What I Miss the Most

Friends. The few wonderful friends I left behind. Just hanging around talking nonsense was... fun.

Kandy. Hanging around there with the above said friends, practically doing nothing was like spiritual healing or something.

SL rugby season. Was a huge fan and watch every single club season starting from 1990 to 2007. From the days when KandySC was like the Bangladesh of Test cricket to today where they are the mighty Aussies. Then I missed everything since.

Playing rugby. Touch rugby though. At Pera, used to play at least one day a week - usually more - for about four hours. Those were the days.

Beaches. The awesomeness.

Campus life. A usual day would be like getting up at 7 or 8, be there at the campus around 10 for breakfast. Play one or many of the card games like Poker, 304, Spades, Hearts, Bridge or even 'Booru' when things came to that. Or head to Gym, play some Badminton, Carom or whatever else. Back to canteen, more card games. Or head to hostel rooms and play video games, watch Anarkalli's back in Sinhala Karaoke songs or just talk about the hot chicks in new batches while having a cig or two. Then kottu from nearby Night Kadey and head home. Ah... that was life.

Getting piss drunk for no reason. Specially in hostel rooms so that you don't have to worry about getting home presentably.

Food. Sri Lankan food that is.

'Book shopping'. Loved going to bookstores and browsing through the many a thousand books pretending to wanting to buy them. Because I hardly had enough money to actually buy what I wanted, which usually meant the whole book store.


Oh well, I could just have said I miss the paradise, couldn't I? I tell you people, the ones who are still in paradise, don't take for granted the things you have. You never know what you had until you miss them.

To be or not to be?

Anonymous that is.

I'm half anonymous when it comes to blogging. People who follow my blog but do not know me in real life know certain amount of things about me including my first name. They probably know where I'm from, where I am now and what I do, where I studied and some more. But they don't know my other name and many other information, not to mention how I look like, so unless someone does an NB guess it'll stay the same. Then there are another few wonderful people whom I got to know through blogging who now are in my FB, Twitter, Picasa, Flickr and other such networks. They of course have seen me, know more than those others do but that's OK because I added them on those networks because I do trust them in the first place. However I still haven't had the pleasure of meeting any bloggers, thus I think I still have got some level of anonymity among all bloggers.

Then, on the other side of the coin are the people I actually know in person. Friends, family, colleagues and even perhaps enemies though I'd like to think I don't have any. Those are the people I encounter day to day and to them I'm totally a known entity (obviously) though my blog wasn't at first. My blog was anonymous to them. Then, one by one they got to know that I have a blog mainly through FB and to a lesser extent by other ways. Most of them don't follow my blog, some read it from time to time and it's nice to know that a few of them actually read every one of my posts.

However, this in itself has presented me with a problem. A problem in the sense, the fact that those people who know me reading what I write has affected my writing. To be precise, it has affected what I write. When I started blogging I had no idea whatsoever I'd continue for this long or what I'll write about. I just wrote and some of you wonderful people on Kottu read and encouraged me. Nobody really knew me, so I just kept on writing whatever I wanted, about anyone I preferred. Concealing their identity of course. But now, since most of my real life friends know I blog, I simply can't write just about anything. Even if I tried to conceal the identity of someone, it's only a matter of time before someone put the things together. And not just about others, this has prevented me from writing what I want to write about myself as well. If you are one of the few who kept reading me from the beginning you'd know what I mean. I've been blogging less and less about me and the others around me while random posts have increased. I don't know if it's a good thing or not, but it certainly has restricted me.

Why did I let them know, you might ask. Good point, and to be brutally honest guess I loved the attention. It's fair too, I guess. There's no point in writing if you don't want anybody to read - you might as well write it on a piece of paper and burn it. Anyway, the thing is, on one hand there is the Lankanosphere to whom I can write just about anything. On the other hand there is the nice bunch of people I know, to whom I can not divulge everything about me. Funny isn't it? You are at ease saying anything you want to a bunch of strangers (in a way, at least) while you're not so comfortable about it when it comes to friends and family - the very people you love and care about the most. But I digress. As I was saying, now this has become a dilemma. By no way I mean that I don't want my friends to read what I write - as much as I did back then I still want them to read me, I know it's true deep down inside. Yet there is the problem that those very people prevent me from writing freely.

