Less Ranting, More Raving.

I have taken a leaf out of Zehra's wily blog and decided that the only true way to post your thoughts is to sit in a cafe with wi-fi and do it the New Jersey way.. so here I am, at The Commons owned by The Oprah Winfrey herself, abusing her wi-fi and filling out my stomach with the yummiest chocolate milkshake ever to hit this planet. With all this plumfort (not quite plush, not quiet comfort), do I feel like a true Blogger of the 21st century? Hell yeah baby, hell yeah...

A fly just flew into my chocolate milkshake, it is now a chocolate protein shake.. Mmm.

The life of Byron continues on unabated and unbashful as ever before. The grindstone of work attempts to churn the life out of life, and the when the weekend comes the batteries charge for one more week. The daily or weekly slog of life is the same the world over. Don't kid yourself. The grass IS greener on the otherside, so everyone thinks. But the reality of life is that computers will rule your world for every and a day and so will your boss. Throughout this wonderful exciting planet we call Earth, no matter where you reside you will still eat, shit, work, breathe, spend, earn, rack up credit, hate politicians, attempt to fuck the system, be part of the system, and drink coffee thats never quite right. You will bitch about your friends. You will be glad you have friends, wherever you are and whoever they are. You will press Snooze when your alarm clock goes off. You will drink too much and regret it in the morning. You will cough up your lungs by midday the following day, and promise to quite smoking. You will live to work, and fein that you work to live. You will watch TV. You will bitch about what's on TV. You will listen to the same music, be it DJ Punjabi or Britney Spears, it's still pop. You will be part of the daily grind. And that's life.

This is where I like to pretend I say, "But not me. I choose life". And recount about how I watched Trainspotting throughout the week, and then Click with Adam Sandler and it all made sense. Not me, I choose life. I am going to live life to the fullest and not be part of that daily grind. Well, bullocks. I fucked the system. I fuck the system. But I still get fucked by the system just like Darrell hair who upheld the system. It's all a matter of degrees..

I like my job. I like my life. I really don't have a heck of a lot to complain about. Afterall, I am sitting in Oprah's cafe typing on my laptop and communicating to millions of people around the world (well, maybe tens of people via this blog, but whatever). I am listening to funky music that makes me want to type quicker. I am over consuming and over compensating for every other aspect of my life. And I love it. Work will always have components in it that are not enjoyable, and referencing myself, that's why they don't call it funtime. But you can get stuff out of work. I love going to the field and talking with beneficiaries, or even listening to Cat Empire while I journey through some well wicked scenery. I like looking at the projects we do and always being amazed by the good work that goes on here. I don't like writing reports or getting on other people's nerves by making them submit reports. I love my social life too. I like going out and having fun and spending time with Embo. It's about getting the right mix of both..

So if you have something that you want to bitch about.. bitch away my friend. Bitch to whoever will listen. Bitch like you have never bitched before. But goddamit, bitch like it's the last day of your life and stop fucking bitching and get back to enjoying it all.

I don't know why I ranted on about that.. the obvious answer would be that I am sick of people bitching to me about work and life. Maybe its because of the realisation that life is the same no matter where you are, and people expect it to be different because I live next to a war zone on a tropical island. Whatever. I think I will leave it to Frued who always puts it best, "It's because you want to have sexual relations with your siblings and parents".

And now, The Artistocrats.

Here are some photos for y'all. This is Emma and Jacqui being Rockstars at Zanziba (dodgey small nightclub where I lost my wallet) on Friday night. They are rockstars. I'm sorry Ken, but here is photographic evidence of your beautiful daughter smoking. Just in case you didn't know...
And this is Mark. He spent way too long in the Navy and has come out a bit scarred, but we love him to bits anyway. He has just been flown to Thailand because he had a kidney stone that loved Marky so much that it refused to leave it's new home.. kind of like a beneficiairy not wanting to leave a transitional shelter. OH BYRON! That's so wrong it's fucking funny.

This is one of the dude that works at the diving/aquarium place. We borrowed their boat and went snorkelling together one weekend.
This is a photo I love from the South. It's in a cool wetlands called Bundala. And yes, even there the dogs roam free.

This is a lady and her baby standing in front of a new house being built by the organisation I work for. Usually I wouldn't post this up on a blog.. I don't even know the ethics of it. But I am sure she wouldn't mind. I just like the photo. The house will be finished by the end of August.
And finally, a dragon fly photo. I don't know why I like taking photos of these insects, I think it is because they love posing for the camera. They tend to stick around quite a while and let you get really close.. and they can't bite you which is always a bonus, especially for me who is considered quite taste by insects. This is the view from the side.

