Serendipity Magazine
For someone that tries to be Net based, I’m surprisingly into magazines lately. There is some new stuff that’s come out, like Machang and GO. Locally I like Machang and the Sinhala/English mag Express that ships with the Sunday Observer (I think) is good. The most professional one I’ve seen, however, is expat based. Serendipity is a sick Sri Lankan mag produced by Afdhel Aziz, and this is not an ad. It’s distro’d free in the UK, but I just read the online version via Zinio. I’m looking at it design wise and it’s leagues above anything I’ve done. Deshan apparently taught them about kerning earlier. One (deserved) criticism I’ve gotten is that the typopgraphy is off, but Serendipity’s layouts are really beautiful and plentiful with the white space. One thing I also admire is that Afdhel’s editorial states that he’s trying to showcase a Sri Lanka beyond war and tsunami, which I think is important.
I don’t think that people realize that Sri Lankans are a very funny, drunken, and pleasure seeking lot – rather than victims of various natural and social disasters. Yeah, what’s it, he talks about being a generation which is defined by its aspirations. I think I feel that way, I mean, that’s why I came back to SL. People ask me what Sri Lanka has produced or is good for and I don’t know enough to say, but I personally see nothing but growth here. Everybody I talk to is trying to grow their business or network or start a company or just build something. It’s a shame that a lot of the most vibrant and intelligent Sri Lankans have gone abroad. Or, as I say in less generous moods, everybody smart enough to get off this island has left. I think Serendipity is trying to harness that diaspora in a ways. And it looks pretty.
I started off not really liking General Sarath Fonseka, him being part of the aggressive war effort. I didn’t support the war (largely cause I thought it would fail), and I thought Gotabhaya Rajapaksa and Fonseka were gleefully stomping everything. Fonseka even came out and said “I strongly believe that this country belongs to the Sinhalese but there are minority communities and we treat them like our people,” in 2008 (
General Sarath Fonseka was arrested on a bunch of trumped up charges, but mainly for daring to threaten Mahinda in a Presidential election. Despite his poor health, Fonseka was arrested in February 2010 and sentence to three years. Word on the street now, however, is that he’ll be released soon. Like any day now. President Mahinda Rajapaksa has told 
I’ve been testing a lot of apps. A very interesting one is iPlayboy, from Playboy magazine. It’s bad porn but a good magazine, especially since you can read issues from its cultural heyday – the Mad Men era of the 60s.
I’m going to get back to blogging. I buy a shitload of stuff on my iPad. Not that I like spending money, and the exchange rate terrifies me, but it’s just so easy, and so good. For example, I’ve been reading comics again. Spiderman, and 
sri lanka is going to have bright future, mahinda buffalo or no buffalo, war or no war. nobody can stop us. to be here at this moment is to be granted an opportunity that few others in any other place or at any time in history have enjoyed. everything is before us. just try
hallelujah!
Hi! I work at Zinio and noticed that you mentiond us in your description of Serendipity. We have a lot of interest in digital editions from ex-pats. This is because digital delivery breaks down geographic boundaries. You can order a magazine from any country, pay the domestic price and download it immediately. This is a lot better than getting a print subscription, paying a really high subscription rate because international postage is expensive and then waiting weeks for each issue to arrive in the mail. In fact, to capitalize on this interest, we launched a series of international newsstands where you can download magazines from ten countries. You can see which countries we work in through this link: http://www.zinio.com/global Thanks again for trying Zinio.
Thanks for the comment Dave. Very interesting software, and quite user friendly.
Ya nice layout ! Hey why I havnt seen the DEC. issue of IT TIMES ?
“Deshan apparently taught them about kerning earlier” – erm, i think that might be pushing it a tad far. i may have pointed out that af might like to tighten up the kerning a bit on one of the articles (or was it the masthead?). the design on that thing is slick- i doubt there’s much i could teach them.
Hi guys, this probably might not be the ideal post but need some info. Just got me self a brand spanking XBOX this weekend :-) Certainly an improvement from the PS1 and Tekken…eeer…yeah Tekken.
Everything rocks except for the fact that it doesn’t read the counterfeit CDs. So been stuck with Halo 2 for 4 days. Need to crack the chip. The only place I found was Singapore Shopping at MC. Wanted 8.5 grand for the job. Asked them to sit on their thumbs……eeerr……..bad move when you don’t have any idea on the price!!!!! Called a friend of mine at Microsoft for help……bad move……again.
So guys…..please…..gimme info where I can get it done (cheaper if possible)……..DOOM 2 is waiting for me…..
[...] My social life is generally restricted to, uh, this but there are two events tonight. I can only make one, which is the Serendipity launch at Tantra. The other event is the Gypsie’s Ball, organized by my friend Kamini. As mentioned previously, Serendipity is a Sri Lankan expat mag based in the UK. I think there are actually like 200,000 expats in UK or thereabouts (off top of my head) and prolly more in Canada. Toronto is actually the second biggest Sri Lankan city, after Colombo. As such, Serendipity can reach a larger audience than most local stuff, where 5,000 is considered respectable circulation. Anyways, I’ll be at this launch thing at Tantra. I’ll be the dork blowing his nose and nursing a mineral water (my dad gave me a cold). [...]