Gang Fights, Robbers And Wet Dreams ( I reckon!)

One lonely night ( I mean my folks were out and I was stayin by myself) I reached home at about 1:00 am after work, having paid the cabbie I heard someone screaming “Kowdha Enawa, Enawa” now for all you suddhas and wanna be suddhas that means “ someone’s coming, coming”.

I looked at the cabbie who was still doing the math for the change and he nodded saying he heard the same words. Now the irony is Alfaq had a lil scuffle with one of the bad boys over a trivial matter about a week ago. Kyokushin came in handy and the big bad wolf was on his knees, now Sri lanka being Sri lanka I was thinking maybe they had come to settle a score….that certainly was a possibility. These wolves were bad in that they were connected.

Right next to my gate there is this loud dog, for the two years I’ve been around the bugger barks his guts out night or day whenever he sees me.

On that night, not a sound…I must admit I was a bit worried. Since the cabbie will not so much as come closer to the gate, I could not check the whole house by myself thoroughly.I still thought I will do a quick run armed with a knife…that was the hardest part, I could not find anything that could hurt anybody…rummaging through the kitchen finally found a blunt as ever knife and checked the rooms downstairs and upstairs…nothing. Still not a 110% sure since if someone was around, since it's easy to move around from floor to floor while I was doing the rounds checking each of the rooms I decided to call the coppers.

Dialed the emergency number on the cell, ringining, ringing and 10 minutes later still ringining. That was a lot of help!

Called the HQ **(See abrevs post) for back-up and they were ready to come, but I did feel bad as I had already taxed the buggers a few times already…and besides they all had jobs and some were married so did not want them to get into too much shit.

You never know, there is a special operations jeep down my road everyday, it could have been one of the drug addicts from the area…further down my road the homies are not exactly the type you would Sushi with. For a cigarette they could easily thrash the shit out of you..yeah bigger badder wolves.

Last resort I called another taxi company I’ve been using for ages that had its base close to my place, the base manager there was a soft spoken good natured guy called
Well lets call him “Kula”. I explained the situ and the man volunteered to come himself! I waited and waited, a good 10 minutes later the dog started barking..I was not too sure whether that was good news or bad news…I looked thru the door view couldn’t see jack and besides I did not hear a vehicle driving up.

I called out for “Mr Kula” no answer, maybe it was stupid but I don’t know I just did it. Opened the bloody door.

Infront of me was easily 200LBS in a black shirt and black pants, hair flowing down to the shoulder and his head nearly touching the top of my gate. I must say I shat bricks and whatever else I used to suffer and constipate with..I know I couldn’t have so much as hurt him with any knife leave alone the blunt knife. I was about to pull it cuase that’s all I had when he called out “Hello Mr xxxx” now that’s the familiar voice of the gentlemently sounding Kula, I had no frikkin idea he was such a huge guy and that voice and body just don’t go together. I didn’t know what to do….I knew any robbers lurking would have fled seeing the big man, grateful I thanked him profusely for coming hid the blunt knife and while he was keeping watch at the door did a thorough check. Nothing!

That sorted went for a tea and ciggie with Kula and he dropped me back, needed the smoke real bad!!

Still not convinced there was nothing, I thought maybe my neighbours got robbed. What would they say tomorrow if they had been robbed and I knew something and didn’t wake them?? So I decided to wake them up. The lady of the house beady eyed comes to the gate asking who and I identified myself and explained that I reckoned there were robbers around and me and the cabbie had heard em.

To my amazement, her face turned red and mumbling she said “Son I am sooo sorry, my husband had a very bad dream and he was screaming his head off”!!!

What an awesome dream!! Scared the living daylights out of me, and nearly had the coppers in the neighborhood!! I was too sleepy and tired to get annoyed but I am still not sure whether she said "had a wet dream and said coming coming??" Possible right!!

 

Kukuleganga MRA Rally (5/5 to 5/8)

Overall results of the MRA rally which covered 200km’s comprising of nine stages over the weekend:

1st Dinesh Jayawardane (Civic SIR)

2nd Rizvi Farook (Civic SIR)

3rd Riyaz Farook (Mitsubishi Evo)

4th Sajad Zuhair (Civic EX)

Dinesh J, Rizvi & Sajad drove exceptionally well pushing their machines to the limits.