And this is the view from the front.
And on that note, ta ta.

Peace, Love and Fluffy Rants

B.

Colombo, Casinos and Cricket

I had a pretty big weekend involving the Three C’s, which usually refers to Canadian club and coke but not this time. It all began on Thursday. Yes, my weekend officially starts on Thursday once a month, when the Australian’s of Colombo converge on the Australian High Commission for a bbq (not free, dodgey bastards) and beer. Every month, second Thursday. Conveniently for me, the high.com is across the road from my office. As I write this blog, I am actually looking at the patriotic flag of Australia dropping in the monsoonal rain. Not that it was a huge night on Thursday; not by the Byron and Emma standards of Olde. But it was definitely a merry evening filled with clinking of fosters (they ran out of VB.. tragic, blasphoemic, traitoric!) with US marines and internally displaced volunteers/humanitarian workers from the North and East. The last time I was there and my boss turned up, we ended up walking out of a the nightclub R&B’s at like 4am. He also kicked my ass in pool, but to this day I assure you I was letting him win because he was my new boss.. and because I was drunk and had no option.

The following evening after a dodgey dodgey morning filled with staff meetings and (gulp) work, Embo and I decided to chill back. Besides, Wendy was flying through from the Philippines on her way back to Ampara. We left the key under the mat, and in the morning we woke up to the sounds of her new karaoke machine. Note: This is the third machine in Ampara, and I am very distressed that we are no longer residing in the karaoke capital of Sri Lanka. I did get my quick fix though.. Nirvana, Come As You Are. I too want to be a Rockstar Supernova so I can travel the world doing the thing I love, drinking.

On Saturday, Embo Bill and myself all went and bought prescription glasses together. I think we all walked out there going “WTF, how am I going to wear these schlogs for the rest of my life?”. Bill went and bought the same glasses the English Ministry of Health distributed for free during his childhood… now that’s retro!

After some shopping, food, and even squeeeeeezing in some playstation (oh my.. feel the power in your hands.. just thinking about it makes me want to.. ughhhh) we did something else that didn’t really matter. But what does matter is how it all ends. So after doing the thing that didn’t matter, we wanted to do another thing of no relevance; but sadly, that nightclub was closed because they didn’t pay their electricity bill on time. I reckon they didn’t bribe someone on time, but whatever. So brainstorming all the cool places to go, we choose none of them and decide on a dodgey casino down some back alley. It’s called Roxy’s, the casino not the alley. The alley is called something else completely random that has no bearing on this story.

For those who know me, I am not much of a gambler. Flutter here, flutter there, whatever. But put myself, Nelson, Helen and Bill in a line, put some cards in front of us a a dude standing behind a green table with a wry smile on his face, and we are electrifying. Hit. Hit. Stand. Lose. Hit. Bust. Hit. Win. And so it goes on and on. Everyone has their system, even Nelson who’s system is to ask Bill what’s going on. Emma and some others were none too impressed, while Nelson lost too quickly, so in the end they all went their own ways while Bill Helen and myself decided to continue to lose our money. This placed rocked. This place gave free drinks continuously.. and I mean serious drinks; like 80% whiskey, and the rest air or coke colouring. Bill drank his fast and ferociously. I diluted mine with ice and speed. Helen.. well by the time I went to check what Helen was drinking, I could barely see the little ball spinning around on the 37 sectored wheel let alone her drink. Simpson was a nice guy though.. he served us the drinks. I thought a dodey casino in Colombo would be, well more dodgey. Everyone told me about prostitutes and the like, but I didn’t notice much of it. It was quite loud and people would jump over you to throw their money on lucky number 17, but that was about it. We eventually got too drunk for that, and went to the Blue Room: double stakes high rollers with noone but us three and six other people: the guy to watch you place your bets, the guy to count out the winnings, the guy to spin the ball, the guy to serve you your drink, the guy to manage the previous four, and Felix. Felix managed it all. He doesn’t smile much, but he did like the fact we weren’t winning and weren’t annoying too many people. Bill wanted to put 500 on the outside, but the minimum was 1000. He tried about 4 times, in like 10 minute intervals. He wasn’t malicious, he was just drunk and forgot that he only wanted to bet 500 but had to bet 1000. I played the inside, 100 minimum per number. 1000 a spin was my game, spread. I won back all my losses from Black Jack earlier on; I then lost them all and some more. Oh well, Felix knows I’ll be back.

