Rants Raves and Miscellaneous Musings

Give us another one ... just like the other one

2015-01-11T14:44:00.000+05:30

Muse

Or Ave! Duci novi, similis duci seneci!

This term seems to be getting a lot of use on this blog.

Not too long ago I warned that The Beast may attempt a coup. And then he walked out of the house, not sc reaming and shouting. Even I was impressed. For the first time in ever, I was proven wrong about The Beast. How cool is that.

And then the other reports started to come in. The Colombo Telegraph (now available without blocking!) reported that there was an attempt to suspend to constitution and take over the country. Then another such news site took up the cry. And then it spread to Facebook. And then people were telling me "look Such, you were right!"

Then The BBC publishes its article. And all of a sudden this rumour has credibility. So much so that Indi Samarajiva wrote a blog post about it.

So now this is a valid, believable story, published by an accredited news service.

So it must be true. The Beast tried to stage a military coup.

Or did he?

I am not saying he didn't. I am not saying he did. I wasn't there. And all this is hearsay.

So let's look at the sources. The Colombo Telegraph quotes "anonymous sources." I don't trust them. They are not a reliable news source. More of a political mudsmear rag, in the vein of The Sunday Leader in the days before they were taken over by The Beast's puppets. They published the ugly truths, but they tended to go overboard on the vitriol.

But the BBC article has a source. A big one. None other than Dr. Rajitha Senaratne said that Even in the last hour, he [Rajapaksa] tried to remain in office. Only when he realised that he had no other option, he decided to go.

Now if there is anyone in this new government I trust less than The Smiler, it is Doctor Rajitha. He has a long history of distortions and outright lies. Only a few days before the election, he came on Sirasa TV's Satana program. Go ahead, watch it. He pulls out so many lies on this show, even the Sirasa TV moderators (who are big supporters of The Smiler) had to call him on it.

The Smiler came into power on a platform of honesty and transparency. But if this is the way his government operates on the its second day in power, then we have a lot to worry about.

Hail to the new boss! Just like the old boss!

The Pros and the Cons

2015-01-04T17:26:00.001+05:30

Muse

So the pros are out. Running their cons. And we're supposed to choose which one to bend over and spread our cheeks for.

So let's take a completely bi-assed look at the pros and cons of all this insanity. In the interests of sanity, i am not going to look at what they have said they are going to do. But at the things they have done recently.

Why you should not vote for Mahinda (aka The Beast)

Where to start?

The Beast has led to the worst destruction of Sri Lankan society in history.

Triumphalism. Nepotism. Media manipulation. The nurturing of racist elements like the Bodu Bala Sena. The mainstreaming of political thuggery. The promotion of vigilantism and violence.

The reasons are many. They are serious charges. Any one of these should be enough to deny him political power forever.

But the main reason you shouldn't vote for him is simple, he's a lying, cheating, manipulative asshole, and shouldn't be allowed to reap the benefits of the fucked up constitutional amendment he shoved up our ass without even saying "hello."

Why you should vote for The Beast

Let's face it. The Beast has done a lot to develop the country. Roads, infrastructure development. Parks. But then, most of that was done by Gota. All The Beast did was to give us an airport we didn't need. Maybe we can kick The Beast out and keep Gota running the UDA?

The one thing I can see him in the process of doing is trying to make English-medium education a thing. A big thing. With the JHU in the mix, this is one thing that will die. And this is the one thing I will miss.

Why you should not vote for Maithripala (aka The Smiler)

Let's start off with the simple. He was around when The Beast was doing all his bullshit. And he did nothing. He can claim that he didn't know what was doing on, but does anyone really believe that? It's obvious that he's in the fight because he wasn't allowed to make money. So he's started a new "let's all make money" coalition. Vote them into power, and they'll start sucking the people dry. It'll be a blowjob in the beginning, but then the moon will come out and you'll realise he's a vampire. And he's using teeth.

Then there's the slightly more complex. Do you really expect this coalition to last 3 months, let alone the "100 day plan"? Do you think that they are going to take away the executive presidency that gives them so much power?

If you do, I've got a bridge that I can sell you, cheap.

Why you should vote for The Smiler

He's not Mahinda. And for some people that's enough.

At the end of the day, whoever wins ... we lose

The New Year Election Predictions

2015-01-02T17:40:00.001+05:30

Rant

OK, so it's not just predictions. It's my thoughts on this entire jing-bang fiasco grim fandango Vicious Cabaret.

I don't wan't Mahinda to win

The Beast has had a long run. He has had it for long enough. He has had it for too long. The corruption, the hatred, the bullshit has gone on for far too long. I like some of the things he has done, but I don't like, neither do I agree with the way he has done so many of those things.

I don't want Maithripala to win

Maithripala and his pack of power-hungry land-sharks should not with either. Are we really comparing the corrupt brothers of the Rajapaksa Clan to the corrupt brothers of the Sirisena Clan (who, it is said, were responsible for the massive rice price hikes)? Are we to not believe that everyone is rallying behind the so-called "common candidate" because The Beast filled the banquet table with his relatives and henchmen, leaving no room for anyone to even pick up any crumbs?

So what's going to happen then?

There are two options. Either The Beast will win, or The Smiler will win. What happens then?

The Smiler wins (and The Beast runs away)

So Maithripala (The Smiler) wins. Loud cheers all around! The people joyously greet the new saviour of the nation. Hirunika starts the case against Duminda Silva, and all of a sudden all of his witnesses say they can't remember anything (because they were hit on the head). The Rajapaksa Clan make a run for it. Basil, and Gota head off to America. The Beast heads off to somewhere (probably Cuba, Palestine is not a good place to be (also he has the perfect mustache to be an Alcalde)). Mad Merv sucks enough dick to come back into the ruling party again. The Commissions start and the corruption investigations begin. Projects stop half way, and everyone gets fucked over. We start looking for the next saviour.

The Beast wins

So The Beast has won. It's pretty simple. Within hours the army has surrounded all the offices and houses of the coalition. The troops are out in force. The Coalition asks people to come out to support them. Twitter, Facebook, and finally, the whole Internet gets shut down. No one comes out, because the lesser of the two evils is not worth coming out to defend. The purges start. Those who can escape, do so. People die in "accidents." We get a much-chastened Beast, who makes room at the table for more of the coalition members. Commissions start and the corruption investigations begin. Projects stop half way, and everyone gets fucked over. We start looking for a new saviour.

The Smiler wins (and the Beast refuses to give up the Iron Throne)

The Smiler wins. The Beast refuses to leave. Some people actually take to the streets. Some of the Army refuses to kill them. The rest of the Army fires. Twitter, Facebook, and finally, the whole Internet gets shut down. No one comes out, because the lesser of the two evils is not worth coming out to defend. The purges start. Those who can escape, do so. People die in "accidents." We get a much-chastened Beast, who makes room at the table for more of the coalition members. Commissions start and the corruption investigations begin. Projects stop half way, and everyone gets fucked over. We start looking for a new saviour.

What I think will happen

So you are reading this far, waiting to see what the hell I think will happen. The article has the word "predictions" in it, and it would be unfair of me to not give you one. Here it is:

The Beast wins. Not by much. But by about 2-3 percent. He has realised that even a small win is a win. And that is what he wants. He has given up trying to be loved by everyone. The past few months have shown that he isn't loved (anymore) and so he doesn't need to prove that to the world. He wins. Because to quote Joseph Stalin - I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this—who will count the votes, and how. The "computer jilmaat" people are here, and the votes will be counted accordingly. So he will win, but he won't be a dick about it. He will call everyone to gather together, to forgive and forget, to be calm and rational, and maybe he will lose next time, and let's all be friends and uplift the country. And rainbows will shine and unicorns will shit shiny sprinkles over all of us. And the people will say "Yes, we tried. We'll get him next time." We get a much-chastened Beast, who makes room at the table for more of the coalition members. Commissions start and the corruption investigations begin. Projects stop half way, and everyone gets fucked over. We start looking for a new saviour.

And that, my dear friends, is my prediction.

Sri Lanka Board of Foreign Employment leaves 100,000 names and passport and ID numbers up for grabs

2014-07-28T09:47:00.002+05:30

Rant

It all started with Trevor and Tekla Fernando.

People who listened to the English Service of the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation in the 80s and early 90s may remember them. In an era where getting a request in on the radio meant writing a real, actual, snail mail letter, Trevor and Tekla (who many may remember because of the alliteration in their names) managed to get a request in - an their names read on - every single request show on the SLBC English service. Every. Single. Day.

On Wednesday the 29th, 2014, in a fit of nostalgia I decided to look up who they were. The search was not that long. The name was not all that common (and from the results I got, not that uncommon either). One of the results I got was ... somewhat disturbing.

The numbers looked like they were ID and passport numbers, and having those out in the open is never a good thing.

So I clicked the link and found myself downloading a 2.5mb Microsoft Excel file. It was full of names and ID and passport numbers. Scrolling to the bottom of the file I found there were over 25,000 of them. There were three other files with 25000 names and passport numbers in each of them, and one of them had the ID numbers as well. The four files dated from July to September 2013, meaning that they were accessible to the public for about a year.

So I looked for the URL it was downloaded from. It was a completely unprotected directory on the Sri Lanka Board of Foreign Employment website. There were three other similar files, and many other files, that could be accessed directly. Alarm bells started going off in my head, and the IT security guy in my head was having an apoplectic fit.

This was so many levels of Not Good.

So the next day (Thursday, the 24th of July, 2014) I sent an email to the office of Amal Senalankadhikara, the Chairman of the SLBFE Detail. It was 8:30am, and I was told by his secretary that he was not in yet, and that he would be in after 9:00am. So I called at 9am. I was then told that he was on his way to a meeting, and why was I calling. I explained in simple terms that there was a security breach on their website, and I wanted to bring it to his attention. I was asked to speak to their IT consultant, Roshan somebody (I never got their last name) and given a cellphone number.

So I called him. He didn't answer, but called me back about 30 minutes later. He asked me who I was, so I told him, and told him my credentials so that he would know that I was not some amateur. I explained the situation and he told me yes, those are public records and supposed to be out there.

So I asked him if public records included documents with names, ID numbers, and passport numbers.

At this point he accused me of hacking and scanning his site and said Now we have to find out who you are. Then he hung up.

I was now getting rather angry.

So I called the secretary - who I must say was a very nice lady - and told her that I had been threatened by her "IT Consultant" and I would like to speak to the chairman please. I was told that he was at a meeting, and could I explain what the problem was.

So I did. Using small, non-technical words.

To her credit, she understood the gravity of the situation immediately, and asked for my phone number so they could call me back. She also asked me to call her chairman after 12:30pm

Meanwhile I put up a Facebook post.

About 30 minutes later I received a call from another lady who asked me what the problem was. I explained the situation for her, and told her about the MS Excel files. She agreed that it was a massive issue, and promised to fix it. Witih five minutes the files were gone.

I then called the chairman at 12:30pm and was told by a different secretary that he had left to go outstation, so could I please call the next morning.

Meanwhile the FB post I made was getting quite a bit of attention. Many of my friends were asking why I didn't report it to the National Center for Cyber Security, others why I was getting so bothered by something that was being proven to be not my problem, and something the SLBFE was unconcerned about. I had two reporter friends asking for the story, and a bunch of people asking for the URL (which I wasn't ready to release).

I was upset about all this because I am not sure how muc mischief you can get upto with someone's name, passport number, and ID number, but I imagine it's quite a bit. I have spent too much time fighting security breaches that I feel bad for the poor sysadmin who is at the firing line. I also like to think that I am a good guy. That I do the right thing. This may be a delusion, but we all have them.

