Home Sweet Home

Home Sweet Home

Thursday, April 30, 2009

What makes a hypocrite?

A question for you all.

If you voice one opinion on a matter once, or even more than once if that's the case, and then later if you post another post, maybe even on a different topic but contradicting that opinion, would that make you a hypocrite? Pardon me if that sentence was too long, but I am genuinely wondering about it - not the length of the sentence but what I said about hypocrisy. Or let's say, you voice one opinion on your blog, in one or several posts but when commenting on others' blogs you take a different view. Are you being a hypocrite, or are you free to voice different opinions in different places when it comes to blogging?

What made me ponder on this is I have seen this happening many a time in the Lankanosphere. Do not misunderstand - I'm not pointing fingers here at anyone, because more than anything else, I myself don't have an opinion on this.

Oh wait, does that make me a hypocrite?
Meh.

What say you fellas?


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Friday, April 24, 2009

Out Of Your Comfort Zone?

The End posted a one liner saying that the Lankanosphere is not the warm, nice place it used to be. Then the Drummer wondered what this whole saga is all about. And before that many others have been putting their two cents in via so many posts and comments that if Indi were to be paid two cents every time, he must have become a millionaire by now. With my two cents here, his earnings increase to one million rupees and two cents now.

But all this time I chose to keep silent and observed the whole thing without interfering though Heisenberg says it's impossible. While most of the people were rallying in support of the Drummer and crucifying NB, I didn't do either. I didn't even do the other way around though had I done that it might have given me a temporary (yes, temporary) bucketload of comments, hits and fame. But I didn't do any of that. Not because I don't like the Drummer, or that I approve what NB did. I do enjoy the Drummer's posts immensely, maybe apart from the ones that are about drumming and gigs. Ironic, isn't it? And I respect the guy for his conduct, at least most of the time. I must also say that I like NB's posts - well some of them - as they added something that was missing from the blogsphere - boldness and aggression, thought that's two things, not one. But why then? Because, in my honest opinion, it wasn't worth making such a big - come to think of it, saying big is an understatement - fuss about it.

But the purpose of this post is not to bring up the whole saga again. Rather, to say something about the aftermath of it. As I can see many bloggers are very uneasy about the things that are going on. Simply put, they are out of their comfort zones. Yes there was the odd one or two like Maharajah, but they always faded away. It was just a matter of time. But not this time. This time, NB didn't fade away, or at least not yet. People were thrown out of their comfort zones, and all of a sudden everyone's worried about the next thing they are going to say. Nobody could have put it better than The End did. The Sri Lankan Blogsphere is not the warm nice place it used to be, he says. No dude, it isn't. In fact, it's just like life. They say that cricket emulates life - can't disagree with that - but so does the Lankanosphere. Nobody's, and I mean nobody's life is a bed of roses. There are the times that everything's so warm and cozy, but isn't it always like the calm before the storm? You always hit a rough end, sooner or later.

Unfortunately or fortunately - depending on the angle you chose to look at it - the ship that is the Lankanosphere has hit a storm. Cozy beds no more. Gone is the comfort. But worry not fellas, the storm always passes and the clear blue skies await you. It is bound to happen, and until it does, all you have to do is be patient and move on. It's about time we stop bickering - I mean all of us - and move on.

Life's not fair guys, deal with it.


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Thursday, April 23, 2009

Photography

I'm photographing just about everything I see these days. Well not everything, but pretty close to it I guess.

<<-- There you can see it. My photoblog.


And here,

<<---

Yeah, there, I'll be showing you my great photography skills. You're impressed aren't you?

I knew it.

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Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Fake IPL Player

If you're a cricket fan, check this out.

It's a new cricket blog, named Fake IPL Player, and is run by a member of the IPL team Kolkata Knight Riders, who still remains anonymous. The guy is quite hilarious, refers to Shah Rukh Khan, the owner of the team as Dildo, Ganguly the ex-captain as The Lord or Lordie, and Ajit Agarkar as Kaan Moolo though I have no idea what that means. But it sounds funny right?

