Kids!

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Few years back I used to be a kid-hater. They are the most annoying species in this world, right? But not anymore.

It seems I’m becoming attracted to kids by the day. Not in a sexual way of course. But they are adorable and chubby little things! Awww, how sweet do they look! And the feeling you get when you touch their cheeks! Cuter than kittens, if you ask me.

They say you begin to adore kids when you become pregnant. I was worried, until a good friend of mine showed me that it’s an impossiblity because I’m a boy. Oh well. We have been subject to such injustice from the beginning, but boys don’t cry.

Anyway I don’t want a baby, at least yet. Just looking at them playing and laughing (and crying) is sufficient for the moment. I stare at the kids at our workplace (we have a day care center there for the employees) and I love to watch how they stare at me back. Sounds creepy? Bitch please! Show the kids your love!

A new baby is like the beginning of all things – wonder, hope, a dream of possibilities.
Eda J. Le Shan

I'm a pickpocket

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PickpocketingI’m a pickpocket. That’s my sole livelihood. Now don’t call me a criminal; picking pockets ain’t that bad.

For one, I believe that nothing in this world happens by chance. No good deed goes unrewarded. Likewise, no bad deed goes unpunished. That’s just the way things are. If your pocket was picked that means that you have done something that deserves it. You have done something bad. If it was me who picked that pocket I was just being an agent in punishing you; I wasn’t being evil. If I didn’t pick that pocket someone else would have taken my place.

Picking pockets isn’t much risky either. You just have to know the techniques. And the correct place and time. There are no books on the subject, you have to rely on experience. Furthermore, since pickpocketing doesn’t involve weapons the jail time is shorter. Well, that’s if you were careless enough to get caught.

I have to support a family and the only life skill I’ve learned is pickpocketing. That leaves me with no other option. Considering the ‘no bad deed goes unpunished’ theory and the fact that this not being much risky, it isn’t a bad business at all, now, is it?

Edit: Forgot to mention, I always send back the IDs in those pockets back to their owners, regardless of the amount of money they had in the wallet. Kudos to Sapumal for reminding me.

Matara – the wondrous city

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MataraMatara. It’s the most beautiful city in Sri Lanka. If you disagree with me you haven’t been to Matara lately or haven’t travelled around the city much. If you still disagree I will put my hands in my ears and cry OH LA LA so that I won’t here you.
The southern railway is under renovation these days and will emerge as the best rail track in Sri Lanka after an year or so. And the southern highway to Matara has only months or perhaps weeks to be opened. Which means access to Colombo in less than one and half hours. How cool is that?
Matara will become one of the most sought after cities to live in in a few years. Too bad me and most of my friends won’t have that luxury coz of work. But at least we will be happy to know that Matara is just one hour or so away from Colombo.

Tweet embedding

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Just wanted to test Twitter’s new tweet embedding feature, y’know.

Hmm. Not as good as I imagined. :/

EDIT:

It works! Madhawa pointed me to the short codes which enables embedding tweets in wordpress.com sites. Woot!

The way short codes work is explained here. Now even the previous code is working.

Why we should stop Binku from coming to Sri Lanka

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Binku
Binku is coming to Sri Lanka in a few days.
Who is this Binku? What does he want from us?
Please think over the following facts about him before you think of welcoming him to Sri Lanka.
  • Most of us haven’t actually met Binku in real life. We don’t know what kind of a crook he really is.
  • Binku is from Canada. Justin Bieber is from Canada.
  • Binku has posted 50,000+ tweets. Why would a normal person tweet that much?
  • Binku hasn’t publicly announced the exact reason he’s coming to Sri Lanka. No one comes to Sri Lanka without a reason.
  • Binku claims that his real name is Narada Thomas. A senior immigration officer confirmed that there are no records of a Narada Thomas leaving Sri Lanka.

Dear friends, none of us know the real intentions of Binku and why he’s coming to Sri Lanka. The only advice I can give you is hide your wife; hide your kids. If possible, leave Sri Lanka before he lands on this soil.

Downloading the CRX of a Chrome extension

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There was this certain extension whose popup was too high for my screen. To fix the issue I needed to download the CRX file of the extension. But with the new Chrome Web Store layout there isn’t a way to do that as you did earlier.

But then Pahan came up with a solution. The trick was to make use of the Chrome’s Developer tools pane. Here’s how:

  1. Navigate to the extension’s page in the Web Store.
  2. Open Developer Tools (wrench icon -> Tools -> Developer Tools)
  3. Click on its Network tab.
  4. Now click on the ‘Add to Chrome’ button in the extension’s page. (If you’ve already installed it you have to uninstall and try again)
  5. The Dev Tools pane will show several files. Find the one with a .crx extension among them.
  6. Right click on it and choose Copy Location.
  7. Now go to Firefox (or any other browser) and open the link. You’ll be prompted to save the file.
Know an easier method? Let me know in the comments.

Who is the rep?

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So there was this boy (let’s call him Saman) who was once a rep (representative) of a certain group in the uni. His English was not quite polished though, as this was only his first year at the uni. Only a small number of undergraduates boast of a good command of English during the first days of the uni. As the story goes, this Saman was once approached by a lecturer during a new year festival.

Lecturer: Who is the rep?
Saman: I is the rep.
Lecturer: Ah, you are the rep?
Saman: Yes, I are the rep.

What are the technologies behind this site?

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Builtwith extensionWhen you come across a nicely built website, don’t you always wonder what technologies the site is built with. Perhaps a sneak peek at the page source can give you some idea.

But there’s an easier method. There’s this nifty little Chrome extension called BuiltWith (available for Firefox as well). When you’re in a webpage simply click the BuiltWith icon and it pops up with the list of technologies the page is built with and a small description of each of them. The image shows a part of the list twitter.com is built with. Yes, it works on https sites as well.

This may not be much of a thing for some people, but if you’re a noob about these things like me you’ll be able to learn a lot of web-tech stuff with this.

Losing at chess

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I’ve always been a chess enthusiastic. But the problem was that I had no one to play with and I hate to have to play with computer. Then @e4c5 told me about chess.com where you get to play with real people. Was playing there for about two years and used to have a 1600+ rating. And then I stopped playing.
Now I’ve started playing again. And know what my rating is? 1300-1400. I sometimes lose to players with <1300 rating. Wanted to bang my head against the wall. But no.
I decided that I will be hereafter playing just for fun and not for the rating. That’s a good excuse. I don’t feel bad at losing the games anymore. Which is all that matters.
(PS. If you’re not in chess.com yet you should definitely join. It has a huge community and a lot of learning resources.)

Some cheap earphones

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Here is a summary of the earphones I’ve purchased recently from eBay. All of them are relatively cheap in price ($10 to $20) and have good sound quality.

1. Sony MDR-ED12LP

 Good sound quality. Superb bass.

Price: about $10.

 

 

2. Creative EP-830

Good sound quality.

Price: $6 – $10

 

 

3. Skullcandy Ink’d

Good highs and mids. Good sound isolation.

Price: less than $20

 

 

 

4. Sony MDR EX-082

Good sound quality.

Price: about $10

 

 

Don’t go for earphones that are priced for less than $5. A reasonable buyer won’t spend hundreds of dollars on earphones either.