The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 3,700 times in 2010. That’s about 9 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 6 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 121 posts.

The busiest day of the year was January 22nd with 189 views. The most popular post that day was Stealing my roof and calling it gratitude!.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were kottu.org, facebook.com, blackexists.wordpress.com, themadcatwoman.blogspot.com, and chavie101.blogspot.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for rain, why do good people die, frilly panties, what language do you think in, and why good people die.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

Stealing my roof and calling it gratitude! January 2010
7 comments

Why do good people die? June 2007
14 comments

What Language do you think in? November 2008
17 comments

The guy in frilly panties has his mouth full…! August 2009
16 comments

The case was brought before a judge. After listening to the passionate presentation by the lawyer, the judge banged his gavel declaring, “Case dismissed!”

The lawyer immediately stood objecting to the ruling saying, “Your Honour, How can you possibly dismiss this case? The Christians have Christmas, Easter and others. The Jews have Passover, Yom Kippur and Hanukkah, yet my client and all other atheists have no such holidays.”

The judge leaned forward in his chair saying, “But you do. Your client, counsel, is woefully ignorant.”

The lawyer said, “Your Honour, we are unaware of any special observance or holiday for atheists.”

The judge said, “The calendar says April 1st is April Fools Day. Psalm 14:1 states, ‘The fool says in his heart, there is no God.’ Thus, it is the opinion of this court, that, if your client says there is no God, then he is a fool. Therefore, April 1st is his day. Court is adjourned.”

This one seemed just too good not to share!

For the past few days the news media has been chock full of various articles, opinions and letters regarding what is known as the proposed 18th amendment to the constitution of Sri Lanka. The merits and the demerits of the proposed amendment have been discussed, praised and vilified ad nauseum in every forum from the parliament to the street corners.

while all this is well and good and also part and parcel of a proper democratic system that should tolerate the discussion of various differing opinions, there’s a remarked lack of discussion of another event that will play a very important role in making placing 8,9,10 in the history books.

The reason the amendment will even have a hope of being passed into the law books today is because a section of the opposition members have pledged their support to the Government and their proposal. Without such an expression of support, which has led to the garnering of a 2/3 majority in Parliament, this amendment would probably have ended up as just another fanciful dream of a ruling regime.

Now this is where I would like to step in and make my feelings known, even if it is just on an obscure blog such as this.

At the past general elections, I personally voted for the opposition in the hopes of having a controlling influence in parliament and also with the hope that at some of sort of checks and balances would be in place to control the government from passing laws which are detrimental to my point of view.

While some people may think me quite naive for actually expecting a politician to stick to his promises and have some sort of ethical backbone, I actually exercised my voting privilege with the expectation of the person I was voting for would prevent the 2/3 majority being given to the government. But now it seems that the ground situation has taken a drastic shift.

Opposition MP’s who were voted in on the platform of opposing the government and striving to bring about a change in the way things were being done, have suddenly done an about face and are expressing their exuberant support to the very person and government they campaigned against!

What bloody right does an MP have to suddenly shift his allegiance after being voted in on the hopes of the common man who wanted a change? I mean, if I wanted this government to have a 2/3 majority and do whatever they please, I would have voted for one of their candidates instead right?

Having being given the impression that my voice would be heard in the highest of legislature, I suddenly find myself carried over to the ruling party, thanks to the spineless vacillations of the opposition MP’s! My vote, which I actually do value quite a bit, has basically been taken from an opposing position and perverted to one that supports the person I voted against! How is this democracy??

Right now as I sit at my desk and read the various SMS’s that keep flowing in to inform me how more and more opposition MP’s are kissing the feet of the ‘King’, I feel nothing but a sense of betrayal and anger that nothing is being done to prevent my voting rights being perverted and misused by a bunch of back-boneless tarts!

I guess in essence, what I have been shown by the members of the so-called highest legislature in this country, is that my vote is worth about as much as a piece of paper that someone would wipe their butt with!

So for me, 8,9,10 will definitely go down in my personal history books, as the day my vote became worthless…

For the past few days the news media has been chock full of various articles, opinions and letters regarding what is known as the proposed 18th amendment to the constitution of Sri Lanka. The merits and the demerits of the proposed amendment have been discussed, praised and vilified ad nauseum in every forum from the parliament to the street corners.

while all this is well and good and also part and parcel of a proper democratic system that should tolerate the discussion of various differing opinions, there’s a remarked lack of discussion of another event that will play a very important role in placing 8,9,10 in the history books.

