And Now We Are 2010

You'd think that my first post of the year might be one of those humorous and stimulating ones, regaling you with stories of my festive period and the incredible things that happened to me and my loved ones.

No, not because those things didn't happen, more because I'm lacking in inspiration. It's an interesting concept to me, not so much about what has happened but more about how a person views the events and is able to narrate them afterwards.

Here I am, back at my desk and about to deal with a bit of a work crisis that has loomed up out of the calm and quietness that was the past week or so. If I had a penny for each time I've thought that life would be easy if it wasn't for staff or customers I reckon I'd have about twenty four pence, sadly no way near enough to retire on.

The Lankanosphere is predictably filled and dominated by posts about the presidential election. Some are interesting but mostly I find myself feeling fortunate that I'm not a voter there. Why? Because neither candidate would be my choice yet not voting seems a waste. I don't envy you lot, I really don't.

I went to Scotland you know. Me and C drove up there to spend a few days with her friend. It was a nice and relaxing time with good company and fun and laughter. Edinburgh was covered in snow like one of those Danish Christmas cards. The drive there and back was fun and hard in a concentrating all the time sort of way.

At one point the driving machine told us that the outside temperature was seven degrees in the negative. The roads were mostly clear and gritted but demanded my attention at all times. The drive from Edinburgh to the motorway was about an hour's worth on an A road that was a mixture of every driving condition you can think of, except heated ones of course.

The snow laden scenery was spectacular. There were so many points at which I wanted to pull the car over, get out and take photographs but stopping on a narrow road in those conditions might have resulted in some fantastic pictures at a very high cost. We made do with C taking some picture on my phone.

The trees looked like intricate sculptures, the heavy snow making each one droop with an eyecatching delicateness. I reckon that God, should he or she exist and should he or she ever get bored of running everything, could easily get work as a sculptor or pehaps even an interior designer.

At one point we drove through a small village and just about every house had ginormous icicles hanging down from the roof. They were deadly and beautiful looking things, maybe like some would describe Angelina Jolie, not me though as she's not my type.

The trip also gave me a chance to fully road test the new Kindle. It passed the extensive range of RD tests with flying colours and I finished my first Kindle book, the third in the dangerously addictive series by the late Stieg Larsson. If you fancy a good thriller chock full of interesting but at times stereotypical charcters, then I'd recommend you go out and buy yourself the first of Mr Larsson's books. Whatever you do make sure you start with the first one and then move through the next two in order, trust me on that one.

Then, we get back and I find out that TMS has only gone and retired. What the WTF? as the youth these days say, when they're not writing Lankan political posts. It sounds to me as if she's about to embark on a journey, not one to Edinburgh in the snow, I mean one of life's ones. I wish her well and thank her for the words and for letting us into her mind, just a bit.

I'll be off then. I really must get on with the award writing stuff too.

PS - It's my birthday, keep it quiet though.

And The Box Contained......

I battled bravely through the mental trials and tribulations and managed to take home the box without opening it and revealing its contents. I didn't even, as Rikaz had suggested, bung the barcode numbers into Amazon's website and deviously find out the answer. Nor did I go down the DQ route and open it using the old "this is all for the greater good, be a man" excuse.

Also, while we're on the subject, I'm not lying to you, I'm not using the widely utilised "write a post pretending I hadn't opened it" tactic when in actual fact I had. The truth is out there and it's in here, truth be told.

I found out the answer on Christmas day. I did a bit of unwrapping, something I'm fairly good at, and discovered one of the best presents I've ever received; an Amazon Kindle, one of these rather fantastical book reader things.

In case you don't know or haven't figured it out a book reader is not a bloke who follows you around reading books out aloud, or even silently. No, it's an electronic device that enables a fellow to buy and store up to about a thousand books or so. Then, that same fellow can read them on a screen, a clever and pin sharp screen that kind of has the solidity to it that the printed word does.

The screen's not like any screen I've viewed before. It's a tough thing to explain, what with my lack of descriptive powers, but it's got a total lack of flicker and movement to it. You know as you read this on a monitor there's a brightness and sense of animation and illumination to it, well the image on the Kindle screen justs sits there in a kind of high definition greyness. I mean that in a good way, it's really rather amazing.

You view a page, press a button to go to the next one and the image changes in an instant, to another page that stays totally and utterly still, stiller than a barman in a Colombo 5 star hotel tomorrow night.

