May Day

...when workers around the world stick it to the man. Translated, it just means another day at home where you can sleep till the sun shines on your bum. If you get it on a Friday, it means a 3 day long weekend. The floodgates are open, adventure awaits you.

Unfortunately I’ll be home bound. No plans at all. Maybe a three day nap will be good. Hopefully lots of people will be going out of Colombo and Colombo will be empty.

The beginnings of May day dates back to 1886, when the Haymarket riots happened in Haymarket Square, Chicago, Illinois. This is the general strike which eventually gets workers in the US an eight hour workday. Thank heavens for those pioneers, for winning all those right we enjoy as workers.

On a more loving note, May 1st is also the Global Love day. The Love Foundation celebrates each May 1st as a symbolic day of unconditional love and invites all people and nations around the world to gather together in the wisdom of peace and love.

Apart from the historical Haymarket riots, and the love fest, other interesting things that happened on this day in the past include:

1328 – Wars of Scottish Independence ends with the Treaty of Edinburg-Northampton, whereby the kingdom of England recognises the Kingdom of Scotland as an independent state.

1707 – The Act of Union joins the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain.

1751 – The first cricket match is played in America.

1753 – Publication of the Species Plantarum by Linneaus

1776 – Establishment of the Illuminati, by Adam Weishaupt in Ingolstadt.

1786 – Opening night of Mozart’s opera The Marriage of Figaro

1834 – British colony’s abolish slavery

1930 – Dwarf planet Pluto is named

1931 – The Empire State building is dedicated in New York

1948 – The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is established with Kim Il-Sung as the president.

1950 – Guam becomes an United States commonwealth

1956 – Polio vaccine developed by Jonas Salk is made available to the public.

1961 – Fidel Castro declares Cuba as a socialist nation and abolishes elections.

1978 – Japanese Naomi Uemura becomes the first person to reach the North pole alone by dog sled

2003 – GBW ignores reality and declares major combat operations over in Iraq

I heard that many of the political parties are not organizing any rallies or marches this time around. There’s no point since the elections are over anyway. Well atleast Colombo will be quiet tomorrow.

Yep, power to the people...

If you don’t have anything better to do, atleast go spread some Luuuuv...

Cheers y’all, enjoy the long weekend.

Giant Bunny’s Anyone?

I came across this news story while trawling through some odd news sites.

There is a breed of Rabbits known as the German Grey, which can weigh up to 10kg. A German breeder by the name of Karl Szmolinsky bred in 2006, a 23 pound, (10kg) Giant Grey Rabbit named Robert. According to reports, he had made a deal with the North Koreans to supply several breeding pairs of these Rabbits to help with the food crisis. Seemed like sensible solution, as we all know, bunny’s love to procreate... a lot. Unfortunately all news of the bunny’s halted when they entered North Korea and it’s is suspected that they ended up in some rich official’s dinner table.

There are around 50 different breeds of rabbits apparently, mostly created by various breeders from around the world, through selective breeding or natural selection. From what I can gather, the smallest would be the Dwarf Hotot, weighing around 3lb, and the largest the above mentioned German Grey. Another close contender for the biggest is the Flemish Giant, which can also reach around 10kg’s.



Sounds yummy don’t they?.... Yes...Yes... I know, I’m evil. Wot to do ne?

Giants Rabbits to NK 1

Giants Rabbits to NK 2

List of Bunny Breeds

Robert the Giant German Gery Rabbit

Dwarf Hotot

Flemish Giant

Pics off the Net...

Chilling

First of all, I hope that everyone had a good time this avurudu. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that it will bring about a lot of positive changes to us, as a country and as individuals.

As mentioned, yours truly and three of the old gang went down south to celebrate avurudu, and had a blast of a time. Left home around 8am on Monday morning, and thanks to clear roads, made it to Unawatuna at around 10.30. Holidays like these are the best to travel since many people are out of the roads. We managed to find couple of rooms in a small place that we’ve stayed before, good comfy rooms for a reasonable price. Actually the place was built with people like us on mind, not your ideal family inn, I dare say. The place used to have good food, but not so much this time around. Either they have a new cook, or the regular guy has gone on leave for avurudu.

Times they are changing though. Earlier when we planned a trip, we had about 10 people in the gang, but now, it’s a tough job to find four people. Some have gone out of the country, and some are just plain busy, and the end result is less amigos for our adventures. Another thing I noticed is that our level of alcohol consumption has gone down markedly, when compared to what we used to do earlier. Is this a sign of growing old? O the horror.

It’s also a bit weird to be the only single guy in the lot and listen to the others talking about their wedding plans, something I never imagined that we’d be talking while getting wasted. :O It’s funny how the world turns isn’t it. How things evolve in a short time. I mean, around a year ago, wedding plans were the furthest from anyone’s mind. I think they now consider me a “Special Project” to get off the singles list. Yikes...Scary thought :O.