The guy is quite hilarious and according to him the team management is pissed off so a witch-hunt is on to capture the guy. But by looking at the posts seems that they are yet to be successful. I seriously don't care about the IPL, but trust me this blog is fun!

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Tuesday, April 21, 2009

I Was Robbed!

And apparently I didn't know about it for a while.

I have a foot bike, the mountain type. Or had, I should say. Last Saturday, I thought I'd go for a ride so went to the parking slot to get the bike which wasn't there. But I wasn't surprised, because there are a few other Sri Lankans here with me and one of them might have burrowed it without telling me. That's what we islanders do right? I made a mental note to ask the guys if they took it, but promptly forgot. That's me.

So, last night, another friend who's here with me called me and asked what's my bike's brand because he wanted to buy a new one. And since I didn't know what the brand was (yes, that's me again) he asked me to go out and check it. I said it's not at my place, so we called one of the other guys.

Hey, you got my bike?

Your bike?

Yes my bike.

I thought you must have given it to someone else already or something... Because I parked my bike in your slot the other day and yours wasn't there. Actually I was going to ask you about it, but forgot.

Ah, you mean last weekend?

Mmm.... not exactly. More like a couple of months ago, I think.

Err...
...
...
...
Oh well...

Actually, I didn't even see my bike for a few months. Ever since the winter started I just abandoned it. Honestly who rides a bike in the goddamn winter? But apparently someone does.

Bummer.


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Monday, April 20, 2009

I just remembered...

... what I was supposed to write my previous post about.

Stargazing.

Do you stargaze? I mean, really stargaze. Not just observing the sky for astronomical purposes, or just because you're a nut. No not that. Pure stargazing. I do that time to time, and when you're really into it, it is an amazing feeling.

Before I came to Japan, while I was still in the Paradise, I learned Japanese for about a year. One of my teachers was a Japanese guy, who's married to a Sri Lankan lady and he lives there for over twenty years now. So one day we were just having a chit-chat with him and we asked him about his home, family and stuff. The conversation went like this.

Sir, do you not miss home?

Of course I do son, who doesn't? As much as this is a paradise for you, Japan is one for me.

Yeah... I agree... so what do you do then? Call home, talk to your parents etc?

Well that too. But you can't do that all the time can you?

Yeah...

But you can stargaze, always...

Err.... what, sir?

See son, from wherever in the world you look at it, the sky is the same. Specially at night, the moon, the stars, everything. There is something about the sky at night... So, when I feel alone sometimes, when I miss home, I stargaze... it makes me forget that I'm in a strange land, that I'm away from home. In fact, it makes you feel that you are home...

Fast forward a year.

Here I am, in a strange land, all alone. Though I do have a bunch of friends here with me, and that some others in SL and all over the world, thought I can talk to them because of the wonders of the modern communication, despite all that you still do feel alone at times. And you do miss home. So I took his advice, went out in clear nights and started doing it. Trust me, it is awesome! The sky indeed is a wonderful thing, it can just make you forget all your worries in an instance... makes you feel home...

You should try it sometimes....


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Friday, April 17, 2009

Of Dreams And Other Things

The title of this post was supposed to be "Something and other things" and that something was supposed to be replaced with something else which I have forgotten now. Did that make any sense? OK let me explain. This morning I was just about to start typing this post when my boss called me in for a meeting with my project development team. And after more than two hours of listening and pretending to understand whatever that they were talking about, honestly I forgot what I sat down to write about. So I decided to go with the other thing that's on my mind. Dreams.

