Uncertain, to be precise

Listen to this!

2011-02-17T03:34:00.024+05:30

This is where I put the sounds I like. No particular order folks. Please comment, I'd like to know what you think.

A friend of mine who I haven't seen in a long while came back recently and he brought with him this song. I'd never heard of Lisa Hannigan before this, but I'm sure I'll be listening to a lot more from her in the future.

"I Don't Know" by Lisa Hannigan

"Lillie" by Lisa Hannigan

A really great cover of "The Man Who Can't be Moved" (originally by The Script) performed by N Dubz on BBC Radio One Live Lounge. Not to say that the original isn't good, but this version just adds something....different to the song.

Now THIS is a cover of epic proportions I think. At first its just a very good version of The Beatles song "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" but then Prince a.k.a The Artist Formerly Known As Prince (who you wouldn't even notice throughout most of the video if you weren't looking for him) steps up and takes it to another level with his insane guitar skills. Watch and listen, you'll thank me later!

This my brother showed me. Excellent acoustic love song by Natty called "Bedroom Eyes". When I listen to this I feel like I'm on the beach watching the sunset with a million dollars in a brief case by my bare feet.

This next song is called "Roxanne" by Sting and the Police. Its a song that is quintessentially Sting; its not rock, its not reggae, and its not pop, but its all music.

"I see music as one language. If one musical form eats its own tail, it dies. So it needs to be a mongrel, it needs to be hybridized." - Sting

Oh no! Whats this? A party? Yes. "Barbra Streisand" by Duck Sauce. Let the dancing begin.

I'll let the beat explain itself. "One (Your Name)" by Swedish House Mafia feat. Pharell

The Window to my Right a.k.a. Imagination Station

2011-02-07T17:20:00.001+05:30

I have been employed and reasonably content at my current job for the last 6 months. To be fair it is perhaps the only real job I’ve ever had…unless you count being a paper boy or trainee bar tender as being real jobs in which case this is the 3^rd real job I’ve ever had.

I spend my days emailing agents, calling for rates; haggling with suppliers and generally being a corporate whore (don’t judge me you hippies!). Being a corporate whore is, to say the least, tiresome (in a challenging way) and taxing on my patience, of which I have very little, owing to the downturn in the global economy.

The commute to my office takes me from my nice, comfy home in Town Hall to the smog ridden, polluted and gangrenous industrial area of Palliyagoda in Colombo-14. Technically I work within the Colombo city limits and really the distance isn’t a problem. It’s the fucking traffic that kills me. Some days, like today, I can leave home at 8 and be at my desk by 830 with a smile on my face and a skip in my step. But this is a rarity and God alone knows why this happens. These ‘easy’ mornings only serve to dash my happiness and sense of Zen when eventually things go back to ‘normal’ traffic. Usually the bumper-to-bumper traffic starts as soon as I exit my lane on a Monday morning and just doesn’t end until the weekend.

But I’m not going to rant about traffic and the inherent difficulties of being a corporate whore. Today.

As the title of this post suggests, this is about the window to my right. You see, where I sit in my office, I am surrounded by blank walls and senior employees (who I fondly refer to as “Boss” to their great chagrin). To my left sits my immediate superior, the dreaded General “seek perfection in all that you do” Manager. Behind me is the Transport “ha ha ha ha” Manager, who loves to offer his help in a kindly and generous way when he sees that I’m swamped with work or (as is often the case) out of my depth with the subject matter. However now that I think about it, he’s never actually gotten around to helping me do anything. Hmmmmmm…..

Anyway, moving on, in front of me is a blank pale cream-colored (or vomit-colored depending on what color your vomit is) wall and these are 3 of the 4 sides to my little box of allotted office space. As you can tell, goofing off isn’t easy in this situation. And so, without an outlet for these inclinations, I have had to resort to something that I haven’t done in ages so that I can maintain what little sanity I have left; I look out the window to my right and let my imagination run wild.

To be sure there isn’t much to look at outside the window. Right below there’s the outside car park for our office, beside which is a main road. On the opposite side of the road there are a couple of abandoned buildings, a bath kadai , and a building who’s large sign says “Airline Tickets” but whose storefront window displays kitchen utensils and children’s stationary. I have yet to see someone walk into that building.

