Qraqqed!

Yey. I’m finally reviewed at Bloggy Award, a really cool site that reviews blogs for free and gives them points for visual aesthetics, reading enjoyment, navigation etc. It’s really nice of them to review a 14 year-old nobody’s blog from nowhere. Quickly visit the review and comment on it. After all it’s not always a Sri Lankan get’s noticed eh!

Thanks again Bloggy Award.

The recently introduced one-way system which applies to Galle Road and Duplication Road hasn’t been talked upon in the blogosphere as far as I know. Some of you may feel that the said road system is good and eases the traffic in Colombo. Others, like me, may feel that it is a total inconvenience towards drivers as it further complicates the already complicated road network in Colombo.

Fuel wastage

Oil is now 90$ a barrel. Not long from now it’ll finally break the 100$ barrier. Sri Lanka is a poor country with a high dependence on foreign oil for all it’s transportation and industrial needs. With the new one-way system introduced supposedly to ease traffic in the city, a vehicle on Galle Road has to travel a further distance to get on to Duplication Road or any of the other by-lanes and streets attached than the distance it would travel before this stupid one-way system was introduced. Imagine not one vehicle, but the thousands of others that have to do the same damn thing everyday. Doesn’t this waste fuel?

Time wastage

Back to the supposed ‘reason’ for introducing this system. True, there is a major crisis looming regarding traffic in Colombo. That is an accepted fact. But have you noticed a difference in traffic? I certainly haven’t In fact, now it takes me more time to get from A to B than it did when the two-way system was in place.

High accident rate

Many people, drivers and pedestrians alike, are still not aware of of the one-way system and are constantly found confused and muddled as to where to go next. Pedestrians, for example, are very likely to cross Galle Road and look the other side for oncoming traffic and cross the road unaware of a lane of traffic charging at him form the other side.

Taking into consideration the wastage of fuel, the wastage of time and the many other factors that come with any clogged road system, air pollution, noise pollution, a high rate of accidents etc. is there any point in bringing into place a system like this at all.

There is a reason, my dear bloggers. Unless most of you have not figured it out for yourself, which is a shame, this one-way system was introduced for one purpose and for that purpose only. Government Ministers can now practically fly with their entourage on the streets of Colombo. What they do is, they close down one whole block of road and all the other roads connecting to it, and make the Minister’s vehicle, Jeeps filed with escort troop and all, travel in the opposite direction of the one-way, leaving the ordinary man waiting for his turn to get back a to the same old clogged streets.

If only they used their brains for the good of ordinary Sri Lankans instead of themselves……………..

The Government just won the Budget vote in Parliament 114 to 67. The JVP abstained from voting.

Hi guys! I’m back after a few pesky exams that got rescheduled because of dear old Velu!

So, so, so… what’s been happening in the blogoscene eh? i’m still suffering a bit from blogger’s bloc so I’ll just have to point form this:

- Finshed exams (Yippee)

- Going to start another year of school (not so yippee)

- Read the Newsweek, Time and the Reader’s Digest.

- Trying to start a Blog Network.

Seeya.

I read about C3: Computers. Communications. Consumer electronics in the Sunday Times last week and since it had the word Computers on it’s cover and is published by a Sri Lankan company I thought I’d give it a try. After a quick run to Vijitha Yapa and back I settled down for some long awaited tit-bits on the e-world!

It’s published by C3 Labs (Pvt) Ltd and edited by Fahim Farook.

The Layout

The GRI, (General Reader Interface) is nice with clear headlines and big fonts and easy recognizability. The normal font is small but compact and neat and fun to read with the pages planned and placed well.

The Content

The content is divided into three basics sections; Computers, communications and consumer electronics, while the areas that cover them are features, that form the first part of the magazine with current news, tips and tricks etc;.

The reviews section, hence it’s name, carries reviews on the latest hardware and gadgetry to hit the cyber waves recently. It also carries reviews on the new Vista of Windows and the Office 2007 package. It also has a few articles by contributing writers on various topics, but they should bring in more local writers in to the team……….

