The Lair

There is a tradition in Sri Lanka which says that most events of portent need to be undertaken at an auspicious time. Said auspicious time (and day and even year) is determined by a bunch of astrologers. Or so I think, I’ve never actually been very interested in the inner workings of figuring out a good time to step outside your household, have a bath etc etc (yes, it does get that detailed at the start of each year). Although most of those traditions are dying out (or just plain being ignored because no one can be arsed to keep proper track of time) – one important aspect of this auspicious time business still remains in full force.

You just gotta get hitched on a good (as arbitrarily decided by some mouldy astrologer type) time and day.

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Well, if you wanted a reason why I’m no sports pundit – this would be a good one. Crowing about someone else’s misfortune is bad form; but given some of the dismissive English press treatment of the SL test team, a drawn series is pretty sweet. Not quite the Aussie beaters now, are we?

A few meetups since I blogged last… perhaps most intriguing (or unusual) was the Dapper Drake Release Party at Excel World. A slightly late appearance at the venue and for a laugh, I decided on a spot of stalkery. A relative advantage that I thought I possessed was that I had never been seen by the people there before – but I knew what they looked like. Logged onto the IRC channel – the free wifi was pretty darn fast too. Unfortunately, I was spotted and recognized by Anu and thus had to abandon my IRC stalkery midway. Foiled! It’s worth adding that I devised a much grander plan; but none of the other conspirators actually could be bothered to drag themselves out on a Sunday afternoon, so that plan pretty much collapsed onto bed and fell asleep.

The LUG meeting release party as a whole was rather strange to me – just a bunch of people clustered around a few tables with notebooks… the free wifi was good, but I suppose the biggest problem I had was that the place was an open area food court – lots of noise, passersby staring curiously at a bunch of people in funny tshirts and the lack of a real agenda. Free CDs by the boatload, but everyone (with the possible exception of myself) already had a Linux install running. Ever the person to make a fuss, I booted into Windows XP and plugged in my nice, large and comfy Microsoft USB mouse into my notebook. None of this Linux geekery for me – I use teh Windows. Somewhat shockingly (given the lengths to which the two camps seem to take their animosity at times), no one broke out the tar and feathers and tried to run me out of town.

Perhaps I was just sleepy after a marathon War3 session the night before…

You’re not in SL for real till you’re stopped at a checkpoint and asked for your ID card. Which is fine, except that my ID card is 14 years old and the plastic on either side is peeling off. Oh, and the letters are faded and nearly unintelligible. In short, it’s probably the worst possible means of establishing that I am whom I say I am – and the guys in the checkpoint spend long, nervous minutes staring at it before letting me go.

A while ago, I figured that speaking in Sinhala to the army chaps manning the checkpoints was the best way to get through without hassle. Clearly, since I don’t have a winning smile to fall back on – being charming is my best defence against being strip searched by random sadist security folks. So far, it’s working out ok.

Welcome to Colombo.

Been here a few days now – already annoyed with the craptastic monsoon rains which threaten to drown everyone in the city in a deluge of muddy water… but the sun and heat which intersperse those rainstorms makes it all worth while. You don’t get this heat and humidity anywhere else (ok, so maybe you do – but not exactly this level of noise, smog and errant thuggy three wheeler guys to go with it) so I’m soaking this all up.

Further proof that everyone in Colombo has fewer than 3 degrees of separation – had to go to my aunt’s place to be a witness at some document signing rigmarole. Inevitably, everyone else seemed to be operating on BPST (Brown Person Standard Time [thanks, Sin]). An hour and a half after the scheduled time, the notary and the other people show up. The moment the lawyer/notary was introduced, I figured that I had seen her somewhere before and it was over a chessboard (yeah, used to play chess in school. I was always this geeky). Random lawyer turned out to be someone I had last met 15 years or so ago. Dammit. That’s Colombo. Exchange of email addresses and random “so where did person X, Y and Z end up?” queries later, I was on my way.

The first meetup of the original crowd has been scheduled. If you’re one of those and you haven’t gotten an IM or phone call from me yet – you know how to get in touch… Please do.