What should I do? Should I quit blogging? Or should I close down this blog and start one which is truly anonymous? Or should I admit that this is part and parcel of the whole thing, and continue blogging restraining myself? Or should I throw all caution to the wind and write whatever I want?

I just don't know.

Happy New Year Peeps!

So I haven't posted anything for a week. It's not because I'm having 'Avurudu Vacation' though - I'm not such a lucky soul and will be at work tomorrow. It's rather due to a combination of boredom, having better things to do and not having anything to blog about. Plus I have blogger's block which merely means I just can't get myself for writing something but putting it this way makes it sound cooler. No?

Anyway, happy holidays for you luckier fellows and wish all you people a very happy and prosperous new year!

ඔබ සැමට සුබ නව වසරක් වේවා!

Let's Tease Your Brain

While I was browsing the Internet randomly last night I came upon this logic and math puzzle site. Here are a few relatively easy but fun puzzles to solve. Here are a couple of them, localized to fit us paradise islanders. See if you guys can solve them in quick time and let me know the answers. I'll publish all the comments after a couple of days.

(1)
The newly made crown of the King Rajapakse was stolen even before he got to set his hands on it and was furious beyond imagination. His royal police set to work immediately and apprehended five suspects in no time and were questioned. Each of them gave two statements, and a heavenly voice told the chief investigator that exactly one statement by each one of them was false, while the other was true. Following are the statements given by each of the suspects.

Ranil:
It wasn't Somawansha
It was Mangala

Mangala:
It wasn't Wimal
It wasn't Somawansha

Wimal:
It was Somawansha
It wasn't Ranil

Rathnasiri:
It was Wimal
It was Mangala

Somawansha:
It was Rathnasiri
It wasn't Ranil

Who stole the crown?


(2)
The next time, throne of the King was stolen. Usual procedure followed, and this time six suspects were apprehended. This time only four people dared to lie, and each of the four people who lied told only one false statement each. All the other statements were true. Following are the statements.

Mervin said:
It wasn't Ranil
It wasn't Wimal
It wasn't Rathnasiri

Ranil said:
It wasn't Mervin
It wasn't Mangala
It wasn't Rathnasiri

Mangala said:
It wasn't Ranil
It wasn't Somawansha
It wasn't Rathnasiri

Wimal said:
It wasn't Mervin
It wasn't Somawansha
It wasn't Mangala

Rathnasiri said:
It wasn't Mangala
It wasn't Wimal
It wasn't Somawansha

Somawansha said:
It wasn't Mangala
It wasn't Wimal
It wasn't Mervin

Who stole the throne? To give you a little clue, though this may seem difficult than the previous one, it is not. It might even take less time than the previous one.

Centre for Monitoring Election Violence?

I have a problem with this Centre for Monitoring Election Violence. More precisely, with the name they've chosen to adopt. Read it a second time: Centre for Monitoring Election Violence. It suggests that election violence does happen and they attempt to 'monitor' it. Now I'm not being naive (read foolish also) to suggest that there is no election violence, but when supposedly a neutral organization such as this has a name of this sort, it is questionable. At least for me. Because it is accepted in science that when an experiment is conducted it is necessary for the experimenter to not expect a certain result. It is commonly agreed upon that if the researcher expects a certain result then the actual results tend to go that way - such is the human nature. That is why that when it comes to large scale important researches often the designer of the experiment differs from the one that carries it out and then a third party observes the results and make conclusions - to stop the research being biased towards a certain result.

