Mediafire To The Rescue

As you have probably noticed, over the last few months my 'written' posts have taken a slight back seat to the 'headless' posts. It's not really intentional, but rather a result of the sad and dull nature of my life at the moment.


So, in an attempt to perhaps reach out to people that couldn't be bothered watching them for some reason or the other, I have rather painstakingly added download links to each of the song posts. Most of them are hardly more than 2MB in size, so it shouldn't take long to download.


You can check them out here, or just click on the "Hear Me Sing" tab on the top of the page.



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45

That is by far the shortest title I've used for a post.

Either way, this is one of my favourite songs by one of my favourite bands, Shinedown. It was a tough call because I am absolutely in awe of this guys vocals (though his live videos on Youtube are disappointing to say the least) but I rationalised it by saying hey, this is my version.


The original is here (PR, I don't think they play this on Radio1.. haha!), though if you can get your hands on the acoustic version you may see why I was motivated to do this. Fantastic song, and I hope you enjoy it.

*After much protest from Jerry, click here to download the song if you can't be bothered waiting for a video to buffer!

Transformers, T-Shirts And Toys

Going by the usual chaos and confusion that is Sri Lanka, starting the week on a Tuesday should come as no surprise. Another long weekend, another day where the country loses business while the rest of the world is working. Honestly, am I the only person that thinks we have an absurd number of holidays? I am sure that if there are others that agree with me, they definitely do not work in my brother's school. While most educational institutes are determined to educate their children, this school seems hell bent on finding whatever excuse they can to close shop! If a holiday falls on a Thursday or a Tuesday, they conveniently decide to close school on Friday or Monday as well, thus 'creating' a long weekend. Their logic is flawless; why would a student come to school between two holidays? But that's not all; just the other week, school was closed on a Friday. The reason? The staff were going for a 3 day educational 'conference'. To Kandalama. All expenses paid. Sure.

But who am I to begrudge the hard working staff in the business of education? I for one had an interesting long weekend as well, though for my family and I, our idea of a trip is merely to go to Colombo. Still, my brother and I got to see Transformer 2, which was loud, theatrical, over-the-top, and pointless. Needless to say, I loved it! I have said it before and I'll say it again - we men are simple creatures. Give us cool giant transforming robots, explosions, semi-lewd humour and Megan Fox, and we're more than satisfied. In addition, I got to spend some quality time with the Bro which really was priceless.

Now don't you start "Aww-ing" and all; quality time with Bro usually involves fighting about pointless topics and generally just annoying each other to the point of mock-violence. However, there were a few moments during our trip where we were in total agreement.




1. Transformers 2 was cool!


2. Visiting relatives is boring! Die relatives, die!


3. Eating McDonald's for dinner at midnight is extremely unhealthy (and hence cool!)


4. This is the most ridiculous T-shirt in the history of mankind.


















Yes, it may look cool and 'gothic' and what not, with it's shiny gold writing in very cursive and flowing fonts, especially with all the 'ancient parchment' type writing on the back as well. But, check out what it actually SAYS:


Front: Record background history of eternity the ages 1979.

Back: The dedication to hero all fighter person agree sacrifice one's life, body, mind, for accident dear nation, to accident immortal mind, which get descended come to fighter free descendants, for people relatives all, get live happily throughout both of sky land, both of the water, both of the air, both of person exist and sleep, until person immortal eat time life. Love, be related, believe in, Gnoran.


Doesn't that just blow your mind?? Needless to say it's quite obvious that we stumbled across the ancient writings of the Sri Lankan Illuminati Cell Group. I am sure that as soon as Dan Brown gets here, we will no doubt discover that these mystic writings are key to unlocking the great truth of all mankind - yes, Michael Jackson, Farah Fawcett and Prabhakaran were all members of a super secret super ancient cult that were seeking to expose the fallacies of modern religion and return us all back to our true roots, where we all worshipped, err, roots. If only Obama's super super secret cult hadn't gotten to them first!