The next day was an all you can eat brunch at the hotel where the South African cricketers are staying. Most people had the all you can eat champagne too; Bill and I meanwhile were in a grumpy mood sipping the water. Water was good, but you had to serve yourself half the time. I saw Tom Moody, coach of Sri Lanka; and Sean Pollock floated around too. I think I saw some others, but I didn’t care at that stage of the morning.

I feel I should interlude my weekend discussion with a bit about cricket. South Africa, you suck and you are going to lose, and you know it so you are using the bombs as an excuse to leave this country before you lose 4-0 to India and Sri Lanka in the tri series. You suck. I wanted to watch cricket (don’t worry Gibbs, I wasn’t going to watch your fat hairy face – I have my own; I wanted to watch India V Sri Lanka). I wanted to hear about you lose and watch other great matches. But no. Now my cricket schedule is thrown all out of whack, because you are a bunch of tea toting courageless yella’ wimps. Scared of bombs? Whatever. Scared of the wile of Murali, that’s more like it!

The rest of Sunday evening was really cool actually. We went to the Rugby Club to listen to some Jazz. It seemed that anyone and everyone who was white was there, and some others too. I kept bumping in to people I have met through work and not remembering their names; I hate that. The jazz was loud. The grass was wet. And the beer was cheap and cool – like me. So I'll be back.

B.

Phlogging Cricket and Camping

Time these days seems to fly by.. or go slowly. Where has the happy medium gone? I suppose I should speak to Tony about that. Anyway. This week has been jam packed full of travelling and fun times had by all. The problem is, the fun times keep on rolling on.. and so I am lacking serious time for blogging. I really need to get rid of my social life so I can focus 100% on this blogsite. Afterall, I have three serious fans now!

For those who love statistics and drinking as much as I do, they would probably know that South Africa is touring Sri Lanka at the moment. And I am not talking about all forty million of 'em, just the twelve that lack the skills of hitting a leather ball with a piece of willow. And one of my many missions in life as a colonial tourist is to see a cricket match played in all ten test playing nations. Welp, I tried before with Chris and Caz to see Pakistan v Sri Lanka, but sadly they can't jump out of moving trains and instead we went to the cricket club to lick some wounds. But no problems this time! We made it.. and so did Sri Lanka. The day before one of the Jayawardena's and Sangakara set records with a 600 odd run partnership. We were there the day after to see South Africa try and stope the wile of the Chucker, but to no avail he has chucked them out of the park and into a humiliating loss. [For those who care, the next test has just finished and Sri Lanka did a clean sweep of the two test series.. the only bigger loser than South Africa is Dean (Dead?) Jones, who called a South African muslim player a terrorist and lost all of his contracts except for those with Rupert Murdoch for some reason...]. Here's Emma enjoying the day.


And I found my twin!

No better way than enjoying cricket in the true colonial manner of a pot of tea.. sadly they forgot about the newage colonialism of beer!


Last weekend was probably one of the best times I have ever had in Sri Lanka, and well in the bigger scheme of things. Ming Yu organised a group of eight of us to head up to Kitugala (2.5 hours east of Colombo) to go white water rafting, canyoning, and hiking in some of the most fantastic river/hilly landscapes in the world. Wow, was so cool I almost shat myself. If anyone else out there in the big wide world of internet land is like me, and I pray for your sake you're not, you also probably don't know what canyoning is. Basically, it's a mix between kayaking without a kayak or paddle, hiking without solid ground, and lugeing without ice. It's a very cool concept of running down a river, jumping down waterfalls into pools, sliding down
natural rock water slides, and floating where it's deep enough. We did this for maybe 2 hours.. after a while you start getting quite confident despite all the scratches and twisted ankles, and just start jumping down and on everything. The hiking was p.cool too. We treaded into some mean national park. I reckon I have been to 10 NP's in SL, and this would have to rate near the top. We saw some tree snakes, swam at waterfalls, Embo made a friend Larry the Leach.. I should elaborate on this. Embo is a freak. Granted. She is scared out of her wits for days about leaches, and then when we get up to the campsite she decides to stare her fear in the eye and befriend it. She's like "I better get a leach" and constantly asking our tour guide "Is this leach terriority!?!" with a glean in her eye.. then she finally gets one, and decides to nurture it see how big it can get.. crazy mofo!


Our Campsite....

Can you see the suspension bridge in the background? No, I'm not talking about the dude with the wood..

