Thoughts ...just be yourself

I'm in a public group once again

2011-07-06T00:43:00.000+10:00

The best ever social media/public group related decision I've ever taken in the recent past was to pull myself out of Sri Lankan Google Groups. :-D They were non-technical and full of shit with bunch of shitheads.

I thought, I would never join a non-technical group but due to my heart's desire for nature, I joined a few groups in Brisbane and I went on my first hike with one of the groups last week.

I drove all the way to Springbrook to join them and it was fun. A very nice group. I have never seen, communicated with any of them. Not even a single email crossed; but they all welcomed me as I'm part of their family. I was no longer a stranger. I was treated as I was known to them for ages. They are a great bunch of people and I loved every bit of the hike and enjoyed their company beyond what I thought what It would going to be.

The next trip is coming up soon and I can't wait myself until I get there. It was an awesome experience. It was a great privilege to be a part of the team and for the fun we've had. The next is a camping even for two nights...

Bad customer service backed by a highly unprofessional staff at Telstra. Only good at testing your patience

2011-05-02T03:38:00.007+10:00

Initial Subscription Request
As a Telstra customer I thought of obtaining a Foxtel connection from Telstra. Since it's very easy to have both items on the same bill. I did submit my application at the Telstra shop in the city (Brisbane), at Queen Street mall. I was told, Foxtel would contact me within a few working days. But nothing happened after three weeks. I had to revisit the Telstra store and I was told there had been a "system error". :-D After complaining their system failures (which is quite usual nowadays when they screw up things), the store assistant claimed it was resubmitted successfully.

It worked but not to my liking, proving how unprofessional Telstra customer service is. I did specifically ticked HD packages / HD supported receiver. But he hasn't included that in my request while entering data to the system, hence I had to wait for a week or two to view HD channels. :-/

Bundled Package
Last year, I wanted to obtain a bundled package; Foxtel, Internet, Telephone + Mobile connection from Telstra. The sales person said that my account is in their old system and bundled packages aren't available to me until they move my account to the newer system. He further claimed that he had no idea when this would happen. Ok, that's fine. But where the @#$* they have mentioned this in their advertisements ? I wouldn't have bothered to inquire this and waste my time if they had indicated the eligibility criteria for the bundled packages.

However, I'm glad that it didn't work out well. One of my friends having a nightmare with Telstra support after obtaining an Internet connection from Telstra. He correctly advised me not to make that move to Telstra and how horrible their customer support is.

Courtsey : Free Cartoons from CallCenterComics.com

Phone support
Ok, now I have Foxtel from Telstra. Each time I call Foxtel they route my calls back to Telstra stating that my account comes with Telstra and ask me to contact Telstra. Then Telstra passes my call back to Foxtel. So the calls are passed back and forth a few time whenever I try to contact unprofessional customer support from Telstra. At times, the calls been transferred to phones lines which do not exist. Making me to believe Telstra customer support is the practical/live edition of the British comedy "The IT Crowd"

I've had the ability to record Foxtel programs remotely via iPad/iPhone/Web browser. Suddenly this has been revoked although I'm an IQ2/HD subscriber. I called Foxtel on Monday. As usual, the call went back and forth a few times and then routed to a number which doesn't exist. I was overjoyed to witness how desperate Teltra customer support to become another bunch of gang similar to "The IT Crowd".

I'm pretty sure Jim Carry and Jeff Daniels would be ashamed of themselves, if they come to witness Telstra's customer support. Telstra surpasses their efforts in Dumb and Dumber movie by a few miles. ;-)

Have Telstra trained their staff adequately to provide customer support ?
Finally I decided to detach my Foxtel account from Telstra. On last 26th Tuesday, I called Telstra and asked them to handover my account to be handled by Foxtel. However, I was dumbfound with the response I received. "I'm sorry, I haven't trained to perform this operation". I checked the paper calendar once more to realise it wasn't April 1st. I called them back couple of days later to get it done. Finally, I big relief... I need to move my phone line to Optus probably in the days to come.

With the horrible, highly unprofessional customer support I've received from Telstra. I wouldn't recommend anyone to fall into their trap. If you're trying to obtain Foxtel through Telstra, remember you're asking for trouble. You'll be treated with a bad customer service with a highly unprofessional staff. However, Foxtel provides an excellent customer service compared to Telstra. It cuts the crap of dealing with Telstra. Why would someone wants to be on the phone for 20-30 mins to get his call transferred to a dead terminal ?

I would also like to mention the fuss I went through when I purchased a micro sim card for my iPad2 a few days back.

Dell laptops suck! Poor build quality, backed by a bad customer service

2011-04-19T22:04:00.003+10:00

Now I need to buy a new laptop, I've been thinking of buying a Lenovo X220. However, one of my team mates suggested me a Dell Latitude E6320 with Intel i7 2620M processor. Initially I was attracted to its looks but then, the reality took the best of me... The worst laptop experience I've had with Dell laptops came into my mind.

I have used four Dell laptops to date, none of them impressed me. The first Dell laptop was bought from Dell Canada in 2006; Dell Inspiron 1505. I didn't use it for more than 3-4 months. The second Dell was a Latitude but I didn't use it for much longer, may be two months.

The third was a Latitude D 620, in 2007 March, I used it for about a year and it was a torture. The laptop starts overheating from the very first week. It was a Core2Duo 1.86 GHz with 4GB ram. The temperature reads around 74C when system is idle and it goes beyond 90C-95C mark when you start working on Eclipse. It turned itself down a few hundred times during its lifespan.

What really frustrated me was the clock speed. As the processor temperature goes up, it tries steps down the clock speed to ~ 1GHz mark to reduce the overheat/temperature. I was idiotic to repeat the same mistake to buy another Dell laptop during my brief stay in india. A Dell XPS 1330M in 2007 December, after listening to bullshit stories of incompetent Dell customer support/marketing guys.

The Dell XPS 1330M was horrible just like the Latitude. The laptop motherboard replaced 4 times during its first year. The laptop reaches to a point where it's almost unusable, when you run a test suite using eclipse or try to perform a development task although, I have installed 8GB of RAM. This laptop comes with the Intel T7500 processor.

However, my Lenovo T 61 laptop which uses the same Intel T7500 processor runs smoothly with 4GB memory. It never reached 62C mark under heavy load where as the crappy Dell XPS choke and starts overheating when I just open Eclipse. This led me to believe that the poor design of the laptop and its ventilation caused Dell to perform very badly. Both systems were using the same operating system and the installed software were identical. So isn't this anything other than Dell being a dodgy brand ?

The Dell customer care was clueless on what the problem was. On one occasion the Dell serviceman; who came to changed the motherboard completely screwed it up. He didn't assembled my laptop back neatly. I had to call the incompetent Dell customer care once more to send someone to fix the laptop once again. Which was frustrating.

With that experience, I decided to not to buy any Dell products and I would say NO to anyone who's planning to buy Dell products until they prove that they have improved. The biggest problem I have with Dell besides their poor customer support/service, is the built quality. They of course have to learn a lesson or two from Lenovo, HP and Apple what build quality and customer support means.

UPDATE
Dell customer service contacted me on this issue and sent a service person to replace my motherboard, although the machine is out of warranty. I will update with more information shortly.

Macro life with Canon MP-E65mm - fotografía en alta definición

2011-02-08T04:51:00.004+10:00

Just for a change, I started macro photography, about 2-3 months back. However, I spent nearly a year trying to figure out which lens suites my needs. I had a tough choice to make between 100mm f/2.8 L IS USM verses Canon MP-E65mm f/2.8 1-5x. Finally, I bought the former, the L series lens to make my L series lens tally to 3. I took Dave's advice which appeared to be the best. He suggested me to find out whether macro photography is my thing or not and helped me to pick the correct lens.

Dave is one of my team mates, a very good photographer who knows the technical side to the perfection. The outstanding photos he had taken using a film camera a few years back in the UK are a clear witness. Some splendid stuff! The Brisbane photography forum guys confirmed my choice/what Dave suggested was indeed the best. :-)

The 100mm f/2.8 L IS USM is a great lens, I bought Canon MT-24EX twin macro flash to assist its lighting requirements. The 1:1 magnification disappoints you if you want to take something beyond macro "snap shots". Perhaps, a few extension tubes would be a better remedy. Macro lenses require a _massive_ amount of light compared to conventional lenses. So a macro flash is a mandatory component. I love this L series 100mm macro lens and what it offers, I bought it with having the thought of using it as a prime lens for portraits. I truly want to take macro "photos", not the "snap shots". Later is utter rubbish.

