Nisadas

Right above that Nalaka wheel alignment/tyre merchants joint in Colombo 02 is another branch of the famous Food Waves restaurant. This one’s called “Thiru Kumaran’s Food Waves” and it’s a vegetarian restaurant that serves South Indian food. Good food for good prices – enough reason to like it.

The reason that I wanted to blog about it was to put up their phone number on the net. After searching online in vain for the number (don’t get me started on how fun it was trying to find it on the SLT online directory), I ended up going there to place my order, which was thankfully ready in ten minutes. Of course, my order wasn’t a full meal, so that shouldn’t be a benchmark – take away should ideally still be called in advance.

The lunch buffet is priced at Rs. 130/- and is supposed to be good, although I don’t know this from experience. I can recommend the Naan, Paneer Butter Masala, Malaysian Kottu and Chilli Parota (my favourite). Very nice.

Recently, six of us dropped in for dinner, had the main dishes that I just noted plus soup (one portion is generally enough for two people), some starters and dessert, all for around Rs. 500/- per head. I’m not too familiar with the restaurants in Colombo, but I think that’s pretty good value for money.

Their flyer reads that they’re open 365 days of the year, 11:00am to 10:30pm. Lunch available from 10:30am and Dinner from 4:00pm.

The Address:

Thiru Kumaran’s Food Waves

55, Hyde Park Corner, Colombo 02.

Tel: 471 8709 / 471 9522

Not so long ago I wrote about the scam involving the use of the AirTel name and the promise of an iPhone to harvest email addresses. It seems that any new entrant to the Sri Lankan market can be almost guaranteed that its name will be used for a scam.

Just consider what I found in my inbox today:

If this is indeed the genuine article, whoever is behind it at AirAsia should be given a good dressing down for shoddy publicity tactics. I harbour serious doubts that this can be anywhere close to legitimate.

Why?

• The fact that there are no contact details apart from a gmail address and the AirAsia website.
• The bad spelling – e. g. “SriLankan’s” (although a misplaced apostrophe is quite common in countries where english isn’t the first language).
• The bad grammar
• The use of an older background image which was used in AirAsia’s initial promotions for the low cost fares to Australia.
• The sneaky use of the “Sale” tags on the current AirAsia promotion (the ones in red, blue, green and yellow hanging off the top) renamed “Free”.
• And finally, the use of the term “their” when referring to the company – doesn’t sound legit at all

If I were working at AirAsia I’d try to find out who’s behind all this – although I don’t know whether harvesting email addresses is an issue addressed by the laws of our lovely isle.

Alternatively, anyone who just watches and waits for the spam ads to turn up in their mailbox would know exactly who is behind this.

So in conclusion, if you happen to have gotten this email – please do the world  a favour; delete the message and break the chain!

UPDATE: It seems that Amitha Amarasinghe also came across this recently. Of course, he managed to get through to Air Asia and confirm that it’s a scam. Well done Amitha!

Anyone who’s taken the Galle road will know how much fun Dehiwala can be. Used to be (haven’t taken the route in some time) that the traffic would extend somewhere upto Ratmalana in the mornings (to Colombo). Evenings are no better on the way back. The best advertisement for travel by train could’ve included photos of morning/evening traffic in Dehiwala.

Now it would seem that there’s change in the air. I saw some guys with “Access” on their luminous vests along the roads at Dehiwala junction, which is also now missing some pavement.

Apparently, a flyover will be under construction soon. Hopefully, construction will be in 2-4 month range similar to the Kelaniya and Nugegoda flyovers which means some short term pain for long term gain.

However, there’s still the question of this will ease traffic out of Colombo, since there’s still plenty of that in the evenings, but I guess time will tell.

I’m pretty sure that the Sri Lankan online community includes more than a few freelancers who primarily operate off the web. Even then, there’s probably just a handful of freelancers or even small businesses that have given any thought about their invoicing. I’ve seen plenty of individuals and SMEs sending out invoices which are clearly MS-Excel spreadsheets or even MS-Word documents (Excel makes sense, but why anyone would go through the extra hassle of using Word is beyond me).

That’s why I thought of sharing a resource for invoicing which some of you may find useful – CurdBee. The objective is simple – if you’re doing some sort of business, it helps to look professional. So what better than a free solution that allows you to send out professional looking invoices?

