Human/Bicycle Conflict

Recently Whacko, Indi and I went on a walkabout of the East Coast. Excited by stories of untouched beaches, exotic seafood and original gangsta’s, we took the night train to Batticaloa. From there we headed down to Arugam Bay, famed surfing location and muse for naming of hip slipper brand.

The beach was good. That’s a blue whale of a compliment since we were sick of beaches by the end of the trip. There was this other bit of beach where surfers gathered called Peanut Farm, which we decided to cycle to. We rented push cycles for the day and set out. Or course I had to spice up the journey by nearly colliding with the rider in front of me and falling off the bike a mere five minutes after we started. Contributing factors were said to be me being a push-bike noob, crappy brakes on said bike and Indi eating people’s souls and hence making me fidgety around him.
Either way, I display my loyalty to gravity in quite a mundane manner.

We get to the place, it’s a beach. Meh. By now I’ve got blood all over my left leg and the palms of my hands are stinging. On top of that my slipper broke a while back so I had to keep stopping every five minutes to adjust it. On the way back we see an elephant standing at a distance from the road. We slowed down to look at it and the thing starts charging. Yes, you read right, no provocation required for this proud member of the Elephant Skinhead Society.

*cue This Is Your Life (Tyler Durden) by the Dust Brothers from the Fight Club Soundtrack*

And you open the door and you step inside.

The Whack and Indi start turning their bikes around just as we shout out the obvious “It’s coming at us!!!”

In my slow motion world of charging elephants and unwieldy bicycles, I sense the presence of a vehicle. A motor vehicle. A truck. I doubt any of us saw it rolling up right in front of our eyes since we were too busy staring at the rabid gargoyle of an elephant.

So in this world of blurry movement and one charging pachyderm, I weigh my options. There’s a bicycle that I’m on. It can probably outrun an elephant but I don’t fancy racing an angry beast in a contraption I’ve only just gotten to know with a knee that creaked and hands still bleeding with cuts. Then there’s this truck rolling to a stop right next to us. The massive brainpower required to compute that a truck travels faster than a bike, and much faster than an elephant, was thankfully put at my disposal by powers unknown.

What happened next was an exercise in efficiency as I lay down the bike, shouted at the driver to slow down and leapt up on the truck’s rear bumper.

I know. Pure awesomeness. Get me a part in a Jackie Chang movie already.

It’s about this point that I realize the back of the truck is full of people yelling something. I hear two people laughing their asses off behind me and I start laughing at what just happened. Apparently the elephant was just crossing the road and didn’t want us in its path. So we waited. About twenty meters from where we were originally. The elephant passed, hung around for a while, hiding in the bushes and occasionally peering out to stare daggers at us and disappeared into the surrounding forest again.

We were left slightly shaken and severely spiteful about elephants. Many were the plans to taunt the ones at the zoo with mice. They’re just wicked, man.

After that we moved up to Pasikudah and Kalkudah through Batticaloa. The food in Batti is awesome. Expect a few posts on http://sinhalayatravels.wordpress.com on the same. Pasikudah was kind of mediocre. Except for the brilliant Kottu offered by Logi in his little shop, the beach was meh. Apparently the place used to have many hotels before the war. Now there were only a handful of guest houses and a whole lot of land leased to various people.

Kalkudah on the other hand was an amazing beach. It’s just north but it is the cool older sibling to Pasi’s little runt of a nose picking brat.
From there it was on to Polonnaruwa, where we cycled around the Kings’ hood. Thankfully this time we got regular mountain bikes. Much riding down the sides of dried up water tanks ensued.

We totally used the tent everywhere we went. Contrary to all evidence, we did not in fact stay at cheap guest houses everywhere. Perish the thought. That tent was a tent that was all the richer for seeing the entire east coast by the time it got back.

On Friday I came back home since I had classes to get to, for which I had much bread to butter with marmite and napkins to fold so I can pin it to my lapel along with the water bottle round my neck. Whack and Indi went on to Badulle alone, and last I heard they were living off the fruits of love in the jungles of Ella.

