Lazy Long Weekends

Ayi caramba…been a while since I made a post on ze blog. 32 days to be exact. The joys of work, both official and private have been keeping me busy all this time. Now back after a four day long weekend, so thought I’d hack something out.

Most of the people I know packed up the disappeared to various parts of the country, to take advantage of the long break. Unfortunately, many of usual suspects are religious (at least their families are) so were not very keen to go anywhere during Easter. We had been to Nuwara Eliya and back just two weeks before and thought we take a good rest this time. Wednesday night had a small party with the office guys and got hammered, so that was a good start for the weekend. Unfortunately that was about it :(. Rest was spent lazing around the house doing nothing much. Anyways this was the time to be in Colombo, since everybody else was out of it he he.

As I mentioned, went to Nuwara Eliya about two weeks back coz one of my friends opened a hotel up there, called the Chesterfield Hotel. So we went there for the official opening. It’s out of Nuwara Eliya city limits, closer to Hakgala, around 5 km’s along the Badulla road, so the surroundings are great. The Nuwara Eliya town itself has become too saturated with buildings for my taste. I don’t think any of the hotels in town can boast of a good view. The only view they have is the backyard of another hotel. This place on the other hand has a great view of the Hakgala mountain ranges and the forest reserve, and the surrounding areas are not crowded like the town. Unfortunately the long reaching arms of development are rapidly spreading its way towards this area as well. I hope that it won’t destroy the beauty of the area. We had a great time though, and even managed to do a photo-shoot to get pictures for the website, brochures and ads during the rare sober periods. The web site is still going through its final phases, so will put up a links ones the site goes live.



On other stuff happening around the world, the death toll of US soldiers reached around 4000, while marking the 5th anniversary of the war. Heck we’ve been having one for more than two decades and we are carrying on merrily aren’t we? Don’t worry GW, another few more years of war and the people will take it as part of their daily lives and forget you’re the one who caused all the mess.

In good old England there was a cash machine giving out double the money out to customers. If you asked for 500 pounds the machine gave you 1000. The machine must’ve been feeling charitable I guess. Damn, why can something like that happen to me???

Two genius criminalsfrom Toronto decided to rob a store and call a cab to make their getaway. Of course the Police came in the cab and arrested the two dumbos. Lesson to be learned; always bring your own getaway car, preferably a stolen one.

A Dutch shoplifter managed to make a quick getaway with the goods but left an important piece of evidence. His son. The police contacted the idiot through the son but he refused to come get him and told them to contact the mother. Well at least he doesn’t do dumb things twice in the same day. He later gave himself up, probably out of fear the mother of the child would kill him.

Ok that’s enough for the day…Get back to work.

Cheers y’all

Weird Beards

Every little boy eagerly awaits till his adolescent age comes, and the first whiskers sprout from his face, either to boast about it or to start shaving. Now there’s a good reason for them to stop shaving. The World Beard and Moustache Championships. Yes, you heard me right, there is a world championship for this. The only qualification you need is a very long and bushy beard or a moustache.

This event is held every two years, and this year it was in Brighton, England on the 1st of September. The competition is carried out according to three different categories, moustache, partial beard, and full beard, with several classes under them as well. The judging is pretty tough too.

This year the top honors were taken by Beard Team USA, who took away four titles. Phil Olsen of California is the founder and captain of Team USA and according to his blog profile, his mission is to “make the United States a power in international beard and moustache competitions”. I say the best of luck to him.

The first event of this kind was held in 1990, in Höfen/Enz, Germany, organized by the First Höfener Beard Club. The next event was in 1995, and after that an event was held every two years, organized by one of the many Beard Clubs around the world.

After seeing some of the pictures of the contestants I must say that these guys put a lot of effort into the grooming of their facial hair. Most of these are unbelievable. I guess most of them have never seen a razor in their lifetime. These guys can be admired for their dedication and consistency to it. I don’t know about others, but I get pretty annoyed with it if I don’t shave for a week or so. Shaving is a drag but it’s better than having to clean and groom a waist long beard every day.