This device has got its own wireless built in somehow, I'll be buggered if I know how it works. What I do know is that I buy a book from Amazon then it gets sent through the airwaves directly to my Kindle. There's no syncing with a computer like with iPods and iTunes and the like. According to the blurb the global wireless thing operates all over the world, probably why they call it "global wireless", so in theory I can even do it in Colombo.

I have to go to the Amazon.com site rather than the UK one, a bit of a bummer I must admit. These American readers lean towards self help, motivational how to beat everyone around you books and novels by chaps called Jack or Chuck. It's only a minor negative and I assume that, in time, Kindle books will be available on the UK Amazon site too. The price of books is about the same or less than the real thing, so I'm not forced into a situation where I have to pay through the nose for the things.

All in all it means I can take a shed load of books around with me in a smallish package wherever I go. This is exciting, good and fun. Of course coffee table books are nigh on impossible to reproduce in this format. Even if the scientists could make a screen that would be colourful and high enough in definition the smell, the feel and the sound of a real book would be missing. Not all books are currently available and most of my shelves full of books on or about Sri Lanka only exist on paper in ink.

At first I thought that reading text on a screen, pressing buttons to turn a page and generally moving around the Kindle would be a big change, perhaps too drastic a one, from reading paper books. I was wrong. After about a day of reading and feeling very conscious of the new medium I realised that I'd begun to do ita naturally and was as engrossed in my e book as I would have been if it were a book book. I've still got some things to get used to but I know that they'll follow.

For example there's no such thing as page numbers as we know them. Why would there be? I can change the size of the text to suit my liking and therefore the number of pages in any given book is a moveable feast. Instead of page numbers there are locations to each point in the book, like Stardates as used by the Captain of the USS Enterprise.

I've been buying books just for the fun of it, the need to chuck them on the Kindle will die I hope, though my bank manager and Mr Amazon are both quite happy about it. I've bought, for next to nothing I might add, the complete adventures of Sherlock Holmes and all the Jeeves and Wooster stories ever written. I'll probably never read the Holmes stuff and I more or less know all the Jeeves stories backwards anyway, but they seemed like good things to have.

Well there you have it, a truly stunning present. You know me, I love a good gadget.

See you in the next decade. May your celebrations be banging and your year be a fine one.

Cous Cous - So Bad They Named It Twice

Hello all, welcome back on this, the first Monday after the season. It's been a good one over in these parts. C's here, A and K have been in and out, and things have been fun, festive and food filled.

Cooking has been a thread, and a pleasant one at that. I'm fond of attempting to do my thang in the kitchen and, even if I say it myself, I'm getting reasonably good at some dishes. Truth be told the dishes I'm better at tend to be the ones that have a second name that sounds like "curry", it must be something in the blood I reckon.

I'll tell you what though, cooking for one, as I usually do, is a pain in the arse. On Wednesdays and alternate Fridays I get to cook for the girls, which is nice though not conducive for stretching my culinary abilities.

The rest of the time, when it's only me hovering round, cooking a decent meal involves a lot of effort for the satisfaction of one person's enjoyment; me. And when it's only me around it doesn't really matter anyway. I could lie, just pretend that the meal was gorgeous and no one would know anyhow.

Having C floating around means that I get to try out new recipes, I can flaunt my prowess on the cooker, flex my culinary muscles and generally make attempts to tickle her taste buds with my delectable dishes. She can attempt to do the same to me, and has.

The other night she made a lamb thing, a tajine I believe it was called. It was seriously delicious, in one of those melt in the mouth sort of ways. But there was a problem. It came in the shape of cous cous, surely the most evil and unnecessary invention ever, second only to the service charge on a restaurant bill.

I can't stand cous cous. It tastes of nothing except the little flavouring that's sometimes added to it in the cooking process. It has the texture of sand and the succulence of feathers. You may be interested to know what it's made from and exactly how it's made, I'm not though.

I say all of this from my position as a general lover of all things carbohydrate. Rice, noodles, pasta, hoppers and string hoppers are some of my best buddies, some of the friends that accompanied me through my formative years. Cous cous is the old enemy, the class idiot that no one ever liked.

C cooked this tajine thing and asked me whether I'd eat cous cous with it. She'd smuggled a packet of the stuff into RD Towers earlier in the week. I felt as if my kitchen had been violated but, even now it lurks in a cupboard just behind me. Knowing my strong feelings C kindly offered to make me a separate portion of rice. That was cruel, I couldn't say yes to it, I know about these women traps. I gallantly said that I'd eat the cous cous, even though I hate it.

