Days of the Dial-Up

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Remember dialing all those numbers, then the weird connecting noises, finally the ability to download a song of about 4mb from roughly about 30 mins, yes people those were the days of the dial-up. I remember how I used to constantly monitor the clock to look at the elapsed time to make sure that I don’t use the phone line too much generating thumping phone bills.

When we got internet to our house I was just 12 (1999/2000). That was supposedly to help my father to send his office emails. But he very rarely used the computer at home let alone send emails. So this new technology was kind of “all mine”.

Those were the days before youtube and the concept of social networking had not touched the lives of people, and navigation on the world wide web was a structured and a well planned affair. I used to prepare a list of all the things I wanted to learn and search all those stuff every time I connected, and mind you that list did not contain any of the random crap that I go through mostly these days. Yup that list was a guide for a quest of knowledge and contained sites related to astronomy, automobiles, and howstuffworks.com was one of my favorites (Nowadays a rarely go there). And to save on the call charges I used to save the pages that I found interesting first and then read them properly after disconnecting. (hmm those were the days)

Most of the internet access was after 9pm coz after that time the call charges with Sri Lanka Telecom was cheaper.

And then there were the emails. At first I didn’t have my own mail address so preferred to use my father’s. All mails were handled using Outlook Express and that didn’t have spam filters those days( hopefully they have them now). So it took a while for all these mails to be received. Gosh was I stupid, the first “You have Won” emails really excited me.

The mail box size was a mere 4mb( can u even believe it 4mb?????) and once my friends started forwarding emails this 4mb was exceeded everyday. And when my father got that all important email from office it got deleted from the server since mail box size had exceeded. (then came the lecture about using technology in the proper manner). So I made up my mind that was the time to get myself a new email account (as if I had to receive very important “emails”).

And after A/Ls in 2006 I got ADSL and the rest is history.
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The Spectators Curse

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It really hurts when you sometimes really look forward to something and plan for something which is not in your control and when that thing goes wrong. You feel that you wasted a lot of time and effort for that. Well leaving all serious things aside, cricket matches tend to lead to this outcome a lot.

When I was young I use to hurry from school hoping and praying for my school van to move faster to get home quickly to watch the cricket match on tv, and then when I get home I find out that there is a power cut, or just when I turn on the tv a wicket falls (this happens a lot when I wait a bit too long to go for a lecture at the university) or the opposition are well set for a victory. (Oh the feelings of disappointment)

Last Sunday was a perfect example for what I call the curse of the spectators. Me and a couple of friends went to a friend’s place in Deniyaya after finishing the dreaded exams. All of us are avid cricket fans. So after much effort we managed to find a color tv and an antenna and a booster (just in case) to watch the World T20 finals.

Then when we got to Deniyaya we spent over two hours moving, rotating the antenna around to catch Channel Eye properly. One guy watched for the quality of the channel while others moved it. Phrases like “than onna hariyagena enawa”, “aiyo onna aaye upset una”, “thawa poddak oya paththata”,”naa oy oya paththata neme anith paththata” came constantly out of the quality controller’s mouth.(it was only later we found out that the match was being telecasted on rupavahini which has far better reception than channel eye, in outstation areas).

All along we were discussing on the strategies Sri Lankan team should take to win the match. We all agreed that batting first would be the best thing to do, and decided any score over 140 would surely be defendable because our bowling was very good. We talked in length why Chris Gayle won the toss and decided to bowl first in the semi finals (gosh wasn’t he stupid?). And specially about Dilshan and his performances. (we also formulated a few theories on how he managed to be so consistent)

By 7.30p.m. we were already with food, couple of mega bottles, water and all the other little things.

What Happened : Sri Lanka batted first made 138 and still lost the game.

A classic case of the spectators curse.
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My Favorite Super Hero

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I am one huge movie fan. I am one of those guys who go through all those reviews and critics and trailers trying to find out which movies to watch. Then after watching a movie that I think is great I scan the reviews and critics again to see whether there are others like me who think the same about that movie.

As of lately I have seen a flood of superheroes coming to our lives through the silver screen. Now Hollywood is a multi-million dollar business so they won’t give all these Super Heroes if they didn’t bring in some heavy cash. The superhero movies are doing so great that even spoofs are coming on to the big screen.

So think about it how do all these superhero movies do so well in Box Office? How do they create a buzz? Most of all how do they get so many viewers? What do all these “Super Heroes” have in common?

Well may it be the wall crawling Spider Man or the high flying, x-ray visioned Super Man or the knight of darkness Batman they all have one thing in common, yeah you guessed it THEY FIGHT CRIME.

Today we live in the fast moving, ever changing, highly competitive 21st century where we sometimes have to do morally questionable things (which are not illegal by the way)to be competitive, but deep down inside we still have the ability to distinguish the RIGHT from WRONG, the GOOD from EVIL. Well it is this thing deep down inside that keeps our humanity intact. We still remember those bedtime stories our parents/ grandparents used to tell us. Remember those stories about the mighty kings, Robin Hood, William Tel? Wasn’t there a time we wanted to be like those legends?

Well now, we have grown up we have accepted reality, and most of us lack that courage to be the man who changes the world. But still somewhere within us we still want to be that man, who fights the corrupt system, deals with the people who we think bring unfairness and evil in to our life. This is where the super hero comes in. He’s that man come to life. That’s why we love those super heroes so much.

Why are most superheroes masked? Well you’d say that it is to protect their privacy and to protect their loved ones from coming to harm. But just think of it this way, isn’t it easy to place our face within that masked face. With a masked face it is much easier to fantasize ourselves as the super hero. We forget all our problems, those misunderstandings at the work place, the exam that you have to sit for which you have not yet studied, we forget about all of them embrace our dreams. For a brief period during the movie and after that (just think of the times you fantasized in your alone time about various parts in movies) you are helping people, changing the world and most of all feeling satisfied with your self.

Well this is why I think Super Hero movies are doing so well today, but then again I am no Psychologist or Social Analyst so it’s open for debate.

PS : and if u are wondering who my favorite super hero is well it’s the Batman.

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The First Hail

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Hey people this is my first blog entry, a realization of an idea that has been nagging me in the back of my mind for quite sometime. Usually such ideas are forgotten after sometime but this just kept coming back.

I am a Sri Lankan student studying Engineering and i hope this would enable me to share some of my ideas with the world.

(Gosh that was boring wasn't it? You must have seen crap like that in blogs many times. Well i really felt that i just had to say something about my self before i start posting)
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