Right, do you remember your dreams? I suppose so, at least some of them must because I have a friend who's certain to dream some weird dream every night and she remembers the every little detail the next morning. Certainly she is not sharing everything she dreams about, but the bit she does is interesting enough that I wonder how good the rest could be. Ha! But me, I think I do dream because every morning I vaguely remember that I dreamt of something but never really can make out the details. It's just dreamy. Yesterday was an exception though. I dreamt that I was hiking with some of my best university friends, in paradise, and it felt so real. We were actually climbing down, and on the way in a remote village there was a guy selling Rambutan. Of course there's nothing unusual about it except for the fact that they were approximately the size of an apple! Just imagine, juicy red Rambutans the size of apples! WOW! I think I woke just then so couldn't really taste them. But I put my money on them that they should taste the best in the world. I blame LD for this though. She recently talked about Mangustine and Rambutan near the police park, which should definitely have caused the weird dream. *Sigh*... By the way I hope her Mandy will get well soon. :)

Talking about Rambutan after a nice meal makes me drowsy though. Speaking of which I think I'm mostly drowsy while at work, but usually fully awake at midnight everyday. Ayyoo.... I just wish my boss would allow me a couple of hours of sleep everyday, preferably after the lunch. Hmm... wishful thinking. Forget about sleep, the bastard wouldn't even let me read a blog or two. I've been reading Wijitha's blog last few days, but I'm still not done yet. These Japs don't understand that it's a part of the job - reading blogs that is. Anyway, I am going to finish it soon so that'd make the fourth blog that I have read from the very first post to the very last, the other three being Gutterflower's, Jade's and RD's. I don't think I even need to provide links to them for they are so very popular blogs, besides even if I needed to, I can't because I'm too lazy for that. Remember, hello, I'm so drowsy.

Oh, and just now I get a mail from a Joy Helson, who's a beautiful, humble, caring, kind and romantic young girl - according to herself - who thinks that we two would make an item. Right, of course, why wouldn't we? She wants me to email her and she's sure that something good will come out of this soon. The only thing I can think of that will come out of this is my inbox flooding with some more emails, next time asking me for my credit card. Besides the email is in pink letters. You know how much I'm scared of the combination of pink letters and women, right?

Forget about women, Prison Break re-starts today! And I heard that they are going to end it for good this time around. About time, I say. Honestly season 1 was the best TV series I've ever seen, 2 also was OK, but by the season 3 it pretty much sucked. Surprisingly S4 is somewhat good. Every good thing must come to an end, but they are already too late, yet it's better late than never I guess. Oh, also IPL, INDIAN Premier League that is, starts in SOUTH AFRICA soon. Not sure when exactly, and didn't bother to find out either. Honestly, who gives a shit. I certainly don't. T20 sucks, Test cricket rocks. End of story.

The lunch break is coming to an end, so gotta go peeps. By the way, I went to a garden nearby last weekend, and it was simply A.W.E.S.O.M.E!!! There were tulips, poppies, daffodils and what not. Of all colors imaginable. Well not really, but you know what I mean right? So, here are some pics for you guys.
































Oh and have a nice weekend fellas!


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Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Real friends are worth...

...their weight in Gold.

No I'm not trying to say that you must try to have as much obese friends as possible, though even if you do that's OK. Neither do I imply that you need to get a whole bunch of average sized friends. But hey, having a few real friends, people who can make you smile even when the things look totally hopeless, IS bliss. Trust me.

Last night I was home at about 9 p.m. after a pretty long day at work. Yes dammit, working on a Sinhala New Year day is bad enough, but it is worse when you think of all the good food you could have eaten were you back home and all the fun you could have had. And things get even worse when you have a friend who is kind enough to remind you about all that and then also remind you that you can't have them. At least I'm glad that friend can't have them either. Ha!

Anyway, I started watching the latest episode of Heroes out of utter boredom. Oh yes, Heroes has become so boring these days I watch it only out of habit. Besides, in the latest episode Angella Petrelli forms another company so we're back to square one. *Sigh*. When will the cheerleader save the world so we can relax. Never, I suppose.

OK so I wasted the whole previous chapter telling you useless things about Heroes. Oh by the way, did I spoil it for the guys who didn't watch it yet? Cool.

Right. I was watching Heroes, trying to forget the good times I could have had were I back in Paradise. And it took me three-and-a-half-hours to watch just that one episode! Yes, almost all the good buddies, from all over the world did not forget to drop in - not literally - and say hi, send me their wishes, just to remind me that they do care. It was really nice, and made me realize that I am not alone...