LIES!

I’ll explain it all later. The TRUTH. Await fabrications from Certain Parties :p

Blood & Dust – II

Continued from here – http://thewhacksterslair.blogspot.com/2009/10/chapter-one-blood-and-dust.html

He ripped his left arm free. And he plunged the dagger into the shadowy black shape eating into him.

Quickly the dagger turned to liquid and shot into his opponent’s body. Inside, it headed straight for the rapidly beating heart. Necroprofanity shuddered. The metallic liquid engulfed the creature’s heart, then contracted. Jamiraquai looked into his enemy’s eyes. They were staring dead ahead, unseeing.

The music had by now died down to a slow thumping noise playing in the background. He pushed Necroprofanity’s body off him and stood up. The wounds were already starting to heal as walked over to the lone bush in the playground, a dry collection of berry trees. He dove behind it and shooed the orchestra of tiny creatures away. They burrowed into the ground and the music stopped. Damn annoying parasites.

He wished he could go back to normal life. But one must be careful with wishes. They had learned the hard way. To twelve year old Jamiraquai it was almost too much to handle. He could remember when there were old people. When they had existed he constantly wished they didn’t. Now, a year later, the world was a mess full of childhood nightmares and the oldest person on the planet was sixteen years old.

They say he was the one who caused all of this. Rumor was that he had wished it, and it had happened. Now he just couldn’t wish it all back the way it was. That was why Jamiraquai had to get to him before anyone else. Bob, the sixteen year old was said to be hiding out inside a record store in what was once called Times Square. Now they call it the Place Where Lots Of Toys Are. Apparently he’s holed himself in there and spends his days listening to My Chemical Romance albums.

Jamiraquai reached into his pocket and felt the small book in there. It was a pocket dictionary. Inside it, someone had written a few verses using a pen. That meant it was probably an adult who wrote it. Must have happened when they first started disappearing. Jamiraquai’s friend, a fifteen year old named L33TH4xor, had given it to him on his death bed, and told him it was the key to returning things back to normal.

But now Jamiraquai wondered, was it worth it? Right now he was in a little town made completely of wooden houses and a bar, just like the old west, sand everywhere and even tumbleweed. A little boy’s fantasy. He could do anything he wanted. No grown ups. Was it worth changing?

————–

Hopefully someone will continue…

An Open Letter to the Temple Near My House

Please go DIAF.

When I lay myself down on my bed after switching off the lights, I mean to sleep. So do most other people on weekdays. I apologize if 11pm seems terribly early to go to sleep to you, but that is how it is with me. I like sleeping at night. I am strange like that.

It might not occur to you that the noises you broadcast through your strategically placed speakers can only be best described as a gang of old men recorded while having their fingernails pulled out. Strategically placed because they ensure the sound is carried to room of every home in the vicinity to terrify countless toddlers.

I am not completely insensitive. I realize that you must carry out your religious duties when the time comes. But why does the time have to be when everyone is trying to sleep? It defeats the purpose of it since they’re all too groggy from lack of sleep to listen to your ranting. “Kept me awake all night” is not a good thing when applied to strange noises at night.

The heat only compounds your problem of annoying people to death. It is so hot at night that ceiling fans merely blow hot air at you. For most, this feels like being inside one of those gimmiky convection ovens with fans inside it. So when people are already cursing nature for pelting them with a heat wave akin to that which can be experienced if one were to make ones bed in a volcano, it is far from advisable to broadcast noises of a bunch of old men throatily singing what sounds like a song Miley Cyrus would write for the new Lion King movie.

Contrary to what I am sure you believe, this will only make them want to kill you. This is a mistake on the scale of poking a bear with a stick while coated from head to toe in honey.