I bought Canon MP-E65mm f/2.8 1-5x AFTER reading what it offers, its working distance and a few sample images for I wanted to achieve little bit more than what a standard macro lens offers. It doesn't have a focus ring. You have to achieve focus on subjects by moving the camera back and forth. The working distance is 4 inches. Which means, the maximum distance between camera and the object is just 4 inches. You need to get closer to the subject as you increase the magnification, that's the fun part.

This is of course not an easy lens to deal with. If you don't have previous macro experience, I would say better not to buy this or you might try to throw this away. This is not the lens for you to start macro photography in case if you don't have any previous experience. If someone wishes to buy this, please make sure this is what you *need* and not what you *want*. I would say not to buy this, unless you truly *need* this.

The first few moments with Canon MP-E65mm f/2.8 1-5x made me regret for buying it, although I knew what it is. For it requires a bit of effort, skills, experience and patience. So I had to overpower my laziness to get there. After using this lens for nearly three months, now it has become my favourite lens. Yeah, this is an AWESOME lens.

I'm quite happy the fact that I started liking this lens than any other and on macro photography. This is very addictive. The build quality is very good although this is not an L series lens. A macro flash is essential as this requires more light as you increase the magnification. The DoF is so shallow and requires precise focusing. But once you get the hang of it, this would be the hardest lens to remove from your camera body. This lens starts where a conventional macro lens leaves. What I have posted here are my attempts with this, which were taken from my flickr account.

Death magnetic - Brisbane

2010-10-22T02:40:00.020+10:00

When one of my friends mentioned Metallica is going to play in Brisbane. I wasn't quite interested in it at all. Their last couple of albums let down us big time. Trivium took over the place I've had for Metallica for years.

However, the years of fucking awesome metal provided by Metallica can't be easily forgotten. I made up my mind to attend the concert at the very last moment, around 1530hrs. It turned out to be a good decision. This was the second time I was attending a musical concert during this month of Rocktober.


lamb of god in action

Got into the train from Central station. But I wasn't quite sure whether I was on the correct train or not. When I heard shit loads of "fucks", I figured out indeed I'm in for a super cluster fuck. ;-)

I couldn't organise this with my friends since this was a last minute call. Tori of course out of the city for a few more weeks.


lamb of god


Metallica enters the stage

Nevertheless, I met a bunch of guys who accompanied me until the show was started. Three bands played with Metallica. Since I was busy outside drinking beer with these guys, we missed out the first band but got in time when "lamb of god" started to heat things up. Lamb of god did really well. It was absolutely brilliant.

Quite surprisingly I didn't see many goths whom I generally see at most of the metal concerts. It was a very good crowd. I know most people have their own criticism on heavy metal and its fans. Even so, they have to come and witness how wrong and stupid they are to come to such idiotic conclusions.

I was so lucky enough to grab a seat just a couple of meters away from the stage. I was at the lower ring facing the main stage, right in front.

The crowd erupted at around 2100hrs as Hetfield led Metallica jumped on to the stage. Lazer beams dazzled across the stage drawing a series of waves and waterfalls.

The sound engineers were fully responsible for the general fuckup they've had with the first song. It was horribly awful. Things were pretty much settled during the 3rd song.

This was one of THE best metal shows I've ever watched. They played some of my favorites, including 'One', 'Master of puppets', 'Unforgiven' and not to mention, 'Nothing else matters'.

It was just a couple of weeks since I have been to a concert of Simply Red. Besides their brilliant music, the interaction with audience, presence and presentation was so ironic. I've heard many people murmuring how rude Mick Hucknell was. They were disappointed over Mick's attitude. I'm pretty sure they didn't expect that from him.

General public however expect the opposite. The metal bands to be weird, arrogant and antisocial while soft musicians to be more kind and generous. But in reality it's a different story.

How these two metal bands responded to their audience and how they have shown their respect was quite significant. They always made us feel that we're a part of this big heavy metal family and admired our contribution to the music/metal industry as audience.

To my surprise, Metallica played good fucking 2.5 hours at its best. You can't expect any better. That was the finale of their three day venture in Brisbane. I want to thank all those guys and girls who accompanied me, shared the fun, beer and laughter also Metallica, Lamb of god for their music, it was a blast!!

Picking the correct laptop processor, in a nutshell

2010-10-14T03:46:00.017+10:00

Picking the correct processor when buying a laptop or a desktop machine gets unnecessarily complicated due to marketing campaigns conducted by major CPU manufacturers, not many but Intel. We often try to buy one of the top range processors to be future proof or rather be on the edge, not knowing the requirements or actual usage. This often results being silly at the end of the day. Let's try to understand some of the features what mobile processors offer in general.

Processor cache:
Intel processors often talk about the processor cache. It doesn't play a big role anyways. The AMD processors in general doesn't rely on the processor cache but thick pipelines to fetch data between main memory and the processor. Let's take a look at the pros and cons of processor cache.

Processor cache can be explained this way. Imagine a public library. Where does the librarian keep frequently accessed publications ? Probably on the librarian's table, take this as Level 1 (L1) cache in a processor. The less frequent publications are kept on the drawer, consider this being Level 2 (L2) cache. As you know, the librarian could keep just a handful number of publications with him/her. The rest of the publications must go into the locked cupboards, this is the main memory.

This has both good and bad. The good is, the librarian doesn't have to access locked cupboards to offer frequently accessed publications when they're on his table. The information can be accessed and serve upon requests very quickly. This is the good side of having a larger cache.

But how about when someone requests a publication which doesn't exist on his table (L1 cache) or in the drawer (L2 cache) ? He has to get this book from the locked cupboard. So the time that the librarian has spent on searching for publications at his desk and in the drawer are an utter waste. This is the downside of processor cache.

Intel processor cache:
Intel processors have a smaller L1 cache, which has redundant data in Level L2 cache. They call this approach "inclusive" principle. The downside is not just the redundant data in L2 cache, but also the replicated data won't be accessed as expected. The advantage of this approach is, the data requires to be updated at the L2 cache.

AMD processor cache:
AMD follows the opposite, which is the "exclusive" principle. The AMD L1 cache data won't get duplicated in L2 cache for it's costly given the size. AMD's L1 caches are quite big compared to Intel's. AMD processors have large L1 caches starting from 128kb, so it does make sense for them to have this "exclusive" approach.

CPU Cache
Make	Model	# Cores	Speed	L1 Cache	L2 Cache	L3 Cache
AMD	N 930	4	2GHz	512 kb	2048 kb	-
Intel	i7-720QM	4	1.6 GHz - 2.8GHz (Turbo Boost)	256 kb	1024 kb	6144 kb

Source :
http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Phenom-II-X4-N930-Notebook-Processor.31536.0.html
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Core-i7-720QM-Notebook-Processor.23035.0.html

Pros and cons of AMD/Intel approach:
The CPU cache becomes very handy when you run an application which requires to store data and access them quite frequently. For an example, a word processing application can be given. However, a bigger cache doesn't make any sense if you're performing a task, which doesn't cache information for later retrieval. An encoding decoding application is a better example for this. When you rip an Audio CD to MP3 format, it doesn't refer or access the cached data over a period of time. A larger cache becomes pretty much ineffective in this scenario.

I forgot to mention, why we require a processor cache. The main memory modules are pretty slow, catering the demand what the processor has. So having a processor cache appeared the best solution for this issue to minimise round-trips to the main memory.

Memory access speeds:
The AMD processors are the least to suffer from this, given the high bandwidth they have between processor and the main memory. AMD doesn't heavily rely on processor caches, given the bandwidth it has. Let's get some facts :

CPU Comparison
Make	Model	# Cores	Clock Speed	Max Memory Bandwidth	I/O Bus Speed	TDP
AMD	N 930	4	2GHz	35.7 GB/s	3.6 GT/s	35W
Intel	i7-720QM	4	1.6 GHz - 2.8GHz (Turbo Boost)	21 GB/s	2.5 GT/s	45W

Source :
http://www.amd.com/us/products/notebook/platforms/home/2010-mainstream/Pages/2010-mainstream-platform.aspx
http://ark.intel.com/Product.aspx?id=43122&processor=i7-720QM&spec-codes=SLBLY

Processor speed :
In a nutshell, none of the processors in the market run at its optimal marked clock speed. For an example, if you take a look at a processor marked at 2GHz it starts hitting the 2 GHz mark ONLY when you run processor intensive operations. Actually this is govern by the operating system + processor. The processor informs the min and max clock speeds to the operating system. Which defines and dictates what's the clock speed should be, based on the load. Which means, the operating system uses this information to increase the clock speed on demand.(based on the enforced cpu policy)

Even though you have the best processor in the market with having a very high clock speed, what if your system doesn't hit the line ? What if you don't require that much horsepower ? It's an utter waste of money and resources. You've been just bullied by processor manufacturers ;-) Which is the ultimate truth, the reality. If you have an Intel i7 840QM processor and just uses it at 1100Hz at 90% of the time, what does it mean to pay extra $$$$ for ? You would have achieved your tasks with a lower end processor without any lagging while saving some big $$$.