See the problem with all things new is, it's hard unless someone takes the time out to explain what needs to be done, so when I was asked whether I would like to be the co-driver for the Rally I said yes (pls note co-driver is essentially navigator) little realizing how stressful that can be!!

The first stage is the "Recky" run, this is where the drivers get a hang of the road and get to tell the navigators which corners they need call-outs, which area's they need cautions for. The car I was in was fully race prepared with the exception of tyres, the Tarmac tyres did not give that much of a grip as the surface was mostly gravel. We also had the fog lights for better vision on the night..

On my side of the dash, the meters were mounted showing the reading. All I had to do was simply zero the meter at start during the recky run and noted down the distance at which each call out needed to be made, simple right? not quite. After the first Ricky run A-B 15.3 KMS and back the same route B-A I thought I had it all covered. Confident I was upto the task I could not wait to start the night stages. Sajad who drove the machine clearly told me the call outs he needed and the abrevs.

 As night arrived, I must say my knees were a bit shakey, the course itself was very narrow and the roads were full of sharp corners. To top it all there was sand here and there that made the driving even more dangerous which also meant I can not afford to get any of the call-outs wrong. 5-4-3-2-1 -Off we went for the first night Recky, MR (medium right) I called out at the top of my voice at 4mts into the run, there was no medium right..1600 mts into the Recky I called out slow left, again there was no Slow left. Now I was nervous and confidnece shattered! Sajad - Stopped the car, pulled the sheets from me and pointed at the top of the paper. I had been reading the pace notes from "B- A" damn it!!! You'd think it would end there, not quite, we also found out that since the meter readings were done where the the call-outs were it meant I was really not helping things, what I should have done is marked the pace notes so I can call out before approaching the "hazard" meaning the reading needed to be advanced. That figured the rest was relatively easy. Of course my addiction to WRC or PS2 proved to be a liability as half the time I had to struggle to not call the "slow left" as "short left". That was confusing the shit out of the driver and I am sure one more time and he would have somehow ejected me off the seat!!

Anyway that proved to be a an excellent learning and I guess that is why they have these Recky runs! Everytime we raced afterwards I checked a 110% whether I was looking at the correct pace notes ;-)) The first race stage was on Saturday morning and I must say we did fantastically, we were placed third overall and 1st on our class. The man at the wheel pushed and pushed and we were all over the place but I felt confident he could handle it. B-A stage 2 was a different strory, this gave me signs of what was to come. Appoaching a Medium left we came in too fast and did a 360 degree turn went sliding into the concrete signposts and as luck would have it, corrected and stopped dead straight facing the road. Scared? I honestly did not have time, I just looked at the next call out since Sajad had taken off already! He eased off a bit since that could have been fatal, I was asked to call this out on the next runs as we did not have it on the pace notes. We finished the next stage for the day also in good time and were happy with the overall performance.

The night stages - however proved to be a different ball game altogether, by now we had gained 22 seconds on the closest EVO competing for third place overall! The first A-B run was uneventful and everyone drove rather cautiously since there was a drizzle and the route was a death trap at night. B-A we threw caution to the wind on the straight, we realized unlike the others our pace notes did not carry a heads-up when approaching the few straights. Thereby loosing some relatively easy seconds. Pushing hard on one of the straights I remember calling out for a "Slow left", the pilot of course was flying low and managed to slow down in time but the roads were wet (it had been pouring!!) we jus slid off the road and onto a ditch..We lost a good two minutes there and that easily cost us third place overall. Although we won our class, it would have been better to place along with the high powered B16A honda's.

Apart from us Dinesh J and Rizvi were battling it out for 1st and 2nd in the Honda SIR's. Positions were swapped on various stages making way for an exiciting last lap. In the end Dinesh managed to win with a close 28 seond lead overall. Rallies are super fun and super stressful, especially the night stages and I guess especially in a place like Sri Lanka.

I recall one stretch we were hammering away and a sickly looking dog was just standing in the middle of the road, inspite of all the racket we created with the straight thru exhaust and the works the bugger refused to budge. Sajad steered just in time to avoid the lil bugger, maybe he was suicidal??

 

Oversexed and overpaid?