WHY?

It’s a first-timer, it’s in English, it’s local, not a bad price………

WHY NOT?

Can’t think of anything to say against it in such a short period of circulation……..

This was an article written by Sir for the souvenir published for the “Royal Rugby Fiesta 2007″ and was posted as a comment in my previous post. Thank Kadalay for it…….

DOWN MEMORY LANE

Having been within the precincts of Royal College, in one capacity or another for a total of 73 of my 80 years, the spirit of this wonderful school of ours has found its way into my blood and penetrated my bones!

I started as a student in 1933 at the former Royal Preparatory school from where I crossed over to the Royal College in 1939 and left in 1947. For the next two years I taught at St. John’s, Nugegoda while studying for examinations and was then requested by my former principal at College Mr. J.C.A. Corea to stand in for one of my own teachers – Mr. V.O. de Alvis Gunawardana who had retired prematurely and so in January 1950 I came to teach and what started as a temporary assignment became my life’s work. In 1971 I was appointed Head Master by the then Principal Mr. D.G. Welikala and in 1978 elevated to Deputy Principal by Mr.L.D.H. Peiris. I reached the age of retirement in 1987 but two successive Principals requested me to continue on a departmentally approved contract. Ten years later in 1997 I decided to accept the old boy’s request to work in the Union Office where I have been to date.

Mine has been an eventful stay during which I took the rough with the smooth and enjoyed every minute of it. If I were given a choice to live my life all over again I would not choose differently,

I have seen many generations of Royalists come and go, many teachers and many Principals come and go and I have watched the changes that the winds of the passing years have brought – but one thing has remained constant – the Royalist student community which has not changed radically. Let us bow our heads and thank the Powers that Be that the present Royalists from the Andersons to the Zaheeds the assorted Pereras, Fernandos and Silvas, Saldins the Pillais and the Weerasinghes are no different from their counterparts of earlier vintages and that they are even now laying in their personal treasuries of rich and golden memories of forbidden fruit which they enjoyed.

Let us all pray that the spirit of Royal will remain as it is till the end of time!

Vijitha Weerasinghe

It is with a sense of great sadness and a feeling of emptiness that I inform all those whom it may concern that, Mr. Viji Weerasinghe, an exemplary character who epitomized the true meaning of what it is to be a Royalist, passed away in hospital today.

Mr. Viji Weerasinghe was hospitalized at the Asiri Surgical Unit following a fall. He left us today with a legacy that will forever be in our heart and with memories that will forever be in our minds…….

God bless you dear Sir, for all what you have done to Royal College as a student, teacher and and administrator, and for showing us who a true Royalist is………..

My Grandmother is quite old, feeble, and weak. She just suffered a heart attack and a stroke.

So when the family decides to bring her to our house and keep her with all the creature comforts she needs, we call Ceylinco. Ceylinco SwiftCare is a home nursing service provided by the conglomerate, what else isn’t?

Anyway, we registered for the home nursing service and they send two nurses to look after granny dear everyday. But there is a major problem. SwifCare doesn’t have enough nurses to cope up with the demand. Are these people so greedy? Imagine Ceylinco cash-stripped!!! pfft….

Why I say this is that everyday a nurse gets ready to leave her shift and switch with the other nurse, but once the other nurse was indisposed and the previous one waited on complaining and making a general mess of things and moods. And the supervisor of shifts has the audacity to call and laugh out loud when complained to.

And what more? The nurses provided are straight from villages and haven’t heard of cleanliness. One was found sleeping on the bare floor with my granny’s pillows. Yech!

Are your’ll so desperate to hang on to customers to the point of sacrificing your supposedly good name?

Actually, yes.

I went to school last week and my friends were talking about the new found pastime of the cops……….checking poor fellows on motorcycles for pornographic material on their phones But I don’t know how far it’s true , friend talk could go anywhere………

So, if all the above is true, then I believe it’s a step in the right direction at last.

