I was 10 years old when I watched people being burned alive in Black July. I saw houses burned, cars burned, people burned. Tends to leave a mark.

I love Colombo. I love the nightlife. I love the daylife. I love the food, the beaches, the expensive places, and the dive-ass bars. I love it all, and I love showing it off to my friends. Let's go!

Everyone agrees, gaming on Linux isn't easy. You are basically trying to use a translator to play something that hasn't been written for Linux, and hoping it all works perfectly. Not always an easy task. And here we go again.

Sit down, you little buggers, and I will tell you a story . A story that needs to be told, and remembered.

For a long time I have been trying to type in Sinhala. On Windows 95 I used the transliterated typing system crated by Chrismal Panditharatne, and when I moved to Linux, I had to find a new system. Mainly because I was not used to touch-typing, I was also not used to typing on the Wijesekara Keyboard Layout. So, with all of that, I had to find another way.

A few days ago a Facebook friend shared a post by a gun-rights page about why gun owners are not coming to save the protesters in Portland and other places being targeted by the police and federal agencies. Namely, because the gun-owners have been insulted by the political left as racist, bigoted, misogynist, and many other things.

No one in the USA seems to have heard of Asterix: The Secret of the Magic Potion, but out here in Asia-land, where we grew up on the tales of Asterix, Obelix, and the rest of the mad, mad inhabitants of that little Gaulish village that withstood the might of Caesar and all his legions, the movie was greeted with loud cheers.

I will not punch you in the face for being a Nazi. Though I find Nazism abhorrent, it's your right to believe in it. I will not punch you in the face for being a racist. Again, you have the absolute, inalienable right to that stupid, outdated, abhorrent belief. Being stupid is not a crime, although there are many days I wish it were. I will not punch you in the face for hanging out with your Nazi, racist, supremacist friends in your little fortresses of hate and stupidity.

So the pros are out. Running their cons. And we're supposed to choose which one to bend over and spread our cheeks for.  

OK, so it's not just predictions. It's my thoughts on this entire jing-bang fiasco grim fandango Vicious Cabaret. I don't wan't Mahinda to win The Beast has had a long run. He has had it for long enough. He has had it for too long. The corruption, the hatred, the bullshit has gone on for far too long. I like some of the things he has done, but I don't like, neither do I agree with the way he has done so many of those things.

It all started with Trevor and Tekla Fernando. People who listened to the English Service of the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation in the 80s and early 90s may remember them. In an era where getting a request in on the radio meant writing a real, actual, snail mail letter, Trevor and Tekla (who many may remember because of the alliteration in their names) managed to get a request in - an their names read on - every single request show on the SLBC English service. Every. Single. Day.

Yes, Sri Lanka's Minister of Child Development and Womens' Affairs is a man. Yes, he's said that he's qualified to be the Minister because he has six sisters, a wife, and two daughters. Yeah, he's a bit of an idiot.

No, not "nigger". I hate "the n-word". I also hate "the f-word", "the c-word", "the j-word" and every f-wording some-letter-in-the-f-wording-alphabet-word out there. The thing is ... I have no problem with the word "nigger." Or dick, or fuck, or cunt, or any other word.

My friend Damith came down to dotelkay from dotus a few weeks ago, and just before he left we engaged in our time homoured tradition of sitting up on the roof and talking until the wee hours of the morning. There is usually alcohol involved, but this time his father had hidden the key to the liquor cupboard, damn the luck. And as it is with such conversations, the topics were wide and varied, and one of them was the social significance of vampires, zombies, and werewolves. So hear me out. There may be a test later.

Well what a fine that week that was. Three funerals in one week. Parents of people I care about. You realise that you have gone to too many funerals when the guys at the crematorium ask you "weren't you here last week?" But some of the things that happened in the past week got me thinking. A friend of mine was given a 3% chance that his mother would live if they did neuro-surgery on her. Not a 3% chance she would be back to normal, but a 3% chance that she would fall into the category that we call "not dead." So he agreed. And got a bill for LKR1.2 million.