We served our food and the cous cous had that dry and dangerous look, as though it was teasing me with little whispered taunts.

"Look at me RD, I'm so nearly rice, but I'm not". I could hear hear it saying.

I put some on my plate, added butter, salt, pepper and sauce, then tasted it. I'd managed to persuade C to add some chicken stock to it in the cooking process so I did quite enjoy the sensation of chicken stock, salt, pepper and the sauce from the tajine, it was only the dry feathery nothingness of the cous cous that was the problem. So much so that I could only eat about two, perhaps three platefuls of it.

It was strangely satisfying. Strange because all the flavouring was delicious, it was just the substance that wasn't. I suppose it was like watching and enjoying a film when the lead role is played by the actor you most detest in the whole world. I couldn't help but enjoy it yet would so much have preferred the lead to have been played by Tommy Lee Jones, Miley Cyrus or one of those other thespians types.

Despite that I shan't be repeating the cous cous thing. When C does leave here I'll probably make her take the packet of cous cous with her, or give it to charity or something.

While I remember why on earth is it called "cous cous'? I mean why the same name twice? It's not New York, which in reality isn't so good they named it twice. Rice isn't called "rice rice", I can't think of any other food that's got a doubled up name. I suppose Reggae Reggae sauce might squeeze in but you're unlikely to have heard of that.

I'll leave you with that question. I've got a sublime beef and potato curry on the go, courtesy of Channa Dassanayaka, and I must go and put the rice on. Mmmmm....that's more like it.

A Very Merry Christmas To You

There we were, me and C, watching TV. I know that rhymes but it was coincidence.

In the middle of some documentary about flies or something, which I was paying next to no attention to as I was busily writing a blog post about old age farts, this advert showed up. For obvious reasons it grabbed my attention.

I felt proud, there were butterflies in my stomach and excitement and joy oozed out of me.

Cool.

Sri Lanka, what a great country to come from.

A happy Christmas to you all, whatever your views, whatever your style, whatever you think of me I wish you the best and thank you for reading LLD this year.

I'll be back soon, with the Lankanosphere awards and more of the same. In fact I'll probably be back before the year is fully done.

RD

What's Happened To Humour In The Lankanosphere?

Seriously.

I've been doing a lot of browsing around the Lankanosphere as research and development for the forthcoming awards and, as far as sidesplittingly funny writing is concerned, there's a distinct lack of it.

The only single blog listed on Kottu that makes me smile, laugh and fart involuntarily is DramaQueen's, but she went and scooped all the awards last year and only writes a post on Thursdays when Halley's comet is clearly visible, occasionally Wednesdays.

There's no shortage of blogs and bloggers who can make me laugh. I've chuckled heartily, like Father Christmas after a night when he's smoked a few too many, at posts by Cerno, Indi, Java and others, but I wouldn't class their blogs as ones that are funny per se.

I've laughed like a demented Hyena leaving the dentist after having some fillings on that troublesome tooth at the back at some of Sittingnut's comments and posts, but something tells me he's not actually trying to be funny.

The "troll" type blogs, those HH Zoltan and Pada Show ones are hit and miss, usually the latter and I fundamentally think that to gain attention by piss taking is quite cheap anyway, far better to create something oneself than mock others.

I've found myself a new funny, no make that hilarious blog. I've been trawling through its archives and I wince and chuckle with equal and copious amounts at just about every sentence. Have a look at it here, I guarantee you'll find it funny. The problem with it is that it's about as Sri Lankan as one of those Great British dishes, like curry.

JCP has morphed into a purely political place and the once clever satire has been replaced by insults and name calling, not my thing really.

I think I'm going to end up with a funniest post award instead of the funniest blog one as I can't find a blog that fits.

So I ask you dear reader. Which Lankan blog posts have you read that made you laugh, that made you pee just a little bit and put a smile on your face in the morning?

Answers on a comment please.

Involuntary Emissions Of A Gaseous Nature

Good morning all on this, the Christmas week, the penultimate week of the decade, unless you're one of those new fangled fellows who believes a decade hasn't begun until the year is one with a one as the last digit in its name.

