The following is a draft for a Wikipedia entry on the flag. Please use the comment box in this post for corrections/additions. Image created by the chair of the PRD’s. Central cultural committee. The flag of People’s Republic of Dehiwala, Sri Lanka’s only openly nuclear armed country, appears quite unorthodox. However it is rich in [...]
There’s a point when digital productivity tools and techniques become a mirage. A “reachable” image of juicy productivity. Where setting up the tools, the configurations, the processes can keep you from getting any actual work done. It’s an infinite ocean of procrastination. It is the classic rearranging the desk without physical constraints. When you are … Continue reading Digital productivity ...
It’s feeling comfortable with not giving fuck about tribal affiliations and associated displays. It’s accepting that I’m an introvert who prefers not to socialise as a detached fact – not a value judgment. I can play the extrovert for survival (which is what the job requires). Yet even at my chattiest, the inner introvert is … Continue reading Gift COVID ...
I started this 16 years ago today. Here’s the traditional link to that first fart. It’s not a bumper year for posts. By the number of posts since this started is at an all-time low. Or so the stats tell me. The number of posts rather than visitors/views is what I watch. Ironic since my … Continue reading 16 years of blogging →
I never thought I’ll live through a global historical event. With the history unraveling in my city. Impacting in the mundane minutia of my life. The whole thing unfolded in rapid slow motion. First there was the pure “international news” item. A place in China most have never heard of. Wet markets and the harsh … Continue reading Living in a global historical event →
I’m no science fiction fan. Hard, soft or medium it doesn’t matter. Anything with the word “fantasy” or a space ship on the cover tires me. My reason is low brow and unliterary: I don’t have the patience to spend too much time someone else’s universe. The voices in the room in my head are … Continue reading Avoiding the science fiction →
The Sri Lanka Airforce website has powerful photos of the current flooding. All taken from SLAF relief flights. The photos make words useless. Even the mundane ones hace a strangeness about them. The expressways standing neat and clean against the brown water. Rivers and the roads merged in the same flat colour. Each roof sticking…
I’m reading Anna Karenina 4 pages a day to avoid reaching its ending. Lost track of when I started. Despite the gaps, I’ve crawled back to the comforting glow of its words. I never expected to read Tolstoy. Thankfully deleting all social media apps from the phone left me with time for better things. Tolstoy … Continue reading Reading Tolstoy during a plague →
Travel related industries have crashed. It’s a safe time to talk about aircraft safety. By taking pot shots at Sri Lankan Airlines which bravely hauls back stranded Sri Lankans from all over the world. The big question : are Sri Lankan Airlines aircraft unsafe due short cuts taken in maintaining their aircraft? A friend claims … Continue reading How safe ...
Sri Lankans are constantly paying a popularism tax. That tax takes many forms. Currently those forms are bitting deeper. Driving up the cost of survival. However it has alway bitten in less obvious ways. Look back into the blood bath of past history for all it manifestations. Despite the variation in the specifics, the pattern … Continue reading Paying the popularism tax →
Pre-COVID, I thought I was an extrovert. It took a plague to kill that delusion. Not having to perform in the world of face to face interactions was a relief. I felt I no longer had to hold my inner breath anymore. I could admit to myself the insanity of the commute. Why go to … Continue reading COVID and the inner introvert →
Nonverbal is the top dog of communication. Posture and facial expression are its power tools. Together they insert the outcomes you want into the minds of your audience. Then it’s easier for them to accept what you wish to and impossible to ignore. The look is about looking people in the eye and always getting … Continue reading 5 easy ...
Part of my childhood is slated for demolition. I grew up in an odd bit of public housing in Colombo called “Summit Flats” – an apartment complex built for the 1976 Non-aligned summit in Colombo. According to the daily noise, Urban Development Authority is demolishing the complex. I’m unemotional about it. “The Flats” was the … Continue reading Summit Flats ...
That’s the correct title for Anna Karenina. I can understand why Tolstoy’s publisher’s marketing people axed the idea. Censorship difficulties. Fear of going viral with the wrong demographic: the church, the Tzar, the Cheka. A woman’s name carries a singular focus along with the chance to slap a pretty face on the cover. Enough to … Continue reading Sex vs ...
I’m not a optimist. I just secretly hope for the best while preparing for catastrophe. Somehow I managed to avoid the mire of fatalist pessimism despite getting a few stains from it. This post on Yudhanjaya Wijeratne’s blog gives me a bit of hope. On a different note, Maithripala Sirisena’s now-famous 100 Days manifesto seems…
The video below represents my generation’s Sri Lankan male culture when created by “good” COLOMBO boys’ schools. It’s American. Yes, it’s modern dance. The costumes are western. Yet being dance, the meaning transcends the costume. Visual swap out the western evening dress for a white “national” kit if you want to localise it. The closest … Continue reading Dancing without ...
Each Sri Lankan new year strains my tolerance for auspicious times. It’s an idiotic practice. Symbolising the madness infecting the island and its culture of the last 40 years. If doing something at an auspicious time is a powerful factor in the outcome of anything, we Sri Lankans should be the most successful people on … Continue reading Are you auspicious now? →
It sprang at me when I snapped off the light after the bed time story. An hot intense blue sky. Ultramarine. Hints of pale pink peaking between the brush strokes. Then fading to a white haze at the low horizon. The ground spreading from it is a warm dark green plane. Its features are a […]
Current vaccines won’t kill the virus or stop COVID’s spread. Instead, they stop the vaccinated from dying. The plague will keep spreading through the vaccinated. After all, its aim is propagation. The host (people) dying is collateral damage beyond the perception (if it has any) of a COVID 19 virus particle. The best we can … Continue reading Post virus ...