Sri Lankan Bomb Blasts

sri lanka was victim to 2 bomb attacks today. one targeting a government ministry and the other targeting commuters during evening rush hour…

no claims of responsibilities for these atrocities which has claimed the lives of 17 innocent civilians so far but it goes without saying that the terrorist outfit LTTE is the prime & the only suspect for today’s blood letting…

fuck off you bloody terrorists!

click here for more info…

Within Temptation – Memories

here’s the music video for the hit single “memories” performed by another one of my favourite groups, within temptation.

School Violence

school violence has hit the headlines once again, this time a school in finland being at the centre of a shooting incident.

north america pioneered the phenomenon of the gun toting student & what at first seemed to be just an american disease soon spread its tentacles around the world with cases of gun crime in schools being reported from around the world. however while expressing my sympathies for the victims & their families of yesterday’s carnage, it must be said that school violence is not really that uncommon. sure, the image of a student gunman taking out all his frustrations on fellow students & teachers in small town america may warrant widespread coverage from the likes of cnn & other international news media but to be honest school violence is not a new thing…

now by the term “school violence” i just don’t only mean violence that happen when a guy comes around firing his gun (s). by school violence i meant the countless acts of senseless violence directed against & by students like the recent attack in china (or was it japan?) by a guy wielding a sword at a kindergarden …

in my country of sri lanka, while we do not have any headline generating school shootings to report of (suprising for a country with a high rate of gun crime…), instances of school violence are fairly common. i remember in my own alma mater, the principal getting hauled over to the courts over his assaulting of a student and students invading other schools and almost killing each other over petty grievances. (especially during sports events) the situation in many of our higher educational institutes (i.e. universities) are no better. seniors (well most of them at least) who take great pleasure in inflicting pain or misery on freshers by employing sadistic ragging techniques. techniques which has in the past led to numerous unwanted deaths & mental scarring for countless others…

(unlike some other countries, most of these incidents mentioned here are under-reported, ignored or just swept under the carpet. sri lankans being a people who posess short memories & who have been mentally anasthesized due to terrorism & due to the lawlessness prevaling in the country, they prefer not to talk about such things, happy to be oblivious to such happening & instead harping back to a “culture” that is over 2500 years old….)

anyway, what can be done to reduce such happenings? is it tighter gun control, increased security at schools & universities, improved police efforts or psychiatric help for those who need it? there are no easy answers to combat this problem…

what do you think? what are your views?

(p.s. please use the add comment feature instead of e-mailing me your response:) )

Bad Day…

the following incidents are not products of my imagination. they DID happen…

today was not a good day for me. murphy’s law must have been on overdrive cause everything that could go wrong did go wrong today!

it all started from the moment i got up. i overslept, then as a result all the morning activities had to be rushed. barely had time to press my clothes or take a shower properly & even forsake breakfast so i can catch the morning bus to the office right before the traffic starts to pile up…

well unfortunately, i missed that bus & had to stick around until another one showed up. by that time of course, traffic did began to pile up & it took more than an hour’s hard slog to travel a mere distance of 4 kms to my workplace. checked in unfashionably late & settled down to begin the morning shift.

almost immediately got saddled with a mind boggling image that took a whole lot of effort to complete (i work as a ahem, image editor/clipper/designer remember?) was both mentally & physically tired by the end of it & was also beginning to feel the hunger pangs owing to the lack of morning nourishment. ..

then a special announcement was given by my section head stating that she will be strictly monitoring the attendance records for stragglers, mia.’s etc. from today onwards. just my luck to come in soo late on the exact date that this new regime is been implemented…

anyway after the workday has been completed, dropped in at a net cafe to suf the web & download some important files. spent a better half of 3 hours, downloading file after file & saving them onto a folder on the desktop. then the computer decided to inflict some misery on me & froze up totally. when shown the problem, the net cafe employee declared that the only way to solve this was to restart the computer. did as instructed only to discover to my shock & horror that everything that i’ve been working on or have saved on the desktop these past few hours has mysteriously been wiped out! WTF?@#!%$@#…

was on the way home still cursing ’bout that net cafe & it’s owner when suddenly got caught in a severe tropical downpour. with no where to take shelter, no cabs in sight or no umbrellas to take cover under, i had no choice but to proceed forward. was soaked to the bone & shivering bitterly by the time i got home. but my day of trials did not end just yet.

slipped in the bathroom & almost (i think…it still hurts though) sprained my ankle & broke my arm. next i cut myself while using my pen knife, burned myself while preparing dinner and would you know it, my computer monitor also decided today would be a perfect day to fall ill! (the colours automatically darken & the screen goes off suddenly. for the moment it’s working perfectly while i’m writing this entry but i cannot guarantee it will be in a working condition tomorrow)

some days it just doesn’t pay to get out of bed…