Some time back, in Britain if I'm not mistaken, when black people were still considered to be 'uncivilized', there was the question of whether the white people are really smarter than the blacks. Sorry guys I've forgotten most of the details such as when and where it was or who did the experiment, but in short it was like this. The theory was that the size of the brain decides the level of intelligence, thus the race who has bigger brains should be more intelligent. The decided method to test this was to choose several skulls of people of each race and stuff them with grain and then measure the volume of grain in each skull. This was performed on several randomly selected skulls (by a white man, obviously) and the results clearly showed that the white people had bigger skulls, thus bigger brains and higher intelligence. However, it was later revealed that the experimenter had - unintentionally - compressed and stuffed more grain into white people's skulls. In short, though the experiment was seemingly to find out who's more intelligent, it was in fact an experiment to prove that the white men were more intelligent. There lied the difference.

I find the situation somewhat similar here with the Centre for Monitoring Election Violence. It is quite possible that they didn't think it through a lot, but if this is their mindset then it is also possible that it may affect the observations they make. You never know.

The Invention of Lying

In the hands of a more able writer + director, this would have been one of the greatest movies of all times. It is such a brilliant idea that you could have done almost anything with it, yet they chose to make a lame ass third grade Hollywood romantic flick.

The story in short is that in a world where all the humans tell nothing but the truth (not out of choice but because of their nature) one man develops the ability to lie. Then he uses it to first save his apartment, then the job but does not lie to the love of his life even when it matters. Predictably she, at the end, realizes he's a wonderful guy and ends up marrying him. Meh.

Imagine what you could have done if you were the only man who could lie in a world full of honest chaps. People believing every word you say without the slightest of doubts! Now that's crazy, but also you could take over the world pretty much in a day or two.

Who says lying is bad?

Cricket Starts And We Decipher Songs

The much awaited cricket season in Japan started last Sunday. Much awaited by us, not the Japs. They don't know Jack about cricket and couldn't possibly have been waiting for it more than I do for Ranjan Ramanayake's next film. Anyway, as I was saying the cricket season started which I must say is a wonderful thing: if nothing else, it makes you feel at home a bit. We were to play a friendly game with another team which was based on a location some 200 kilometers away from where we are, so off we went in the wee hours of morning which is to say at about 8 a.m. The wheels were trusted with the experienced hands of Solomon, which we thought was a smart move. Within 10 minutes we realized it wasn't the case, as during those 10 minutes he violated more traffic rules than all the other people here did during the past two years put together. So after we entered the highway D took the driver's seat and we prepared an argument in case a traffic cop stopped us: the whole point of allowing people to drive only if they hold a driver's license is to make the roads safe. So which is better - a bad driver with a license or a good driver without one? And if the cop still disagrees, the last option would be to get him in the car and let Solomon drive further 100 meters which will surely make him agree.

So then, after so many heart stopping moments we arrived at Shizuoka, the place where we were to play the match. Everything was set to play, the Sun was out and we thought it was gonna be a good, if not great start to the season. Alas, it wasn't to be so. Shortly afterwards the clouds started gathering which was followed by a drizzle and the temperature started dropping at a rate faster than [insert something here which has a very high rate]. When we bowled the last few overs the temperature couldn't have been more than 4 or 5 degrees Celsius. Wearing only the cricket trousers and stuff, it was cold as hell when it freezes over. Then, just when we finished bowling it promptly rained thus ending the match. It seemed sort of stupid traveling some 200 kilometers to bowl 35 overs and come back, but such is cricket.

On our way back we got caught in a mad traffic and the car wasn't moving at all. As a means of passing time, being the intelligent lot we are, we got engaged in a few 'intellectual discussions' such as the latest movies, Shakira's bottom and IPL. When even that bored us, we started to actually listen to lyrics of the songs that we had playing and found out how rich the Sinhala language was. We were listening to Kasun Kalhara's songs, among others, and that song Sanda Sanda Wage came up. Cool song, I must say, and you can listen to it here if you want. We listened carefully and found out that it is a song about nothing but the plain and obvious facts, yet it's a nice song. It says moon looks like moon, flowers look like flowers, you look like you and I look like I. What else can they look like? If we still dumb it down and convert into a mathematical formula, it'll look like this:

A = A, B = B, C = C and D = D
As long as A != B and B != A
Then A = A and B = B

Lucky Newton wasn't in Sri Lanka or else we would have been learning Physics by songs.