I also learned that watching a TV series, or a movie or whatever on a festive day, specially if you are not in Sri Lanka is not really a good thing. It's a bit hard to keep track of what happened a few minutes ago. Also I learned that chatting with six people at the same time - three on Skype, two on Yahoo and one on FB - while on a conference call on Skype with two other people, while also trying to reply to status messages and group threads on FB, not to mention the comments on blogs, is not really a good idea.

But having a bunch of so nice friends, on the other hand, is indeed a bliss. Simple pleasures like that do make you smile, and they do remind you that life is worth living...

Thank you all my dear friends!


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Monday, April 13, 2009

Happy New Year Folks!

Damn busy now. Yes, I know, it sucks to be working on new year day. But can't help it.

Still wanted to take a minute to wish you all a Happy New Year, wherever you are.



සුබ නව වසරක් වේවා!!!


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Thursday, April 9, 2009

Immovable Object and Unstoppable Force

What happens when an immovable object is met with an unstoppable force?
Come to think of it, seems like a good way of putting the whole NB - RD Saga into words, if that is the correct term though I have trouble deciding who's which.

But that's not what I meant to say.

I was thinking of this scenario for a while. It was - or is - really bothering me. Just imagine that situation, a force which by all means is unstoppable is coming towards a rock solid object that can never be moved. Whoa! That's a thought.

According to Wiki that cannot happen. If there is such a thing as an unstoppable force, then there can't be an immovable object. And vice versa. Supposedly Issac Asimov answered this in one of his books, that these two cannot exist in the same universe, at the same time. There's room for only one he said.

But I don't like that answer. As much as that makes sense, it seems like he just found a way to get away from the question. I mean, what if they both can exist in the same universe? Maybe they are just never meant to meet. When they do, BANG! The End?

I also found a bit different explanation. Unstoppable force means infinite momentum. Then the immovable object implies infinite inertia. Hence, the unstoppable force will have infinite energy while the immovable object will be ready to absorb infinite energy. Now that's a cool idea. So they argue that when those two meet, they will look like they have come to a rest but in fact they are transferring infinite energy. From one to the other, and since it is infinite energy, it will go on like that forever!

Gee, am I loosing my mind. Sorry, just wondering aloud.
Over and out!
Cheers fellas!


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Monday, April 6, 2009

Spring!

It's spring, and it means flowers...






























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Push Me Fresh



This was on a sauce bottle in a restaurant.
I was just wondering, how would it look on a ladies' T-Shirt?
:D


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Friday, April 3, 2009

I'm a racist. Are you not?

Whacko came up with two very interesting, not to mention controversial posts recently. This and this. You can tell that just by looking at the shitload of comments he got. Still getting. Well I'm not trying to get as much comments, not trying to come up with my own controversial post just for the sake of it, but just wanted to add my two cents to this interesting conversation, or debate if you want to call it that.

Getting back to the topic.

Are you a racist? I think I am. And I also think we all are. I assume that someone is a racist if that someone is a homo sapien, just as I assume that someone is a liar if the said someone is a homo sapien. It's inherent in us. It's built into us. That's the way we are.

Take a minute and take a good hard look at humans. I mean not literally, don't stare at the chick in front of your desk at work, but think about humans. Ever since we were created by god, or since the mother nature turned the little black apes in to us - pick the one you like - we always wanted to divide ourselves into groups didn't we? As much as we are a social breed, we want to be social in groups. From the beginning of time, or rather the beginning of humans we divided ourselves into as much groups as we could. First we were hunters, but there were males and females. Females collected things like berries and stuff, took care of children and probably even decorated their caves with flowers that existed some thousands of years ago, while men went on and did the more macho and masculine stuff like hunting. It's a different story that women, instead of us men hunt more these days, that they even hunt us men down. Then we started cultivating, and more groups started to pop up, there were hunters, the new farmers and what not. They divided themselves into groups based on their geographical locations mostly. The group on the other side of the river had the right to their land and nobody from this side would enter their territory. And vice versa. There was our land and then there was their land. Our food, their food. We and they. You get the drift, I think.

