I’m (was?) not a big football fan but watched many world cup matches during the last 4 weeks. Head is still on echo mode after hearing that Vuvuzela for so long. At time it sounded very annoying but then again the tune in the entire FIFA 2010 was that. Wonder how a normal football match will look and sound like without the Vuvuzela. It became so popular … even YouTube added a special button to play the sound on the video player.

Anyways … couple of us got together to watch the finals and during that I was thinking. A FIFA comes once every 4 years. Same goes for Olympics, Cricket world cup and I don’t know what else is out there. If a human lives an average 60 years and if we consider only 40 years of that … the fella gets to see only 10 of these world events. In my memory … in the parts that I can recall … I have watched/seen three cricket world cups, three FIFA’s and three Olympics … anything before that I barely remember. Dang! only 7 left for me … I’m not going to miss any of those in the future.

Source: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/07/14/chicken-egg-mystery-finally-cracked/?test=faces

British scientists believe they have found the answer to an ages-old question: Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Scientists cracked the puzzle after discovering that the formation of eggs is possible only thanks to a protein found in chicken's ovaries. That means eggs have to be formed in chickens first.

The protein -- called ovocledidin-17 (OC-17) -- speeds up the development of the shell. Researchers from Sheffield and Warwick universities in England laid out their findings in the paper "Structural Control of Crystal Nuclei by an Eggshell Protein."

They used a supercomputer to zoom in on the formation of an egg and realized the protein is vital in kick-starting the crystallization process. It works by converting calcium carbonate into the calcite crystals that make up the egg shell.

Dr Colin Freeman, from Sheffield University's Department of Engineering Materials, said "it had long been suspected that the egg came first -- but now we have the scientific proof that shows that in fact the chicken came first."

"The protein had been identified before and it was linked to egg formation, but by examining it closely we have been able to see how it controls the process," Freeman said.

"It's very interesting to find that different types of avian species seem to have a variation of the protein that does the same job."

It is hoped the discovery leads to the invention of new materials.

Champs Stall @ Hobby Fair VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Organizers invited Microsoft to put up a stall and demo some products. So our Student Champs gang took the challenge and did a fantastic job manning the stall for 3 full days and kept the tempo going. This was the first time Sri Lanka hosted an event on this nature. I mean not the exhibition … but an exhibition of hobbies. There were 70+ stalls and some pretty awesome stuff. I loved the coin collections and stamp collections.

At our stall Champs demonstrated products like Windows Security Essentials, Songsmith, Worldwide Telescope, AutoCollage etc. Couple of presentations were also delivered for large audiences.

It was a bit disappointing to see a low crowd. I mean hobbies are something which people are drawn into. I mean who doesn’t have a So theoretically unlike any other exhibition this should have more attendance. It was pretty obvious that something had gone wrong in the awareness creating. Anyways … it’s the first time something of this nature was organized, so there is enough room to improve next year

No not me. I only drive fast. Never like an idiot. If you are driving you’ll understand what I’m saying here and I’m pretty sure that you already understand that driving is not an easy task when there are plenty of idiot in the road. Let me explain …

There are plenty of obvious kinds of idiots like … who go in the wrong side of the road; especially 3 wheelers and bikers. Some who signal right and turns left – most of the times motor bikers; met one today morning also. One most annoying type is people who drive really slow in the right-hand side lane. And another type is people who keep headlights on at nights; this almost blinds everybody coming from the opposite direction.

Last night I was on my way back and this jeep guy behind me was having the headlights switched on the whole time. It was pretty annoying as the lights were crystal white and extra bright. I was very patient from Orugodawatta to Peliyagoda. But right on the ‘Aluth Palama’ bridge in a major traffic jam this guy started flashing the lights, there were no room to go anywhere. But still this guy kept doing it. So I just stopped in middle the road and went to him and gave a piece of my mind. ‘idiot’ was decent enough to knock off the headlights after that.

Road in front of the national library is now properly built with 4 tracks marked etc. Last week I was driving towards the Museum and I was in the second lane on the library side. I saw an army jeep parked right at the other side of the road. When I got near the new color lights this army jeep just went passing me … basically a 4 lane cross in less than 50ft … and turned to the road parallel to the Viharamadevi park. I actually turned to left in a split second and ended on the pavement … actually 2/3 of my car was on the pavement at the end. Still the jeep just missed the front right side of my car by inches. There was a traffic cop right there who saw the whole incident but when I looked and him he was stupid enough to give an answer as ‘what to do .. they are army ne’ … I got really pissed … and put my 2000cc engine to use and chased after the army jeep and crossed them and stopped before the color lights and blasted the hell out of them. I respect our soldiers a lot for the dedications they have made to eradicate terrorism. But still this kind of behavior is not acceptable at all.

Everybody who passes town hall knows that there is a big bottleneck just in front of the Buddhist Ladies College. There’s only two tracks in the road and most of the times one is occupied by the busses because there is a bus stand right there. Couple of weeks back I faced a situation where one bus driver stopped the bus blocking both lanes and loaded passengers. this was creating an utter mess; the whole road was blocked. Surprisingly there was a cop right there who watched the whole incident but did nothing. When I asked him later he said that’s not what he was assigned there to do. Funny … but fair enough. So after the road got cleared I stopped the car right in front of the bus (without blocking the other lane of course) … so he will feel the pain as myself and many other drivers behind me felt. I actually kept it there blocking this bus’s way for about 10 solid minutes   till another cop came there to resolve the situation.