It's been a while, but events in my life dictate that the time has come. Yes, it's time for a fart post. You see, at the grand old age of forty three I've noticed that the muscles, those in the posterior region, are getting somewhat lazy. This has taken me by surprise for, as you probably know, they're quite well trained and well used, which may actually be part of the problem.

I've discussed the matter with some other chaps of a similar age and they've given firm indications that it's a common issue in us more mature types. Frankly, at the most unexpected and inopportune moments, my inner workings can get together and conjure up a fart out of nothing.

The first time I met C, at Barefoot actually, we were sitting in the garden and had a brief conversation. After some minutes I stood up, laughed at something, as a fellow does, and farted. I had no control over it whatsoever, it just slipped out like one of those phantoms; a ghostly and eerie experience indeed.

When this happens, particularly in front of a sexy piece, the man is left in a quandary. Do you confess to the crime before it's even been discovered, knowing full well that it may not get unearthed anyway? If the wind is in the right direction, quite literally, then there's every chance of committing one of those victimless crimes.

Or do you keep quiet, taking the chance that you might have unleashed a beast and in a matter of seconds all around you will be holding their nose and asking who's dropped one? There's no easy answer, it's a question of judgement that needs to be tackled on a job by job basis.

On this one, in the Barefoot Garden I chose to confess for a couple of reasons. It seemed to me that C would be the sort of woman to be impressed by some fart talk, she had that air of sophistication about her persona. Also I wasn't sure if she had heard the noise or not, so it was better to be upfront than to take the undercover approach. I was right. She laughed and is sitting next to me as I type this, feigning disinterest.

What I've noticed is that as I strain other parts of my body I can inadvertently let rip. Last night I was bending down to get a saucepan out of the cupboard and laughed at something. It was too much strain on my body and I popped out a little one.

The other day at work I was bounding up the stairs with the eagerness of a dog chasing a cat with a bone tied to its tail. As I hit the last but one step I coughed. It was like a car backfiring. The cough made the engine splutter just a bit and the exhaust popped one out. No one was around, I got away with it and continued my bounding happily. The next person on the stairs may have been in for a slightly unpleasant surprise though.

At this age the audibles aren't a worry. All the involuntaries tend to be silent, at worst there's only a small amount of noise and it's usually only heard by me. But what worries me is what might happen with advancing years.

Will I end up as one of those old blokes who strolls around the place farting loudly with every consonant? As I get even older I'm sure that the little muscle control I have in that region is going to reduce. Is this something I should just accept and deal with or can I fight it with muscle exercises or special tablets?

You young kids won't believe that this will happen to you, but it will, you just have to wait about twenty years.

Which reminds me, I must give DD and Java a call.

Rhythmic Diaspora (C) - DO NOT TOUCH

The first line, the name on the address label says the above, without the "DO NOT TOUCH" bit. "DO NOT TOUCH" is the phrase in my head, most definitely in capital letters too.

The address label sits, stuck happily to a box about fourteen inches away from me on my desk. How do I know it's about fourteen inches I can hear you almost screaming in a mad frenzy. I know it because I have just measured it with a tape measure. Accuracy means everything in these parts.

The box is an Amazon.com one and it contains my Christmas present from C. I know this because she told me that she was going to get it delivered to my office. It was my smart idea to put her name in brackets on the delivery address label so that I would see it and realise that it was not for me.

"Just get it delivered to my work", "just put your name in brackets", "no, of course I won't open it, don't be silly", "I'll be so busy that I won't be tempted" were all the things I said to her.

Now, as I write this post, the little box is staring at me, daring me to do the only decent thing. Boxes are made to be opened aren't they? C would never know if I deftly opened it, examined the contents, then resealed it and proclaimed innocence and surprise on Christmas day.

I keep glancing to my right and it's there. If there was a huge big red button with "Do not press this button" written on it I'd have to press it eventually. It's not a question of whether I open it or not, more an issue of whether I can last long enough.

I've already interrogated the outside of the box at some length and extracted no information. If I were a machine, one who understood barcodes, I'd be pretty clued up. I'm no machine though, just a mere mortal. Well, I say mere, but I guess I'm blessed with good looks, intelligence and humour, but I don't like to brag.

The box is teasing me and sneering at me. It knows it's got the upper hand, that it's going to win the battle, that my willpower is about as strong and committed as HI!! Magazine's political column. But it also knows that I'm going to waver, I'll hover on the brink of doing the wrong thing and I'll eventually make the right decision.

What will it be though?