If  the Bard were alive to experience this gift of faith you’ve thrust upon us he would say something along the lines of “My ears! This aural assault on my ears, it chisels away at my sanity! Woe are my senses, for I have cast such a curse upon them! It moketh me at every turn! Woe! Woe! Woe!” before sticking a screwdriver in his ears and dying.

So please, turn down the volume.

Thank you.

On Blogging.

Blogging, to me, is getting attention. To others it is many things, like an outlet for writing, a place to vent or bait to lure little kids. I started a blog out of curiosity. It wasn’t much, I wouldn’t have read it. But then I got the hang of it and people started commenting and stuff. This was like giving a 12-year old a gun, then encouraging him to shoot the neighbor’s dog.

Bloggers are a varied bunch. There’s photobloggers, political bloggers, personal bloggers and even emo bloggers, whose space has been monopolized by The Abyss of St. Fallen. Every niche is filled. I’m not really sure which category I fit into but I am assured that’s a good thing. I have no idea why I’m gesticulating on these things.

Gesticulating.

That word makes it sound like I’m animatedly waving my hands at you while I’m berating you on the virtues of wet newspapers. Just saw that word in the paper today too, can’t remember where.

Yesterday I met up with a bunch of people I met through blogging and just hung out. Dinner and then a few games of NFS and Counter Strike. Papareboy, as usual, managed to make a tremendous fail of himself again. It’s weird, come to think of it. Blogging. I hang out with bloggers more than I do with my “real” friends.

Oh wait, I just remembered why I’m just typing all this.

I’m sitting around at MC waiting for some bloggers.

:/

On Tracing and Anonymity on the Internet

Thought I would make a post on how far someone can be traced when using the internet, just FYI.

Anonymity on the internet is something that a lot of people are crazy over. A lot of people also have very strange ideas about it. Usually stemming from various weirdass movies. I still shudder to think of Hackers(1996). That movie was practically horror to watch for a techie.

When you connect to the internet, you are assigned an IP address. This is so that other computers that want to connect to you can find you. It’s like your home address. When you ask for somehting from a server, it sends the data requested to your IP addy. This address is usually dynamically assigned. Which means that each time you connect, you get a different one. That is, unless your ISP gave you a static IP, which is rare.

This IP address gets noted down in logs in various corners of the internet that you visit. Like your ISP for example. Or even wordpress, where your IP is logged along with your comment. There is more or less nothing else that gets left behind when you use the internet to post something. That is, IF you use it properly. By properly I mean having user accounts which have no real information on you, and you don’t reveal information yourself.

Say you want to blog anonymously. You create an email address just for that, do not use it for any other purposes online, make an account with an online service like wordpress or blogger, again not providing real information, then continue to use just those two without somehow linking them to other accounts you may have and you’ll be fine. Just make sure you don’t make your posts at work or something, where your data has to go through a company server which might have a name assigned to its IP.

That will be more than enough to keep away all but the most serious stalkers off you. Unless you go screw it up and throw a fan at the shit, the only way to find out exactly who you are is to look through your ISP’s logs to see whose account was using the IP you were posting from at that time.

As for people getting to you through your ISP, most ISP’s do not give out information like that under normal circumstances.

Now, the easy way to get around that is to use an internet cafe or something, make sure to not stick to one; Or simply get your hands on a SIM card from some mobile service provider that isn’t registered in your name. Preferably not to anyone you know either. Which more or less means you’ll have to either steal or otherwise magically acquire one. Now just use that and a capable phone to connect to a PC and use the internet through that. That way the assigned IP leads to some other fellow.

At this point you’ll be undetectable to all but God, more or less. But surprisingly, most people have their identities uncovered by much simpler methods. Like reusing an email address for something associated with their name, or commenting to WP blogs through work. Sometimes is as simple as a friend telling someone. Even I’ve been told about a lot of you people bfore I met you.

So yeah, it IS possible to be completely anonymous for all practical purposes on the internet. Just make sure you don’t have anyone literally looking over your shoulder or something while doing it.