What I want to say is, though they might not have clashed with each other all the time, this feeling, this concept of 'us', which was built into us was there all the time. By the last 'us' in the previous sentence I meant the humankind. See my point?

With time we evolved, or became civilized so to speak. But the concept of ours and theirs always remained. Today, we have found new ways in which we can divide ourselves into. We're Asians, Westerners or Aussies though some people put them - who are in the far east corner of the world - in the Westerners category which defies all logic. Then again there are not corners in a globe so maybe they do have a point. We divide into whites and blacks, not to mention browns and yellows and whatever else. We are Sri Lankans, Indians, Americans or Eskimos. When it comes to Sri Lanka, such a small island and such a small population, how many groups do we have? Up country Kandyans are categorized as big heads, while the wily old southerners are not to be trusted. Then comes the race. We are Sinhalese, we are Tamils, we are Muslims and we are many more. Even if you take us Sinhalese, don't we divide us into casts, and treat differently? I know people give much less importance to it by the day, but it still exists. Don't believe me? Take a look at marriage proposal column in a Sunday newspaper. And I didn't even mention the religions.

What I meant to say is, it is in our nature to divide ourselves into groups as much as we can. We feel comfortable that way. The thought that we belong somewhere is always comforting. Now I'm getting to my point. To divide us into groups, we need something to be based on. We are white, black or brown because of our color. We are Asians or Westerners depending on our geographical location. Same goes with countries. Then races. Though, it is a bit confusing what a race is. Certainly there are some biological differences in each race, I think that has something to do with breeding within that race for centuries though I'm not qualified nor knowledgeable to explain that any further. But I think you do agree, that Sinhalese differ from Tamils, Muslims and Jews or Japs. Then, there are some other differences that goes with races which are purely, the word is adjustable, I think. If a white boy born to American parents was raised by a Tamil family in Sri Lanka, he would be a Tamil in all sense except for the color of his skin, wouldn't he? The same goes with adopted Sinhalese children in Western countries. Remember that girl who perform exceptionally well in Australian Idol, who was born to Sri Lankan parents but was raised in Aussie? When someone introduced her as Sri Lankan, she objected and said that she was an Aussie. And she was damn right!

Now, after we divide ourselves and put us into groups, we do have a sense of belonging and a sense of ours don't we? We love our mothers the most. Our fathers, sons, daughters, brothers and sisters. Exception is the spouse. But the thing is, we do love our group, and nobody says it's wrong. The problems starts when while we love, care and treat ours the best we can, we start to treat theirs a bit, say, not so well. There in lies the problem, but it is also the human nature if not the nature of all things alive. It is not necessarily the right thing, but that is how things are!

Let's talk about Whacko's arguments a bit. When you summarise what he has to say, he says that Tamils and Muslims in Sri Lanka are being treated differently, and that is to say less favorably compared to the Sinhalese. I beg to differ. It must have been the case, and yes it does exist to a certain extent today, but not as much.

There is one thing I want to differentiate between here. That is, the way in which each race is treated by the constitution and the way in which we treat each other individually. My whole point of this post narrows down to the fact that while the former can be addressed, should be addressed and is being addressed, with the latter we are all a bit helpless and it is up to us individuals to correct that. Now, a while ago NB came up with a good post about the privileges Muslims enjoy in Sri Lanka. It is a pretty long list and to be frank pretty accurate as well. They do enjoy all that and some more. And so do the Tamils in Sri Lanka. In short, the constitution of Sri Lanka has given minorities enough privileges to enjoy and enough power as well in my opinion. Here I do not want to get into a verbal battle about should we go to talks with the LTTE, because while we should treat Tamils with much respect and equality, TERRORISTS should be crushed. And that is what LTTE is. So if you want to argue on that, save it.