The reason the amendment will even have a hope of being passed into the law books today is because a section of the opposition members have pledged their support to the Government and their proposal. Without such an expression of support, which has led to the garnering of a 2/3 majority in Parliament, this amendment would probably have ended up as just another fanciful dream of a ruling regime.

Now this is where I would like to step in and make my feelings known, even if it is just on an obscure blog such as this.

At the past general elections, I personally voted for the opposition in the hopes of having a controlling influence in parliament and also with the hope that at least some of sort of checks and balances would be in place to control the government from passing laws which are detrimental to my point of view.

While some people may think me quite naive for actually expecting a politician to stick to his promises and have some sort of ethical backbone, I actually exercised my voting privilege with the expectation of the person I was voting for would prevent the 2/3 majority being given to the government. But now it seems that the ground situation has taken a drastic shift.

Opposition MP’s who were voted in on the platform of opposing the government and striving to bring about a change in the way things were being done, have suddenly done an about face and are expressing their exuberant support to the very person and government they campaigned against!

What bloody right does an MP have to suddenly shift his allegiance after being voted in on the hopes of the common man who wanted a change? I mean, if I wanted this government to have a 2/3 majority and do whatever they please, I would have voted for one of their candidates instead right?

Having being given the impression that my voice would be heard in the highest of legislature, I suddenly find myself carried over to the ruling party, thanks to the spineless vacillations of the opposition MP’s! My vote, which I actually do value quite a bit, has basically been taken from an opposing position and perverted to one that supports the person I voted against! How is this democracy??

Right now as I sit at my desk and read the various SMS’s that keep flowing in to inform me how more and more opposition MP’s are kissing the feet of the ‘King’, I feel nothing but a sense of betrayal and anger that nothing is being done to prevent my voting rights being perverted and misused by a bunch of back-boneless tarts!

I guess in essence, what I have been shown by the members of the so-called highest legislature in this country, is that my vote is worth about as much as a piece of paper that someone would wipe their butt with!

So for me, 8,9,10 will definitely go down in my personal history books, as the day my vote became worthless…

For the last couple of days I’ve been seeing a lot of uproar in the newspapers and on the net about a certain group of people sacrificing some goats and chickens in order to appease a certain deity. And to tell you the truth, I’ve been left a bit confused as to the whole hullabaloo.

Apparently, a certain Hindu Kovil has a traditional celebration (For lack of a better word), in which the devotees make animal sacrifices to the resident Goddess. This has been going on for many years without anyone raising any issues about it. But this year, certain members of the public and a section of the Buddhist clergy have decided that they need to put a stop to this ritual.

Naturally, this has led to a certain amount of ill feeling and tension between the two groups and also in the immediate area of the Kovil, leading to the authorities having to call out the riot police in order to prevent the situation from escalating.

Now, as for me, this is where the confusion starts to set in. I thought that we were living in a multi-cultural, multi-religious country? A country in which the constitution, while giving prime position to Buddhism, still allows for the free practice of other religions.

I do understand that some people may be quite shocked at the thought of animals being sacrificed to the Gods in this modern day and age, but then what about the hundreds if not thousands of cattle, chickens and fish that are ‘sacrificed’ on the alter of our appetites on a daily basis? I seriously doubt that many of those people who are crying copious tears about this ritual can honestly claim to be vegetarians!

I believe it says somewhere “He who is without sin, cast the first stone”

IMHO, if it’s alright for some of us to pay people to catch, kill and butcher animals just for the satisfaction of eating their flesh with much smacking of lips and sucking of bones, then it is perfectly alright for others to kill other animals in the name of their religion. After all, what’s the difference, both practices end in dead animals ya?

Now some may argue that animals that are killed for food purposes are not treated in the ‘barbaric’ manner in which the sacrificed animals are killed in these rituals, but I beg to differ, all it will take to put this argument to rest is to take a tour of the nearest abattoir and see how exactly your meat ends up in your plate!

But what really gets my goat (Excuse the pun), is the audacity of these protesters in thinking they have the right to demand that another religion bows down to their petty moral standards! Who or what gives them the right to do so? If they believe they actually do have the right to express their outrage, then IMHO, I too have the right to protest in front of the Sri Dalada Maligawa during the Perehara because I believe it involves extreme cruelty to elephants and should therefore be stopped with immediate effect! I would love to see what the reaction to that would be.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, we all need to be a little more tolerant of other people’s beliefs and practices. They may not sit very comfortable with us, but if we appreciate Sri Lanka for what it is, we need to have an open mind.