Though seriously, that t-shirt was selling for 500 bucks! What?! Do people actually BUY this stuff?? And that's not the only ridiculous item we found in that store. Check out the label to this Batman action figure, complete with all sorts of bat-gizmos.

High performance all new items best quality modern and elegant in fashion

What? I thought that was an action figure for kids. What is all this nonsense about being 'elegant in fashion'?! This isn't Barbie, this is BATMAN!!!


Either way, it was an 'entertaining' weekend, and I hope yours was as well!

Life, Death and Michael Jackson

Friday was a mournful day in every sense of the word. There I was, seated with my head bowed; silent and reflective, as is often the case when someone is confronted with a death. I looked around, and I could see a similar emotion in the eyes of those around me. When Death rears his bony head, he doesn't just take the life of the victim, he sucks a little bit out from those around as well.

Apparently it had been a heart attack, but I was hazy on the details. The doctors had worked for an hour but had been unsuccessful, and just like that the world lost a father, a husband, a human being. One minute alive and well; the next - gone.


Perhaps you think this is yet another Michael Jackson post, but that's not entirely true. Michael Jackson comes a distant second in this post.


The man I was talking about in the first paragraph was the father of one of our youth group musicians. He was just 55 years old, and yet without warning he was taken from this world, leaving behind a wife and two children, 22 and 19. Of course, I doubt that anyone would be writing about his untimely demise in the papers, nor will there be much fanfare with regards to his life. The house I was seated in on Friday afternoon was small and dilapidated, situated in some interior lane beyond Kandy. Not exactly Hollywood, if you know what I mean.


The initial reaction to the news that Michael Jackson had died was so severe that apparently it almost 'broke' Google. The international media has been a relentless onslaught of MJ madness, discussing his life and death in agonising detail, interspersed with his many music videos. Kottu was a veritable online shrine to the 'king', with a few senseless anti-MJ posts thrown in as well. Facebook is no different either; apparently they have designed a quiz to determine which Michael Jackson song best represents your life. I can't wait for someone to get "Dirty Diana".


However, what struck me the most was the depth of emotion behind MJ's death. A man that was ridiculed for the better part of the last 15 years, that hadn't released new material in 6 years, that by no stretch of the imagination was hideously disfigured after an unknown number of nose jobs, and whose music was generally considered 'so yesterday' by the masses was mourned by nearly the entire world with people breaking down in tears on television, radio and public transport. Countless parodies in the media from music videos to movies, dangling babies from balconies, and topped by the ever present child molestation charges, Michael Jackson was a superstar with issues. He made great music, I'll give him that. After listening to Chris Cornell's version of Billie Jean, I realised what amazing lyrics were behind the song. The man was blessed, and it is a shame that such talent ended up wasting away like it did.





And then I dressed up and went to the funeral of a 'real' person. A father, a husband, a hard working man that worked 7 days a week from 7am to 8pm. A man who probably sacrificed his family life just so that he could earn enough to support them. And strangely, I saw no tears. I saw no sobbing, no weeping, no children laying wreaths all over the place. His children were naturally upset, but they were not crushed. His son was in a corner laughing with his friends, discussing who was going to remove the banner that was tied across their street. There were two little girls who were running around serving tea and biscuits, giggling and laughing like it was a social event.


Makes you wonder, what is this life for? When a man that you don't know beyond posters and news articles can generate such sorrow, such unmitigated depression in some cases, despite living a lifestyle that many (until Friday) considered shameful and embarrassing, and a man that slaved for his wife and children is buried with only some "onlookers" in attendance, leaving behind a family that hardly saw the man in the last so many years.


Makes you wonder.

I'll Be

A rather old song, but one that people tend to remember. The first time I heard this I was in high school, but I think it only grew on me much later. When I started covering songs for the blog, this was one of the first songs I wanted to do but never quite got around to doing. However, after a few gentle nudges from the "adoring fan base" (I'm on to you!) and some late night emo-playlists (damn you iTunes) I thought why not.


Here's Edwin McCain's "I'll Be". The original is here. Hope you enjoy it! Also, click here if you want to download it directly instead of viewing the video.


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