Birthday

Yesterday I woke up to a few million messages from various mediums telling me about how I’m older now. Many welcomed me into the twenties, where all is right and wrong at the same time and where teen angst is replaced by a carefree hipster attitude. Pass Go and collect your vintage t shirt. So I’m twenty now. If I were a business I’d be reasonably established by now. But in the capitalism of life I am merely taking the first few steps onto the market of adulthood.

This sudden removal of my ‘teen’ badge is quite alarming to me, since I’m not sure what to do with this new decade. I have a feeling I’ll still proudly proclaim to be twenty, then add a “plus” after, maybe exchange pleasantries then squirt water on someone with a fake flower on my lapel. Hell I might even still be a misogynistic pig.

This birthday is as meaningless to me as calculus is to a dog. Just squiggly. All the free stuff is very much appreciated and encouraged, but age is now a few notches down in my list of things I care about. All remnants of my childhood urge to grow up are now gone.

So watch out.

I have water balloons.

P.S. TheWhackster just called me and asked how to get a memory card out of a laptop. Apparently he failed to wrap his mind around the concept of pushing in said card to eject it. Hopefully he will not kill me for exposing his noobishness.

The State of the Union

Hello all,

How’s it going? Life’s been pretty boring these days. I rarely comment on blogs and feel increasingly… disconnected. Hell, I don’t even get tagged anymore. For example, I didn’t even get the list all the people you’ve met thing. I’ll be all ‘good riddance’ about it but secretly, I’m miffed that I can’t boast about how I know all you buggers.

Anyway,

Staying at home is boring. I’m also lazy so I’m looking for a job much like a trap waiting for a mouse. It’ll happen eventually. Class is boring too, since they’re doing all the stuff I already know. Yet another disappointment is that there are no exams as such. So I can’t swoop in and ace everything and be top dog in class. I have to answer questions, do assignments and actually pay attention in class. The nerve.

Nothing much else happening other than me turning 20 tomorrow. The teen years have been good to me, but I guess it’s time to move on. Not sure what that means but I’m sure it’s appropriate.

I accept cash or credit.

No wishes-only please.

Thank you.

Knuckles

Most of you probably know by now that a bunch of us went to the Knuckles range to go look at some Bat infested cave. The knuckles range was supposed to be “far too windy” and “leeches would kill you, slaughter your family and mess up your saved games in GTA4″. We ignored all this simply because there was no other place to go. So Friday night found Fallen, TheWhackster, HisP, HisP’s friend, ThePuppeteer, Realskullzero, Papareboy, Thushara, Foxhound and me on the train bound for Badulla.

After an uneventful journey to Kandy, we hired a van to take us to a lodge near the trail. We passed through a town called Loolwatte, which was third in line in a valley with Rooflgiriya, Pwndwatte and just before Oomghena. Loolwatte was, contrary to popular assumptions, not filled with nerds from the world over gathering at the tiny village that bore a name with LOL in it. It was, in fact, probably the place where all ghost stories are born. It was just a couple of buildings with a small red bus stopped in the middle, in complete darkness. The wind howled around the bus, whistling and cat-calling at papareboy. The trees made ominous whispering noises and “bugger offfff” noises. After a minimal period spent there learning nothing, we continued down the road.

When we got to the lodge it was just an hour before sunrise so we decided to keep going till we got to Corbett’s Gap. As far as hip clothing stores go, it wasn’t much, but it made a hell of a starting point for a trail. We were supposed to be able to see all the way to China or something, but nature had decided it wanted to keep all humans off of the highest point on the Meemure-Hunnusgiriya road so it threw gale force winds in our faces. So we just huddled in the van and occasionally went out to check on the concrete sign that was there and to flip the birdie to nature.