Of course, you needn’t take my word for it, check out what the rest of the web has to say:

• Manage Client Invoices and Accept Payments with CurdBee by Rick Broida on BNET.
• Included in WebWorkerDaily’s list of 10 apps you can’t do without
• Featured on ES Developed, in a post about CurdBee’s new features.
• Used as the billing method at WeAreAGoodCompany.

P.S:

In the interests of full disclosure, I used to work at Vesess - the company behind CurdBee – for around a year, ending November 2005. The only reimbursement I would get out of publicising their service is the satisfaction that I was part of a small Sri Lankan company which is now able to offer world class solutions.

A fruitful day of voting to all of you voting in the Western Provincial elections today!

Just make sure you know who you’re voting for, what symbol to vote and wear your glasses!

A few years back a friend of mine listened intently to my impassioned speech on why the JHU should be voted into power. Entirely missing the sarcasm and irony in said speech, she went to the booth firmly convinced that she should vote for them. Unfortunately, not having worn her spectacles the young lady ended up voting for the “Pol Gediya” (Coconut) instead of the “Hak Gediya” (Conch Shell) – something that went unrealised until she overheard an old lady talking about how the two are incredibly similar on the ballot.

Ah well, at least that party got another vote.

Isn’t democracy a wonderful thing?

Years ago, firecrackers were lit to chase away evil spirits.

Today, firecrackers are lit to herald the arrival of politicians.

The irony of it all…

The first time I came across the Opera browser was somewhere around 1998, just around the time I’d gotten access to the Internet. It was trialware and therefore not usable for long, but compared to my other options – IE and Netscape – it was so much better. I especially loved the way I could easily switch off images with a simply click and make the most of the 4kb/s bandwidth on my dial-up connection (I’d enable images on those early mornings when everyone in the country was asleep and I’d get 7kb/s).

Starting with version 5 in 2000, Opera became ad-supported and I weaned myself away from Netscape’s Navigator (I used every browser on the planet that’d keep me away from the monster). Until I joined Vesess where GP and Lankitha converted me to Firefox, it was Opera all the time.

Nowadays, the utility of having so many add-ons (DownthemAll, AdBlock Plus and ChatZilla to name a few) keeps FF my browser of choice, but that hasn’t stopped me from checking up on Opera and its latest incarnation.

The latest offering is certainly something of a godsend for anyone who’s been left out of the broadband revolution and even those with daily/monthly download limits. Opera 10 brings with it the Opera Turbo feature which builds on Opera’s experience with Opera Mini, its application for mobile phones. By routing the information through its Opera Turbo servers, the browser has less to download, resulting in savings in bandwidth usage.

Pretty neat, although it does crumple images and turn off flash by default. Unless of course you’re like me and actually want that as part of the browsing experience.

The difference in images can be seen from the two screenshots of the Opera homepage below:

1. Simply loaded in Opera:

2. Loaded in Opera with Turbo enabled:

Clearly, this is the most visible difference, but there is definitely an improvement in terms of speed. Being a user of a low bandwidth internet connection on weekdays I’d gotten used to carrying out chores while pages loaded, but once I got Opera running on Turbo I’ve even been able to access Facebook. Lower quality images is an easy trade off for quicker page loads. The difference in speeds is visible in a promotional video over at Opera Labs, where you can learn more.

Opera comes in a number of flavours, with customized installation options for your flavour of Linux as well. Definitely something anyone with bandwidth caps on their connections should check out – and hope that it comes out soon!

I was reading Seth Godin recently on Demonization. Whilst he writes  what would be interpreted as a marketing-centric post, he makes a very valid point.

The closer you get to someone, something, some brand, some organization… the harder it is to demonize it, objectify it or hate it.

Reading through Achcharu today, I also came across some interesting posts – Indi’s rant against the diaspora in Canada and Rajaratarala’s innovative suggestion for reconciliation.

My socio-political views have and will be private, and are unlikely to be published. However, in all three cases above, one point is common – isolation from each other contributes most to the rifts in society. Seth talks about (or at least I interpret it to be) how being isolated from an issue makes it easier to demonize it; Indi talks about the Diaspora and how they talk to themselves in the comfort of Canada about the war in Sri Lanka; Rajaratarala talks about how giving the opportunity for the internally displaced to live normal lives again will help heal the wounds of war.