It's 5am. I am in Dambulla with Navin, and it looks like we are about to get beaten up. It's my fault of course. It always is. A bunch of robe-monkeys supported by about 2000 idiotic cunts of misery decide that it would be a wonderful thing to attack an Islamic Mosque during prayers. If you gave two tugs of a dead dog's cock about what is happening in Sri Lanka, you would know about this. And with the accuracy of all the news we get, Navin and I decide that it was time for a road trip.

Sometimes, you can't argue with racism. All you can do is laugh at it. There is a post going around facebook that the Sinhala race is dying, because its birthrate is substantially less than that of the Muslims and Tamils. The numbers are wrong. The facts are wrong. It is just a piece of sensationalist lies that certain groups want to accept. There is no arguing with it. Just laughing at it. Hence...  

"This was a great idea you had, Such." "I had? I thought you had it!" When Navn Weeraratne and I had this conversation, we knew we were on to something good. Something big. Something so awesome and geeky and awesomely geeky it could only be called "The Great Geek Retreat". Of course it came out of a drunken conversation - as such things so often do - but it is shaping up to be something special.

Prabhakaran, they say, was captured in Mullaitivu during the last days of the war along with his family, tortured, and killed. Of course, there is no proof about this. Any evidence is circumstantial. What proof exists - if it exists - is probably locked away in some vault.

I always wanted to be a writer. Not just a writer, but a Writer. A Chronicler of my Age. I read the greats. Hemingway. Thoreau. Kerouac. Runyon. And I dreamed of joining those hallowed ranks. Me and Jon Patterson. We were inseparable those days. And his dream was just like mine.

I was there watching the election when Sarath Fonseka ran for president and lost. And then the Army surrounded the Galadari Hotel where he was waiting.

A long time ago my FEW called me a robot. She said that I had no emotions. That I didn't feel. I, of course, took that as a compliment. I have always valued rationality over emotions. Mr. Spock was my hero. Even to this day I would rather solve problems through rational discourse rather than screaming and shouting. But that doesn't seem to work too well with women. Women want me to make an emotional commitment to them. And I find this is something I just cannot do.

The hot news is that the LKGOV is compensating people for engine damages caused by the substandard petrol that was imported by the Ceypetco. Now at face value this sounds like an excellent idea. After all, it is only fair that the people who fucked up your car engine pay for the damage they caused.

Or is it vice-versa? I forget. So Sri Lankan - and perhaps the world - has its first Mayor Monk. Not only did he run for power, but when he was elected he held a temper tantrum fast because The Beast said he couldn't be mayor because he was - you know - a monk. One of those people who have stepped away from lay life for a life of seeking enlightenment.

Going through my hard drive, I found this article I wrote back in 2006, before I even thought of writing a blog. Here it is for your delectation. My father was a civil engineer in Nigeria. When the coup d'etat happened in 1983 his employer made him an offer – stay on with the company, and he'd get citizenship in any country he wanted. He chose to come to Sri Lanka and work here. For almost 23 years after his arrival he never worked in the engineering field.

So The Beast walks into Parliament and announces that he is repealing the Emergency Law. Well, not so much "repealing" as much as "not renewing it." But anyway.. YAY! Loud Cheers!! And the clinking of glasses. But it was all oddly subdued. Very oddly. Because - just like everything else this government has done - it was just an eyewash.

Everyone's talking about the new hotness. Google+ walked in the door, threw its hat in the ring, and proceeded to do to Facebook - the reigning champion - what FB did to the previous champions MySpace and Hi5. All of a sudden the game changed. Everyone is raving about G+, and everyone wants in on the ground floor.

A long, very long, time ago we moved into The Linux Center. And now the time has come for us to move out. This could be the end of TLC as we planned it, and as we know it. Originally we planned this house as a location where the Linux geeks of Sri Lanka could learn, meet, and pretty much have a place to call a geekbase. That didn't quite work out the way we planned. But it was a good run nonetheless. I guess it is time for me to move on.

It is now over a month since the 18th Amendment was passed. And I can finally get my head around writing about it without simply saying FUCK a lot. Isn't that nice?

Recently I had a talk with a friend of mine. Not just a talk. A Talk. Note the capitals.