Let's get some facts right. I'm using and AMD QuadCore N930 2 GHz Quad Core processor. I'm using Debian Squeeze, the it reads following CPU stepping speeds 2.0 GHz , 1.7 GHz, 1.4 GHz, 1.1 GHz and 800Hz. I ran following applications during this test :

Eclipse with JBossTools 3.x
Netbeans 6.9.1
PostgreSQL 8. database server
MySQL 5.1x
JBoss-5.1 Application server
HornetQ JMS broker
Linux shell
Galeon web browser with multiple tabs
Iceweasel web browser with multiple tabs
Skype
Pidgin (MSN/Yahoo/GTalk)
gedit
File browser
SSH and the default system services

During one of the busiest days, my CPU statistics read as follows :

**CPU Usage**
	Core#	Usage @ 2.0 GHz	Usage @ 1.7 GHz	Usage @ 1.4 GHz	Usage @ 1.1 GHz	Usage @ 800 Hz
	0	2.59%	0.08%	0.13%	0.27%	96.94%
	1	2.53%	0.09%	0.17%	0.15%	97.06%
	2	2.89%	0.10%	0.14%	0.15%	96.73%
	3	2.55%	0.10%	0.12%	0.15%	97.08%

Total CPU usage		2.64%	0.09%	0.14%	0.18%	96.95%

Common properties for all cores :
hardware limits: 800 MHz - 2.00 GHz
driver: powernow-k8
available frequency steps: 2.00 GHz, 1.70 GHz, 1.40 GHz, 1.10 GHz, 800 MHz
available cpufreq governors: conservative, ondemand, userspace, powersave, performance
current policy: frequency should be within 800 MHz and 2.00 GHz.
The governor "ondemand" may decide which speed to use
within this range.

Even though you have the fastest processor in the world, it doesn't mean anything if the applications you run don't require that much power. What's the point spending bug $$$ on high end processors ? To make processor manufacturers rich ?

Intel's hyper threading :
Intel's two threads per core mechanism doesn't scale really well in some aspects, as you already aware each thread requires a CPU cycle. This has some concerns when dealing with large caches, known as cache pollution. Besides security, the power consumption has proven to be high as well. Although Intel claims a 30% performance boot, the downside takes its gloss away.

WTF ? Then, how come Intel outperforms AMD on certain laptop models ?
Fair enough, how does the Intel's i7s outperform AMD's QuadCore then ? Just one word, simply by "over-clocking". Intel calls this 'Turbo Boost', quite strangely. I managed to get my hands on a Dell laptop, which carries an i7 720QM processor. It worked well for a while, but not when I started to run some heavy processor intensive applications. Needless to mention the overheat it generates, when it gets into the turbo boost mode. The overheat often throttles the clock speed to run down. This 45W watts processor, promised to deliver goods under load at 2.8GHz (on demand) but sadly I've experienced the opposite. The usual story I've suffered with their older Core2Duo family processors continues. The clock speed went down to cope with the overheat. I was not alone :

http://communities.intel.com/thread/9079
http://communities.intel.com/message/99568
http://www.engadget.com/2010/04/26/core-i7-equipped-macbook-pro-hits-100-degrees-celsius-your-lap/
http://www.pcauthority.com.au/News/172791,macbook-pro-helps-core-i7-hit-100-degrees.aspx

Simply Red bids farewell as we're holding back the years

2010-07-30T00:59:00.003+10:00

"No one has to tell me when to leave a party", was what Simon Cowell quoted when leaving American Idol. Perhaps it could be the same for Simply Red as they prepare to quit after 25 years long journey with music, another great English band.

We're going to witness to an end of one of the greatest soul, pop bands of our time and it's sad to say them go this way but perhaps it could be the most cleaver decision they've made considering their recent success as a band.

Mick Hucknell, the lead vocalist has decided to persuade a solo career when they disband later this year.

'Holding back the years' was their first memorable single I've heard. I could still remember how the day looked like when I first heard it. Music and life aren't two different things but one since it has become part of my life and in everything I do. Just like we feel the breeze, I feel the music in my day to day life and it has its own footprint in its own way.... in my past..

Irrespective of the situation I've been thru, music has always been there and so the music of Simply Red. Their 'a new flame' album was one of such albums which hooked up in some of my personal experiences. It was an album which connected to me in the right substances and essence.

In my personal opinion, that's their BEST album to date. I've been listening to this album for 15 years and still love it and the music sounds very much current and the lyrics.. Love lays its tune, You've got it and More are some of my favorites.

With the release of 'stars' they started receiving much appreciation from general public, and recognition which was followed by commercial success. But started to drift away in terms of quality. No matter how far they've drifted away from what they were, their music always carried their magic touch.

For the last time in their long journey, Simply Red is playing for the very last time this year and this has been labeled as the 'Farewell Tour' and playing in Brisbane on 1st of October at the convention and exhibition center. I didn't hesitate to buy a premium ticket to witness another sad farewell of one of the greatest bands in our time. Mick and Simply Red, thank you for the music and its inspiration which at times helped us to loosen the loads we carry and cherish life..

AMD Quad Core N 930 (mobile) Experience

2010-07-25T23:35:00.000+10:00

We've complained about overheat problems on AMD notebook processors, well now it's all history. With the introduction of their new 'vision platform' processors, I believe they may have just turned the tables. :-)

AMD introduced a bunch of multicore processors to prevent a possible extinction from mobile processor market. Looking at the processor specs and what was seen on forums, I was just curious to see what they look like. I very much wanted to buy HP DV 6 3050 with N930 but sadly it's not available in Australia. However, I managed to buy a machine with AMD N 930 Quad Core 2 GHz processor.

What surprised me was the processor temperature, which never crossed 57 C mark, when running multiple heavy applications, stressing the processor. Such as compiling the kernel while running two JBoss instances, eclipse ide, MySQL, PostgreSQL along other default servers and services. The cooling fan doesn't spin like a wild donkey causing an irritating buzz but very very quite. Take my word on this ;-)

I've been using this laptop for almost a week now and truly impressed with the power it offers. This is well ahead when compared with Intel processors in terms of power for wattage + value for money. The processor performs really well when you run applications which utilise all four cores.

I've had a few Intel C2D laptops. A Core2Duo 1.86 GHz, another Core2Duo 2.2 GHz C2D (T7500) with 4MB cache per each core. All suffered overheat problems. The only success I've had with Intel was with Lenovo T 61, the same T7500 processor.

Most laptop manufacturers integrate AMD processors in their low end range. These low budget laptops come with a poor built quality resulting overheat due to lack of ventilation and bad design. As a matter of fact, AMD processors suffered down the line than what was due. I have seen both Intel and AMD suffering from this and what was given above was a perfect example.

I have used over 10 laptops during the last 3-4 years. All I could say is, AMD has finally delivered a good laptop for for the hard core developers... ;-)

Uruguay down under ?

2010-07-03T23:29:00.001+10:00

I've been watching/following Uruguay since their FIFA 2010 qualifying campaign. They don't have stars.... big names .. media isn't pushing them up the way they do on crappy Brazil team but they play as a single unit.

The team spirit is high, the motivation is just there as they inching towards the moment of glory. Two times worldcup champions, I'm really impressed how they've been playing so far. Even though the things look very much written for Uruguay, their ride towards worlcup quarter finals wasn't that easy.

I would like to recall their last qualifying game for the FIFA 2010, Uruguay vs Argentina at Motevideo. It was a tense game and Argentina was in a must win situation to book a slot for the FIFA 2010 in South Africa. I'm an Argentine fan, not because my 'ex' is an Argentine but I lover their soccer. ;-)

Argentina hadn't won a match against Uruguay in Motevideo for 36 years. But they did it in style, winning the match 0-1, thanks to Bolatti's classic goal; which was an outcome of a free kick at the 83rd minute. Martin Caceres of Uruguay was sent out as a result of that foul.