During my studies in secondary school, I had the opportunity to be part of the Interact movement (of which perhaps the less said now, the better). Through this I was able to make friends from different schools and different ethnic and religious backgrounds. The single biggest lesson I learnt from this was that there was just so much we all had in common. Teenagers the world over will have the same issues, albeit in different languages and different settings. Why else was Dawson’s Creek so popular amongst TV viewing Sri Lankan teenagers?

Closeted away in their own little enclaves, it’s easier for people to demonize others and act all morally superior. But then again, it takes a lot of confidence and courage to buck the trend and actually treat others as human beings and not as the labels they choose to stick themselves with.

But it all comes down to the fact that you’re no different from me or the person next to you. You didn’t choose the race you were born in to. You didn’t choose the country you were born in to. You can choose who you are – what your actions will mean in the greater scheme of things, no matter how small.

I only hope that the future holds for all of us the freedom to live our lives in relative normalcy and worry about stuff like learning new things, holding a job, raising a family and such-like – problems that have been around as long as civilisation.

In conclusion, I’d like to share something that Terry Pratchett wrote in his book Interesting Times, where the wizard Rincewind while running away from a major battle, finds himself in a field criss-crossed with drainage ditches (I’m hoping that this excerpt falls within fair-use, please notify me if it doesn’t – I can’t afford a lawsuit ):

Someone was watching him.

It was a water buffalo.

It would be wrong to say it watched him with interest. It just watched him, because its eyes were open and had to be facing in some direction, and it had randomly chosen one which included Rincewind.

Its face held the completely serene expression of a creature that had long ago realized that it was, fundamentally, a tube on legs and had been installed in the universe to, broadly speaking, achieve throughput.

At the other end of the string was a man, ankle-deep in the mud of the field. He had a broad straw hat, like every other buffalo holder. He had the basic pyjama suit of the Agatean man-in-the-field. And he had an expression not of idiocy, but of preoccupation. He was looking at Rincewind. As with the buffalo, this was only because his eyes had to be doing something.

Despite the pressing dangers, Rincewind found himself overcome by a sudden curiosity.

‘Er. Good morning,’ he said.

The man gave him a nod. The water buffalo made the sound of regurgitating cud.

‘Er. Sorry if this is a personal question,’ said Rincewind, ‘but . . . I can’t help wondering . . . why do you stand out in the fields all day with the water buffalo?’

The man thought about it.

‘Good for soil,’ he said eventually.

‘But doesn’t it waste a lot of time?’ said Rincewind.

The man gave this due appraisal also.

‘What’s time to a cow?’ he said.

Rincewind reversed back on to the highway of reality.

‘You see those armies over there?’ he said.

The buffalo holder concentrated his gaze.

‘Yes,’ he decided.

‘They’re fighting for you.’

The man did not appear moved by this. The water buffalo burped gently.

‘Some want to see you enslaved and some want you to run the country, or at least to let them run the country while telling you it’s you doing it really,’ said Rincewind. There’s going to be a terrible battle. I can’t help wondering . . . What do you want?’

The buffalo holder absorbed this one for consideration, too. And it seemed to Rincewind that the slowness of the thought process wasn’t due to native stupidity, but more to do with the sheer size of the question. He could feel it spreading out so that it incorporated the soil and the grass and the sun and headed on out into the universe.

Finally the man said:

‘A longer piece of string would be nice.’

Before you point it out, Yes, I’m an apolitical idealist who is quite possibly out of touch with the world around him.

Or maybe not. I’ll fill you in once I’ve figured it out.

The glorious thing about the internet is that even non-experts like myself can plough on and put forward silly notions on any variety of subjects. Therefore, allow me to present my proposal for future ODI visits by the Indian cricket team to Sri Lanka:

In future, there will be no need to fly in all the members of the Indian team. Instead, the captain of the team can be flown in with a bunch of tourist-journalists. The journos will be given full access to the rest of the country so that they can write about stuff the rest of the world doesn’t know much about.

On the day alloted for the match, M&M (M. Dhoni and Mahela, not our beloved spin-twins Murali and Mendis) will be escorted to the ground. After the usual talk about the pitch and the conditions, they will have the toss. Unlike any other occasions, we will have conch-blowing, drummers and even lighting of the oil lamp to herald this magnificent moment.

Once the toss has been called, the winner will have his hand shaken by the rest of the congregation. The man of the match will be chosen from a couple of names shuffled about in a cricketer’s helmet and the cheques for winning the match and other awards will be handed over as part of the ceremony.