So on Friday (the 25th of July) I called the chairman's office at about 9am. A different secretary told me that he was not in the office yet and hung up.

This is where i drew the line in the sand.

I have tried multiple times to get in touch with Mr. Amal Senalankadhikara, the Chairman of the SLBFE. I wanted to explain to him that their site was insecure. I wanted to explain to him that putting up a downloads directory, and then giving people unsecured access to it, and - probably - telling people "the documents are in that folder, get what you want," is inherently insecure in so many ways.

I didn't want to make all this information public. Some things just shouldn't be done. But through their actions and their inaction they have forced my hand.

Do what you think is right. Or wrong. I wash my hands of this.

Why we should stop hating on the "marry your rapist law" .. at least a little bit

2014-04-30T15:28:00.002+05:30

Rant

Yes, Sri Lanka's Minister of Child Development and Womens' Affairs is a man. Yes, he's said that he's qualified to be the Minister because he has six sisters, a wife, and two daughters. Yeah, he's a bit of an idiot.

And so he brings out a law that allows rape victims to marry their rapists. And even The Beast has shown his support.

Obviously people are up in arms about this.

Does anyone remember the furor over Sri Lanka attempting to lower the age of consent to 13?

If you don't, in 2005 the Sri Lankan parliament tried to bring in a law to lower tha age of consent to 13 from the current 16. And everyone was up in arms then too. And with all the screaming and shouting, the bill was scuttled. But it wasn't a blanket lowering. It was an attempt to create a Romeo and Juliet Law in Sri Lanka to stop the large numbers of young men who are charged with rape for having consensual sex with their girlfriends. And the screamers and shouters (many of who are screaming and shouting again) put an end to that.

This actually happens quite a bit in Sri Lanka. And in many places around the world. Hormones being what they are, and teenagers being who they are, it is entirely possible that a couple, of whom at least one party is below the age of consent will want to have sex. You remember when you were that age. You may not have done it, but I am pretty sure you wanted to.

The problem is that when it is found out, a rape case follows, and the boy's life is ruined. It's almost always the boy, because women are pretty much considered incapable of rape. And with cases taking years to be resolved, the boy's life is ruined. A Romeo and Juliet law would probably not have fixed the problem. But it would probably have been a step towards fixing it.

And now we have this attempt at a somewhat similar law.

There is a term for this in Sinhala, "අහුවුනොත් රේප්". Ahuvunoth rape. If you're caught, it's rape. This doesn't mean you can rape away to your heart's content, as long as you're not caught. It means that if you are caught in flagrante delicto, or even simply at a location (like a fast-sheet hotel or overnight trip) with a girl, you'll be accused of rape. Even if it was consensual. Even if she was on top. Because a girl's reputation is less sullied by her being a "rape victim" than by people knowing that she is no longer a virgin. Or worse, that she enjoys sex.

The girl may want to marry the boy. The boy may want to marry the girl. They may be above the age of consent, but the girl's parents may not approve. Or the girl's parents may just want to punish the boy for soiling their precious flower. This happens.

Sri Lankans are weird like that.

Yes, this law is not well thought out. Yes, there is so much scope for abuse it's insane. But has anyone read the proposed law as it stands? No one read the 2005 Romeo and Juliet law either. The screaming and shouting started even before the wording was finalised.

From some of the interviews I have read, it will not just apply to statutory rape, but to allow for any case of rape. And it also allows for the "victim" to say she wants to marry the "rapist."

This law is part of an attempt to fix a societal problem in Sri Lanka. The problem that people consider sexuality a bad thing. The problem that the older generation wants to control the sex life of the younger generation, even when they are clearly no longer the "younger generation."

The problem is that all these people who are up in arms don't want to talk about this fucked up situation that exists. Fucked up parents. Fucked up laws. Fucked up outdated "morals."

A fucked up desire not to change, no matter who it hurts.

I Hate The N-Word

2014-02-05T19:27:00.001+05:30

Rant

No, not "nigger". I hate "the n-word". I also hate "the f-word", "the c-word", "the j-word" and every f-wording some-letter-in-the-f-wording-alphabet-word out there.

The thing is ... I have no problem with the word "nigger." Or dick, or fuck, or cunt, or any other word.

Now I am sure that someone out there will come and tell me that I have no right to say "nigger" is ok because I have not suffered through the pain and hate and pretty much everything else that went with the word. Well guess what mother-f-word-er, unless you are an African-American who grew up in the bad old days of Jim Crow, neither did you. But if you want my credentials, let me tell you a story.

I was bullied in school, for most of my school life. It was bad enough that I didn't want to go to school. It was bad enough that many days I came back crying. It was bad enough that I stll bear the scars. It happened every day.

And very little of it was physical. It was words. Innoccuous words, like "specko", "professor". But those words hurt me.

Now, looking back, almost two decades later, I find that they were words. And they hurt me because I gave them power. And because I gave them power, people were able to use those words to hurt me.

So words hurt.

But maybe if we took the power away?

I learned to take the power away from words, I have found that you can call a person "dickhead asshole fuckwit" in the friendliest and lovingest of ways. I have found you can insult someone by calling them "Sir."

So there is my beef with "the n-word" and its politically correct cousins. It gives a word, a simple word, a whole lot more power than it deserves. By being shocked, horrified, and angered by the use of those words, we are giving those words - a puff of air, a few twitches in the vocal passage - far too much power.

By replacing a word with a euphemism we are, in effect, creating a weapon. A weapon with a massive label that says "Look! Look at this weapon! It is guaranteed to hurt, anger, disgust, and have many emotional impacts on me!"

And we leave that weapon lying around where anyone who wants to - and there are many of those - can pick up, point, and use.

Every time we read "N-word" in the media, in our heads we say "nigger." This means that the desired effect of not saying the "offensive word" is gone. Or if we were to say things like "racial-epithet" then it may be that the word we think in our heads is more or even less offensive than what was said.

There used to be a time when "nigger" was a word that was in common use. Around the same time, the word "damn" was a profanity. But eventually "damn" became normal. It became just a regular word. "Nigger," on the other hand, gained a lot more power. A lot more strength, and a lot more potential to shock and awe. No one bats an eyelid when you say "fuck" these days, but you can definitely te a reaction by saying "nigger."

Yay for us!

So let's try an experiment shall we? Let's stop giving words power. Let's understand that it is not words that have power, but context, meaning, and intent. Let's start using words, and stop censoring words, and stop pretending that just a few vocalised syllables can ruin children, destroy lives, and obliterate society as we know it.

So alll together now! Shit! Piss! Fuck! Cunt! Cocksucker! Motherfucker! And TITS!. Also Nigger, Chink, Kike, Honky. Raghead, Wop, Gook, and Belgium!

Vampires, and zombies, and werewolves ... oh my!!

2013-06-08T21:48:00.000+05:30

Muse

My friend Damith came down to dotelkay from dotus a few weeks ago, and just before he left we engaged in our time homoured tradition of sitting up on the roof and talking until the wee hours of the morning. There is usually alcohol involved, but this time his father had hidden the key to the liquor cupboard, damn the luck. And as it is with such conversations, the topics were wide and varied, and one of them was the social significance of vampires, zombies, and werewolves.

So hear me out. There may be a test later.

The modern obsession with vampires started with (of course) Dracula in 1897. This led to vampire plays, vampire stories, and then vampire movies. And there were so many of them. The big name movies, and the many B-movie exploitation/blaxploitation/gorefest flicks. But the most important part of the genre is very simple. You have the Vampire - smart, suave, educated, cultured - living in and preying on a small village or town. The people of the toen are kept quiet and docile because of his power. Until one day a Hero shows up. One man, fighting against the nay-sayers of the village to fight for them, kill the vampire, and lead the people to freedom. Maybe picking up a beautiful woman as a reward along the way.

But things get interesting if you look at it through the context of the time. This was the start of the Industrial Revolution. This was also the time when people went up agains the established elite classes. The time when brains and determination would let you become bigger and more powerful than the hereditary elite of the past. And maybe overturn them, bringing power to the Little Guy.

An elite that was educated, cultured, and well-dressed (which translated to "suave and smart"). And was seen as sucking the blood of the common man.

But that was then. Vampires have still stayed sexy, but they are hardly elite anymore. They don't dress in fancy clothes, no waistcoats and opera capes. They dress in jeans and t-shirts. They are having fun. They are dead and loving it. They have gone from being the power elite, to being all night party animals. Vampires have become the celebrity brat pack. The social elite have become the a-list celebrities. And then, in the height of ignominy, they became sparkly.

And then there are zombies. Zombie movies have been around as long as - or possibly longer than, depending on who you ask - vampire flicks. But it has been in the last few years that the zombies have enjoyed a resurgence. But what makes them so popular?

A zombie movie is a downer. The "heroes" are outnumbered. The zombies are tireless, relentless, fearless - if only they are too stupid to fear. They will chase after you. Hunt you down by sight, scent, and sound. Depending on the director they will shamble or run. But they will keep coming. And coming. One bite or scratch from them will put you on an irreversible path to being one of them. And the only way to stop them is to destroy the brain.

And barring a miracle, you can't win.

Sure you can escape them, but to where? If it is a localised outbreak, it may be possible. But that doesn't solve the problem. It just postpones it for another day. If it is localised you can bomb the area. Napalm, nukes, take your pick. But what if it is not?

The Walking Dead is huge. The Resident Evil series is on five films, three full-length animated movies, and there may be a sixth and final installment.

Both those movies are about humanity as an endangered species. The world is covered in zombies, and the humans are fighting a losing battle. No one's getting out alive.

A world where the majority is an unthinking mass shambling around, concerned only with fulfilling their very basic needs. A mass that will chase you down and turn you into one of them. Or, failing that, eat your brain. Sound familiar?

If the old vampire movie was about one man fighting and leading the masses against the elite exploiting and sucking the blood out of the common man, the zombie movie is about the minority of people being threatened by the mindless masses. Instead of one man against The Man, it is a group of people fighting against being dragged down by the madding crowd leading their lives of quiet desperation.

But where do the werewolves fit in?

Where zombies are shambling mindless minions, werewolves are smart enough to band together and plan a coordinated hunt. Where vampires are controlled, werewolves are chaotic. If they are the bad guys, they would be at least as cunning as vampires, and yet more dangerous because of their violence and unpredictability. The Dungeons & Dragons Alignment System would put vampires in Lawful Evil, werewolves would be Chaotic Neutral or Chaotic Evil. Zombies would not be on the chart as they have no sentience.

But where do werewolves fit in in this monsters-as-a-metaphor-for-society system? I would put them as the geeks, the nerds, the hackers. Lacking in the suaveness to be the Vampire type Social Elite, and in the mindlessness of the Zombie masses, Werewolves are society's outcasts.

This is also the reason that there are so many "teenager-as-a-werewolf" movies. The unpredictability of teenagers, coupled with their transformation from child to adult, shows that they occupy this grey area in life and society. Similarly are the geeks and nerds. Outwardly they are mostly human, but their nature shows through once in a while, unpredictably. And at that point they become a target for the people around them.

There are very few werewolf movies being made. Especially those with a lycanthropic protagonist. As an antagonist, or even anti-hero, the werewolf has become the vampire-lite. None of the style, even more savagery, and able to walk around in daylight.

So where am I going with this? I have no clue. This is a train of thought I found interesting.