We got out of the van a little distance away from the gap and started our journey on foot. The entire hike to the cave, through the jungles and up the steep climbs, was pretty tame. Few leeches, better weather than Colombo and nice mountains around. Whacko even managed to charge at a buffalo in the distance, who was looking at us all “wtf you huys doin here on my land, biatches?”. It ran away and then came back again, peeking around the bushes and communicating “You win, you can have my cows lol”. We did not verify whether whacko did indeed try to mate with the nearby cows. The last stretch saw fallen doing a nice Gollum impersonation by going down on all fours to scramble up the hillside.

The cave was cool. But it had a wasp’s nest at the entrance so I stayed the hell away. whacko, hisP, thushara and realskullzero went in and applied a layer of bat excrement onto themselves. Then looked at three big black holes and came out.

The way down was fast, but the first signs of trouble started showing when we reached the flat trail leading from the foot of the mountain to the road. Papareboy suddenly had all his energy zapped out of him for some reason and the puppeteer was falling asleep on her feet. On top of that we had missed our van. So we were stuck in the middle of nowhere without any means of communication, as the telco’s “Islandwide coverage” seemed to think that area was part of the Indian ocean or something. We sent HisP ahead of us with a passing motorcyclist to go call another van to come pick us up. This was when nature decided to screw with our lives again and made it rain. A lot. Even the leeches seemed to have been waiting for us to return from the mountains all tired before jumpoing at us. So we trudged forward slowly, towards Loolwatte, which by now had lost all hilarity in it’s name. Just about the time when we were thinking about how we would freeze to death if we continued up the road in this rain, a van showed up and recognized thepuppeteer and papareboy. We all praised our respective deities and got in.

Our return to Loolwatte was more scary than the first time. We were trying to talk the crew of the bus (who happened to be in the bus) to take us to kandy when they told us that they simply couldn’t. Career at stake and all. They were telling us of a truck that might take us down to kandy when HisP arrived with our van, to which he had caught up to on the motorbike. Apparently the dude had been drunk and raced down the roads.

We all agreed on the fact that none of us had been so glad to see him before that time.

We all rushed in, soaking wet and settled into the van. Leeches were pulled off and papareboys rested. Fallen, too, took a rest from being helped down the mountain like a pregnant woman.

When we arrived at Kandy we found that there were no buses and that the train that was supposed to be at 11 was leaving only at 1:40. So cursing Kandy for being a horrible excuse for a “city”, full of degenerates and headless piano players, we called a cab. The cab turned out to be the same dude who brought us to kandy. We were all best buddies by then and headed home.

Realskullzero and I were awarded by the populace of the world for the herculean tasks of doing an assignment and going to class, respectively. This was after coming home past 2am and and waking at 6am with our legs feeling like they were staging a rebellion against us.

Pictures can be found on fallen’s blog and facebook. Most of the good ones were, again, taken by me.

It was hell to go through, but we’ll probably be going again. Feel free to come along!

Is Chivalry Required Anymore?

So what with all the changes in society we’ve been seeing, and women finally going from being the fairer sex(aka person-lite) to well, normal people, you start wondering whether chivalry is worth anything.

On the one hand it’s cool to appear all gentlemanly and be polite to women. They tell their friends about this ‘nice guy’ and word spreads like wildfire. The corners of the earth are buzzing with news of your niceness and bam! you show up on bike with a leather jacket. You get the tagged with the “Cool/nice/awesome/bad boy” tag, and Sirisena’s your uncle.

On the other hand, besides the fact that I would look smashing in a leather jacket, it’s also preferential treatment to women. Each time I hold a door open or pause before being seated the same thought process goes through my head; “what would Jesus do?”. Probably turn the water into wine and impress the hell out of a woman, most probably, but I digress. Some women defend it saying that it makes the male look good in the eyes of a woman, and the woman gets pampered. Apparently that’s what they call a “win-win” situation. Besides the fact that being pampered is far more desirable than being seen as a nice guy, it also serves no real purpose.

Why should I hold open a door to the lady who walked next to me when I would just shove my best friend aside to get into a place first?

….yes, it’s a slow day at work.