For the record, I’m not a Hindu or Buddhist, nor do I practice ritual sacrifice of animals, but I believe as a citizen of this country I have every bloody right to kill a goat if I feel like doing so!

Why do we instinctively set ourselves up to take a huge fall? Common sense and experience should have taught us by now that the odds of everything we touch turning to gold is abysmally minute.

But still, we hope, we dream and we put our hearts and our spirits out their in the firing line time after time.

Is it something in our genetic make up that makes us do that? Sometimes I think we humans are hard wired for hope. No matter how many times we get knocked down, no matter how long it takes for us to recover from the fall, we still seem to be able to muster the capacity to hope again and again.

There are times when I think that maybe it would be better to not have the capacity to hope. It would save us so much heartache and misery if we didn’t have the ability to generate a sense of optimism towards the future.

I mean, if we didn’t start the day thinking that things are going to work out just great, we wouldn’t be put in a position of being disappointed when something goes wrong ya?

Imagine if I were to start the day thinking that things are going to go horribly wrong for me somewhere down the line, that something bad is bound to happen to me during the day, I won’t be upset when I get a flat tire just as I need to be somewhere urgently. Makes sense doesn’t it? Why be upset, after all, I was expecting this to happen.

Now I can hear some people out there saying ‘but what if nothing bad happens?’. Well, if nothing bad happens and my day goes along as a very average one, that would be an emotional bonus for me ya? Instead of suffering the crushing sense of defeat, I would end the day on a happy note because things went better than I expected.

On the other hand, I’ve been doing some reading up on the whole subject of positive thinking and the huge effects it can have on your whole life and future. Everything I’ve read expounds the idea that being positive and optimistic can in turn generate good things in my life. It also says that if I’m negative and cynical about life, I will in turn, attract negative stuff into my life.

So, on one hand I have the option of being cynical, pessimistic and negative but never run the chance of being disappointed or I can be positive, optimistic and gung-ho but run the chance of being crushed when things go wrong.

Maybe, just maybe, life is all about reaching for that handful of stars, stretching ourselves to the breaking point to reach ever higher…

…Never knowing that the stars we’re reaching for are just reflections on the surface of a shallow pond, and just as we think we’ve made that final leap and grasped that fistful of stars, we slip and fall, ending up with a mouthful of mud.

Apparently in a land far, far away, there lived a very normal, average kind of guy. Now this guy went about his daily life without harm to anyone and did his best to get along day to day.

One fine day (or not so fine day), a group of thieves decided to break into this guy’s house. Now these thieves were a really vicious sort of characters and the poor guy was pretty helpless to stop them.

For his good luck, a passerby who happened to see what was happening, decided to give him a helping hand and came to his rescue. He thrashed the thieves quite soundly and chased them away in style before restoring the house with all its contents to the poor average guy.

The average guy was really happy and very grateful to the passerby, but the Good Samaritan brushed off his thanks and claimed he was only doing his civic duty by coming to his rescue.

Once again everything was bright and sunny in the average guy’s life. But things were not to remain that way for too long.

After returning home after a tiring day at the office, the average guy was shocked to find that his precious home, that was saved by the Good Samaritan, was missing it’s roof!

While he was standing there speechless, guess who happens to pass by? The Good Samaritan of course (sort of expected that twist, didn’t you?). Seeing the average guy standing there the Good Samaritan asked him what seemed to be the problem, to which the average guy pointed out that someone, seemed to have stolen his roof.

The Good Samaritan laughed heartily at this and told the average guy that he was mistaken; after all, there were no more thieves in the area. They had all been chased away by him. Having thought about this, the average guy asked the Good Samaritan what he thought had happened then.

The Good Samaritan at once gave him an explanation. He said that he was a little short of money and had decided to sell the average guy’s roof in order to raise the money. The average guy was shocked at this explanation and asked the Good Samaritan why he thought he could sell his roof without asking about it first, and wasn’t that in fact an act of stealing?

A look of deep hurt crossed the Good Samaritan’s face immediately. This was soon followed with an expression of anger. In a very threatening voice he asked the average guy if he had so easily forgotten how when thieves broke into his house it was the good Samaritan who saved the day?

He went on to point out how, in his opinion, the average guy was an ungrateful ingrate. After all, how could the average guy find fault with him for selling his roof when the whole house was in fact saved by him?

The Good Samaritan walked away muttering under his breath about how people should learn to be more grateful to their saviours as the average guy gazed after him in shock.