Then, while that remains such, the way we treat the members of each race in a personal level does have some racism involved. I said this in the comments section of a post by Whacko, but let me state it here again. Say you're the CEO of a company and that you are in the process of recruiting someone. After many interviews you select two guys, or girls for that matter who have exactly the same qualifications. They are both excellent, but you need to chose only one of them. If one of them was a Sinhalese and the other was a Muslim or a Tamil, who would you choose? If I'd be frank, I'd choose the Sinhalese guy. Now before jumping the gun on me, sit back and think for a minute. Who would you chose? As far as I know, only an alien would be totally unbiased given the situation. What I'm trying to say is we try to treat our side better than their side, almost always. When it comes to friends and family nobody gives two hoots, but when it comes to race, cast or color of the skin things differ. But, the things is, it goes both ways. Not just the Sinhalese treat their kind that way, so do the Muslims and Tamils. Sinhalese hold monopolies in so many industries/businesses in Sri Lanka and they do discriminate others to a certain extent. But how many businesses are there in Sri Lanka that Muslims and Tamils hold monopolies over? So many right? And if you are not being naive, you will have to agree with me that there is discrimination by them as well. When Sinhalese gather together and talk about Muslims, they might talk ill about them, but wouldn't the Muslims and Tamils also do the same?

But the world is not as bad as it seems. What is important is, despite differences, and inherent hate between our races we still manged to live rather peacefully. I want to talk about the place where my home is. It's in Kandy and in my hometown there is a very large Muslim population. I'm not exactly sure about the statistics, but it is close to 50-50. And almost all the shops belong to the Muslims. But we never ever had any kind of conflict there, in fact we do go along quite well. I do have a lot of Muslim friends, and they are being invited to our home every Sinhala New Year day. And we are invited to their homes for their new year. Muslims support us a lot when we organize "Dansala" for Wesak and Poson poya days, and one time the richest Muslim Mudalali made the largest contribution to our Dansala. Not to mention the chicks we tried to dig from each other's race.

The bottom line is, there was always some friction between different races that are in Paradise, there is now, and there will always be as far as we remain humans. But as long as we manage not to go as far as kill each other, which I'm sure we won't bother starting again, things will be fine.

The world is not as bad a place as it seems folks...


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Thursday, April 2, 2009

My New PhotoBlog

I wanted to be a photographer ever since I can remember. Well, now I can become one. I got a new camera recently, and now is in the process of shooting everything that comes within my eye sight. Not shooting shooting, but taking a photograph though I used the word shooting cos it sounds cooler. Or so I think.

So, please do go here and check it out. And I know that you'd want to bookmark it too.

Oh and I named it Colors of Life but if you think that's lame or pretty common, please do suggest a new name. I know you guys are pretty creative. Certainly better than me.

Cheers!


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Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Happy Birthday...

... to everyone who celebrate their birthday today!

Hey, no, wait, I'm not mocking you guys. I promise. In fact, I was just wondering... what would it be like to have to celebrate your birthday today? Would you celebrate at all? Well, OK, why shouldn't you... but then... I mean... let's face it, do you really want to celebrate your b'day on April Fools day? OK it's just another one of those stupid days I know. But still...

But worry not my friends, you're not alone. In fact, you're a part of a very much elite list.

Believe me, an emperor was born today. The Emperor Go-Saga of Japan. Ever heard about William Harvey, that famous physician? He's done something about explaining blood circulation of the human body. And then Sophie Germain. I'm sure you haven't heard of her. But man, she was a great mathematician and made significant contributions to the study of Fermat's Last Theorem. Have you heard about that? Well, there you have the link. Oh and don't forget Nikolai Gogol, the famous Russian writer. Wait, there's more. How about Edgar Wallace? Another English writer who wrote 175 novels! Jeez man! Must surely have been jobless. But he wrote the screenplay of original King Kong too. So... well... couldn't be bad... There are more! David Gover. Former English Cricketer, the classy batsman. And Stephen Fleming. You know, inarguably the best NZ captain. And Randy Orton. Well, maybe he's the only one in that list who deserves to be born that day.

So, see my friends, there's nothing to worry about!
Celebrate it, and HAVE A BLAST!
Cheers!


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