Argentina won the match and qualified for the FIFA 2010. Overjoyed Maradona spoke to media, "this victory doesn't belong to one group, that's the local media. now come and suck my cock. we've done it, the media didn't speak any good of me or my team. they condemn us".

Now, Uruguay had to play two matches against Costa Rica to book a slot in FIFA 2010. They won the away match 0-1 and drew the home game 1-1 . So they made it :-). Thanks to Forlan (FWD), Suarez(FWD) and Perez (MID). Forlan, without him, they wouldn't have made it at all.

The Forlan factor
Apart from Messi, Forlan is the only other player I truly like to watch. He's indeed a class act, an ambassador for the game, who's playing for the team leaving his individual ambitions aside. He's a genuine gentleman for the game compared to the wild beasts of Brazil and Ghana teams. Forlan, a tennis player changed his direction towards soccer is undoubtedly a class act. Besides his classic playing, what truly impressed me was his attitudes.

Forlan is getting a good support from Suarez, the guy who got a red card on his debut game against Columbia and also from Perez. Ah Perez, the hard core dynamo.. who continued to play with a bleeding eyebrow when they played Mexico. After beating Ghana, now they have to play Holland. The absence of Suarez would surely have an impact on this game. I don't know how far they could go.... how much they could stress Forlan and Perez.

I can't comment on the upcoming game, Holland vs Uruguay. Holland is playing some good soccer. However, no matter what the outcome would be... Uruguay and their FIFA 2010 journey will be remembered in the years to come.. and Forlan... he'd remain not as a star, but a good player with great humanely qualities in all our hearts...

I'm in love with Seether again

2010-06-13T23:59:00.000+10:00

I'm in love with Seether again, after listening to "One cold night". Which was missing in my collection. It was an unplugged album carrying tracks primarily off "Disclaimer II" and "Karma and Effect" albums. Besides "One cold night", what made me liking them once again was the work they have done on "careless whisper".

They took the most gayest song of all times, ripped it off. Did their own version, make it current and relevant, then nailed it to the perfection. Made it fucking awesome!

I like Seether ever since their debut album, "Fragile". The Cobain style vocalist Shuan Morgan resembles late Kurt Cobain. The South African rock band peaked with their outstanding work on the "Karma and Effect album", which is one of their bests to date.

However their latest album "Finding Beauty in Negative Spaces" was a total mess. I thought it contains just B sides or perhaps that's how I felt about it. Maybe my expectations are high, knowing what they could deliver and their capabilities. But, "One cold night" + "careless whisper" made me liking their music once again.

"Sympathetic" was one of their underrated tracks and I LOVE it, as much as I love "Tongue". Did I say Wham's version of "Careless whisper" sounds gay, the gayest song of all time until it was redone by Seether ? Ah, I think I did ;-). You can't expect anything manly when two gays start performing together Wham below (George M and Andrew R):

Beginning of the end

2010-04-20T15:11:00.002+10:00

I was shocked to hear the latest earthquake took place in Western Australia. We've witnessed many earthquakes and famines in the recent past like never before.. the frequency of such have increased dramatically... raising the alarms ..

I'm seeing more and more things which I have already seen in the bible becoming true., in real life. Yes, the end times have arrived.. it's the time .. we could only cheat ourselves by ignoring what's written in the bible. But if we pay a bit of attention to what the bible says, we could easily understand where we're heading towards..

This is what's written in the book of Matthews , chapter 24, verse 3-14.
The Signs of the Times and the End of the Age

3 Now as He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?”

4 And Jesus answered and said to them: “Take heed that no one deceives you. 5 For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many. 6 And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. 7 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. 8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.

9 “Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake. 10 And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another. 11 Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. 12 And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. 13 But he who endures to the end shall be saved. 14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.

So, how can we deny the fact that these are the end times, when we have facts and evidence ... confirming its destructive agenda.. awaiting to unfold ?

The essential Billy Joel

2010-04-13T19:18:00.002+10:00

Last saturday I had to visit "vibrations", (a popular original cd/dvd/blueray store in Sri Lanka) to get couple of cds, some classics to listen during my stay in Sri Lanka. I bought three two cd sets, Byrds, Carpenters (to replace Nishad's cd) and Billy Joel's.

Billy Joel has been one of my favorite vocalists. A song writer, vocalist and an amazing pianist. The "Essential Billy Joel" album I bought contains 36 great tracks. You never want to touch the receiver or the player when these cds are on. Although I have listen to all of his hits, I got myself hooked like I have never heard him before.

True, this album doesn't contain some of his great performances. But it doesn't take the gloss away from this great two cds. An album is all about having its music connected to you. His music has been the background music for all the great days in my life. In general, I love music a lot as it's my secondary dietary intake.

However, the best album I've had of him was "The bridge". This dual disc album also contains a number of tracks from the said. The songs simply don't bring just the memories of all the good times but also what music is all about. There are couple of over heard songs included, but besides the fewer such vast majority of songs are off 80's. I love the music of 60's, 70's and 80's a lot than the crap.

'This is the time' is one of my favorites! I love this track a lot as much as I like 'A matter of trust', 'Piano man', 'She's always a woman' and all of them .. ;-) Yes, I love adult contemporary music a lot....

I'd like to dedicate this track to someone who knows who you are.. te echo de menos ..

Lyrics :
We walked on the beach beside that old hotel
They're tearing it down now
But it's just as well
I haven't shown you everything a man can do
So stay with me baby
I've got plans for you
This is the time to remember
Cause it will not last forever
These are the days
To hold on to
Cause we won't
Although we'll want to
This is the time
But time is gonna change
You've given me the best of you
And now I need the rest of you
Did you know that before you came into my life
It was some kind of miracle that I survived
Some day we will both look back
And have to laugh
We lived through a lifetime
And the aftermath

This is the time to remember
Cause it will not last forever
These are the days
To hold on to
Cause we won't
Although we want to
This is the time
But time is gonna change
I know we've got to move somehow
But I don't want to lose you know

Sometimes it's so easy
To let a day
Slip on by
Without even seeing each other at all
But this is the time you'll turn back and so will I
And those will be the days you can never recall

And so we embrace again
Behind the dunes
This beach is cold
On winter afternoons
But holding you close is like holding the summer sun
I'm warm from the memory of days to come

This is the time to remember
Cause it will not last forever
These are the days
To hold on to
But we won't
Although we'll want to
This is the time
But time is gonna change
You've given me the best of you
But now I need the rest of you

Back to music with Sennheiser IE 6

2010-03-16T00:35:00.003+10:00

Finally, I managed to buy a pair of Sennheiser IE 6 last week, during my visit to London. I have used many brands from JBL, Shure, Bose, Klipsch and to a few Sennheiser's. I have to admit that, this is one of the best piece of in ear headphones I have ever used up to date.

To give you some idea, these are the headphones I have used in the past :

Brand	Model	Score	Price
Sony	NC-22	1/10	USD 120
Bose	Triport	3/10	USD 89
Klipsch	Image S4	4/10	USD 85
Sennheiser	CX 300	4/10	AUD 80
JBL	410	6/10	USD 79
Bose	Quite Comfort	6/10	USD 285
Sennheiser	CX 95	7/10	AUD 179
Sure	E3C	7.5/10	USD 240
Sennheiser	IE 6	10/10	AUD 339

I bought my IE 6 from HMV store at Piccadilly, London. I managed to burn them to the perfection while using them in flight at a high volume for over 20 hours. I had to fly ~22 hours from London Heathrow to Brisbane. To get the optimal performance (good thumping) you need to burn them for a period of time at high volume.

The IE 6 provides deep rich bass, detailed highs with vibrant mids. The sounds are crisp clear as one could ever imagined it to be. It would surely blow you away. I stopped using my iPod for a while, for its incapability to handle the "loudness war". But with these IE 6 headphones, I'm back on track listening to music like I did during my school days. ;-)

the IE6 comes with a half dozen of different ear plugs, so you could pick what's best for you. To suite your ear canals. The default ear plugs provide moderate bass with bit of highs. I went one size up to get my blend of music and it was awesome. I have never enjoyed music over 3-4 hours continually , using headphones.

