Welcome + The Corn Flakes Conundrum
What is this? Why are you here? And above all else, how should you eat corn flakes?
Good news everyone, I’ve decided to bring my talents to this platform. I’m grateful for the opportunity and I look forward to bringing a championship to- uhhh- to spread joy to anyone who reads this. Maybe you’ll also learn some things. The goal is to make this a weekly newsletter of sorts.
Who am I? I’m Hussein, a Muslim, Egyptian-Canadian currently living in London, UK. I work as an engineering manager at Spotify and I previously worked as a data engineer both at Spotify and previously at SSENSE. I’ll probably write about tech and data, but probably also about music, fashion, maybe even culture, religion and philosophy. More importantly, I’m going to rant a lot about food. Speaking of…
Food is a topic that elicits many emotions. Everyone has an opinion about food, or at the very least about some specific foods. One such food is cereal. The key question often posed is whether you put the milk first, or the cereal first?
I’m going to put this question aside because there’s really only one valid answer, and it isn’t putting the milk first!
That being said, some time ago, I had a very first world problem in the morning. While I don’t eat cereal very frequently anymore, that morning I decided to have a bowl (or three). The cereal I had gotten was a mix of cheerios, corn flakes, and nuts. Very tasty and highly recommended. However, I don’t have corn flakes very often and the previous times I’d had this cereal prior to that morning, I’d gotten bamboozled while pouring the milk because the concave shape of the corn flakes made the milk spring back out at a high velocity, which lead to the milk spilling on to the surface whereupon my bowl was placed. This, of course, was very frustrating because I’d rather not have to wipe the milk off the table due to such a silly mistake that felt totally out of my control.
However, that morning, I was a man on a mission. So prior to pouring milk into the bowl of cereal, I carefully manipulated the corn flakes, turning them over one-by-one, so that they had more of a convex shape. Moreover, I was also much more careful to pour slowly since there could still have been “depth bombs” hidden underneath the surface layer of cereal. I’m therefore glad to report that on that day, I had zero spilling.
What I’m listening to 🎧
Elder - Innate Passage Elder is a band that mixes heavy psychedelic rock with progressive elements. If you know me, you know that “heavy”, “psychedelic”, “progressive” and rock music is a sure way to my heart (through my ears).
YĪN YĪN This band also has a psychedelic sound, but more funky and inspired by imaginary tropical islands of South-East Asia. I’m seeing them live in London tonight. I particular enjoy their album The Rabbit That Hunts Tigers.
RAYE - Escapism Was lucky enough to see RAYE perform live this week and wow! What a voice and what a performer. One to keep your eyes and ears out ahead of her upcoming debut album next year.
Finally, I have a couple of playlists that I will always point out:
My every growing Ecletic Elephant playlist, which a diverse range of music which I enjoy and I often have this playlist on shuffle if I can’t decide what to listen to.
My much more slowly growing Egypt Mother of the World playlist, where I try to find more underground music that I enjoy featuring Egyptian artists.
What I’m watching 📺
Mostly the World Cup! (More to come on this next week) — Go Morocco! 🇲🇦
FIFA Uncovered — Insightful documentary on Netflix about the politics of FIFA. Gives some interesting perspective on power struggles and corruption.
That’s a wrap for this week! If you’re interested in more of my shenanigans, follow me on Twitter, Instagram and Spotify.