So what do you think? Was the average guy in fact being ungrateful at pointing out how wrong it was for the Good Samaritan to steal his roof, or was he right in being upset about it?

Hi there past me,

I know you’re going to be pretty cynical about getting a letter that claims to be from your future self, but before you sneer and chuck it in the dustbin, take a chance and read it. Unless of course you’re too scared to see what it says! (See, I know exactly how to get you interested)

Since I know you’ve got a pretty short attention span (That doesn’t get any better with time, trust me on that), I’ll give you the plot line in point form OK?

Firstly, I know the O/Levels don’t really mean much to you right now, but they certainly will to lots of others in the future. So remember, on the day of the art paper, don’t skip the last paper to go chasing after that girl from All Saints College, especially when it involves following her bus all the way home on a Chappy with 2 other guys! It’s not going to go anywhere except to get you an ‘F’ for the day’s effort.

A year’s time from now, the Colombo stock exchange is going to do a presentation on the job prospects available with them, and you’re going to fall hook, line and sinker for the dream of having your own money. It sounds so easy ya? Quit school and start working. What’s so hard about that? But maybe you should think twice about it, cos you’re not going to get that job. In fact the first job you do get after dropping out, involves unloading lorries for 750 Rupees a month with a tea allowance of 10 Rupees a day thrown in cos the boss feels generous!

You’ll go on a double date with your best friend when your 20. Remember, just cos he ends up kissing your date, doesn’t mean you have to kiss his date. That one kiss will lead to so much more and end with a broken heart that’s going to take years to get over. But i still think it’s worth it, cos it’ll be your first experience of real love.

By the time you hit 21 you’re going to have had the same number of bike accidents, but please, don’t stay away from the bikes. Enjoy the ‘burns’, hit every ‘gap’ that looks scary and ride on the wrong side in traffic. The bikes are something that will give you a rush like nothing you’ve ever experienced! Believe in the saying, live fast, die young, and have a good looking corpse.

Only one of these 21 accidents will be serious, the others will just leave you with a few scars that’ll make you laugh when you get to my age. One piece of advice though, you can avoid the one serious accident by NOT trying to bump 2 guys off their bike in front of the Town Hall. They’re the air force commander’s escorts, dressed in civvies, and trust me; they will try to kill you!

As for sex, believe me, it is as good as you imagine it to be. Don’t think all girls love to do it the way the girls in your favourite porn movie do, but trust me, some do. Just remember one very important thing when your in bed, God didn’t give you a tongue just for talking!

As for the booze, the smokes, the joints, the parties and the fights, enjoy them all. You’ll have lots of opportunities to mess with the harder stuff, but just stick to experiments. Try anything and everything once!

Don’t worry too much about your hair. You’re going to have shoulder length hair for a while and then around my age, you’re going shave it all off again.

You’re going to make a lot of mistakes in your life, but I’m not going to tell you how to avoid them, cos each and every one of them will make you who I am today.

So that’s about it I guess, you can now sneer and chuck this away. I know you’re going to do that and live your life like there’s no tomorrow and this letter couldn’t have possible come from the future. After all, you’re gonna live forever right?

I mean what could be simpler than imagining a country full of blind people who naturally make the one person who can even partially see their king?

But as of late, I’ve been thinking that whoever came up with this saying was in a way foretelling the future of our beloved paradise isle. After all, people would have to be blind (And stupid too) to continue to vote in and defend candidates who have openly flouted all rules of law and order ya?

But that’s exactly what happened in the most recent elections that we had. Candidates who made death threats, burnt down campaign offices and even one who cost the country billions of rupees by trying to fly, were felicitated with a fervor approaching mass hysteria and then given the majority mandate to govern this country!

In fact, judging by the results of the elections, it seems the majority of this country’s voters are more than ready to be blind to the violence and corruption that has become part and parcel of the present political climate of Sri Lanka.

But what about the one eyed man who was supposed to be king of this land? If the saying were to be complete, he would be on the throne and leading the people towards safety and prosperity ya?

Unfortunately, this is where the saying went wrong as far as Sri Lanka goes. Because in the ‘Paradise Isle of the blind’ being able to see, even with one eye, is the most dangerous thing. Anyone who has the ability to see and comment about the violence and corruption, who can see the yawning precipice at the end of the road, is at risk of being branded a liar and a traitor.

So, in today’s context, I think the age old saying needs to be modified a tad to be passed on to our future generations, “In the kingdom of the blind, the one eyed man is a traitor”.