Pornography, in my view, is a root cause for the self-destruction of a person, mentally. I’m speaking about guys my age who are still at school and study (or don’t) under the guidance of their parents and teachers.

Believe it or not, all the guys in my class are either addicted to porn………..or me. No, I’m not lying here, I think I’m lucky enough to understand the consequences and ill-effects of watching porn.

Please don’t laugh, because I do think that indulging in this particular vice not only corrupts the mind, but pollutes the soul as well. I have come to note through the experiences of friends that watching this becomes a regular habit and is hard to shy away from….you’ve got the internet, your parents are not around, why not?

Through my experiences, I’ve noticed that friends of mine who are regurlar subscribers to this vice are of a more meaner nature, always involved in fights, use vulgar lang, can’t understand or appreciate a teacher’s advice, always have mood shifts and are generally tiresome to be with.

Now, I’m not qualified to talk like this at all, and the above said features of a person could result from a variety of other things totally unrelated to porn, but I’ve been thinking about this a lot in the past few months, observing my friends who openly confess to watching porn. As I said earlier, I don’t believe in watching these things and I don’t. I have told everybody that I don’t and they kinda get pissed off and call me a “p” dial and all sorts of stuff.

Through all this I have also observed their take on porn. It’s manly, they say. You’re a woman if you don’t, they say. You have to do it at least once, they say. They say all this about smoking, drinking, and consuming drugs too. Need I say more……..

So I say, my dear Gov luv, make your ban, if there ever is one, tougher if you want a cleaner, happier, and less ill-effected future generation…..

If you’ve read my previous posts regarding the Government Regulations on Alcohol and Tobacco and have been watching a bit of TV lately you’ll know that TV stations are now required (not sure) to blot out scenes of alcohol and tobacco consumption.

In my previous posts I’ve stated why these so-called regulations affect the viewing pleasure of the TV viewing public, and how the regulations can’t possibly affect the consumption of the said vices in this country…………

Everything blogged, said, and done………………….ETV is the dumbest shit ever!

Why do I say that? Yesterday, Friday, I settled down to watch One Tree Hill, one of the only few good shows ETV broadcasts, anyway, there I was watching it and anticipating a blot-out on the screen when there was a drink shown. Thankfully there isn’t much drinking in the show, which mainly focuses on a group of teenagers. Halfway through the show, during a perfectly acceptable scene of a girl talking on stage to a group of people, the dumb-asses at the station blot out the whole scene! What the hell??

This was not an isolated incident, several other perfectly peaceful and clean scenes,  two actors talking, a girl talking on her cell and a perfectly acceptable scene of a play were just some of the scenes blotted out.

Come to think about it there were plenty of scenes where loads and loads of vodka, gin and scotch bottles together with filled-to-the-brim wine glasses were in plain view of the screen…………

And not only that, scenes with sexual content were plainly shown on screen……………………!!

ETV is anyway a good for nothing channel just polluting the airwaves of Colombo, on top of bad management of shows and stupid blunders like these, ETV shows the most amount of advertisements, ruining viewing time, they constantly show repeat telecasts of the same episode over and over again, they keep on showing those pain in the neck Teleseen ads.

All said, ETV has the bloody guts to ask viewers whether they are addicted to the damn channel………….

Grow up, ETV.

Anarkali Akarsha calls herself an actress cum tv presenter cum tv hostess cum model cum Ministerial Secretary cum everythingelsunderthesun.

I’d like to call her a fake.

I thought of blogging about her after reading and article in which Angela Seneviratne gives her a bit of a lashing in W@W, the magazine that comes free with the Daily Mirror. It seems that dear Anal (choke!) is a snobby, self-obsessed spoilt brutess, if I may be politically correct. It seems that Anal (heehee!) hosted a beauty pageant on Derana, what else is new, anyway as I was saying, beauty pageant hostess Anal (I just love saying that!) was very huffy and puffy to Angela and was very rude to her.