Rarely a month goes by without someone in the Queens country getting caught with the pants down. It's happening at such alarming pace you wonder whether it's part of the job description! I am not talking about celebrtities or just anyone but high profile politicians who seem to be straying at a rate..

You would have thought after the infamous "Profumo" scandal they would at least be descreet, sign a pre-nup before getting into an affair? lol thats a bit far fetched, but I just cant believe they would be so careless as to leave room for the paparazzi to get hold of the mistress and yes the kiss and tell diaries and sometimes pics that prove it all. Mr Prescott seems to the be the latest victim. At 67 you would think the man would be better off doing a jellie than bonking a temptress but the diaries seem to prove the man's still got it..Maybe he is not 67? maybe he is from Pakistan? thats possible right? Maybe Viagra's that good?

Anyways - You have to give it to the folks at News of the world, like it or not everyone looks forward to the weekend rag to see who's exposed this week, some of course might be opening the rag sheet after a few prayers hoping their own skeletons are not exposed.

Remember the fake sheik sting on Sven? that was brilliant but badly timed, just before the worldcup you dont wan't to upset the team and or the manager which is neerly what they ended up doing. After the death of the princess Di this was probably the only time there was so much public backlash against the weekend rags..I guess its human nature also, people love a scandal.

 

Fancy bowling? anyone?

Well you see we have this annual bowling tournament we organize, my company supports thus to generate funds for a few charities we support. Now “the office”” has organized one and taken part in a few, however nothing won yet.

The weeks before the actual tournament's, generally a costly affair. The bowling team's hard at practice and everyone pretty much was topping 150, which was enough to demolish the oppostion.Here is a round-up of the partiscipants:

Sudu Mahattaya (no he aint an expat and he aint sudu) – Claimed from day one “on a good day he easily gets 180”, of course he was in the team and on the big day, No it was not one of his good days. Matter of fact I don’t think we have seen a good day at all.

Verdict: We are hopeful he doesn’t use up the “good day” on one of the next set of practice rounds before the next tournament.

Brother King: You should know him by now! Highly excited and disoriented on the day of the game, maybe the huge crowd tensed him up. You should have seen him on that night, all pumped up!

Verdict: Barely lived up to his practice session form, easily distracted.

Ice Manju: The man behind the whole scene organizes the practice sessions and is heavily involved in all things bowling. During practice the ice man’s in tremendous form. Knocking a single pin down is simply an effortless exercise for him. You should understand “Ice“ here is not meant to be taken as cool by anyway but simply due to the fact Manju boy is from the same area as the original ice Manju who got his ass whooped by the cops.

Verdict: Made the mistake of challenging Christopher’s clan for a bottle after loosing the tournament. Lost and we are still waiting for the Absolute bottle he promised.

End of the day we lost by three points, which was not all that bad. How bad depends on who you loose to as well, so trust me it was pretty bad!

But then the discrads in the B team were just 16 points behind. Hmmm..One thing is clear, bowling we have some hope, if you have read my previous post you will know the singin at the bowling alley was atrocious! We will probably have big M keeping good on his promise to deliver fetilizer at Rs 300 before we hear my collegues do a deascent number…cheers to that

 

How To Have a Fast Car Inspite Of The Ridiculuosly High TAX Cost

There are three certainities in life, Death, Tax and my office mates can’t sing for shit.A couple of weeks ago they were trying to sing Pretty women and if there wasn’t a chorus with the same words we wouldn’t still know what song they were attempting!

That aside one thing I have learnt is, buying a new performance ride in Sri Lanka is a non starter. Unless of course you or your daddy have a lot of “mullah” than you know what to do with.

So did work on a project and with the help of Dinesh Jay and Sajad from Auto force fame and of course the Zee man from I-chips campus (with apologies to KLM), to convert a standard automatic Honda civic hatch (EXI) into an awesome B16A beast.

The EXI’s come with just over a 100horses and that aint any fun at all. So the plan was to dump a B16A, the legendary Honda Doc engine into the hatch, along with the ECU (computer box), geer box and wire harness. The breaks were to be upgraded as well to all around disks. 15″ sniper alloys completed the look

After two weeks at the Auto force HQ’s down Karanasara road and a few testing runs the car was ready, well not quiet. Ready here is defined as engines running no “miss” or ECU call outs. I took the car out that Sat night and boy what a difference it was. Vroooooom
Instead of 7000 RPM cut off I had 9000 and the V-Tec, what a racket that created..

