SUICIDE BOMB IN MATARA MOSQUE KILLS 10, WOUNDS MINISTER

A suicide bomber detonated a bomb inside the Jumma mosque at Godapitiya, in Akurassa , in the Matara district at around 10.35 am during annual Milad-un-Nabi, the festival celebrating the birth of Prophet Muhammed (PBUH). Minister Mahinda Wijesekara are among the 20 others injured.

SL CRICKET TEAM BUS SHOT AT!

SL Team Bus shot|7,8 players wounded|Some players serious,hospitalized|2 explosions heard|Well planned attack|12 gunmen|5 cops killed|SL cancels tour|

Facebook

Sometime since I wrote something on Facebook.  Ah it’s been 2 years on the thing and I’ve finally come-up with a definition for it.

a platform for people to communicate with other people.

a tool which individuals and organizations can make use of to reach out to the common Facebookian

a place where you can create, share, enjoy and experience videos, photos, titbits, notes, pokes, and all other man-made time wasters.

A very broad definition(s) for Facebook which really is your Cargills Gedara Yana Gamang (or should that be Gedara Avilla Ice Gahana Gamang). Facebook is not just a youth thing anymore. My relatives from Europe have made contact with me and I must say having them as close a computer screen is something I have never experience before.

One thing about Facebook is that it’s shit easy. Communication – you can send messages to anybody and if they’re even a little active on FB you’re assured they’ll get it. Or you can chat with them with the new chat application. How awesome is that. Facebook is now systematically erasing not just rivals in social networking, but companies concepts and applications that are not in the same genre Facebook is in. I really don’t need Messenger, Gmail, Flickr, or the many other services out there which offer just a limited rabge of services compared to Facebook.

Facebook is like an excellent business model for Google. If Google was just a home page with Gmail instead of Facebook message, Google Talk instead of Facebook Chat and whatnot instead of whatnot, I think that would just be awesome.

One short coming with Facebook though, is the search. If they made Facebook Search just a wee bit more user-friendly like Google Search by offering search term suggestions like

Do you mean Tsunami?

Hopefully The Zuckerburg will do something about it.

Confirmed: Birds Still Rule the Skies.

Yesterday, US Airways Flight 1549 ditched in the Hudson River in New York after a bird strike  (poor suckers fly right into an engine and get really screwed up inside what with the fans rotating so fast). This plane crash on water was executed by Captain Chesley Burnett “Sully” Sullenberger III (I thought we had wicked names). Apparently the bird screwed up the engine so bad that it stopped working and the plane had to be landed immediately.

Kudos to the Captain.

Helloo ShirrLanka

Ahh, the much awaited Indian invasion has begun. Bharti Airtel is finally here people. But is it here to stay? Dialog, Mobitel, Tigo and even Hutch have stepped up their advertising and have adjust the so many price rates out there.

So will Shahrukh Khan saying hello and Kumar Sangakkara giving us his most sought after advice help Airtel at it’s infancy here in ShirrLanka? Only time will tell.

Barack Obama

The way I see it, I don’t think much is going to happen in a drastic way over here in Sri Lanka when considering the fact that about .14 % of Americans know where the Indian Ocean is let alone Sri Lanka……

One thing that might happen though is that the world will change, the way the world percieves America will change and has changed already. The way America does business with the world will change and people can actually hope. That’s a word that has been tossed around for years by people who didn’t really mean it. Whenever someone’s campaign slogan was hope, people would go, where have we seen that before?

But people saw something different in Obama. People actually hoped. It was quite involuntary for some but it just came. That’s it. They just hoped.

This transformation has changed America frever. The fact that Obama is the first black person to sit behind the desk at the Oval Office makes the world and Amerca a whole new place.

Its a miracle.

Its change we really can believe in.

Where’s the AirTel?

AirTel has been coming for about a year now and I’m not sure whether it’s coming or going right now. A bigshot at AirTel keeps telling me that it’s launching in December. First it was the first, then the sixth, now its the eighteenth of this month.