But I truly can't take these headphones off my ears. The apple Australia site advertise them at A$ 339/= (LKR ~ 34,500/=) and indeed it's worth the money. You won't regret ... just be yourself.. just listen to your ears.. they would be pleased with these ;-)

My (broken) Sennheiser CX 95

2009-12-31T02:37:00.005+10:00

I've had used a number of headphones over the last few years. Shure E2C, Bose Triport, Sennheiser CX 300, JBL 501, Sony MDR 71, Sony NC 22 with loads of other brands and models. Only Shure E2C clicked for a while off the above list until I came across Sennheiser CX 95, which is pretty awesome for the price.

Photo : Sennheiser CX 95

I bought it ~18 months back from JB HiFi (Adelaide St Store) at Brisbane for $179/=. I didn't burn for more than 2 days to get the best out of it. Very detailed sounds with rich mids along with good thump. Which is the best headphones I've ever used so far, which could be rated ahead of Shure E2C, Shure 110 without a doubt.

I enjoyed every bit of it. It's really awesome! However, sadly in the morning, I broke it, as I sat on top of it :-/ I was deeply in love with the sounds they produced.. the music I love.. Although this damage doesn't have any impact on the sounds, it's very hard to use them with the broken toe, which holds the incoming wire into the headphone. I tried JB HiFi to find the same model and realised Sennheiser has discontinued this model and couldn't locate it on their latest catalog.

I checked with Amazon's Sennheiser store but with not much success. However, I was told CX 95 has been re-branded as CX 550 II. I'm not quite sure about this and can't gamble with it. I can't give up on my headphones for I'm so crazy about the amazing sounds it offers, so I managed fix the broken handle which fits at the bottom of barrel. I belive, I could use it for couple of more weeks until I'm fully convinced CX 95 == CX 550 II. If not, my other option would be Sennheiser IE 8, which is ~ $500... hmm .. music is so expensive .....

The true meaning of Christmas

2009-12-25T02:54:00.004+10:00

People celebrate Christmas on every 25th December. Christmas means the birthday of Jesus Christ, as people call it. But why do these people do shopping for Jesus' birthday ? If they to do, they should buy things for the person who celebrates his birthday, in this case Christ. Why would they buy things for themselves on Jesus' birthday ? what does this mean ?

Also, if you read the bible carefully, you would figure out Jesus' existence waayy back in time. Jesus was there at the beginning, before creation of the world. Then what's this birth of Jesus Christ ? what's Christmas ?

In brief, God is a tri-personal being of same substance and essence, consist of God, Jesus, Holy Spirit. The sin of men created a great barrier between God and men. Therefore God sent his only son to this world, Jesus Christ to crucify for the sin of men, so that the men can communicate with God once their sins are forgiven through the crucifixion of Christ Jesus.

So when Jesus was born into this world to crucify for our sins, this arrival in human flesh of God referred as birth of Christ. Although the exact date and time period was not known, shopping malls (people) started celebrating this as Christmas on 25th of every December.

In this way, Christmas means the birth of Christ in this world; so why do these people buy themselves with gifts and fancy stuff for Christmas ? this of course something I failed to understand. If we're celebrating the birth of Christ, then we should offer our gifts to the Person Who celebrates His birthday, to Christ. The best we could offer him is to live the kind of life which is due from our side.

Buying cloths, doing shopping and exchanging gifts between people and families are the most idiotic celebration that I'm seeing. Yet, they miss the whole point of Jesus' birth in flesh... If someone wishes to celebrate Christmas (the birth of Christ) the best way he could celebrate is; by living the kind of life God expects us to live.... believing in Jesus as our personal savior.. having a personal relationship with God through Christ.. Then you could see the real Messiah in you.. else.. there's nothing but emptiness.. .. ..

new wireless router netgear dg834pn

2009-12-23T22:49:00.007+10:00

I had to buy new wireless router , since the old one started rebooting each time it drops a connection. I bought Netgear DG834Gv5 for $190 with an additional two year warranty (max speed 54mbps).

Sadly I couldn't use it for more than a few days. It stopped working as well. When contacting Netgear support, they asked me to return it for a replacement.

Internet has become a very critical service to me, I need to be online and within reach always. I need to be online while my faulty router being replaced.

I picked Netgear DG834PN from umart for $89. Almost half the price of my second modem. As you could see on the website, it doesn't say this modem supports ADSL 2+. Not even the reseller, umart. When I called them up to verify ADSL 2+ support, they confirmed it's *not* supported. Hence, it's $89.

I didn't believe Netgear web or the reseller. This modem/router supports 108mbps with 10x range. Also this is quite a new model compared to the former. I rang Netgear pre-sales to get this clarified. They confirmed with a clarification code, which can be used as a reference in case if the information isn't accurate. I bought it for $89 from umart.

I set it up at home last night. Everything went well and of course it does support ADSL 2+. Since my wireless clients support draft N, I'm getting the best out of it. And it's for just $89!!

Moral of the story: don't believe what you see..the obvious.. have faith in what you believe as what's right ;-)

sri lanka - elections on monthly basis

2009-11-24T00:10:00.003+10:00

last time, when i was in sri lanka (sl), it was april 2009. sadly i couldn't have much fun, for there was a bloody election. and i came to know there had been elections for every 3-4 months. the provincial council elections.

instead of hosting them all at once, the government decided (due to some unknown X reason) to host them on quatarly basis.

however, don't these morons know how badly affect elections to our day to day lives ? how risky to stepout home during elections, when gangs shoot and bomb one another ? post election violance and all?

last time, i had 20 days to spend in sl, but sadly i couldn't enjoy most of it. since i didn't want to take any risks by goingout during the elections.

however, as i'm planning to visit the country for the next year, today i've heard that there will be couple of more elections lined up for 2010.

i don't mind having elections if the people in sl are slecting the right kinda people. but to select the kind of morons we have right now, do we really want to host elections and waste public funds ? scary! sri lankans been selecting clowns and idiots on round-robin fashion to rule the country.

wasted years ? all without a purpose ?

2009-10-03T21:10:00.004+10:00

Time reads as 1400hrs, after hours long delay, all passengers were boarded the plane and it was ready to take off. but it didn't happen as usual, it got further delayed. then the captain broke the silence, almost after two hours since they were boarded. "welcome on board, i'm your captain for today's flight. i'm afraid that i have to bring you this bad news, we have to reschedule this flight at 1800 hrs due to a technical failure". another four hours ? the passengers were not happy at all.

needless to say how much jet fuel wasted, how many important appointments got cancelled. how many man-hours wasted and all associated resources with it. just like that, how many hours, days, months and years have we wasted in our lives ? countless, isn't it ?

if we turn back a few thousand years... a man named Moses spent his best time in life, in a desert. trying to find his way to the "Promised Land". the months, years he spent in the desert were countless. but if you take a deep look into this man, you could see that it was nothing but God's plan. that it was God, Who took Moses through the desert to, make him in the liking of God.

when we first see Moses in the Bible, he's an arrogant, pride, selfish and a stubborn person. but God chose him to take His people out of Egypt from slavery. to lead his people to the "promised land". God took this arrogant, pride, stubborn person and made him a humble, generous yet a kind person with patients. God made him a vessel to pour his spirit upon him. made him a loyal servant of God. this didn't happen in an overnight but took a number of years..as you could see it in the Bible.

the same way, God is taking you and me thru life.. to unlearn our bad habits, change our lives from our wrong ways and transform us into the image of Christ. when we look back, the time we have spent.. time we have wasted, they all didn't happen for no reason. there was a perfect reason and a plan. that's the perfect plan of God. if you measure the time we've wasted and the things we've learned. what we have gained far outweighs to what was wasted. which cannot be measured by any means.

God has a plan and a purpose for each and every person, understanding his plan and allowing Him in our lives is the best we could do, during the limited number of days of our existence. making our ways according to him and transform our lives into His image is what's going to take us away from roaming around the "desert" like it was with Moses... which brings us happiness in this life and life after death.

note:

the "wasted years" was something, what most of my friends used to tell me and regret. but quite often, they failed to realise, why they've had wasted so many years. i just wanted to express how i feel about it; the best possible way i could.

the given video, Brenton Brown's Humble king was first heard in 2001, when i was going thru a bumpy ride in life, like what moses did. but up to this moment, i never regret for taking that bumpy ride. which is what transformed me into His image.

i bought the entire album containing "Humble King" off iTunes store. it's a production of Vineyard Records, UK. , a couple of weeks back. since it wasn't available on amazon.com (cdnow.com).

End of the road for Argentina ?

2009-09-10T19:45:00.007+10:00

End of the road for Argentina ?

