up  on Jan. 1, 2021.

77

Football / Re: Scoring directly from a corner-kick Thread.

« on: December 16, 2020, 02:37:15 AM »

I saw it done in a Arima vs Fatima game in Arima in 1984, Kerry Jamerson.

The 'Keeper Scott Rodriguez say the floodlights was in his eye but the crowd tell him is alright "he does do that all the time."

VB

78

Football / Re: FIFA suspends the Trinidad and Tobago Football Association

« on: October 28, 2020, 03:14:50 PM »

Corruption wins

https://www.hail-caribbean-sport.com/

yes it did, but wallace gave it a huge helping hand over the finish line by taking the worst advice imaginable. william wallace should have shut his pie-hole and go to the government for help to pay his way to CAS especially when he got the attention of the prime minister who asked him to do the right thing.

believe me VB that man is a fool. he went to the high court when FIFA would never adhere to any judgment handed down, not only that, even when he won in the high court they would still be suspended , something the high court cannot over turn.

so he wasn't reinstated, he lost in the end, he has a huge legal bill to pay for fifa and final conclusion is that he's lost the very people that elected him, so even if he wanted to run again for president he will most likely find the membership hostile towards him, so what was all that fighting for?

IMO he was supposed to take the case to CAS and took his chances, in the end he could have asked the court to have FIFA pay his legal fees, because i believe he would have beaten fifa in the court of abitration since he had a very strong case for victimization. the man took stupid rubbish advice from gale and crown. those two lawyers are clueless. 

I assume you mean pay his costs after he had won the case which would mean he still would have had to come up with the money in any case. Yes he could have approached the TT Govt. but they knew of the situation and could have approached him.

VB

79

Football / Re: FIFA suspends the Trinidad and Tobago Football Association

« on: October 28, 2020, 07:39:11 AM »

Corruption wins

https://www.hail-caribbean-sport.com/

80

General Discussion / Re: Memorable SW.net Quotations

« on: October 27, 2020, 01:39:57 AM »

I disagree with building a team with players who have TT passports .

Obviously a typo 

81

Football / Re: FIFA suspends the Trinidad and Tobago Football Association

« on: October 21, 2020, 02:18:28 AM »

Excellent article VB.....it is astounding to me how other people cannot see this

Oh they see it. The resulting thoughts process and eventual outcomes generated from those visions do not align with those individuals alternate various agendas. All of which may have one common thread, pull on it, they all come unraveled.

 

82

Football / Re: FIFA suspends the Trinidad and Tobago Football Association

« on: October 20, 2020, 04:34:47 AM »

Disillusionment
By Fazeer Mohammed (T&T Express)

So let’s say come next Sunday’s emergency meeting the vote, as is expected, goes overwhelmingly against William Wallace and his executive.

Let’s say they resign en masse in response, then next Monday morning Robert Hadad gets an email from general secretary Fatma Samoura reinstating the normalisation committee, returning him as the interim head of the game here, welcoming the Trinidad and Tobago Football Association as a member of the global football family once more, which means the money starts flowing again from Zurich.

And just to ensure such an excommunication never happens again, the members of the shameless, disgraceful organisation known as the PNM and the unelectably corrupt, arrogant institution that is the UNC come together to amend the relevant legislation so that in future, when it comes to football, we remain forever subservient to the will of FIFA but apparently more importantly, part of the global game.

After all that, what? Football in this country will be on a progressive track thereafter? And I suppose you believe in Santa Claus too, or that there is no police and soldier cover-up in the Drugs Sou Sou.

To be clear, if it were to transpire that — miracle of miracles — the Wallace executive gets a vote of confidence to continue the legal wrangle with FIFA, then it will just be a different version of the same bacchanal, because unauthorised alterations to contracts for coach Terry Fenwick and general secretary Ramesh Ramdhan, along with the re-floating of the ubiquitous marketing man Peter Miller, together with one or two other questionable deals mean Wallace on his own may struggle to survive this latest episode of turbulence in the nation’s most popular sport.

There is ample evidence across more than four decades (and no doubt even further back for those with the knowledge and memories to recall) to confirm that football governance here is an accurate reflection of the greed, corruption and, at best, misdirected priorities which define life in this twin-island republic.

So warped in our thinking are we that even historic experiences of unprecedented national unity and fervour under the umbrella of the beautiful game — from the 1989 “Road to Italy” campaign to the Germany 2006 experience to a full house at the Hasely Crawford Stadium in December 2014 supporting the women’s bid for World Cup glory — disintegrate into bitterness and acrimony in the obscene scramble for money and influence.

Sorry, it’s obscene for countries with a culture of transparency and accountability. Here, crabs in a barrel behaviour is normal, normal. Maybe it’s wrong to just give up, to believe that our experiences will forever be a recycling of the consequences of an absence of integrity with only dates and names changed. But where is the hope, or more precisely, what is the hope based on?

This disconcerting disconnection from reality extends across the region. Just last Tuesday I was involved in a discussion on West Indies cricket on commentator Andrew Mason’s radio show in his native Barbados, focussing on the squad to be selected and the team’s chances on the tour of New Zealand.