And before you ask, I don't want to be a vampire, no matter how many curvaceous, long-necked women in diaphanous underwired night dresses that flow in the wind you throw in to sweeten the deal. I am sure as hell not a zombie.

arrrooooooooooh!!

Death! Note!

2012-05-21T10:16:00.000+05:30

Muse

Well what a fine that week that was. Three funerals in one week. Parents of people I care about. You realise that you have gone to too many funerals when the guys at the crematorium ask you "weren't you here last week?"

But some of the things that happened in the past week got me thinking. A friend of mine was given a 3% chance that his mother would live if they did neuro-surgery on her. Not a 3% chance she would be back to normal, but a 3% chance that she would fall into the category that we call "not dead." So he agreed. And got a bill for LKR1.2 million.

That is his decision of course. But if I were to do that for my mother or father, they would come back to life just so they could bitchslap me.

So here it is. A very basic Living will.

I will hold you to it. And if the Powers That Be won't let you, I instruct you to pull the plug yourself. Or better yet, get a couple syrettes of morphine and shoot me up.

The Basics - when to pull the plug

Here's a simple one I lifted from Wikipedia:

If I suffer an incurable, irreversible illness, disease, or condition and my attending physician determines that my condition is terminal, I direct that life-sustaining measures that would serve only to prolong my dying be withheld or discontinued.

But of course there is more.

I like the idea of the Five Wishes system.

Wish 1: The Person I Want to Make Care Decisions for Me When I Can't

NOT MY MOTHER! My father is a good person for that. My closest friends are asked to advise him. Please note that this section will change as I - and life - move on. But for now, this will do.

Wish 2: The Kind of Medical Treatment I Want or Don't Want

Let's start with something simple. If it is going to prolong my life at substantial cost of quality of life, i don't want it.

More. If it is not going to substantially prolong my life and/or increase my quality of life and still put my family in unacceptable hardship, I still don't want it.

If I have suffered severe brain damage. Pull the plug.
if I am in a persistent vegetative state. Pull the plug.
If I have suffered brain death. Pull the plug.
If I have a Glasgow Coma Scale score of less than 6, pull the plug.
If pulling the plug doesn't work, take active measures. Personally I feel the pillow on the face thing is so passé, but a morphine overdose will work. I permit it. And I would consider you to be doing me a favour.

Of course these things are guidelines. But it's a start. You people have brains. Use, judge, and extrapolate.

Wish 3: How Comfortable I Want to Be

Make me comfortable. Drugs are good. Also, don't cut my hair unless you absolutely have to.

Wish 4: How I Want People to Treat Me

At the end of it all, I would like to be at home. If you can choose the time of finishing things off, take me to the beach, let the sun go down, pull the trigger. No prayers please, unless it is to Eris, or an offering to the Flying Spaghetti Monster. If it is to the FSM - blessed be his noodly tendricles - it is to be conducted by someone dressed in full pirate costume. Including eyepatch.

Wish 5: What I Want My Loved Ones to Know

This is the fun part.

Forgiveness: If you are a loved one, and still in my life, then there is nothing for me to forgive is there? And if there is something I have done to you that you haven't forgiven me for.. well, I'm dead by the time this thing comes into effect, so I don't care.

How I want to be remembered: I don't really care. Remember me, or not, as you want. Have a drink in my honour, or don't. Wink at a pretty girl in my honour. Help someone who feels unpretty and unloved feel pretty and loved and desired. Or don't. I'm outta here. I don't really care.

Putting the FUN in funeral

And this is the part everyone is waiting for.

Harvest my organs.: If there is anything that can be used. Take it. Use it.
No embalming. Seriously. Why bother. If I have any say in the matter I will have enough alcohol in me to keep me fresh for a while.
A cheap coffin. You know those impressive coffins that cost huge amounts of coin? I don't want one. A cardboard box will do. But if they refuse to accept that, then the cheapest coffin available.
Jeans and t-shirt. I went through life in Jeans and Tee, and I will take my last journey in one too. A well-worn and comfy set. Also, barefoot.

Coffin favours. I want a bottle of my favourite booze, and a baggie of good weed in the coffin with me at all times. I don't care if it is illegal. It's my last wish.

Cremation within 24 hours. I don't want a big viewing party. But I do want to be cremated ASAP.

Collect the fucking ashes, you'll need them for the party!

The post-cremation

On the second weekend after my cremation, there is to be a party. At a beach if possible. That should give enough time for word of my death to pass around.
I want there to be my favourite foods. Beer. Alcohol. Beef. Pork. All the foods I have loved. The vegetarian/teetotal option will be available in an area clearly labeled "Lamers Corner."
There must be weed. And spacecake.
No fucking speeches!
You can cry if you want to. Or not. But either way, I love you guys.
Remember those ashes I mentioned? I want them tossed in the sea. I want them ceremonially marched down at sunset with the theme from Star Wars (and the Imperial March), the theme from Indiana Jones, and the theme from Firefly. In that order. If you can get a team of pipers to play them.. FUCK YEAH!
NO FUCKING SPEECHES!
If you want to come in fancy dress. That would be awesome.
The only religious BS allowed will be Discordianism and Pastafarianism. All other prayers will be disregarded.
NO! FUCKING! SPEECHES!!! You are allowed to toast me. To roast me. To ask people in my name to pass the fucking bottle, or stop bogarting the fucking joint.

Yes, this is a wishlist. I don't know if half this stuff will happen. Or if anyone will even show up. But either way. I want my funeral to be fun.

BUT ...

MY CREMATION ORDERS ARE NON-NEGOTIABLE!!!

The Dambulla Logs

2012-05-01T11:49:00.001+05:30

Rave

It's 5am. I am in Dambulla with Navin, and it looks like we are about to get beaten up.

It's my fault of course. It always is.

A bunch of robe-monkeys supported by about 2000 idiotic cunts of misery decide that it would be a wonderful thing to attack an Islamic Mosque during prayers. If you gave two tugs of a dead dog's cock about what is happening in Sri Lanka, you would know about this.

And with the accuracy of all the news we get, Navin and I decide that it was time for a road trip.

Now, Navin and I are like Leia and Han. One relies on planning and diplomacy. The other on a fast mouth and an Indy ploy. So we make plans. Tell friends. Make a run for it.

A ride to Pettah bus station, a long and uncomfortable bus ride to Dambulla, and here we are. At Dambulla junction, totally out of our area, and we are looking like we are going to get into a fight.

We get off from the bus and start looking for a place to start. I have a plan of course, but we get sidetracked by a "hello".

It's a group of about four guys. Wearing yellow polo-neck shirts. Carrying bags. Look friendly.

Seems legit.

[GMsays: roll Sense Motive.. 11?]

We talk to them. They want to know what we are doing there. So I tell them that we are shooting Dambulla (when in doubt, tell the most basic truth).

They want to know if we are media. I say no. Tell them we are geeks, and we are here to do some shooting.

Ask them what the fuck is going on.

They ask if I am media. I say no.

They tell me that they don't want the mosque in Dambulla. "අපි මේක වෙන්න දෙන්නේ නැහැ". "We will not let this happen!"

I ask them why. I get told that there is a mosque near the Temple of the Tooth, and the Call to Prayer is at the same time as the Thewawa (, and the sound interferes with the thewawa. Only thing is, YT has been to thewawa. Thewawa is fucking loud!

They ask me if I am from the media. Things are getting decidedly uncomfortable.

I try to make some small talk. Get the feel of the mood of the city. Not that I am not getting a good feel already.

They ask if I am media. There are more of them showing up.

Navin and I say our farewells, and slowly and calmy walk away.

Back to the original plan. Find an eatery for tea. Navin points one out, but I tell him that is not what I am looking for. I am looking for a Muslim eatery. This is all part of my Cunning Plan.

We find one, and order tea. Navin likes his with milk, I like mine plain. We speak to the waiter. He seems more willing to talk about it. We sit there, drink multiple cups as he tells us many things about Dambulla.

Dambulla, according to him, may have more Muslims than any other race. Makes some sense. The place is a trading town, and trading is one of the Muslims in Sri Lanka do best.

Most of these Muslims are relative newcomers to the area. most of them from the last 2 to 3 decades.

I ask him if there have been issues like this before, and he tells us there has always been demands to remove the mosque. But the demands were never serious. Just temple assholes being asshole-like. I ask him why things got so weird al of a sudden and he shrugs. That extremely expressive shrug that Sri Lankans have learned to do. I ask him where the mosque was, and he points the way. We decide to walk it.

The walk is uneventful. A few kilometers, and there are some good scenes for Navin to shoot. The early morning light was pretty awesome for composition and shooting. So we walk on towards the Dambulla temple, looking for a mosque.

We can't find it. But Navin finds a derelict and ruined shop that would make a good scene to shoot. There are a few cops hanging around the area, but this is near the temple, and with all the activity going on, it would seem cautious and sensible to put a police checkpoint there.

We shoot the building, and look for a mosque. And we can't find it. But we do, however, see a shop owner smiling and waving to us. Since we have nothing better we go to his eatery to have another cup of tea.

Along with our tea he comes and talks to us. Asks us what we are upto. We ask him where the mosque is, and he tells us it is behind the building we were shooting. He assures us that it is possible for us to go and take pictures.

The police tell us otherwise. They are under orders not to let anyone who is not Muslim into the grounds. Navin reciting the First Pillar of Islam didn't seem to help. But we do get told that if we go and get permission from the OIC of the Police station, they can let us in. So we walk to the Police station.

At the Police station we find that the OIC has gone off for the monthly ispection ceremony, and would be back in about 30 minutes. Navin wants to wait. But then he's punctual and stuff. I, on the other hand, am used to operating on Sri Lanka Time, and suggest we head back to the mosque and try to talk our way in.

[GM says: Roll Diplomacy. I get a 7]

We still can't make it in. We head back to the eatery and speak to the shopkeeper. He sits and talks with us for a while and then says that he'll see what he can do. On the TV in the corner they are showing The Return of The King. In sinhala.

We wait and sip our tea as in Pelennor Fields, Elves and Humans fight the Forces of Darkness. A guy comes and sits at our table. He gives out an air of confidence. Looks prosperous. Is barechested. Starts asking us about why we are here. Asks us if we are Media. Apparently Al Jazeera had dropped by last night to do a piece. Having a hight level party snipe your quest is not a good feeling.

We tell him that we are here to see the mosque. To take pictures. To find out the truth, because no-one in Colombo seems to have any idea what the truth is. We tell him that we just want to see what's up. To be chroniclers, not investigators.

He looks at us for a bit, lights a cigarette and starts off by telling us that this is most emphatically not a religious issue. This is not a Sinhala vs Muslim thing. Not a Buddhism vs Islam thing. Not a temple vs mosque thing. He doesn't tell us what it is either. Just that we should make the decisions ourselves. He said that he would get us into the temple. He asks the shopkeeper to get him his shirt. On-screen, Legolas kills an oliphaunt.

The cops are still leery of letting us in, but our guide - lets call him Dragoman to protect the innocent - insists that we are let in. He says we are friends of friends from Colombo. After some grumbling, we are allowed into the mosque area.

The pathway to the mosque is tiny. Six feet wide, maybe 20 feet long. Floored with broken and well-worn bricks. As you step out of the corridor you are met by the mosque. Which is unlike any mosque that we have seen. From the outside it looks like a warehouse, which is what led to so many people cliaming that it is a brand new construction. The inside tells a different story.