Getting wasted and soaking in the warm waters of the Indian Ocean, ah the good life. Great while it lasted, but now back to the daily grind. Half the people in my team is off for the remainder of the week, so these couple of days are going to a bit hectic.

Cheers y’all have a good week.

Some pics for your enjoyment :)

Through the looking glass

King Coconuts

Where buildings meets the sea

The sea, rocks and a Tree

Grounded

Put me to water please

The Beach

A tree top perch

Green and Blue

A Lot of Leaves

He Shoots, He Scores

Old Crock

Stoned Elephant

Antiques

Old Woman

Elephants

Antiques

Old Jewellery 

Wonder who ate from these?

A dressing table with some great woodwork

The antiques are from one of those antiques shops inside the Fort.

Oba Samata Suba Aluth Avurudak Wewa!

A new year filled with happiness, health and wealth...

With every bubbling pot of milk, may our little island be filled with blessings from all the gods and goddesses...

Enjoy a tasty piece of Kiribath with those close to you...

Forget about weight watchers and cholesterol, eat all the kevum, kokis, mung-kevum, Aluwa, etc, etc, that you can get your hands on...

Forget all those little grudges with your family members and neighbours, and enjoy the season...

My family background is not Buddhist, so they’ve never been much into observing nekath and all that, frankly I’m not a big believer in all those things. We just enjoy the fun side of it :)

I also want to wish all Christians a very happy Easter!

Three friends and I are planning to go down south on the 13th and 14th, for some fun in the sun and sand. There are two bottles of Absolut, just begging to go down our throats, so who are we to disappoint them? :P

Cheers y’all, have a good Avurudu, and may it bring you health, wealth and happiness.




Pic Source: http://byfiles.storage.live.com

Where have all the Kohas gone?

No, seriously where are they? Haven’t heard a peep out of them this season, except maybe one or two lone rangers. Oh sweet song bird, have you forsaken us also?

I asked the same thing two years back, but this time, I’ve heard them less than that time. Well I guess it’s no surprise. What can the concrete jungles of Colombo offer them? They too must have packed up their bags and gone in search of greener pastures, literally.

Who can blame them? Trees are becoming a rarity in Colombo now, with concrete pillars replacing them. The air saturated with dust and smog, the sweet smell of diesel and garbage wafting around. Even if the Koha’s do sing, how can they even compete with the constant tooting of horns? It’s enough to drive anyone nuts.

Unfortunately, Colombo is a necessary evil. It is the engine that runs the country. An engine which provides good returns to its minions who toil for her.

Call me old fashioned, but I yearn for a beautiful little place somewhere in the hills. My other favourite is somewhere down south with a beach front, but then again, I already live close to the beach and I’m not a big fan of the heat. The hills win by a considerable margin. It won’t happen in the near future, since I’m broke, but it will happen someday. I too will follow the Kohas to greener pastures.

I guess this Avurudu is going to be low key, with all this economic woes hanging over our heads.




Image Credit: www.imagelanka.com

Santa Clause Diaries – Case of the Missing Easter Bunny.

It was a balmy March afternoon in the Caribbean, where my little yacht “Bootylicious” was moored in a lovely little secluded cove, away from the prying eyes of the paparazzi. It is also a great little spot for some swimming too. The warm waters are so inviting. I was throwing a little party in honour of Ms. Tootsie, the newly crowned Bunny of the Year. She is a beauty, that girl. We were having a jolly good time, Tootsie and I, toasting her success.

Then suddenly out of nowhere, something comes flying out of the sky and plonks right into my punch bowl, splattering juice everywhere. Scared the shit out of everyone. They thought they were under attack from one of those terrorist buggers. These humans are paranoid as hell. After calming them down, I managed to fish out whatever it was from what remained of my punch. It turned out to be one of those darned Owls Mother Nature, or Minnie as I like to call her, uses to deliver messages. I mean, she really should keep up with the times. Sometime I feel like I’ve lost my right hand when I don’t have my Blackberry with me. I gave her one for last Christmas, but she just keeps it on her mantelpiece. Ah, some people never change. Anyway, she said it was urgent that I meet with her, so I had to cut short the party and go see her.

She was agitated as hell when i got there. It’s been like that ever since these global warming problems cropped up, but today, she was hyper. It seems that the Easter Bunny has gone missing, and she wants me to find the bugger. You know, that really get’s on my nerves. Just because I stalk little kids and maintain a naughty and nice list, why does everybody think that I can find their missing stuff? Death loses his scythe and it’s “ooh Santa can you find it?” The Sandman loses his sand pouch and it’s the same thing. Bah, what am I? Sam Spade. I was about to say no to her, which is not exactly an easy thing to do, when I remembered that Easter is just around the corner, and if the silly little Bunny isn’t found by then, somebody else has got to do his rounds, and the way Minnie’s brain works, that unlucky bastard would have be me. I am definitely not doing that silly little Bunny’s Easter rounds, so I thought I might as well investigate, before I’m forced to something that I’ll regret for the rest of my life.