After all the barking from big mouths with pet talks. Argentina, is now well set and left with ample amount of time to work on 2014 world cup, at this stage. Although there are two more games left to seal their fate, it seems all over for them.

It's so heart breaking to see how Argentina played against Paraguay. I had to check and recheck the schedule to make sure that I wasn't watching a club match. A club who'd getting ready for next Champions League Tournament.

It's not that Paraguay played well but the sloppy midfield, poor formation and lack of "team play" cost Argentinians, the end result. Argentina don't deserve to be in the finals, if they continue to play like this. Which is par below the average. What they could take positive off this game is, they have improved on their defenses.

dieGO maradona

There's no doubt about Maradona being a great player. Yes, I would rate him beyond Pele. Of course, he was voted ahead of Pele in 2001, when FIFA picked the player of the century.

But the question is, is he a good coach ? This is the fourth world cup qualifying defeat under Diego. There had bee a number of bad decisions by Diego in this short period:

The formation, of 3,3,4. You truly have to follow this formation , when your strikers aren't performing well. He has no reason to go on with aging Veron, Sergio and Messi. Veron shouldn't have played this game as a striker. True, there had been a drought of goals for Argentina, but the strikers aren't at fault.

There's just little what your strikers could do, when they don't get much assistance from the midfield. The pressure would have eased very easily off Messi, if there had been 2,4,4 formation.

By substituting Sergio with 36 year old Martín Palermo, Diego proved that he's bit more than an average idiot, given the grounds as a coach. Palermo hasn't played an international game for 10 bloody years. I wouldn't be surprised if he recalls Batistuta.

Needless to say how bad and stupid Diego as a coach. Just like he won the cup single handedly in 1986. He's responsible for the downfall of Argentina and for getting kicked off from FIFA 2010. I can't accept the reality that Argentina having such a soccer pedigree not playing for the next years world cup. It's not impossible yet, but can't afford to have any hopes for the way they play right now.

Final words

Like it says, when it rains, not _just_ 'rain' but it 'pours'. When Argentine's are going, they are 'in', they are in for the big moment. Let's hold our breath until my birthday, 14th Oct. Hoping that Argentines would bring me a memorable birthday gift on 14th morning, as they play their final match on the qualifying round.

Can Argentina Do The Magic Tonight ?

2009-09-05T20:25:00.013+10:00

Then and now.. bit of history

When everything was well set for Argentina , the "luck" had something else to say during their bitter 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany. The penalty shootout favoured the hosts, leaving Argentinians packing.

Since then and now, things have changed. .. young blood has pumped into the team. The class of Messi, fireworks from Tevez and Sergio have given a new hope for the Argentinians. There IS no argument over Messi being the best player in the world right now.

The magician's class act out performed Chritiano (Ga*) Ronaldo as well as Wayne Roony, during the Champions League finals representing Barça. Meanwhile Maradona took over as the Argentinian coach, when they slumped to a 1-0 defeat against Chile during the worldcup qualifying games.

More recent history...

Maradona started off as the coach for Argentina with couple of *soft* wins. Which led him/everyone to open big mouths before the mission is accomplished. Then the reality struck on them bit hard. Argentina faced a couple of major setbacks, which includes a 6-1 defeat against Bolivia. Again followed by a 2-0 defeat against Ecuador.

Do we have to bring back Riquelme ?

Apparently the lights of Messi, Tevez and Sergio couldn't restore their pride. Something is wrong! Everyone turned their eyes on the underrated Riquelme (Juan Román Riquelme), calling him back on. Can their woes come to an end by bringing Riquelme in ? I believe it's NOT.

Argentina lost their way looking down at the 4th slot in their group, for their bad play. They were not organised on the field. They lost those games, for it's not that the Argentinians are bad. But they failed to ignite their act together. They're still one of the best teams in the tournament. They are a great team. They are the best. But, they have to be bit more organised that what we've seen off them so far. Specially the midfield. They have to lift the game, specially in the midfield, if they have any hopes of making it to South Africa in 2010.

Importantly, they have to play as a team. I'm not saying Riquelme isn't needed. He's a great player, I respect him a lot. But bringing him on won't do any better unless they lift their game a bit with having the right kind of spirit, motivation and performance.

Argentina vs Brazil

Let's hope that the Argentinians could shut their mouths for a while and play genuine soccer, until the mission is accomplished. I'm writing this damn piece of blog for them, for I love to Argentina holding the trophy next year. Because, I'm a huge Argentinian fan.... Let's hope that they could get back to their best form to beat Brazil.

Today, it's a must win situation for them, to have any hope in the competition. Let's hope things could go in favor of them. Not the luck, but let's hope Argentinians going to play up to their full potential. :-)

wrist watch mania/tag heuer

2009-08-23T13:58:00.009+10:00

i'm yet to figure out why, most of my hobbies are bit expensive. photography, traveling and then the latest .. wrist watches and designer cloths :-D

since i switched from Swatch to Tissot, I was using a Tissot PRC 200 for nearly two years. then suddenly i got this crazy idea that i should have another watch to wear with casual dresses. with jeans. for i don't wear trousers and i hate them but jeans. :-/

i bought a "TAG Heuer Formula 1 Alarm", for i love it. the metal strap was so classy that it has just a matt finish. since i started wearing a TAG for casual dresses, i felt like i was missing something when i was wearing the Tissot with formal dresses..

both watches i have are "busy" watches. hence, i wanted to have something less busy (orhodox), a classic. i went to my usual and trusted place, wallace bishop at queen street, brisbane.

i bought a lovely, a classic, another TAG Heuer. this time a "TAG Heuer Aquaracer". which is awesome! i love it! with a navy blue dial along with a lovely metal strap where two lines boast its matt finish while the other sparks with bit of glossy finish. i love it! (the image looks *almost* the same TAG Heuer Formula 1 Alarm, my first TAG Heuer)

when i picked this blue one, there was another silver colored dial. which was rated by a few, as the best compared to the blue. i was confused selecting the most suitable one for me. of course, needless to mention that i'm fuzzy when selecting things.

this is where i was taught one of the missing lessons in my life, when selecting things. the lesson i learned worth beyond the money, i spent on buying this TAG Heuer. this was told when i was confused in making a choice between the silver and the blue. everyone around me rated the silver was the best and the gorgeous one for me, while me being liking the blue.

[this is what i bought (distorted image) : http://www.bodying.com.au/tag-heuer-watches ]

"you have to buy what your heart speaks to you (to buy), that's where you're most comfortable at. now, you're trying to justify yourself, trying to like on something where you don't have your hearts desire. you're insulting yourself by trying to like on something where you don't have your hearts desire. you're trying to like on something, so because others have told you that's the best for you. no matter how others rate things for you, if you don't have your hearts wish and will. don't buy it. you won't like it during the long run. you may like it for a while, for everyone else is saying you "that's the best". but your desire isn't there. you're going to keep it back and regret, if you make the wrong choice"

that was more than enough to grab the blue one. i like this and bought it, not because it's expensive. instead, i love it. i'm not trying to showoff (though others say i am) with expensive things. but all what i love and like are always been expensive.

Goodbye Michael!

2009-06-29T13:12:00.005+10:00

i've heard the death of michael jackson. minutes after he was confirmed dead, via a friend of mine on 26th morning ~ 0700 hrs AEST. i don't think i could call myself as a michael jackson fan or i liked his music, *lately*. i'm more a heavy metal fan, liking Trivium, As I Lay Dying, Hammer Fall etc etc. so then, why the heck am i writing this ?

well, even though i switched to rock/metals at around grade 7-8. the sounds of jackson 5 and michael's were the background music during most memorable times in my school days... also many other artists like barry manilow, paul mccartney, duran duran, david bowie, led zeppelin, jimmy hendrix, pink floyd blah blah blah

it always makes me cry, bringing back the memories of my glorious schooldays .. whenever i listen to "got to be there" by jackson 5.. i love it!! michael performs it with his killer vocals.. amazing! also "i'll be there", "someone in the dark", "may be tomorrow", "one day in your life", "off the wall" .. i simply love them. jackson 5 music resembles most memorable moments in my school days .. the memories won't live without them..

life is all about memories .. the memories that we love to cherish all the time.. my memories are filled with these music .. i can't imagine a life or living a life without music.. for music is linked with each and every memorable incident.. and seasons of my life.. whether they were good or bad.. it was just the music which drove me through.. helped me to sail.. when emotions were the main substance to address.. and i love every bit of them .. for music was there..