While the current and most visible form is a warehouse-looking building made of corrugaed metal and iron grilles, there is a smaller, older brick building along side it. It is obvious that the old building had a long wall knocked down and was extended into the current structure.

There are about 20 cops hanging around the compound, about 15 of them are in uniform. The rest are in plainclothes. They pay us little to no attention as we walk in.

We are taken around the building and told its history. We are shown where the attackers came in. We are shown the place where they do their religious ablutions, where the monks pissed. Broken cupboards and chairs. Torn Korans. We get to see them all.

Navin is shooting up a storm, and I go outside to talk to the people. I spoke to a few cops and many of them are vocal in their unhappiness about this. Of course it is mainly that they are unhappy to have to hang out of here in the hot sun, but every little bit helps.

While I am talking to them a guy comes and introduces himself to me. Says he is the local correspondent for the Lakbima newspaper. He saw Dragoman escorting us to the mosque and waved as he went by. At that time Dragoman said he was carrying a load of papers to the temple. So I say hi. Speak to him for a while, nothing wrong with being polite. Later he comes over with some senior cops to watch them take Navin's and my addresses and ID numbers.

He makes a point of photographing us on his phonecam.

After this Dragoman introduces us to an old man. A trustee of the mosque. Has a proper muslim beard too.

He tells us the tale of the mosque. How he came to Dambulla in the 50s at the age of 20 to work in the now dilapidated shop in front of the mosque. How he and his co-workers used to pray on a table. How they built a cadjan hut behind the shop so they could pray. How in the 60s the shop he worked in and the one next door donated some land so they could build the mosque. How it was made larger into the form that we see now to accomodate more people.

Navin has his shots, and we decide to go look for the kovil. On the way out the gate we are stopped by another senior cop who questions us again. And the reporter videos us again on his phonecam.

We go looking for the kovil. It's not far. Cross the road, up a pathway, and in an open area, surrounded by mud huts, there it is.

Literally mud huts. Huts made of daub and wattle. Thatched with cadjan. Huts the like of which most of us only get to see on the grounds of high-priced, wannabe eco-lodge hotels. Huts like which people pay 10,000 rupees a night to stay in. And these people live in them all the time. Lucky buggers.

The mosque looks like a warehouse. The "kovil" looks like the shanty.

The people are poor. Yet they get the cash together to buy some concrete blocks to build a shrineroom. They have to build their own kovil because they are from the Sakkili caste. The toilet cleaner, shit pot carrier caste. The caste that is still not allowed to enter many major kovils.

The kovil is a temple to Bhadrakali. A demon-goddess who is one of the more deadly goddesses in the Hindu pantheon. In Sri Lanka she is mixed with Kali. The mother and destroyer of the universe. It says something when the deity you pray to is more demonic than deific.

Navin shoots more. He shoots the kovil. Shoots the people. They are happy to let him take pictures of them. They are surprised when he asks permission.

"Why are you asking us?" one asks me.

It never occurs to them that they can say "no."

The place is nice. The people are a perfect hunting ground for Navin's lens. There really isn't much to see here. And that is why they are going to lose it all.

We make our farewells, and head to the Dambulla temple.

I have been here often. And like every such place, it is a massive money-making enterprise. Any form of religion has fucked off. A radio station. A stupa painted in gold. A TV station. A "museum" that looks like a Chinese whorehouse.

The diffrerence between the mosque and kovil and this .. this monstrosity is jarring. It makes us finally realise why we are here.

This is not fight between equals. This is schoolyard bullying at its worst. This is Coca Cola versus the kid running a lemonade stall. This is Anakin Skywalker taking on the Jedi kindergarten.

So Navin takes the shots. And I stand there wishing for a bazooka. A flamethrower. A nuclear fucking missile!

Navin finishes shooting, and I finish my fantasies of what I want to do to this place and the Chief Robewearer who runs it. Fantasies that would make The 120 Days of Sodom look like a child's bedtime storybook.

We decide to go and see Dragoman, so that we can say our farewells. It's time to go home. We have what we came for.

The problem is that we have no idea where Dragoman lives. We go looking for him, and can't seem to trace him. The eatery we found him in is also shut down for the day. I see the Lakbima reporter who tells us where his house is. But when we ask around the area, we are told it is in the complete opposite direction from what we were sent.

We finally meet Dragoman's wife. She is a stereotypical big, bustling Muslim woman. She is also quite friendly. She tells us to stick around while she sends messages via runners to find her husband. Apparently, thanks to this mess his phone hasn't stopped ringing. So he's turned it off.

Dragoman finally shows up, and before we can tell him that we plan to leave, he starts talking to us. Tells us of the main issue about the placement of the mosque. That the so-called "sacred area" given to the temple, and which is the public basis of the conflict, only applies on the opposite, temple side of the road.

He tells us there are more stories to tell, and things to learn. But he refuses to tell them to us. Tells us that he can be considered biased because he is a muslim. He wants us to meet some people.

Sathya (not his real name) is a friend of Dragoman's. He is Sinhalese, Buddhist. Goes to the temple regularly. Has a cow in his garden that Dragoman got released from the abbatoir at his daughter's request. Sathya doesn't go to the Dambulla temple. He would rather go twenty kilometers to Habarana to visit the temple there for his religious activities. His hatred of the Dambulla temple and the "Parachute Priest" is strong. The tales he tells us tell us why.

He tells us the yellow-shirted crew we met on the road are members of a local youth organisation called "Api Dambulla" ("We Are Dambulla") that was organised by the temple. They are the sons of local families. Many of those families own shops in Dambulla. Shops that they rent to muslim traders. During Vesak the Yelowshirts visit Muslim traders demanding 5,000 - 8,000 rupees from each shop for a "dansala".

He tells us other tales. Tales of corruption, rapine, extortion, and murder. And he isn't the only person to tell us those tales that day. Don't believe me. Speak to people from Dambulla. Ask them about the Parachute Priest. You'll hear those tales too.

At the end of it all, we have to almost beg to be allowed to leave. Navin and I are fading fast. We have been awake since the previous day. A speeding bus is no place to catch some shuteye. And there was the problem of memory. Navin's Sinhala is not that good, so I was the translator for the trip. Talking to people, listening to their tales, trying to keep track of complex relationships. All this means that sleeping is not an option. I want to sit down and start dictating notes.

But then the food comes. One thing about Sri Lankans is they know how to feed you. That "eat-eat-eat-eat-eat" that Sri Lankan mothers say applies anywhere you go. Even if the have nothing to eat, they will insist you eat. Dragoman was no different. His wife spent the better part of cooking for us, and there is no way we get to leave without sampling her cooking. So we eat. Not as much as I would like, but by Eris I have a full stomach.

While the table is laid I dictate notes to Navin, and we are shown the recordings of the mosque attack taken from inside the mosque. It is obvious that the Police and the STF troops are doing the best they can to calm the situation while being respectful. That is not a place I would want to be. The anger Navin and I feel at this is immense. If we were there, there would have been a riot for sure. Impulse control is not one of my talents.

Dragoman insists on accompanying us to the bus station. He bundles us into his three-wheeler and takes us through various back roads to a bus stop over a kilometer outside town. He is not paranoid, but he is cautious. We have spoken to too many people. Been seen by too many people. We are private individuals, so we have no corporate backing to cover us if anything were to happen. He stays with us until a bus comes. He calls us later to find out if we are still on the bus. He calls me again much later to make sure we got home

Navin's photos are on Facebook. (And as a presentation on Google Docs) And they have caused quite a stir.

ARISE SINHALESE!!

2012-05-01T02:02:00.000+05:30

Muse

Sometimes, you can't argue with racism. All you can do is laugh at it.

There is a post going around facebook that the Sinhala race is dying, because its birthrate is substantially less than that of the Muslims and Tamils.

The numbers are wrong. The facts are wrong. It is just a piece of sensationalist lies that certain groups want to accept.

There is no arguing with it. Just laughing at it.

Hence...

Translated, it reads..

if this is true..

protecting the virginity of sinhala girls

is a crime against the race!

awake sinhalese!

for the sake of the race

FUCK!!

Great Geeks Retreating!

2012-03-31T10:38:00.000+05:30

Rave

"This was a great idea you had, Such."
"I had? I thought you had it!"

When Navn Weeraratne and I had this conversation, we knew we were on to something good.

Something big.

Something so awesome and geeky and awesomely geeky it could only be called "The Great Geek Retreat".

Of course it came out of a drunken conversation - as such things so often do - but it is shaping up to be something special.

We rented a bungalow at Puwakpitiya (unfortunately they could only give it to us for one night - the place is popular), and collected the crew via the Facebook Page.

When the smoke cleared, the adventure party included Nick the Nonchalant (of The Fundamentalist Nomenclature of (Al) fame), his wife Areeba the Unburqa'd, Frank the Beancounter, Tushani the Unremembered, Hasitha the Analytical and his wife Dilini the Missus, Samantha the Bookly, and - the only other proclaimed geek in the team - Johan the Missing. Of course I, Suchetha the Nonsensical, and Navin the Crafty are in the list too. But that goes without saying right?

They all gather for a night and a day of Role Playing Games, geek movies (Monty Python and the Holy Grail and any others we think will fit), board games, card games, and general geekery.

There will also be food. Nick is brining and marinading chicken. And I have a 5kg pork butt that was marinaded for 24 hours and cooking for 16.

Right now, everyone is prepping. I have games to study and scenarios to write. Navin has a scenario to write. I am sure the rest of the crew is doing similar things.

We hope to make this as connected as possible.. so follow Facebook event page and the #greatgeekretreat hashtag on twitter.

The Law of Legitimacy

2012-03-23T14:48:00.000+05:30

Muse

Prabhakaran, they say, was captured in Mullaitivu during the last days of the war along with his family, tortured, and killed.

Of course, there is no proof about this. Any evidence is circumstantial. What proof exists - if it exists - is probably locked away in some vault.

But the circumstantial evidence is rather strong. I heard the news of his capture on the 15th of may 2009. The news came from two totally disparate sources. One from a friend who said a cousin in the army sent the news, the other from a 15 year old girl who claimed her uncle was in the flight that brought him to Colombo. This was the day before The Beast claimed at the G11 summit in Jordan that I will be going back to a country that has been totally freed from the barbaric acts of the LTTE.

US Embassy cables released by WikiLeaks say that the LTTE tried to surrender but were refused by Gotabhaya.

I was told later by trusted friends who were told by highly-placed trusted friends (yes, hearsay. yes, totally inadmissible in a court of law) that Prabhakaran and his family were tortured before they were killed. But by then it seemed everyone knew.

Probably some of these tales were just revenge fantasies. But knowing the way that humans operate, and knowing that governments are made of humans, some of these tales are quite plausible.

You are welcome to disbelieve me of course. But with the way things are, I think we can accept that the capture and killing of Prabhakaran - like that of Rohana Wijeweera - happened at the hands of the Government.

But capturing and killing Prabhakaran, without bringing him before a court, was an affront to the people of Sri Lanka.

Because an extra-judicial killing, even of someone as hated as Prabhakaran, makes a travesty of the Justice system.

It is the Justice system that stands between society and mob rule. It is the Justice system that makes the execution of Saddam Hussein - a travesty as it was - legal. That is what makes the killings of Osama bin Laden and Muammar Gaddafi wrong. That is what makes the killing of Prabhakaran wrong.

The Court may be biased and the verdict a foregone conclusion. But the forms must be followed. And seen to be followed.