Off I went to the scene of the crime, to check the Bunny’s lair. If you thought the bugger lives in a hole in the ground, then you’d be very wrong. The Bunny knows how to live life to the fullest. It’s an old manor house built to Victorian architecture, with hundreds of rooms. Unfortunately he got it onto his head to do some interior decorating and made it into an eyesore. So typical. The silly bugger just loves to live it large, but doesn’t have a creative bone in his body. Don’t ask me where he gets the money from, but supposedly he’s a genius when it comes to investing.

I thought I’d start out by questioning the house staff first. According to the butler, the Bunny went to bed that night, and by morning had completely vanished. In my opinion, the Bunny must have eloped with some chick and probably having a merry old time on some private beach somewhere, but, nobody seems to be interested in that theory. Checked out the master bedroom and couldn’t find anything suspicious. However there was a strong smell of Jasmine in the room. There was something familiar about the smell, but I couldn’t put my finger on it at the time. Checked with the butler, but he says that “sire never used jasmine scent”. It just adds weight to my theory that a chick was involved. The only other unusual incident was that everybody in the house had slept late in the morning.

After a bit more rummaging in the bedroom I came across the best clue of the day. A little bit of sand spread between the bed sheets. This was not your normal everyday sand, but the magical kind. So now I had a suspect. Only one person uses sand like that and that’s the Sandman. Makes sense too. What better way to guarantee stealth, than putting everyone to sleep. No wonder the staff had trouble getting up in the morning. This was going to be easier than I thought.

Next in line was a visit to the Sandman, and I could see immediately that he was a nervous cat, like someone trying to keeping a big secret. He’s not exactly the brightest of the bunch, so planning out a kidnapping is not his forte. I mean, he’s only awake four hours a day, and even then he’s not fully there. Then it hit me. Everything was falling into place and I kind of figured out who the mastermind was. The Sandman was a lackey of non other than the Tooth Fairy. It also explained the Jasmine Perfume, which is her favourite kind. I wanted to confirm my suspicions before I told Minnie, and I was in no mood to entangle with a hot tempered, tooth hurling nut case, so I thought I’d better interrogate the Sandman first, and get all the details from him. I knew he’d be easy to crack. Sleep deprivation, that’s the key. There’s nothing to it if the person tends to fall asleep every 5 minutes. I kept him awake for 1 hour straight, and he began to spill all the beans. These guys may know magic, and act tough, but when it comes to crime, and holding under pressure, they suck.

It seems that the Bunny has been up to no good. He had started out this investment scheme and convinced both the Sandman and the Tooth fairy to invest in it, offering high interest rates. When will people learn that there is no such thing as easy money? He had taken the money and invested in an alleged Diamond mine, which turned out to be full of dirt. Stupid long eared rodent. He got scammed himself. They should have known better than to trust that Bunny. And then they are surprised when he lost the money? What more can you expect from a playboy who loves to paint Chocolate eggs all day long eh?

Now, if you screw the Sandman, nothing much to worry about, because he’s not really the type to come after you for revenge. But the Tooth Fairy? Oh boy, she’s a completely different story. She’ sexy as hell, but her temper is like an erupting volcano. Many a times that the Sandman had to use memory spells on little kids after she scared the shit out of them. Several years of anger management therapy, but I still don’t see any improvement. She’s someone that you do not want to mess with. You screw with her and she’ll rip open several new holes in your nether regions. According to the Sandman, she was really pissed with the Bunny for losing her money and had come up with the plan to teach the Bunny a lesson. They had sneaked into the mansion that night and the Sandman had used his sand to put the Bunny and the rest of the household to sleep, and the Tooth Fairy had whisked him away to her place, and put inside one of her dungeons to rot forever. I can tell you this, I was not the one going over to her place to rescue the bunny, and face her wrath. Let Mother Nature handle her, after all, she’s her daughter. I gave all the details to Minnie and told her where she could find the Bunny. If she wants him, she can bloody well go and get him.

Well another case is closed, and I’m back where I ought to be. On board my little yacht, cruising around the Caribbean. Come to think of it I’m getting quite good at this sleuthing business. Maybe I should think about starting a PI business. Hell, I keep doing it anyway so why shouldn’t I get paid for it. No more freebies. Last I heard, Minnie intervened and got the Bunny released from the clutches of the Tooth Fairy. However, it was under agreement that the Bunny will pay all the money he owes, even if he has to sell of everything he owns. Oh well, a happy ending I guess. The Bunny will do his Easter rounds and I’ll be partying with my other Bunnies, wink wink. Ho Ho Ho...




Image from www.iclipart.com/