You had to hear it to believe it, the V-Tec came on at 6000 (set late) with such power and noise it was like having turbo or something. A few spins around Colombo and letting my fellow members at HQ drive the verdict was satisfactory. Stone cold killer loved it and papa Z thought it was too much power on my hands.

It was purrfect, not quite..coming down baseline I saw the color lights change to amber and thought I will break late (no one was on my tail)..hell –the rear wheels locked and the car swerved and stopped..phew –that was close to the railing. Off it went to auto force HQ’s and the boys there did a good job fixin the breaks. The fault was in the break pump and it was fixed in no time. The SIR’s were being sold at aprx Rs 1.5 million den and I had mine one for 300k less,

The SIR was a whole lot of fun and the time and money spent was well worth it..The mugen kit it certainly made it look good….

Sadly work was getting in the way and I could not maintain the SIR anymore and had to part with it. It’s been re-done now by the new owner and it’s much much more faster, neater and uh cleaner. Will try and add some pics of the hot hatch.

Bottomline – It was worth swapping a performance engine before the duty change, its
FULLY worth now as the prices for these cars have just shot thru the roof. Afterall
If you needed the new Civic now you have to pocket a cool 5 mil. See what I mean..

The key is to find a reliable and trust worthy source for the conversion.

My friend “NG” lets refer to him as that, has confirmed cost to convert a lancer into
a kick ass EVO3 with racing breaks/ Recaro seats and the works. Anyone interested?

**Just in case your ignorant about cars, I am not calling this vehicle SIR out of respect for the car or some bull shit like that. That’s the badge Honda ships the B16A engines under. The U.S market equivalent is “Civic SI”

 

The “Office” and the characters that make it an interestin place to work!

Hello – welcome to another day, I was thinking I would give you an insight into the unique and sometimes weird** individuals that share the place I spend most of my time (yep more than my home) the office. Surrounded by tons and tons of lingerie and Manequins a day at the office is something we all look fwd to, you will see why below:

**King Kong :Named aptly as he acts like one and in terms of body mass comes close, brother king is in NY now for the shoot for the sequel of the highly popular movie with the same name. Younger bro of big king, he is still learning the ropes of all things worldly. When anxious he does beat his chest and even the bowling alley recognizes the dude when he plays…rewarding every strike with a chest beating hairy animated species on the screen.

Verdict –Like the WWF wrestlers big, but harmless…

**VP: Well he is our version of Socrates,the great Greek philosopher. He used to be the one doing yoga in the middle of the office and getting into all sorts of mischief when everyone else was working. But one day almighty TC called him up and whispered something to his ear and lo and behold we had our own philosopher. The change was immediate…

I mean how do you answer Q’s like “ do snails fall in love”? You and I can’t but Mr. VP has an answer and I guarantee you that, you would have bought that before you left the Perera mansion. One of the pluses of having someone like this is, getting free counselling after office hours.

Of course I had my reservations before but then I found out he was happily married and had nothing to worry about. Thank fully they are generous hosts so I end up with a few Bacardi’s, Bombay Sapphires on the house and sufficiently enlightened. Now that’s counseling every office boss owes the subordinates! Although he thinks I only take the Alcho back I must say the man knows some shit..

Verdict : Still waiting to hear what TC said to enlighten him….

Rusco Aubucle: Takes the features and size from the 1920’s comedian and no was not involved in any scandals unlike the unfortunate American. This man should be commended by HR with a service award for keeping us all entertained!! his ability to think out of the box and the wise cracks are one of a kind…I am sure our boss will be having a chat anytime soon looking at possibilities of using the out of the box theory to work related stuff as well.

Verdict: Every office needs one and no we ain’t selling! Also takes credit for naming King Kong

Christopher : Hmmm, we had a little discussion the other day, he claims I am always late (now that’s partially true) and I claimed he is always sick (very true), so two days ago I offered to keep a diary with my clock-in time and his attendance.. and um he hasn’t been at work from yesterday. Smart – you guessed it, the boss is out sick!

Verdict: Every university needs him, afterall how often do you find anyone who had Denghi three times and survived?