Because that which we call civilisation is but a thin veneer on barbarism and chaos. And the glue that holds civilisation together is The Law. If the Law is seen to be ineffective, or unfair, then Civilisation crumbles. A few policemen can control a riot not because they are better armed, but because there is an in-built - or better yet, programmed - fear and respect for the Law. And a certain fear of chaos and barbarism.

And it is this Law that legitimises a Government.

The Commissioner of Elections may declare a candidate a winner, but the person who declares him President is the Chief Justice. While a King may be legitimised by a Pope or some form of religious leader, it is the jead of the Judicial branch that legitimises a democratically elected (even if only nominally) candidate.

When a Government consistently, and publicly acts in a manner that shows that it has no respect for the law, then it undermines the very thing that makes it legitimate. The only thing that differentiates it from a power-hungry despot, holding on through fear and force of arms.

And Sri Lanka is still - at least nominally - a democracy.

The Penn Street Moochers

2012-02-08T10:46:00.000+05:30

I always wanted to be a writer. Not just a writer, but a Writer. A Chronicler of my Age. I read the greats. Hemingway. Thoreau. Kerouac. Runyon. And I dreamed of joining those hallowed ranks. Me and Jon Patterson. We were inseparable those days. And his dream was just like mine.

To live the Life. To move out of our one horse town and go somewhere. Maybe Spain. Maybe Mexico. Maybe the Greek Isles. Somewhere we could rent a seedy apartment in the seedy part of town. We would always be behind on the rent, and sometimes in love. Not with each other of course. With Women. With Characters. We would drink and smoke heavily. And they would be our Muses. And we would make cryptic dedications and references to them in our books.

And one day when we were 17 we did it.

We packed our bags – in flimsy cardboard suitcases, because that is how real writers pack – and got on a Greyhound and travelled as far as we could go.

All the way to Apache Junction, Arizona.

That part was Jon's idea. He wanted to write with a Western feel to it. Neither of us wanted to go to East. And California was over done. And we couldn’t afford to travel all the way to Mexico.

But we found our seedy apartment in the seedy part of town. We got work as busboys. We lied about our ages and got in bars. We tried. Oh how we tried.

And I wrote. On a pawnshop typewriter. Laboriously, until I got calluses on my fingers. But I wrote. And never got published. But one day I managed to knock one out that I just Knew was a winner. It was about something that happened to Jon and I, and I wrote it out.

It was perfect.

So one evening I scraped together what ever cash I had and went and got a bottle of Jack Daniels. And when Jon came home I gave him two copies, and a Zippo - all Writers carried Zippos and drank too much Jack Daniels – one which had his name in it as a character and one that didn't and told him to pick the one to publish. And so he burned the one with him in it. And that was the one that didn't get sent to the magazine.

And it worked. I got my first writing cheque.

I took some of that money and went to a printer. And I got business cards made. In creamy cardstock. Thick and rich. And on that I wrote “The Penn Street Moochers” - the name Jon and I had come up with for ourselves when we used to live on Penn Street – and presented them to him with great pomp and circumstance.

And time went by. Not much, but enough. Jon got tired of being a struggling writer searching for a muse, and I got published enough to keep me writing, but never enough to get anywhere with it.

Jon and I got into a screaming fight that ended up with him moving out. He finally had enough of the “starving artist shtick” as he called it and started working seriously at a job.

I got into “serious work” too. But I kept writing, and once in a while getting published. And I kept those business cards in my wallet. But I always felt I had this great story hidden inside me.

One year I went to see my Aunt Judy. She was the youngest of my mothers siblings and was always considered “a bit strange” by everyone else in the family, but she liked me and I liked her. Once in a while she would come to Thanksgiving held at one of the family houses, but she never hosted. And no one ever asked her to. Occasionally just after lunch you would hear stories about her. About how she ran away from home to San Francisco, to Woodstock. How she lived in a commune – and you know What goes on There.

That one visit turned into many as she told me her stories and her life. I told her mine and of the story in my head. How I could see the edges of it, through the mist, but never the whole of it. And how every story I wrote was just a small part of the pattern.

She understood.

So every few months I would go visit her, and as she grew older – I never felt I was growing old – her insistence that I sit down and Write grew stronger.

One day I realised that I didn't know the town I lived in, even though I had never moved out of the apartment since the day I moved in. The seedy part of town was no longer seedy. The apartment was pretty much the same as it was when I moved in, though my neighbours had moved on, and new, more upscale ones had moved in. The rent had gone up, but not so fast that I noticed. I was not Living the Life any more. The Life had passed me by.

The next time when I went to see my Aunt Judy – “call me Judy” she always said – I didn't leave. I found a job in her town, and I started trying to write.

But it never seemed to work. Something always stopped me. Work, TV, a book, something.

Until I woke up here. In a room. In the basement.

I am not sure what my Aunt Judy did. Or how. Or why she calls it the Narnia treatment. All I know is that I have to write a page a day or I don't get fed. I have a toilet and water. There is a hole in the wall that I get a ray of food, and if I have been especially prolific, some Jack Daniels.

The first few days I didn't write at all. But one day hunger got the best of me, and I started writing. A wretched little piece, but it got me fed. The next day it was longer, and in my mind better. And on and on it went. Until one day I started The Work. My Magnum Opus. I don't know what time it is, there is no light coming in, but when I have written for the day I slide it out through the food slot and ring the bell. Soon after that a tray of food comes in.

I am trapped. I feel like I am living in a Stephen King novel.

And I don't want to leave.

Those who forget the lessons of history....

2011-12-31T14:10:00.001+05:30

Rant

I was there watching the election when Sarath Fonseka ran for president and lost. And then the Army surrounded the Galadari Hotel where he was waiting.

Of course no one came to his rescue. No one protested like they did in Iran against Ahmadinejad or in Russia against Putin. There was no mass upswelling of protest and anger.

Because very few people actually voted for Sarath Fonseka. Most of the votes were against Mahinda Rajapaksa - aka The Beast. Even YT who swore that he was going to spoil his vote because he felt neither candidate was worthy of his vote, ended up voting against The Beast because of the multiple showings of The Rise and Fall of Idi Amin on state TV. People voted for Fonseka because he was the not-rajapaksa.

Now everyone is trying to make a martyr of SF - forgetting, of course, that to become a martyr, you have to be martyred. They scream and shout that this is revenge (of course it is) and a frame up (would you expect any less from The Beast).

There are many petitions to free SF. There is even an attempt to liken him to Nelson Mandela. Nelson fucking Mandela.. I fucking swear. They even petitioned the White House, and there was much cheering and cries of "Jayawewa" because if they made 25,000 signatures the US Government would make representations to The Beast. Only thing is... they won't.

And of course The Beast himself has stated that he won't listen to the USGOV anyway. But, if the pardon plea came from the family (no doubt with much prostration and feet kissery - also dick sucking) he would "consider" it.

After all, why should he listen to the US? And why should the USGOV intervene? After all, it was the same people who now scream and beg for help and justice from the other countries that protested against and blocked any form of international intervention in the Sri Lankan Civil War. The same ones who claimed that other countries had "no right" to intervene in what was an "internal matter".

They were the same ones who were cheering that Sri Lanka finally had a "worthy leader" who had the balls to stand up to the "neocolonial powers". They were the ones who stood by The Beast while he trampled on the rights of the people. They screamed their support while he shut down and killed those who stood up to him. They convinced the Rajapaksa Brothers that they can do whatever they wanted with impunity.

And now the retards who supported all the bullshit, who screamed loudly that anyone who dared to question the "glorious leader" were traitors to the race and nation, who didn't see the whirlwind they would soon be reaping. Now those idiots are screaming to the very people they chased off and vilified for help.

First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

So reap the whirlwind, bitches. Reap it!

What is love?

2011-12-05T22:06:00.001+05:30

Muse

A long time ago my FEW called me a robot. She said that I had no emotions. That I didn't feel.

I, of course, took that as a compliment.

I have always valued rationality over emotions. Mr. Spock was my hero. Even to this day I would rather solve problems through rational discourse rather than screaming and shouting.

But that doesn't seem to work too well with women.

Women want me to make an emotional commitment to them. And I find this is something I just cannot do.

I can't seem to lose control. I can't seem to want to give up everything. to fight dragons, to say, "Fuck it. I will do this because I love this woman."

I can't seem to lose or give up emotional control.

It wasn't always this way of course.

In my younger days I had no problems in doing that. I would give my all for a woman. I was willing to do anything, make any changes to myself and my lifestyle to be with someone. But as I grew older, that changed.

I guess the big change was somewhere in 2001. A bad breakup in 2000, followed by an even worse one in 2002, which led to depression and an attempt at suicide where I learned that 24 tabs of Panadol are not enough to kill you, just give you bad heartburn.

Since then I have been uable to feel anything romantic for anyone. There is no rush of emotion.

I find it impossible to get that can't-eat, can't- sleep, reach-for-the-stars, over-the-fence, World Series kind of stuff.

I sometimes envy those who can. I envy those who can actually feel something. Those whose wires haven't been overloaded and burnt out. Those who can unconditionally love someone. And feel pain when it is going wrong.

As my friend the Toymaker asked me once, Would you rather be unhappy with her, or happy without her?

Apparently my answering - without any thought or hesitation - that I would rather be happy, meant that I was not in love.

This is not to say that I don't care for, or even love the women in my life. It means that I am unable to get that deep emotional bond that many of the women in my life seem to want. I even find it difficult to say I love you to someone. Something that I was able to do before my marriage.

But that doesn't mean that I don't care. That I don't miss them when they leave - or to be more accurate, when I drive them away. It doesn't mean that I feel sad that they are no longer in my life.

It just means that I shrug, and move on.

Paying for Petrol

2011-08-31T19:04:00.002+05:30

Muse

The hot news is that the LKGOV is compensating people for engine damages caused by the substandard petrol that was imported by the Ceypetco.

Now at face value this sounds like an excellent idea. After all, it is only fair that the people who fucked up your car engine pay for the damage they caused.

But who's paying for it really?

They say that they will pay compensation up to LKR50,000 for the affected vehicles. And over 2,000 vehicles have claimed damages, for a total of LKR100,000,000 in compensation.

Of course that isn't much. About LKR 20 from every man, woman, and child in Sri Lanka. And a lot cheaper than buying a Russian helicopter.

But it is the principle of the thing isn't it?

The money for compensation is coming from Ceypetco. Which means that it will be added to the price of fuel. So a few mililiters of every liter of petrol you pump into your car will go to pay for the compensation. And yet, the people who were responsible for this debacle are not only going to get off scot free, but they will be rewarded for it in the form of whatever cuts and commissions they got from it.

This is not new. This is not a unique situation. This is the status quo in Sri Lanka. Zero accountability. And whatever compensation will be paid by taxes by the state. And life - and the activities - will go on as if nothing had happened.

And that is the rub isn't it?

Buddha for power

2011-08-30T10:42:00.002+05:30

Muse

Or is it vice-versa? I forget.

So Sri Lankan - and perhaps the world - has its first Mayor Monk. Not only did he run for power, but when he was elected he held a temper tantrum fast because The Beast said he couldn't be mayor because he was - you know - a monk. One of those people who have stepped away from lay life for a life of seeking enlightenment.

Monks joining the monkeys in parliament is nothing new. We have had them since 2004. They even got into fights in parliament.

But talking about that is another blog post.

I'm here to talk about Wewelduwe Gnanaprabha who screamed, and shouted, and stamped his feet, and held his breath refused to eat until he was given the position of Mayor of Embilipitiya.

You see.. this is a Good Thing™.