Apparently AT’s gonna charge much less than Dialog and the clan and is targeting the youth and errr…..I’m not sure how to put this….farmers. Like the goviya. Looks like they’ll be called the Mod goviyas after AirTel launches, or if it ever launches.

Maybe the nakatha running a little late…….

Caught in the middle..

Now where have we heard that one before……?

Really feeling caught in the middle though. The bad guys > me < the good guys. That sorta thing. Sometimes real bad, sometimes real good. Can’t seem to make up my mind…..really.

Wonder why am in world at moment.

Oh and exams OVERRRRR!

Shakes ‘08

The Inter School Shakespeare Drama Competition boys’ semi finals just finished off today with Royal, D.S, and Joes making throught the Coombo ticket and Trinity making it through the Outstation schools’ category. Awaiting the finals on Sunday, the 21st!

SAARC: Any long-term benefits?

SAARC has come and SAARC has gone. A few rabid dogs got the injection. A few posters got removed. A hell of a lot of people got inconvenienced. But will SAARC bring any benefits to South Asia in general and Sri Lanka in particular? For the past 23 years the summit has just been a case of round talks and a hearty meal afterwards. There haven’t been any significant impacts made by SAARC in relevance to improving a billion lives. SAFTA has been a total no-show and has become the laughing stock of progressive regional blocs such as the EU.

2.8 billion bucks were spent to hold the summit in Sri Lanka and most of that was channeled towards security. In my opinion I thought that the LTTE wouldn’t dare attack any of the delegates as they had too much to lose specially in the eyes of the international community. India most certainly would not tolerate another of it’s premiers beeing attacked or killed in Sri Lanka. Pakistan would’ve invaded the north if something had happened to Gilani.

So the question remains……..did SAARC XV usher in a new ‘partnership for the people’? Or was it just another slice of government propaganda?

Long time no blog……….

Whoa its been a long, long time since my last post, lost track of time really………..anyway I thought of redefining this blog for a little while and stick with the new look if it catches on.

SAARC, the umpire review experiment, the war (of course), Dumarkali (Duminda + Anarkali), inflation, foreign employment, internal and external political crises are some of the talked about and prolifically reported on topics in Sri Lanka. I thought of turning Qraqqed! into a sort of open forum (a blorum to be exact) and invite anyone, be it bloggers, commentators, ministers, baboons or anybody to debate on selected topics. The debates can be enriched by anyone wishing to comment on the introductory post about the the topic. The main reason for this revamping is the lack of moderated forum style debate among internet users of this country. I hope to help all you people out there to express your views on the varied topics I hope to post about.Let’s see where it leads to………!

Let’s join in the fun!

The One-Way System: Yet Another Luxury For Politicians…

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……………..

Back To Blogging!

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.

C3: COMPUTERS. COMMUNICATIONS. CONSUMER ELECTRONICS – A Sri Lankan Gadget Magazine……

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……..

Remembering Viji……..

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

Goodbye Sir, Royal will never forget you………………….

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………..

Government Regulations on Alcohol and Tobacco being shown on TV…………………what next? Ban on porn?

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…..

Akarsha come, Akarsha go (hopefully)

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………………………..?

Democracy

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

A tribute to the blind

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.

Oh my God……….! If Susanthika gets the silver medal……..

………..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………………

Funny on the bus

This happened sometime ago, thought you should know…….

On a bright weekday morning, I got up and got ready for school, since  I used to live a little far away from Colombo and my school, I normally used to take the bus from my home to school. On this fateful day, I got into the bus, pushed myself around (and other people too) until I got a seat and plomped myself on it. After a happy few minutes rumbling on the bus, I noticed a little man seated a little bit in front of me……..but in plain view. After a few moments observing of this creature, I looked away (there was a school van passing……………….)

After a while, I couldn’t help myself but look at Mr. Shorty again. This time, he was preparing himself laboriously to spit like an original Sri Lankan……. after a few moments of growling and gulping and squelching………..(he was sitting in the window seat) there it came……………..right into the closed window, (urgggggggghhhhhhhh……………..)

The wretch had spit right into the closed window of the bus, it was quite healthy saliva, you know the real original Siriii Lanka kela, eek!……………….What more do you need in the morning?