** By weird the author means one of a kind in a postive way (appraisals are due this month! so this is a kind of a disclaimer no offence was intended-LOL)

 

Showdown at HQ 4/22 (Final Update)

Well well, sorry to disappoint you folks but the showdown has been canned. Alfaq happened to know the person insulted in the forum (actually the guys a nice fella and bought my last car;-)) and was able to talk to him and explain the posts were not to be taken literally. Doing some research it did appear some forum members have been adding fuel to fire and specultin and addin names to the elusive "WASSUP". The offended party meant business and it seems Mr Wassup has finally gotten to his senses and not posted more crap, or an innocent forum member could have been on the receiving end as you can never tell who's behind these "ID's".

Btw - the following is a response on the same subject, check it out. As you can see things were gettin heated up and there was a lot of humor and sarcasm. Luckily people just chose to remember the funny side of things..

QUOTE(SntPetersburg @ Apr 19 2006, 01:19 PM)  

"Have a life? you tellin me??

Just when I think I've read the stupidest post ever, you go and post another. Just as the strength of a solitary brick will not save a poorly built structure, your bad grammer does not redeem your craven incoherent words.

It's just as well you can type, for if you had to speak your mind, you'd be speechless. Generally, there is nothing wrong with having nothing worthwhile to say - unless you insist on saying it. Oh well, at least you only charge what your free advice is worth. Oh well, as the late Douglas Adams said: "You live and learn. At any rate, you live.

"Most repair manuals are far more interesting than you, and far less turgid to read. If you called the Suicide Hotline, they'd say: "Go ahead. Do it!" Maybe you wouldn't come across as such a jellyfish-sucking mental midget if you weren't so dumb that even blondes tell jokes about you; if your weren't so fat that when you stand on the weighing scale, it reads: "Sorry, we don't weigh livestock.", or if you didn't have a face that is registered as a biological weapon. No, come to think of it, you would.

Now, why don’t you climb onto that Special Needs tricycle of yours with the fourth wheel attached for extra-ensured retard stability and pedal your fat ass down to the sports field and do some “outdoors” stuff for a change. Hell, if you don’t like it, you can always offer to lick-clean the jockstraps" unquote

You can order your cheese rotty after all! See you on Sat. Drags on / cops off / burn some rubber. The forum itself is awesome and the folks get into some lively banter once in a while to keep it entertainin

P.S : Any bets on who posted this ;-)))

 

What ails ole blighty (storm in a tea cup, literally!)

Well as usual I spent some time at HQ (see abrevs) before hitting home, mostly we discuss all things automotive and actually its pretty much all about cars and all things essential for cars.

We get an interesting crowd and like all things Sri lankan you have the factions, now the weired thing is things are heating up over a silly comment on an automotive forum…the mafiaso are on the look out and have the sniffer dogs out trying to figure out who's been posting under the alias "wassup", my gut feelin tells me it certainly can be the weed boys from scarey movie as the grammer was appalling ;-))

Anyways there's supposed to be a showdown on the 22nd and if any of you folks want cheese rotties better hit HQ early! The need of the hour is a few Solheims and peace talks, think the coffee stop will sponsor it? Will keep yall posted provided I am alive on the 23rd as well..

 

Phones and me

Well see I have this knack for loosing things and breaking things! I have lost no less than four mobile phones w/in the last 12 months. I think the thieves have ear marked me for phone robberies, thats possible right?

My good friend Mo has this to say after the latest loss & quote "Have you ever considered a phone implant? Might be actually cheaper in the long run!!!

God in his infinite wisdom, when creating mankind did not give us detachable parts. Else now you will be walking around looking for your head!!!!! " unquote

Maybe I should take the implant option?

 

Abreviations Explained (HQ)

HQ -Head quarters, this is where the gang meets every week and sometimes every day. Depends on how much of a problem it is going home or going back to work. Situated in Galle road Hotels Hijra and Pilawoos are part of the Sri lankan night life.

My friends argue that the food is not perticularly clean - but trust me this place has a faster replenishment cycle than most top hotels and besides if you can eat their you will probably be immune from Diarrohea or denghi for a lifetime..thats a good deal or what? check out the cheese rotty ..my personal favorite..