"But wait!" I hear you yell.

"What about your 'separation of church and state' stance? Does this mean that you have 'evolved on it?"

Nay, True Believer. YT has not changed at all (in fact YT is still wearing the same shorts from a week ago).

You see, the reason why The Beast - in a fit of sanity? or just because even a broken clock can be correct twice a day? - initially refused Gnana (not the be confused with Nana, the purveyor of spicy meaty goodness at Galle Face Green) the post of Mayor is because as Mayor, he would have to approve of things that are (nominally at least) antithetical to Buddhism.

Things like Liquor Licences. Meat Licences. Gambling Licences. You know.. the good things in life. (although we're still waiting for the whoring licence)

Now the thing is, people love their vices. And Embilipitiya is no exception. Moonshine, venison, and - YT is told - some of the best local ganja comes from the area.

So there are three paths that this situation can take.

Stop issuing meat, liquor, and gambling licences
This would make him MIGHTY popular with the people.
Of course there will be people who benefit from this. Frozen meats don't need a licence, so your Food City, Keels Super, and regular shop owner don't need to worry. But considering that meat shops sell fresher meat for half the price, the consumer definitely will.
And then there is alcohol. Make alcohol illegal and you create a thriving kasippu (moonshine) industry. And considering that moonshine was ostensibly made illegal because of the chance that improper distillation would lead to methanol poisoning (the fact that they were not paying heavy extortions to the government had nothing to do with it. Nope. Nothing at all) the people who would suffer would be the Common Man™.
And of course the gambling ban will not affect the sale of lottery tickets at all. After all, if the Government does - nay promotes it, it's not gambling is it?
So IF Gnana decides that he is not going to sign any of those horrible things that undermine the virtuous nation, then when the next election rolls along, there would be a massive influx of money the candidate - any candidate - that promises, even in private, to bring back the licensing.
And because people love their morality at arm's length, the eating, drinking, gambling people of Embilipitiya would vote for them.
Let his secretary sign them
"I wash my hands of it," said Pontius Pilate.
Gnana may not be able/willing to sign the licences, but he could always tell his secretary to sign them.
But that would lead to other problems. First off, can the Secretary sign them? Is it even legal? Secondly, since these licences are the most lucrative income generators for whoever signs them, the Secretary is going to become rich. Very rich. And rich means powerful. And also means possibly able to stand for candidate at the next election. See above.
Sign the damned things
The simplest thing. And yet one that would get him flack from every direction. The people in his electorate would not be happy that he reneged on his holy vows for politics. They would not be happy that he got off the "morality" soapbox that he came to power on. And when the next election happens, this would be the first thing brought out against him.

Religion and morality in politics is a strange thing. It only works in the abstract.

Any politician who promises to make a moral law legal will be voted into power. As long as that law is not enforced too strictly. Bring in Prohibition, but don't look too hard at what is being sold under the counter. Make abortions illegal, but don't look too hard at that clinic.

Morality works best when it applies to your neighbour, not to you.

So the JHU is approved of when it gets into Parliament and screams and shouts and passes laws that affect no one directly. But when a robe-wearer gets into the local government and then starts messing with people directly, then there will be a problem.

What I hope will happen is that the people will get tired of this robe-wearer in particular and of robe-wearers in politics in general and refuse to vote them back in. That there will be a societal backlash against all this, and the creation of a SinBud Taliban will be forestalled.

What is more likely is that there will be more and more busy-bodies pushing robe-wearers into power because, it is their moral imperative to stop you doing what you want.H. L. Mencken defined puritanism as the haunting fear that someone, somewhere is having a good time. And we DO have a large number or Puritans in Sri Lanka (starting with The Beast himself) who want to stop other people from having fun, as long as THEY can do it.

And We The People will just sit with our thumbs up our collective asses, and do nothing about it.

That's what we always do.

A Blast From The Past: Time to give up on Sri Lanka

2011-08-29T14:31:00.000+05:30

Rant

Going through my hard drive, I found this article I wrote back in 2006, before I even thought of writing a blog.

Here it is for your delectation.

My father was a civil engineer in Nigeria. When the coup d'etat happened in 1983 his employer made him an offer – stay on with the company, and he'd get citizenship in any country he wanted. He chose to come to Sri Lanka and work here. For almost 23 years after his arrival he never worked in the engineering field.

Fast-forward from 1983 to 1999, I too chose to leave the US and come back to Sri Lanka. If I had so chosen I could have stayed there. I too, inspired by my father's example decided that I would help my country and returned.

I often wonder what things would have been like if we had not done so.

For better or worse both my father and I had a dream, that one day we would be able to make a difference in Sri Lanka, that the things we do would help make this country a better place. Dreams die hard under the harsh glare of reality, but die they do. And the more important that dream is to you, the more it hurts when you finally let it go.

The final nail was hammered into the coffin that houses what remains of our dreams a few weeks ago. We have a plot of land by the Bolgoda Lake. We have had that plot since 1980. In 2002 we applied for planning permission to build a wall in front of it, instead of the easily bypassed barbed-wire fence. It took almost a year for permission to be granted for a fence instead of a wall, because that is what the law allowed. Meanwhile, on both sides of our land, walls were being put up with impunity.

We finally started building the fence a month ago, only to have petitions brought against us. There was a lady in the authority who felt that we had enough of a case to fight the petitions, and helped us do so. She also made it plain that she wanted her pound of flesh. The dream died when my father finally gave in and paid her.

My father is an honourable man. He doesn't take bribes and he doesn't give them. When he finally decided to pay the woman, it was the end of his belief that if you are in the right, you don't have to worry about the law.

I admit that I am not as naïve as my father is. I have passed a folded note or two into the waiting hand of a policeman. I have applied what is euphemistically referred to in China as hyeung yao or "fragrant grease" when the wheels of bureaucracy seem to stall at the axle. Yet I firmly believed that this was not what the people wanted. That people were giving bribes because it was demanded, not because they wanted to. I honestly thought that under the right impetus you could actually get rid of the bribery and corruption.

Looking back, my naivete amazes me.

A bribe is not about money any more. It is the exchange of power and privilege for money. "Privilege" - now there is a word that has no ambiguity of meaning. Take the Latin roots of the word privus and legis, private and law. Your own personal law.

Bribery affects those who bribe as well as those who do not bribe. When the de facto rule is to bribe, then even the honest people who have no reason or wish to bribe, end up having to pass "a little something", a "small support", a "summa santhosam", a "podi udavva" to get what they want done. The people holding out their hands range from the beggar on the street who threatens to embarrass you if you don't give him something, to the garbage man who now expects a payment every month, all the way to the top.

The problem is like smoking. The first fag (and I mean a cigarette here) is the hardest one. Your head spins, your lungs burn, your body and mind rebels at this unnatural deed. Fast-forward a bit - you light up and take a drag and not only does nothing untoward happen, but you actually enjoy the sensation!

And people like it this way. A politician is not chosen on his abilities, but on "what can he do for us?" Can this man get my kid into a school? If I serve him will I get that fat contract? If I run around with his thugs, will I be able to get a few crumbs that fall from his table?

Unfortunately the entire nation is corrupt. The politicians bribe the people with promises of free this and free that to get them to vote. The politicians bribe the public servants with offers of more money in the form of salaries to make sure that things happen the way they want them to. The people bribe the politicians and the public servants directly or indirectly in order to get what they want. Everyone is bribing everyone else.

Near my home there was a housing complex being built. This was not your average complex, this was serious business. Immediately the politicians in the area were up in arms about it. The ecological and social integrity of the area was suddenly the most important thing in the world. The screaming, the shouting, the posturing and the postering was a sight to be seen. Yet this was as standard and ritualised an event as combing your hair and checking your fly before you ask a girl to dance. The performance was masterful, and the audience was appreciative. The money was paid, the construction went on.

The war goes on in the North. Many thousands die, many millions suffer. The ones who give the military contracts teach their children in international schools, send them abroad for their studies. All on a government servant's salary.

We used to have leaders of integrity in this nation. People used to be ashamed to give or take a bribe. This too has passed.

The problem is, like I said before, people actually enjoy giving bribes. It actually gives you a good feeling, that you can do something that the other guy can't or hasn't thought of yet. That you're actually getting away with doing something that you know is wrong. Its a rush, a high.

And there's the rub. Sri Lanka is, pardon my French, fucked. "Sri Lanka Matha" is the victim of a brutal gang rape. Her mind gone, her spirit broken, she sells herself on the street for a few rupees a shot. And she was made that way by the society that depends on her. The politicians sell her to anyone they can as long as they can get a cut for pimping her. Many of her illustrious, and not so illustrious, offspring are willing to sabotage any attempt to revive and rehabilitate her in exchange for a mess of pottage.

There is no honesty left here. No honour. Those concepts are dead. Dead like my father's dream of living in a society where if you did things right you could actually go forward and succeed.

What works here is money. Remember Al Pacino in Scarface? First, you get de money. When you get de money, den you get de power. When you get de money and de power, den you get de women.

Power is cheap in Sri Lanka. A few hundred bucks gets your trash hauled for a month. A few thousand and you don't have to go to court and face charges for drunken driving. Society as a whole is corrupt and likes it that way.

Many of us came back thinking we can help this country. That we can clean it up. I, for one, found that you can't clean what everyone wants to keep dirty. You can't free someone who keeps his chains on himself. You can't carry out an "intervention" in an addict's life when all he wants to do is see the pretty colours.

I'm here, still fighting. I run a small company and spend my time doing what is essentially volunteer work. What money I get comes from teaching. I make less than one tenth of what my friends who are in the same field make.

Even I can see the writing on the wall. Even if I try to ignore it, it's still there. Sri Lanka doesn't want to be saved. We the, dare I say, "intelligentsia" of this country don't have a hope. We come in with great dreams, and sooner or later we watch them get thrown in a pauper's grave.

Lets face it, the Sri Lanka we dream of is dead. The priests are performing the last rites, all we are doing is performing CPR on a corpse. Time to give her up. Time to walk away. Time to let our dreams die with dignity.

An Everlasting Emergency

2011-08-29T14:14:00.001+05:30

Rant

So The Beast walks into Parliament and announces that he is repealing the Emergency Law. Well, not so much "repealing" as much as "not renewing it."

But anyway.. YAY! Loud Cheers!! And the clinking of glasses.

But it was all oddly subdued. Very oddly.

Because - just like everything else this government has done - it was just an eyewash.

The Beast said in his speech that during the Emergency declared by him and his brothers, there was no censorship of the press/media. How wonderful. How unique. How true. How TOTALLY FUCKING INACCURATE!

Who needs government censorship when any reporter who didn't toe the official line was threatened with death, attacked or "disappeared", or simply killed.

So.. Anyway..

The Emergency Act will not be renewed. How awesome. But the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) will still remain in force.

The PTA which already allows for 90% of what was allowed under the Emergency Laws. The PTA which is being "strengthened" with more legislation that will basically erase any difference between it and the Emergency Act. Well, any difference except one - you don't have to vote to extend the PTA every month.

So, we are being fed a nice, sugar-coated line of bullshit.

We are told to be happy that the Emergency Act is repealed. When all that is happening is that it is getting a revamp, and a booster shot of steroids so that we have it indefinitely, but under another name.

But we're told to be happy. That's a good thing isn't it?

The New Hotness

2011-07-05T11:48:00.003+05:30

Rave

Everyone's talking about the new hotness. Google+ walked in the door, threw its hat in the ring, and proceeded to do to Facebook - the reigning champion - what FB did to the previous champions MySpace and Hi5.