For those who are interested, check out the following links. Who knows, someone might start a beard club in good ole SL too.

World Beard Championships Official Site
Categories
Pictures of contestants
Beard Team USA Blog
Phil Olsen Blog Profile



Bearded Dudes from here

Who wants to buy a US$100 million skull?

Wondering what to do with that spare US$100 million in your account, well why don’t you get yourself a diamond encrusted human skull to keep by your bedside.

This is the latest piece of art by the artist Damien Hirst and is considered to be the highest valued work of contemporary art by a living artist. The piece, called the “For the Love of God” is an actual human skull that is covered entirely with 8,601 jewels and with a pear shaped pink diamond as the centre piece.

The skull is believed to be of a 35-year-old European man who had lived between 1720 and 1810. Where ever that guy might be I am guessing that he’s a very happy ghost these days. Hey how many guys can boast that his head is stuffed with diamonds and worth the GDP of a small country? He probably couldn’t sell it off for a few cents in those days. Either that or he’s really pissed. Hope that who ever buys it doesn’t get nightly visits from a headless spook wanting his head back.

Prices of artwork like this are skyrocketing because many consider them good investments. In an earlier post I mentioned about the highest valued painting, a Jackson Pollock worth a cool US$140 million.

Personally I find the whole thing a bit ghastly, not the skull, but the prices some people are wiling to pay for these artworks. It’s not like the artist is even getting a cut, mainly because they are dead now. I too appreciate a good piece of art, but I just think they should be left in museums for all to enjoy. The truth is that these are unique masterpieces born out of the imagination of genius minds and something like that would never be recreated again. However I just don’t get how people can spend these amounts on such frivolous things knowing that somewhere in the world people are dying because they don’t even have the basic necessities to survive. It’s a sad situation, but that’s the reality of things. The rich keeps getting richer and the poor keeps getting poorer.


(Source: www.boingboing.com)

Glorified in Death…

I’m sure some of you out there would have wondered what your kith and kin will put on your gravestones when you’re dead and gone. Or for that matter whether they’ll even a put up a gravestone for you. Some people really don’t care about these things but for some it’s a very big deal. The ego maniacs want nothing better than to be immortalized in granite or marble. For them the bigger the gravestone the better they rest in peace.

The Russian city of Ekaterinburg is famed as the most mafia ridden city in the country and a visit to the local graveyard will shed some light on how far they take it. This is where all the Mafia men ultimately end up. However they don’t want to leave the world without making sure the rest of the people remember them. So what do they do? They get life sized marble sculptures of themselves as gravestones.

These life-like engravings or sculptures show them in their bad-ass posses, smoking, or showing off their tats or clutching the keys of their favorite ride. Some even go the extra mile to get a memorial for their favorite car they drove around in. One Father and son mob duo has two life size figures standing side by side, while in the middle a smaller engraving of their Volvo is placed. Some are even buried with their mobile phones, so they can keep in touch with their gangs. Talk about highly inflated egos.

No matter how bigger a memorial you put up for yourself after your dead, it doesn’t change the way you lived your life. Something some people will never understand…

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(Pic. Source: The Mail on Sunday)

New 7 Wonders Announced

As I mentioned in an earlier post, voting was in progress to select the new 7 wonders of the world. After 90 million votes cast by the citizens of the world, the new official list was announced on 07.07.07.

They are:

Chichén Itzá, Mexico
Christ Redeemer, Brazil
The Great Wall, China
Machu Picchu, Peru
Petra, Jordan
The Roman Colloseum, Italy
The Taj Mahal, India
Some people argue that creating such lists are not fair, because there are many more wonders around. That is a 100% true. The world we live in is a unique wonder in it self. However these are man made structure of a bygone era, when they didn’t have the technology we have today.

Just because there is an official seven wonders list it doesn’t mean that we have to forget about the others. This list should be used sort of like ambassadors for all the wonderful things we have in this world, to remind every one to protect them and preserve them for time to come.