This in turn will result in such low overhead that Small and Medium businesses can afford to sponsor the series, perhaps on a match-by-match basis. I haven’t figured out how the exposure can be fully utilised without the willow and the leather in play, but I’m sure the talents of the creators of Sri Lanka’s Dancing Stars can be put to good use. By saving over six hours per day of people’s time, productivity will increase, while there will also be a significant saving in terms of bandwidth due to lower usage of Cricinfo‘s live scorecard facility. Families will be happier for their fathers/sons/brothers/husbands being home earlier instead of dallying by the big screens at Abans/Singer showrooms on their way home.

Why do I say this? A brief look at the results of the last two series in Sri Lanka:

What about that aberration where India won a toss and Sri Lanka won? Well, that’s because MSD didn’t know that batting first works at RPS, not at the Rangiri Dambulla stadium. Let’s look at the matches by who bats first:

But seriously, have we forgotten that barely two years ago our boys were in the world cup final with Australia? Well, apparently so. This is in no small part due to the fact that the team that made it into the finals in 2007 displayed a lot more courage, intensity and overall flair than what most of us cricket-mad Sri Lankans saw in the recent past. It hurts to be beaten on home turf.

I can only hope that the itinerary for the rest of 2009 proves to be more fruitful for our team.

The tables in this post are my first in a blog post and are thanks to the tutorial at Web Design from Scratch.

January 12th saw the launch of Bharthi Airtel in Sri Lanka. That tune which was so familiar on Dialog TV (ironic, I guess) began to feature on the local TV channels as well, with Sharuk Khan greeting Sri Lankans with a cheerful “Hello Sri Lanka”.

It was not long after this that another ad did the rounds – it features our very own Kumar Sangakkara talking about being shushed all throughout his life and now wondering why complicated mobile plans should stop him. Then those words (Unicode Sinhala required):

මම Airtel වලට මාරු වුනා. ඒක හරිම Simple plan එකක්.

(Translation: I switched to Airtel. It’s a very simple plan). This was apparently considered by many as a betrayal, since Kumar had been prominently featured on the hoardings, advertisements of Hutch – one of the smaller players in the mobile telecommunications market.

Soon afterwards, my inbox received emails which features Sanga’s face and various products and that infamous tagline;

මම Nestomalt වලට මාරු වුනා. ඒක හරිම Simple plan එකක්.

(Translation: I switched to Nestomalt. It’s a very simple plan). This played on Sanga’s present status of appearing in ads endorsing the malt drink “Viva” (which led not so long ago to the whole “සුභ අලුත් අවුරුද්දක්  Viva” fiasco) and the fact that Nestomalt is the competing brand.

මම Eva වලට මාරු වුනා. ඒක හරිම Simple pad එකක්.

Translation:I switched to Eva (sanitary pads). It’s a very simple pad.  Some wordplay involved here.

Then there was the email about Sanga switching to being vegetarian and how that’s a simple plan, while there also were various photoshopped images of him pondering the Dialog logo on his T-shirt during the match.

In addition to this sudden influx of anti-Sanga sentiment was our own office colleague who quipped (after hearing that Sanga had lost his wicket);

මම Pavilion එකට මාරු වුනා. ඒක හරිම Simple place එකක්.

Translation: I switched to the pavilion. It’s a very simple place.

Ah… poor Sangakkara.

What seems to have gotten the goat (goats?) of some of Sri Lanka’s netizens is not so much the fact that the guy switched his endorsements from one provider to another, but the fact that he had the cheek to actually say so on national television. After hailing the guy for his forthrightness, I think it’s pretty unfair to criticise him for being forthright about changing his endorsements. After all, endorsements are surely a major source of income for professional cricketers in Sri Lanka.

That said, this has caused some negative publicity for both Sangakkara (for switching sides, so to speak) and Airtel (for poaching Sangakkara).

I just hope that this undue criticism has had nothing to do with his recent performance at Dambulla.

On a completely different note, this is my first post to include Sinhala. Although it makes me cringe to see the kombuwa follow letters in unicode Sinhala, it was the easiest way to express these sentiments online (plus, my limited requirement didn’t involve much opportunity for the attack on Sinhala). Hat tip to Shaakunthala for having the Real Time Font converter from UCSC and the Local Language Resource Portal links on his blog, without which this post wouldn’t have been possible.

UPDATE: Sangakkara has a short and sweet reply on this issue at this blog, here. (thanks Don!)