All of a sudden the game changed. Everyone is raving about G+, and everyone wants in on the ground floor.

I was a (relative) latecomer to the game. Despite all my self-proclaimed geek cred, YT didn't get an invite until Day 3. But watching the way things are developing is an education in and of itself.

Google+ - if you didn't know by now - is a social media system created by Google to go head to head with Facebook. But the important bits are not in the "what" but in the "why" and "how."

Let's start with the "why." El GOOG was getting solidly trounced in the social media market. In an industry that is run on statistics, customer data, and demographics; where business wants to know more about their consumers than ever before, Facebook was the data-mining resource do jour.

GOOG knew what people were searching for, and they could target their advertising to the right people, but FB was the new hotness. The new kid in town was getting all the hot press. Facebook was becoming the place to work, not the Google Campus. They even made a fricken' movie about FB. To all intents and purposes, Facebook was king of the hill, and GOOG - for all its profitability - was on its way down.

GOOG launched and then quietly pulled the plug on Wave, Google Video (when it bought Youtube), and at least a few others (YT is too lazy to get a comprehensive list, maybe you can search for them on google). But, I guess that is the point of innovation isn't it? GOOG kept on innovating, trying to find the tools that would make it all-powerful, while FB remained a one trick pony. They made minor interface changes and added a few things and got rid of others, but all the real "development" was happening in the third-party apps - some benevolent, most malevolent - created for it.

Taking the initiative to innovate, and not being afraid of making mistakes, meant that GOOG could work at becoming more than they were.

And GOOG knows how to market G+. They took the same approach they took with GMail. Give out limited numbers of invites to a select group of early innovators, and watch the demand rise. At the start GMail invites were being sold on E-bay for as high as USD200 per invitation. I got mine (free, from a friend) when the E-bay price was at USD50 or so. When G+ invites came out they did the same thing. They created a high-tech club, where you had to know someone on the inside to get past the velvet rope.

Of course there is the other advantage to GOOG of all this. In GMail, as in G+, they tracked the spread of the invitations. You would have to be extremely naïve to think that GOOG didn't have the resources and the algorithms in place to track the spread of the invitations. Keeping track of the social connections between people - even before FB existed - was something GOOG was good at. And despite Facebook's launch in February 2004, it was limited only to Harvard University, and Mark Zuckerberg didn't have or need the ability to track the spread of the - for want of a better word - infection. GOOG had means, motive, and opportunity.

GOOG did the same thing with G+. Although they didn't really need to. The whole purpose of G+ was to keep track of peoples' social connections. If they didn't track the spread of the invitations, I will eat my ~~hat~~cap; with the badges, hold the salt. The launch also generated enough of a buzz that G+ invitations started appearing on E-bay albeit at prices of less than USD20.

One of the reasons for the buzz is that the newsmedia missed out on the Facebook launch. When FB launched in February 2004, it was just a tiny little spark. No-one thought it would become the conflagration it is today. So when they get the chance of watching a social media revolution from the start, the jumped at the chnce. Also when a behemoth like GOOG announces that it is going to launch the Facebook-killer, the media starts fighting for front-row seats for the clash of the titans.

This is also part of the reason that users are clamouring to get into G+. Almost all of us - unless we were in Harvard in 2004 - missed out on the FB launch. People have a built-in desire to get in on the ground floor. To be seen as trendy or better yet, trend-setting. And with the launch of the "Facebook Killer" there are many people who want to be in on it.

Personally, I think that G+ is definitely the Next Big Thing™ in the social media field. Facebook went from being a social tool to being a marketing tool. People were getting tired of the targeted advertising, and the lack of privacy controls. G+'s solution is more intuitive. With the "Circles" concept as a way of controlling your social circles - taken from the open-source FB alternative Diaspora* - and extremely granular profile privacy settings.

MySpace went from being a social media tool to a way for musicians to market to each other. Facebook went from being a social media platform to being a way for companies to market to people. With the ability to create product pages and other marketing gimmicks FB - at least as far as YT was concerned - was going too far to cater to the marketers.

Of course this is bound to happen with any system. People have to eat, and get paid. But GOOG has a lot more experience in doing their marketing more subtly, as opposed to the heavy-handed methods used by FB. Which gives rise to the question "is ass-rape ok if they use lube and kiss you first?"

Because let us not forget - GOOG is not a search engine company. It is an advertising company. Its main business is figuring out what you want so that they can target their advertisements to you better. G+ is an attempt to not just get this information, but also allay the privacy fears that have plagued FB of late while collecting that same information. In a way what may make G+ work better than FB is that GOOG has a record of not sharing their data with third parties, while FB allows even the most basic app all kinds of access to your data.

I will not lie. I am excited by Google+. I think it has great potential. I am glad that the lessons El GOOG learned from its failures are being used to advance this tech. There are elements from Wave and many other "failed" services here.

But most of all, I am glad that in Google+ we now have an alternative to Facebook. Not just an alternative, but a solid competitor. This has shaken Facebook out of its complacency and even they are fighting to keep their position. Among the people who will benefit from this are us.

And that is not a bad thing.

Wanted: A Place To Hang My Hat

2011-04-18T21:48:00.001+05:30

Muse

A long, very long, time ago we moved into The Linux Center. And now the time has come for us to move out.

This could be the end of TLC as we planned it, and as we know it. Originally we planned this house as a location where the Linux geeks of Sri Lanka could learn, meet, and pretty much have a place to call a geekbase.

That didn't quite work out the way we planned. But it was a good run nonetheless.

I guess it is time for me to move on.

So I am looking for a place to live. A bedsit/studio or maybe even 1 bedroom pad on the High Level or Galle Road, with a separate entrance, and an attached bathroom and preferably kitchen.

Unfortunately I am not rich, and can't afford to pay much.

If you have a place that can suit, or know of a place, please get in touch with me at suchetha@gmail.com, or call me on +94 (0) 716710369.

Even if you don't know of a place, wish me luck eh?

This Too Shall Pass

2010-10-16T14:41:00.002+05:30

Rant

It is now over a month since the 18th Amendment was passed. And I can finally get my head around writing about it without simply saying FUCK a lot.

Isn't that nice?

Personally I am not surprised this happened at all. Sri Lankans in general and the Sinhalese in particular are extremely happy to give over control to someone, anyone. They are the kavum eating surrender monkeys of Asia. Not only are they willing to roll over and give up to anyone who comes in with an attitude, they will attack anyone who stands up and tells them to stop being such wusses.

The Heroes of Sri Lankan Independence are commemorated and fêted for standing up in Parliament and saying We would like independence please, if you don't mind.

This is at a time when the Indians with Mohandas Gandhi were engaging in civil disobedience and satyagraha, and getting beaten, jailed, or killed, Sri Lankans were quite willing to let it all happen. In a world that rewards the active, Sri Lankans are constantly passive. They are not just willing, but also insanely happy to give their freedoms away.

The two people who stood up for their rights in recent times, were brutally killed as the people around them cheered. True, they took a wrong path. True, at the end it was all about power. But, at least they began with the idea of we're not going to take this any more!

There were others too who stood up to The System and demanded their freedoms back. But they were marginalised and ignored - if they were lucky. Some of them weren't. And hoi polloi cheered.

But that is just the start of it. When the Governments were rapidly stripping away the rights of the people. When the Security ~~Theater~~checkpoints were being established all over the country no-one said anything, even when they knew there was no tangible benefit from them. When they started checking everyone entering a bus, nothing was said. This is because the Sri Lankan populace knows one thing - This Too Shall Pass.

There's a war on? No matter. He's stealing money? It's ok. They're shutting down the liquor shops? So? No matter what happens, it is not permanent. It'll pass. It'll go away, leaving nothing but a law behind.

When they started checking bags at the entry to bus stations, there was a time when they checked everyone for everything. About a month later, I walked in by just flashing my driver's licence. Three months later, the policeman was flirting on the phone and people were just walking past. I didn't even bother to take the checkpoint gate.

Sri Lankans believe that no matter what happens, it can't go on forever. And usually that is the case. Anything can happen, but not for long. Restrictions get relaxed, but not officially. Simply by tedium and apathy.

The problem is, this kind of thing increases passivity, as much as it increases with passivity. So when you get something like The Beast screwing the people in a big way, people are not going to do anything about it. There is the attitude that says, hey, he's not going to be here forever and the entire passivity that surrounds people. No one is going to stand up and say hold on, this is not right.

It is worthy of note that no one was celebrating when The Beast took on the role of el presidente de por vida. Well, no one except the people who were paid to do it. People understood what was happening, yet the question that many asked was what can I do?

But the thing is, there is a lot that can be done, if they wanted to. But nobody wanted to make waves. No one wanted to put himself in front and say this is wrong!

People just shrugged their shoulders and said, well, he can't live forever, and moved on. And this is the curse that plagues people who value freedom and equality in Sri Lanka. That anything you try to do will be haunted by the question, Why are you doing this? Why are you making a scene? Things will get better. This too shall pass

But it never does.

I'm me.. deal with it

2010-10-15T13:13:00.003+05:30

Rant

Recently I had a talk with a friend of mine. Not just a talk. A Talk. Note the capitals.

Now for those of you who know me, and for many of you who read this blog regularly, you know that I swear, a lot. My language and topics often go from the blue to the horrifying to the disgusting. It's not Tourettte's or Coprolalia (which, incidentally, translates to talking shit). It's not involuntary, I have a choice, I can choose what to say, and when. It's just that most of the time I choose to.

I have good friends. I might say that I have supergreatawesome friends. I might also say they are bunch of badass motherfuckers who would do anything for me. I would like to think that I am the same to them. They have, on many an occasion tried to get me to stop swearing. They have tried to get me to moderate my behaviour. It, obviously, hasn't worked.

What bothered my friend - from here on I will call him the Toymaker - was that apparently certain friends we have in common, that he introduced me to, are uncomfortable with hanging out with me. Apparently for some I am too much of a lech, for others, it is my language, for some more it is my overfamiliarity.

The Toymaker wants me to change. He wants to know why it is so much of a sacrifice that I will not amend my ways so that I would get to hang out with more people. It takes me a while to answer.

Firstly, I am not averse to change. I am the first to admit that I have many bad habits. I can be a bore, a boor, a brat, and many other things besides. I can be a right bastard to have around. However, it helps when people tell me what I am doing wrong. The Toymaker is not telling me what I am doing wrong, he is a messenger for others who are too cowardly and craven to do so. He has defended me when people I considered friends talked behind my back about how terrible I am. He has tried to get them to see my point of view, he has tried to get them to tell me. But since they know that he is the only one among them who is willing to confront me, they never complain to me, they complain to him. There is a part of me that rebels against that. I am willing to make changes, but not on a he said, she said bullshit routine. I change for people I respect, people who are willing to talk to me face to face. If they are unwilling to do so, and instead rely on third-party intermediaries, then my respect for them and their opinions automatically drops.

Secondly, I am usually a nice guy. At least my friends who know me tell me so. I am able to be serious when it is called for. I have even worn shoes on certain occasions. But, meet me in a relaxed place, in a time when I am out to have fun, then I am most emphatically not serious. I am the class clown. I will take a pratfall or three (or a dozen). I will be a lot of things, and all those things will be caricatures. If I lech, it will be a caricature lecher. Whatever I do will be exaggerated, larger than life. If a person has half a brain, they will know that I am joking. Unfortunately, it seems that a certain young lady doesn't have that. When everyone was hanging out and laughing at my lecherous antics, she not only didn't call me out and tell me that it was making her uncomfortable (which would have had me contrite and apologetic in nanoseconds), but she continued to laugh and joke and respond to my actions, which made me think she was quite cool with it. Later, much later she complains to the Toymaker about it, expecting him to come take me to task.