i'm not talking about the commercially successful michael jackson, with "thriller" and "bad" albums. where he had a marketing success ahead of the substance. instead, i love the michael jackson off jacksone 5. pre "thriller" era. given this context, it's so sad to bear the death of micahel .. i'm worried over the death of jackson 5 lead vocalist .. not the michael who got into child abuse and all sorts of mess in his life, caused by billions of money, wealth and lust.

i'm worried about the amazing vocalist .. who sang side by side with jermaine .. it's a great loss.. no doubt about that.. that's the man we're missing.. that's the man we love.. it's time to say goodbye michael.. thanks for the memories .. and for your music .. rest in peace mj

ps:
i should also be thankful to my friends and thier elderly relatives who gave most of these "records" and "tapes" when we were schooling. not even my parents were married by the time these tracks were released/played. but thanks to the "oldies" and "gold music" mania we had during our school days, we were so lucky enough to get hold of these tracks :-)

our revenge is to live...when they want to take it away

2009-05-06T14:09:00.000+10:00

"We may be hunted like animals, but we will not become animals. We have all chosen this - to live free, like human beings, for as long as we can. Each day of freedom is a victory, and if we die trying to live, at least we die like human beings."

those wore the heartfelt words from Tuvia Bielski, eldest of the three Bielski brothers. who managed to escape when their fathers got massacred by nazi germans during the invasion of (former east poland) belarus in 1941.

nazi's then began to "reduce" the number of jews.... by killing each and every one of them via death squads.

women were raped.. children were killed... young and elderly men were massacred brutally... those who perished at the hands of germans had just one prayer for God..

"Merciful God, we commit our friends - Ben Zion and Krensky - to You. We have no more prayers, no more tears; we have run out of blood. Choose another people. We have paid for each of Your commandments; we have covered every stone and field with ashes. Sanctify another land. Choose another people. Teach them the deeds and the prophesies. Grant us but one more gift: take back our holiness. Amen."

Tuvia, the eldest of the escaped Bielski brothers had something else in his heart than harboring rage, revenge and anger against nazis.... "our revenge is to live" Tuvia harbored those who came to him.... with upright leadership "I would rather save one old Jewish woman than kill 10 nazi soldiers"

this man with a great heart welcomed all the jews who came to him for protection. he fed each and every mouth equally, with seeking nothing in return. he never refused anyone who came to him... led them like how Moses did in the Bible.. when he brought out people of God from Egypt ... to the promised land.

i have seen a few dozens of WWII movies. well, this isn't a movie based on a true story, but a true story. i never liked daniel craig, who holds a .45 pistol on recent bond movies. however, he has emerged himself as a genuine actor on this..... Defiance..

according to the biography of Tuvia Bielski, he had been offered a top job at the Israel military. which he turned down and lived in the usa until he died in 1987.

ipod vs the loudness war

2009-04-28T01:26:00.011+10:00

i can't exactly recall when i first noticed this "loudness war". but i'm pretty sure i noticed this during the first leg of the present decade. well, the "loudness war" means, the record companies increase the level of loudness to sound their records loudly at a lower volume. you might think this is appropriate but this loudness generates nothing but an irritating distortion not the sound of music or music equipments/vocals.

the present sound processing equipments are well armored with what's needed to increase the loudness on demand. yet these record companies keep on increasing the loudness on their records, insane. making some of the records sound like crap. however, you could *cope* with this "loudness madness" up to a certain extent by customizing individual frequencies, if you have a good graphical equalizer.

"Big-name CD manufacturers are distorting sounds to make them seem louder. Sound quality suffers.

This video was made with image editing software and a screen capture program for the visuals, and a DAW (Digital Performer 4.5) to process the audio.

Thanks to everyone for watching! - Matt Mayfield, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA"

apple ipod - victim of the loudness war

sadly but realistically, apple ipod users are the ones at receiving end of this mess. if you rip any music off a "loud" music cd, you'd find it difficult to listen and enjoy the music when you play it on an ipod. apple ipod/users are the direct victim of this "loudness war" at the absence of a fully fledged/customizable graphical equalizer. this limitation on ipod has boxed modern cds which were released with having this loudness fever. (leaving me with the music of 60's, 70's, 80's and 90's on my ipod. :D)

having said that, ipod comes with a dodgy graphical equalizer which has a set of preset channels, however it falls far behind what one would expect it to be. i rip all my music off original music cds at the rate of 320 kbps, the highest bit rate what ipod supports. yet, the music sounds like crap.

needless to say that i'm receiving these crappy sounds even though i'm using best headphones like sennheiser cx 95, ie 8, shure e3c, bose tripod, jbl.... for i have a general allergy of dodgy japanese headphones.

at the same time, i should also mention that i don't like the policy of the apple company, on their proprietary equipments. so with the apple ipod. in simple terms, apple shouldn't be bothered on what we do with our apple ipods. we should have given the opportunity to change the default firmware. but sadly, we can't do this from 6th generation ipod' onwards. once you buy an ipod, you've got to to use the crappy firmware it has, you can't change it. this is unfair for people like us, for we can't install any other firmware like rockbox.

we live in an open world and opensource is the buzzword with the dawn of the new millennium. but not for apple though it worked for redhat, sun microsystems and many other leading organizations. being an optimistic, i'm waiting for the day, when apple opens it firmware to the general public.

please also read : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war

to give you an idea on this loudness war, i could nominate following cds:
death magnetic - metallica
ten thousand fists - disturbed
indestructible - disturbed
by the people for the people - mudvayne
the crusade - trivium
blackbird - alter bridge

american idol - scott macintyre

2009-03-29T03:36:00.011+10:00

i'm not a huge fan of american idol. i didn't like it and never watched before! however, as i was running through tv channels, i found a guy singing 87's billboard hit classic, bruce hornsby's 'mandolyn rain'. i was shocked for a moment with how he performed. i was really stunned the way he transformed it to the sounds of today with his magic vocals. it was none other than scott macintyre from az.

eventually, i realised this guy is singing for american idol and he's a contender. besides his great performance, i was deeply shocked to see him having a partial imparity in his vision. he's legally blind. but to bring truth into life, what shocked me most wasn't his performances, lately. but with what i discovered off him, that the relationship he has with God through Jesus Christ. besides his brilliance with the piano, the most gifted thing he has in his life is this testimony of God! his inspiring life story.

having visual impurity at birth, overcoming life's obstacles and how he faced and won life's toughest challenges by depending on God was the most inspiring story i've heard in recent times. God has a plan and a purpose for each and every person's life, understanding His plan to allow His plan in our lives is what most important thing. i'm truly amazed how he has realised these realities and transformed his life to become a vessel of God to use him.

i'm not going to say he's going to win the competition or not. but this doesn't matter. whether he wins or lose, he's got nothing to gain out of this competition for he's already a winner by believing in God through Christ and how he has transformed his life to an instrument of God.

by winning this, he won't gain anything but the world would benefit with what Scott has to offer. who could bring light to so many people, who are in the darkness, which is indeed a blessing for many others. hence, i would be happy to see him winning it. for others would be healed and blessed with not just with music but with the message of God.

sabayon.. .. anotherone bites the dust

2009-03-22T23:30:00.004+10:00

after failing the installer with a bug in gnome, i started installing 64 bit sabayon. sabayon = gentoo ++. the installation off the dvd was a painful one. on my lenovo t61, both gfx/text base installations got failed _successfully_ :(

the alternative was to start the system using sabayon and then to continue with the installation. booting the live dvd and continuing the installation was a pita. since i haven't left with much choices .. i had to follow the later..

after going thru the painful slow installation .. it appeared be working fine besides couple of broken applicaions .. i updated the portage and the system went thru an automated update .. to my surprise .. when the system got rebooted .. the Xserver starts keep on crashing.. and a couple of gdm error messages .. well.. the OS is just a bus to do my day to day work .. i shouldn't be shitting and bitching much about it ..

no other choice . falling back to fedora ..

good old gentoo.. all gone!