So what happened? What to happen? The guy looked around the bus with a cheeky grin, took out his handkerchief and started wiping the damn shit………………at least he had the decency to do that…………

And what happened to me, I spent the whole day feeling vomitish at school…………………………..

Welcome to Sri Lanka!

What the crap is the Government up to now???

So there came Saturday, and with it, a need to relax my eyes, so I watched a little TV. Yeah, like that would help relax my eyes…………………anyway, switched on to Channel 1 MTV, and found them showing some movie about a group of people trying to blow up a boat and steal some gold.

So there I was watching the movie and (trying) to read the newspapers at the same time. Suddenly when I turned to the TV, the screen was blotted out, the way it is when there’s something naughty going on , you know what I mean………..but it was strange…I was quite sure that those people weren’t in a situation where they could………….you know……….but my doubts were erased after this came on screen…….’This is due to the Governments regulations on Alcohol and Tobacco’……..??????

So, so, so Mahinda’s getting tough on drinking and smoking …….well personally I don’t drink or smoke and don’t believe in trying to ‘impress’ people or ‘feel relieved’ by drinking and smoking and think they’re a load of crap.

So confused and amused, and annoyed, because I never heard of these regulations creeping into TV sets, I tuned on to (urrghhhhh..) Swarnavahini, something which I never normally do……..so anyway there was some crappy movie with some crappy Sinhala actors in it. After watching for sometime, there was some idiot smoking his heart out in plain view of everybody watching……what the hell……….?

Are MTV and Sirasa trying to seem overly obedient towards the Government? Or did Swarnavahini not get the message? Has the Government imposed these so called ‘regulations’ only on English movies?

What the crap is the Government up to now???

Going back to the regulations, has the Gov finally gone nuts??? Who the hell hasn’t seen someone smoking, or drinking? Haven’t children seen it all the time, and they will continue to, at parties and functions, and weddings, where all their parent’s know to do is drink, drink, and drink some more..

These regulations affect the viewing of a television show or movie where there was, is, and always will be drinking and smoking on screen………..these blot outs will become a nuisance to TV viewers in general if they continue………….

There are many ways that the Government can use to rid Sri Lanka of these vices, like BANNING them for example or taxing them into oblivion……….

Is there no end to the discrimination towards the English speaking population in Sri Lanka? Can’t the Government find another way to defeat drinking and smoking?

Am I speaking to MTV? Or to the Government?

Tyra Banks is sooo frikkin’ HOT!!!!!!!!!!!

Lookee here……………………..

The good and the bad of Facebook

Okay here goes…I’ve been meaning to write somethun about the facebook revolution but just couldn’t find the time. Now that the exams are approaching I can’t wait to do something else other than study:):)

Intro

Facebook was created by Mark Zuckerberg, a Harvard grad student wo had to dropout of College to run facebook. Allegations of him stealing source code given to him by the creators of ConnectU have sprung up and handled by the American courts.

Anyway………..facebook calls itself a social utility, a platform where you can connect and keep in touch with friends from your school, country, region, network or workplace.

The good…………..

You can do many fun things at facebook as well, thanks to it’s Facebook Platform, where norma, day-to-day users can create their own web applications for other users like them, apps like FunWall, CounterStrike, Love Football (Soccer) and many more enhance the user experience at facebook.

The bad………………..

Well including all that was said upstairs, you might think that facebook is a totally awesome site that you could have as your home on the internet……………., but (there’s always a but, isn’t there!?) facebook reserves the right to provide your personal information to third parties:(

Among this single bad, the apps I told you about earlier………..we……..llll they kinda need a lot of maintenance, a lot of server errors, error messages and upgrading is taken, and sometimes valuable information is lost.

Concusion……………….

Well to tell you the truth, I’m a ‘facebooker’ as we call it, and enjoy the fb experience as much as I can, xcept for those pesky error messages!……………….

But I tell you, join it, see it, feel it, and get the hell out of there if you don’t digg it!

A great blog starts with a small post………………..

……………………….and this is it.