Item the third. I call women by a lot of affectionate terms. Hon, lass, love, sweetheart, and many others. I call my guy friends mate, dude, vato, machan (a Sinhala word meaning mate, dude, vato), and most recently cock-juggling thundercunt. These are not terms of endearment, they are terms of affection. I don't use that on my clients unless I am very close to them. I don't use that on strangers either. I would call a bus conductor malli, boss, or even machan, but as far as I am concerned, those are words for guys. And lacking equivalent female terms, I use a different set. And apparently that makes some people upset, because I use terms of endearment on them. I am crap at remembering names. I would barely remember mine if people didn't call me by it all the time. My name is Hey You Stop Thief Oh God Motherfucker. And I feel bad about being formal enough to call people by name. So I use terms of affection, not terms of endearment. Hon not Honey, the Cockney luv not love, the Bogartian schweetart instead of sweetheart, and the good old Scottish lass.

They get upset about it too. They feel I am being over-familiar. What the fuck? I mean seriously. We are meeting for drinks, and conversation. It is a relaxed atmosphere. I feel there is no need for me to call you by your name (especially if I can't remember it). I have no problems with them calling me anything they want, and I do them the honour of assuming that they are as open-minded as I am. But they get upset, they claim it is not PC, and want me to be PC. And then they go complain to the Toymaker.

Finally, I am not willing to change. At least not all the way. For me at least, friendship comes at a price. The price is that you accept your friends for what they are. It is always a choice. You can pay the price or you can walk away. I have friends from all walks of life, from all points of the belief spectrum. They know how I feel about things, I usually know how they feel. If they do or believe in something I consider wrong or stupid, and that belief is unshakeable, then I let them have that belief. I accept it, and ignore it. It is that belief that makes them the person they are, and if they are my friend, it is because I love the person they are. I also try to avoid calling them on it. And my friends do me the same courtesy. I am willing to change to a certain level, but I am not going to change all the way. Why the fuck should I? Especially why should I if those who are demanding that I change don't have the guts to face me directly? And most of all, why should I make all the changes? After all a relationship is a two-way street. Both sides make adjustments. The last time I was in a relationship where the adjustments were too big, the differences too far, it ended in tears, heartbreak, anger, and divorce court.

I have had way too many people telling me to change. I have tried to change, to fit in, to keep my head down and not make waves every since I was a lad. Then I realised, the people around me push, and keep pushing. Change a little, they want you to change some more. People don't like being made uncomfortable. I am ok with being put in situations that make me uncomfortable, and I will go out of my way to make people feel comfortable. But there comes a point when even I say, Not again. The line must be drawn here! This far, no further!

But, there is a price to pay. There always is. The Toymaker tells me that some of his friends don't want to hang out with me because of the way I act. He says he doesn't want to have to make the choice. I can understand, and I can accept. If the price I have to pay to hang out with people who are so un-understanding of me that they demand that I change my ways, then it is a price I am willing to pay. This is not a Tragic Hero thing. This is simply my recognising that I am not everyone's choice of friend. How could I be? I cannot be all things to all end-users. But for those who are my friends, who put up with me, who know me, I give the best. But I also demand the best. I am not the person who says, You can't hang out with us if you bring him along. How the fuck can I? I am not the person who holds it against people when they make a choice to hang out with people who are not me. Why bother? I have a place to stay, I have alcohol, I have the Internet, I have porn. Really, what more would I need?

I am me. Deal with it.

FUCK!

2010-09-09T19:02:00.002+05:30

Rant

FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCKi! FUCK Ranil for being a pansy-assed motherfucker who couldn't create a real and viable opposition! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK the UNP for boycotting and abstaining from the vote! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK everyone who voted The Beast into power! FUCK them for the first election! FUCK them for the second! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK Prabhakaran for not doing a proper job and killing The Beast! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK Bandaranayake! FUCK Sripavan! FUCK Ratnayake! FUCK Imam! FUCK Suresh Chandra! FUCK all the Supreme Court Justices who said it was legal to amend the constitution this heavily without consulting the people! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK Sarath N Silva for saying that the Helping Hambantota investigation should be stopped so that The Beast can run for president! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK the system that doesn't work! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK the Police! FUCK the armed forces! FUCK them all for being the protectors of the Goverment's power! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK me! FUCK you! FUCK everyone!

After all, we're all FUCKED!

Scammers In The House

2010-08-11T15:45:00.001+05:30

Muse

A friend of mine nearly fell for a scam a few days ago. It was a quite well done scam, and would have passed through too, if it wasn't for the fact that the young lady was quite vigilant.

About two months ago, a guy contacted her on her Facebook account and sent her a friend request. She didn't know the guy but accepted the request anyway. Making friends on Facebook has become kind of like meeting someone on a bus. You may end up with a friend, you may end up with a romantic relationship, you may end up waking in a tub full of ice in a sleazy motel with your kidneys missing.

The person seemed quite nice and was friendly. Emails turned to chats, chats turned to Skype sessions. She noticed discrepancies in his story, and that put her on her guard, but she maintained the friendship anyway.

The guy spoke many times about his son, and that his wife had died of cancer 3 years ago. When my friend told me this, it set off my alarm bells. Cancer is a horrible disease, and people who get it suffer before they die. I am not lessening the suffering that other diseases bring, but cancer hits at a very visceral part of our psyche. So it is a major tool used by scammers.

He said that he was living in the US but his 16-year-old son was living in the UK. Somehow this didn't jibe either. And my friend noticed that he didn't have an American or British accent on Skype. His accent sounded more African, and the pictures of him were all Anglo.

I found it suspicious that his email address was his first name and his current age. Nobody puts their current age in a long-term email account. It's only relevant for that year.

As the days went by, he told her that he was coming to her country, and that he would be glad to meet her. My friend was not sure about this, so she was noncommittal about meeting. He sent her pictures of him, and his son. She even got an email claiming to be from his son telling her how wonderful it was that she and his father were getting along.

She sent me the mail, and the pictures, but none of the pictures raised any red flags with me. They should have. The son's email on the other hand was more interesting. The style of writing was more appropriate for a 7 year old's school essay than a teenager.

Curiouser and curiouser

A few days ago she got an email from the guy. Apparently he was on his way to her country to work on a contract. He had landed in India and was waiting at the hotel for his son's arrival when he received the news that he had been in a car accident on the way from the airport. The driver had died, and the son had a broken leg and minor internal injuries. They were getting a doctor down from Singapore to check the son out. The bill was going to be close onto USD6500.

The plot thickens.

He didn't want any money, he just wanted to be able to get the company he was working for to be able to give her a cheque in her name and then have her cash it and deposit it to him.

Are the alarm bells going off yet?

She, quite obviously, refused.

He went on to tell her the sob-story, and even went so far as to send a picture of his son in hospital with a bandage on his head. He refused to tell her the name of the company he was supposed to be working for, and didn't want them to know that his child was with him because it was apparently against his contract to bring his child with him.

It was about that time that I was fully brought into the picture. She had told me that she was talking to a guy and she didn't trust him, but this was a whole new level of bullshit.

Obviously alarm bells started going off in my head. My friend is smart enough not to accede to the guy's request, but it was eating her up inside - the entire what if this person is right can be a big weight on your conscience.

Thankfully he had sent a picture of his son in hospital. So Yours Truly submitted it to tineye.com, an image reverse search engine. You upload an image and they will see if it matches against their database of images (1,647,128,150 when I last checked) to see if it is in use anywhere else on the net.

I had used TinEye against the other images and not come across any positives, but with this last image, I got lucky. The picture of his son in hospital was a picture of a Pakistani boy who was caught in the war. If any more proof were needed that the guy was a fake that was enough. My friend blocked him on chats, and reported the profile to FaceBook as a scammer.

But I should have caught it sooner.

The TinEye search was just the start of it. I should have checked the EXIF data on the images he sent. When I went through them (using the FxIF plugin for Mozilla Firefox), I found that most of them had no such data, and the few that had the data had creation dates from many years ago. Hindsight is 20/20.

I can't teach people how not to fall for these scams. When you teach them how to block one, another 10 pop up in its place. But for this kind of scam, it is good to know the resources you can use.

It is good to have a healthy dose of suspicion, especially if you are a young woman, because they are the people who are most targeted by the bleeding heart/sympathy scams. If your gut feeling is that the person is bullshitting you and scamming you, then go by the basis that he is.

Good luck, and stay safe.

UPDATED 2010/08/12

Looks like this post has made somewhat of a stir. I have just heard of a young lady who has used tineye to find that her boyfriend was just scamming her with fake pictures etc.

I would also like to talk more about EXIF data.

EXIF data is written to an image when it is taken by a camera. It usually has the make and model, the date and time, the settings, the original size, and other data about the image. Some of them even have the latitude and longitude on them.

If the image was taken with a digital camera (even if it was the crappy little one on your phone) it will show EXIF data. If it was scanned it might show it. But EXIF data will not show on most manipulated images. If it has been worked on with image editing software there is a good chance it will not.

Most images on the internet do not have EXIF data. So if someone send you an image and says that it is a picture s/he took, there is a very high chance that the EXIF data is there. If it isn't, i would recommend you look at it with more skepticism.

Rants Raves and Miscellaneous Musings

Give us another one ... just like the other one

Muse

The Pros and the Cons

Muse

Why you should not vote for Mahinda (aka The Beast)

Why you should vote for The Beast

Why you should not vote for Maithripala (aka The Smiler)

Why you should vote for The Smiler

The New Year Election Predictions

Rant

I don't wan't Mahinda to win

I don't want Maithripala to win

So what's going to happen then?

The Smiler wins (and The Beast runs away)

The Beast wins

The Smiler wins (and the Beast refuses to give up the Iron Throne)

What I think will happen

Sri Lanka Board of Foreign Employment leaves 100,000 names and passport and ID numbers up for grabs

Rant

Why we should stop hating on the "marry your rapist law" .. at least a little bit

Rant

I Hate The N-Word

Rant

Vampires, and zombies, and werewolves ... oh my!!

Muse

Death! Note!

Muse

The Basics - when to pull the plug

Wish 1: The Person I Want to Make Care Decisions for Me When I Can't

Wish 2: The Kind of Medical Treatment I Want or Don't Want

Wish 3: How Comfortable I Want to Be

Wish 4: How I Want People to Treat Me

Wish 5: What I Want My Loved Ones to Know

Putting the FUN in funeral

BUT ...

MY CREMATION ORDERS ARE NON-NEGOTIABLE!!!

The Dambulla Logs

Rave

ARISE SINHALESE!!

Muse

Great Geeks Retreating!

Rave

The Law of Legitimacy

Muse

The Penn Street Moochers

Those who forget the lessons of history....

Rant

What is love?

Muse

Paying for Petrol

Muse

Buddha for power

Muse

Stop issuing meat, liquor, and gambling licences

Let his secretary sign them

Sign the damned things

A Blast From The Past: Time to give up on Sri Lanka

Rant

An Everlasting Emergency

Rant

The New Hotness

Rave

Wanted: A Place To Hang My Hat

Muse

This Too Shall Pass

Rant

I'm me.. deal with it

Rant

FUCK!

Rant

Scammers In The House

Muse

UPDATED 2010/08/12