Serah having a walk.. love Jacquis's head gear in the background!
Okay, and here are some cool random pics from the weekend.. including a group photo of all of us. P.S. HAPPY BIRTHDAY MINGERS!!! We (obvoiusly not me) set up 29 candles around the camp site to celebrate Minger's b'day. We made her feel special.. and then got her drunk before the hike.

This red dragon fly played up to the camera.. he thought I was a voyeur, I thought he was a gimpy model waiting for his big break.. oh the fun of it all.

Something you can't get away from in this country is the decreasing appreciation of the cease fire agreement (that's political talk for "IT"S A FUCKING CIVIL YOU MORON!!). It hasn't quite spread everywhere, but there are definately some areas that are no go zones.. I try as best as possible not to talk about it too much (with people here or back home), and generally just ignore it in my blog. Others like tackle it head on and blab and blab and blab about it. I reckon they're war tourist deep down. Anyhoot, this is a newspaper I was reading in the car coming back from a field trip down south (where it is nice a safe). I love the irony in it all, "The National, fiercely independent" and then the following headlines.
On that note people..

Peace, Love, and Fluffy White Water

B.

I Want To Be A Rockstar, Supernova!

I have to tell you about something that has absolutely taken me - perhaps i have mentioned it before - again it is something i am not proud of - - but this giddy school girl anticipation that it summons in me is thrilling. it is........Rock star Super nova.

I don't know if you are following it on tv, or if you have placed it in the box (and rightly so) with all the other reality tv show bullocks around that is not to be viewed, but it really has added so much to my life.

The idea of fusing 3 great rockbands together to make one "superband" irks me. it really does. For this reason it took me a long time to allow myself to appreciate Audioslave (fair enough that they don't tickle you two but i think they are swell). I still can not appreciate velvet revolver. There is something about artists coming together with talented people from other bands and playing music together that is perhaps a little different, a little experimental, in comparison to the music they play with their "band". And i know the concept of a band is a fluid one. No band stays the same, or rather shouldn't. In that sense often musicians will evolve out of one band and into another. In rock music this is fairly common given the high rates of substance abuse that takes people out and the bitchyness and ego that comes with being a rockstar. But the idea of making a super band that rides on the reputation and success of the member's former bands is frankly not what rock'n'roll ought to be about. The band should be good because they are good and not because of the "prestige" of their pasts. Having said that, with a "superband" (yes this is a new term for them) huge expectation surrounds them. Unfortunately in this world that is dictated by the status quo and the MEDIOCRE even if they suck they will have approximately 1 billion fans anyway (or more, what is the population of 13-26 women in the western world?), and will still sell records and sell-out gigs and make bucket loads of dosh.

Anyway so that precursor hopefully sets the scene. Metallica and Motley and Guns n Roses come together to form Rock star super nova. With Dave Nevarro's assistance they are out to find a lead singer. Technically they have committed the cardinal sin - merging two damn-right offensive concepts together. Super Band PLUS reality TV show.

How much pre-play publicity can you possibly generate.

BUT I LOVE IT!

There are 3 singers that i think are rad. If you can watch it tonight please do. Wednesday nights are the performance nights - really the only night worth watching. Dilanna is my very talented lil goth lady. She can really sing! but also i think she is more grounded as a human being and you get the sense that if she were leading this band she'd be one of the band members and not the luckiest groupie on earth who got a gig with the boys. Then there is lukas who is an absolute lil fuck head but i like his growl and i think he's hot and i think he is interesting. And then there is Storm who is the scariest woman i have ever seen in my life. She is hideous and such a skank...but she is again talented and fun to watch.

I don't know what it is. That competitive edge engrained in us products of a good ol dose of western liberal society that like to see people up against each other. (somehow i think not). That i am starved of seeing freaks and rebels (yes fine we can argue about whether they truly are rebels another time) and just love the rock and punk THANG and am so pleased to get a tri-weekly dose of it. That i find the music energetic and exciting and thinks it shits all over what is on vh1 (that's not true all the time but most of the time). That it comes on after seinfield, that i only have a mild tolerance for. That i was feeling empty and alone once the world cup fanfair died down and am using this as an empty-filler. Maybe i am a teenyboppin straight down the line kinda girl who just likes her reality tv show a lil buffed up.

Whatever it is. YES I AM ASHAMED. AND NO I CAN'T EVEN SAY THAT I ONLY WATCH IT FOR A LAUGH AND I DON'T TAKE IT SERIOUSLY. I ACTUALLY LOVE IT and it's time for you all to know.

From the desk of,

Embo.