Just listening to the tenor of the dialogue you would think that the generally routine act of naming 15 players for the campaign was the start of a new era in the Caribbean game, as if picking so-and-so player or players will magically repair 25 years of struggle in Tests. One contributor even prefaced his opening statement by suggesting gone are the days when the West Indies went to New Zealand and regularly trounced their opponents 4-0 or 5-0, which is as disconnected from reality as you can get because that has never happened even once.

Look, I get that this all sounds very negative (and I am by nature a pessimist) but if someone can point to something real – something beyond “hoping” and “thinking positive” – upon which to base optimism then I would be happy to listen.

Maybe it’s a combination of advancing years and experiencing the same blimming thing over and over and over again, but impatience at seemingly perpetual outrage after outrage is intensifying. Outrage like racism, outrage like sanitising cheating, which have contributed to a decision to ease away from supporting Liverpool after 43 years and to make last Saturday’s 2-2 draw at Everton as the final English Premier League game I will actually sit down to watch in its entirety.

Space is running out today but suffice it to say that, in the context of the greater awareness brought on by the “Black Lives Matter” movement, Liverpool Football Club’s history of racism when combined with contemporary and broader football issues like players faking injuries and fouls, and the intrusion of VAR technology, make Liverpool and the EPL only worthy of occasional interest now.

Sport should be about joy, not constant controversy.

how these guys ever made the cut to have to opportunity to write an article in the news paper is beyond me. i've seen about a thousand articles on this issue, and no one ever gets to the bottom line, it's just the same ole the united ttfa was replaced by the NC on such and such a date, and this, that and the other transpired in between.

it's amazing to see that no one ever mention's jack warner's input in all this, or how DJW single handedly robbed the office for his own gain, and how he went behind the scenes and manipulated a further onslaught on football, and why this united TTFA put up such a fight and for reasons being, and how fifa was severely heavy handed and unfair, and what could be the reason for their heavy handedness....or collusion.

all this writing by fazeer (and i know he means well) to say what? all this writing to say what countless journalist has already said? come on mate, i'm sure you can delve deeper into the mud pile than your multiple attempts suggest.

Nah man, look this journalist do it here. ;-)

https://www.hail-caribbean-sport.com/

83

Entertainment & Culture Discussion / Re: Dexter

« on: October 15, 2020, 09:02:31 PM »

The man coming back yes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1ydBbkXFb4

84

Quizz Time & Facts / Re: Actor-father-boxer

« on: October 09, 2020, 03:06:26 PM »

What other actor had a Dad who was a famous World Champion in boxing. I only know of one. ;-)

NOT TALL MAN!!

85

Entertainment & Culture Discussion / Re: Lock down entertainment

« on: October 09, 2020, 02:55:58 PM »

Godfather of Harlem. Thoroughly enjoying it.

Castle Rock. Not bad.

the Doorman. Good action. forget she name but big time lesbian from Australia looks like she going places.

86

Entertainment & Culture Discussion / Re: Trinidad & Tobago authors

« on: October 02, 2020, 12:41:20 PM »

Discovered a critically acclaimed book by a Trini author here in Medellin: A perfect pledge by Rabindranath Maharaj.

Was curios as to other TT authors as I am presently working on a book myself.

Here's a list:

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/countries/trinidad.htm

Well after years of procrastination, finally finished the book back in April. All 61 chapters of it. Have been editing and getting the Letter of Query ready. Today I start approaching agents. Fingers crossed. ;-)

VB

Would you believe finishing a second book this weekend.
No I don't work in the kitchen.

My memoirs based on my three years working in war torn Afghanistan.

Covid 19 slowing yuh boy down. But hope to have both books published in 2021.

VB

87

Entertainment & Culture Discussion / Re: Adele Faces Backlash for Wearing Jamaican Flag Bikini

« on: September 26, 2020, 05:16:44 PM »

This only came up becz she is a white woman.

If it were Byonce they woulda shut to fk up.

vb, as far as we know, her father is Black. Her mother is  mixed. You know in the US, the legacy of the one drop rule would categorize a very light skinned Black person as Negro, Black or African American. But I find it petty for accusing one side of misappropriation when the side doing the same damn thing.

You sure about the dad being  black. Couldn't find any evidence of that on the net.

88

Entertainment & Culture Discussion / Re: Adele Faces Backlash for Wearing Jamaican Flag Bikini

« on: September 02, 2020, 08:22:12 PM »

This only came up becz she is a white woman.

If it were Byonce they woulda shut to fk up.

vb, as far as we know, her father is Black. Her mother is  mixed. You know in the US, the legacy of the one drop rule would categorize a very light skinned Black person as Negro, Black or African American. But I find it petty for accusing one side of misappropriation when the side doing the same damn thing.

Quite right so now you can't show appreciation for some other person's culture. So when we see foreigners wearing "Trini to the Bone" T-shirts, we supposed to complain???

89

Entertainment & Culture Discussion / Re: Adele Faces Backlash for Wearing Jamaican Flag Bikini

« on: September 01, 2020, 01:03:10 PM »

This only came up becz she is a white woman.

If it were Byonce they woulda shut to fk up.

90

Quizz Time & Facts / Re: Actor-father-boxer

« on: August 23, 2020, 12:57:12 PM »

To elaborate, Jones Sr. was once a sparring partner for Joe Louis (according to Wikipedia).

Jones Jr. ironically portrayed Jack Johnson in the Great White Hope and was nominated for an Oscar. They changed the names a bit but it was obviously Johnson's life.