The traffic on the road outside the window to my right is constantly moving since we’re close to the Colombo Port and once in a while something will pass by that will ignite something in my brain. For example, last week I watched 5 horses in a huge container being driven past. The horses I could see looked…forlorn (is that an emotion horses can feel? Forlornness? I don’t know, but that’s how they looked). Then I saw the reason; in huge letters on the side of the container it said POLICE and my heart went out to those poor horses. Sri Lankan Police are perhaps some of the most overweight, pompous, arrogant children of anal-wart-having prostitutes in any police force and there is no way they should be allowed to look at horses let alone ride them. And so my imagination kicked in…….

I imagined those horses bucking the officers in the nuts, breaking free of their bonds and leading a revolution against all Lankan police. We, the glossy-eyed public, would hear of crazed horses rampaging towards police stations all over Sri Lanka. The police would barricade themselves inside their stations for fear of the herds of angry horses who want revenge for the years of being ridden by these obese farts calling themselves the police. The President (God bless his evil soul) would call a state of emergency and lead a military campaign against these horse ‘rebels’, herding them further and further to the north of the country away from populated regions, cutting them off and spreading anti-equestrian propaganda to garner the support of the masses. In the end there would be a final stand-off, the Police-supporting Government of Lanka, and the downtrodden horses of Sri Lanka. Both sides would fight long and fierce, but in the end the overwhelming military might of the Lankan Government would prevail and the horses would finally be defeated and forced back into the degrading position of being ridden by the aforementioned obese farts. Having won the day, our victorious leaders would declare a national holiday with celebrations and speeches. And during one of these speeches, far from the desolate war zones, the President would be assassinated by a lone gun-wielding donkey…….

It is around this time, when my imaginary escapades are at an end for the moment that I finally look away from the window and smile at my Bosses with a twinkle in my eyes. After repeated episodes like this my Bosses have become slightly nervous in my presence.

As you can see, my imagination is on crack therefore please forgive the above. This is a day to day occurrence with me and its all because of the window to my right. Perhaps one day, some of these imaginary episodes will actually amount to a semi-decent story to tell.

Alright, I suck at endings so that’s it. Peace.

Thank you Leslie Nielson

2010-11-29T11:41:00.004+05:30

I remember a time when laughter was easy to come by. The vendors of this immaterial yet vastly valuable resource were many, but the quality of what they sold varied immensely. The best laughter is got from the highest quality vendors, and Leslie Neilson was among the best of them. He made me laugh so hard I cried, literally. Watching Airplane! Made me laugh so hard and so long that the physical pain of not having enough oxygen in my lungs long enough for my blood to oxygenate because I was laughing so hard made me pass out once. When I awoke, I was relived only for a moment until the mere memory of the movie caused me to laugh again. There are no words sufficient to describe how uproariously, how long and how deeply laughter came from my self when Leslie Neilson was on TV.

I will not recite a list of my favorite moments from the over 100 films and over 1500 TV shows this amazing comedian has acted in, because that would be pointless and tiresome. Instead, I will end here with the memory of those moments when he gave me nothing to think about, but so much to laugh about; when he made me forget for a few seconds that life and the world we live in is full of strife and hardship, but all the while reminding me that there’s more to life than toiling; that there is laughter in life, and that happiness need not be something you keep to yourself, but rather it is something you give to others and thereby increase it in yourself.

Leslie Neilson, you will be missed.

"Like a blind man at an orgy, I was going to have to feel my way through..."

- Leslie Nielson (as Detective Frank Drebin in Naked Gun) Febuary 11th, 1926 to November 28th 2010.

To Infinity and Beyond!

2010-08-26T19:56:00.002+05:30

Water that flows under a bridge seldom flows past that same bridge ever again. And so I will not linger too long on the water that has flowed past, but will do my best to look upriver at what is yet to come and the happiness life has yet to share with me. With this thought n my heart I will start this post.

Tomorrow I have been summoned to discuss what I will do with my life. Who has summoned me? And what say do they have in my life? Well, suffice it to say that they are who they are and that they have a very big say in my life, not because they say so, but because they have earned a say in my life with all that they have done for me.

I have a vague idea what they will ask me tomorrow as I've heard the speech again and again and from both sides; from those who see me as a misfit, as well as from those who believe in my ability to make something of myself.

There has always been 'another chance' and I suppose that kept me moving in one direction, till now. Now that there are no more chances left, I'm left with my balls in my hands and an empty, uncertain road ahead.