The above paragraph was meant to clear any doubts about a well known writer looking down upon the high and mighty Anal (kkkkkkkrkrkrkr……!)

Anarkali Akarsha is probably the worst actress Sri Lanka, and (obviously) the world, has seen because only in a country like ours can her non-existent acting career exist. Every movie she acts in gets an excellent overall review but an excruciatingly bad but truthful one on her. Where else can a woman who can’t even speak the language the movie’s been filmed in can have an acting career? The Maldives? I heard someone say that her acting s like that of a 90 year-old woman………

Any tv show or music chart that Anal appears in only survives because of guys who don’t have internet………………

Any foreigner would laugh, and they must be laughing, at the site of local boys going head over heels for her. What else do they have to do besides protesting?

Anal, when will you grow up and leave the Sri Lankan radio waves alone?

Anarkali come.

Anarkali go………………………..?

You and me……                                                                                                                                                         You know who…………….

I recently read an article in the newspapers about International White Cane day. It made me think………………..

Imagine someone who can’t read this. Imagine a person who hasn’t seen his or her own parents. Imagine a person who hasn’t seen his or her self…………………..

The blind are probably the most unfortunate, yet fortunate people on earth……..

Unfortunate because they they can’t see the ones they love, the things they hold dear…………..because they can’t see the simple, yet joyous things in life………..like the first steps of a toddler, a child’s smile………

Yet they are fortunate because, they aren’t able to see the horrendous things happening in the world, the Civil War in Sri Lanka, the abductions, the killings, the mass murders. They are not able to see the terrible state of the Hibakusha of Japan. They cannot see the faces of the burnt, the scarred………………..they can’t see the tyranny of leaders, the militancy of some……………the tsunami, the World Trade Center Bombing, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and many other images that haunt all of us to this day.

These images and scenes may seem normal and everyday to you and me, but as the saying goes, seeing is believing…………………the blind may hear lots of vivid news reports on these horrors, but it is only up to their imagination to actually see them……………and most of the time they imagine it less severe, less drastic, less devastating………………..what human being won’t?

But it is only when you see the exact thing that you understand and realize it’s impact, and that exact image or scene is etched in your memory for the rest of your life. But the blind are so fortunate because they can forget get it easily and never know the real thing………………………………….

The blind are the some of the most courageous people I have ever seen. The way they use their White Cane to get about in life, the way they take simple joys in just listening to the radio, whereas we complain about the screen being blotted out because of Government Regulations.

Look at Stevie Wonder, his disability has not stopped him from being a star in American music. His perseverance has led him to this stardom, while others take it for granted.

Let us all lend a hand to the blind of our country as well as of the world in making their lives just a that better.

………..there goes our tax, or tax money for those of you who are tax payers…….

(1) Felicitation ceremony to honour her…..

(2) National ceremony……….

(3) Cars, vans, Pajeros for the golden “queen”……….

(4) Demonstrations of love and affection shown to her on the road, increasing the traffic jam………….

Does Sri Lanka need this? Can we afford this? People are suffering in the country, and they prepare for mass celebrations on the road……….There is a war going on, educated people don’t have jobs, a child can’t get into a school, teachers who have done a far more yeomen service to the country than Susanthika could even think of are deprived of their eligible wages…………When will this nonsense come to an end?

The poor of the country are suffering without any food, she gets a Pajero………Soldiers are dying out there under the Northern sun………………she grumbles about not having proper food and facilities in America. People are living in temporary camps in the East and South………this woman complains of not having proper shoes.

Is she so shameless? She lost to a woman covering her whole body and head in accordance with her religion…….all she knows to do is become second or third, and grumble about bad athletic officials.

Look at those Kenyans and Ethiopians, they have virtually no comforts but continuously bring honour to their country……..they sacrifice all they have for their country………….and this woman berates on and on.

Someone has to teach this one a lesson………………