2009-03-21T10:39:00.000+10:00

my first experience in linux brought to me by rdhat 7.0, few years back. i was using redhat quite extensively until it was branched into fedora rhel model. the first ever fedora used was a bitter experience. the second and third release didn't improve by the means of stability.

i made a very good decision at the same time, switching to gentoo in 2004. the initial installation was painful, true. but it outweighs the system you build by yourself in a numerous ways. using gentoo i managed to get :
- improvides performance
- less memory consumption
- didn't install any component, i didn't want to use/install
- gained a very good control over the installed bits

the honeymoon i had with gentoo ended around late 2006. i was using fedora since then. however, i tried to install gentoo on one of my boxes to have a slimmed down version. installing from the scratch, from stage 3.

i managed to get the base installation up and running around an hours time. what was installed was really light and i was delighted with what i had built. this leads me to install the x-sever a desktop manager + desktop environment.

i picked gnome as usual ahead of buggy kde4. i was installing 150 packages, which too more than a couple hours. then when it reached the 147 package .. it had to say the following .. after spending hours on this installation:

indicating that the good old gentoo i know a few years back had already gone. this is not the first time that this happened. in recent times i tried installing gentoo more than a few times... all that i realised was .. the present gentoo isn't good as what we used before .. there are so many broken packages .. with a number of bugs .. beyond what's acceptable.. proving that fedora to be the latest pure open source leader in the arena

!!! Please attach the following file when seeking support:
!!! /var/tmp/portage/gnome-base/gnome-session-2.20.3/work/gnome-session-2.20.3/config.log
*
* ERROR: gnome-base/gnome-session-2.20.3 failed.
* Call stack:
* ebuild.sh, line 49: Called src_compile
* environment, line 2581: Called gnome2_src_compile
* environment, line 1966: Called gnome2_src_configure
* environment, line 1980: Called econf 'src_compile' 'src_compile' '--enable-ipv6'
* ebuild.sh, line 513: Called die
* The specific snippet of code:
* die "econf failed"
* The die message:
* econf failed
*
* If you need support, post the topmost build error, and the call stack if relevant.
* A complete build log is located at '/var/tmp/portage/gnome-base/gnome-session-2.20.3/temp/build.log'.
* The ebuild environment file is located at '/var/tmp/portage/gnome-base/gnome-session-2.20.3/temp/environment'.
*

* Messages for package gnome-base/gnome-session-2.20.3:

*
* ERROR: gnome-base/gnome-session-2.20.3 failed.
* Call stack:
* ebuild.sh, line 49: Called src_compile
* environment, line 2581: Called gnome2_src_compile
* environment, line 1966: Called gnome2_src_configure
* environment, line 1980: Called econf 'src_compile' 'src_compile' '--enable-ipv6'
* ebuild.sh, line 513: Called die
* The specific snippet of code:
* die "econf failed"
* The die message:
* econf failed
*
* If you need support, post the topmost build error, and the call stack if relevant.
* A complete build log is located at '/var/tmp/portage/gnome-base/gnome-session-2.20.3/temp/build.log'.
* The ebuild environment file is located at '/var/tmp/portage/gnome-base/gnome-session-2.20.3/temp/environment'.
*
* GNU info directory index is up-to-date.

dominos australia sucks

2009-03-12T10:52:00.003+10:00

tuesday, the 10th of march, i was working from home, for i was expecting a package via ups. generally, i eat from outside, i ordered two large pizzas from dominos, via the online order form :https://internetorder.dominos.com.au/estore/home/estore.asp?country=au

i ordered my pizzas around 12:45-1pm and paid, using my credit card. to my surprise, i didn't get my pizzas even at 1:45pm. the online order completion screen was indicating that the pizzas are on the way. to figure out what's going on, i called them up on their countrywide order hotline : 1300 366 466, none was picking the phone. i managed to locate the nearest dominos store, which is at coorparoo and called them up, the phone kept on ringing but none picked up the phone.

around 2:30pm, i got a call from coorparoo dominos, saying "sorry, the shop was closed by the time the order came in. we just opened. we can deliver your order now". by that time, i already had my lunch and no need of pizzas. so i had to reschedule them for the coming weekend .. on 14th.. i don't think i don't any better example than this prove dominos in australia sucks!

what the hell with their customer service ? a country wide order hotline , but none dare to pick the phone...

if you're ordering from dominos, don't pay them by card. pay them when you get the order. if you can wait for two hours on your pizzas, testing your patience .. yeah ... you would pay by card.

noise pollution at public places in Brisbane

2009-03-08T21:42:00.000+10:00

noise pollution at public places is growing...around the brisbane over the last few months. mainly, by the kind courtesy of indians; who live around this place .

i have noted more than dozens of times indians playing their crappy music at public places (buses, bus stops, etc), forcing others to hear their crappy indian sounds. i truly don't understand the reason why they do so. why the fuck they want us to listen to their sounds ? what's wrong with these people ?

most of the occasions, they're playing songs on cellular phones and make others to hear the sounds by turning on the speaker. which is really annoying and irritating. why the fuck that these morons can't buy a pair of headphones and listen to any damn crap, without disturbing us ?

needless to say that the ringing tones they use. don't they know, it's irritating and disturbing others ? do they know anything about noise pollution ?

however, the authorities in QLD announced recently that they wouldn't tolerate such incidents, any further. they have strictly advised brisbane transport to take action against such morons, who play music or talk loudly , disturbing others. :-)

2008 christmas

2008-12-28T02:07:00.000+10:00

christmas is one of the great times i enjoy with my friends and loved ones. every christmas i had so far, had its own _romance_ , memory .. and a meaning.. .. christmas is a time we forgive one another .. just rest ourselves with joy and happiness with our loved ones , leaving the loads we carry for a while.. this is the second christmas that i'm missing home and my friends in Sri Lanka.

i miss all my friends and loved ones very badly.. i enjoy every christmas with them and i can always recall all the memorable moments i had there .. those moments will always remain the same within me ... in the years to come... as some of the greatest times i've had in my life.. specially the 2006 christmas.. which was awesome! christmas is a time we live with our parents, relations and friends with warmth, joy and happiness in our hearts ..

on every christmas, the soccer team folks get together on 22nd on every december to setup the christmas tree with other decorations, just in front of our place in Sri Lanka.. though this task can be done in a day .. we make it bit complex purposely, enabling us to have a time together with all my friends. as a result of that, this gets completed on 24th eve.. after attending to the christmas service .. we visit all the other christian churches in chilaw .. all of us as a group.. wishing the pastors ++

i don't have to mention specifically that beer, wine and vodka play a major role between 24th to 27th of every december ... however, this christmas i decided to stay in brisbane instead of celebrating it in SL.. this was done mainly to avoid the rush at airports during the festive season. though i made up my mind not to visit Sri Lanka for christmas, now i realise that i've been missing it very badly .. the time we used to have there ..

i worked from home during the morning session and then went to office on 24th as usual ... stayed bit longer till nigel comes in for a beer .. went to my favourite belgian cafe .. after having a couple of beer .. i came home.. but felt that i was missing the great christmas we use to have in Sri Lanka .. anyway .. there's always a tomorrow ..

weekend at home #2

2008-12-22T23:00:00.000+10:00

last friday eve, as i stepped off from the office towards to the city.. ryan was there.. thought for a beer was always hanging in my mind..

we both tried to locate ben. he's the first person that i spoke with besides big norm, at the brisbane office. of course he's a heavy metal fan besides being addicted to watch silly activity called cricket. however, we managed to locate the place where ben was re-fueling .. just next to the casino.

it was kinda sad that ben was leaving to melbourne for the vacation with his family. so i'm going to have a bored time at the #brisbane channel .. having none there to annoy other than nigel. :P i returned home around midnight.

at home , things look much stable now. finally my hd cable connection was established as the hd supported iq2 was installed at home. the guy came for the installation on time, sharp at 7am. though i've subscribed for the full hd package, not much channels.. just around 10 :D

i'll be fine as long as they don't play much cricket .. i don't understand how people could watch cricket from morning till eve .. such a lazy activity .. stupid!

should write a separate blog proving cricket isn't a sport but a time-pass/wasting *activity*.

weekend at home

2008-12-15T12:48:00.000+10:00

it's been a while since i stayed at home over a weekend, without going anywhere.. but this weekend marked it ;)

the nearest reason why i stayed at home is basically due to weather.. i love go out shooting .. but unfortunately the camera bag i have isn't a waterproof one.. i'm trying hard to get hold of a good camera bag which provides good protection .. also.. which is capable of housing my laptop.. but unfortunately .. this is yet to happen

i took this opportunity to watch a couple of movies.. which is indeed not a bad idea .. watched a couple of them .. but the most interesting one was 'superbad' .. from the creators of '40 year old virgin'

it's a good movie.. but not as good as '40 year old virgin' though.. kept myself laughing for hours .. my ass off.. ratings are not that bad either .. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0829482/

the bottom line of the movies is almost identical to '40 year old virgin' where a bunch of teenage 'male' virgins trying to get rid of their virginity