Everybody told me I looked fresh and pretty today. It’s cause I was wearing make-up.

My identity is now mostly defined by my company, but I’m still known as a blogger. And I guess I am, it’s what I love, but I also really enjoy working on the corporate/infrastructure side. And I think the latter is required for blogging to really grow. But anyways, someone from Maharajah TV called me about doing a TV thing for something called TV South Asia. It’s apparently ‘telecast every night from 7 to 8 on Channel 1 MTV’. I don’t watch TV (besides the Daily Show and Colbert Nation online. Full episodes!) and I wouldn’t know.

I think most panels on blogging are superficial and the moderators don’t quite know enough to ask great questions. But this was OK. The Pakistani guy was interesting, couldn’t hear the Indian, the others didn’t make much impression. The thing is done over the phone or something so you’re sitting in a black room under bright lights, talking to yourself. Kinda weird. Very weird actually, hard to communicate with zero feedback. But anyways, these are the bits I remember,

How often do you blog, and when did you last

Good question and, mashallah, I had blogged that morning. I blog so rarely now, hence the mashallah.

Are blogs personal (or political)

Me and the Pakistani said political, think the other ones said more personal. It’s a complicated question, but divides a bit along anonymous and named bloggers. You have to be borderline sociopathic to blog about your love and family life under your own name. It is not the way to process your relationships or share ‘interesting’ family stories. I have gotten a few new assholes from family and erstwhile lovers and I no longer fuck with that.

And my God the stories I could tell. You have no idea.

Anonymous bloggers can write about those things. Named bloggers have to be very careful talking about their feelings

I of course didn’t say anything like this. I think I said, ‘uh, political’. I did give a shout-out to London Lanka Drums and maybe Java Jones, can’t remember, as personal bloggers. I don’t think I said Java, but I should have.

[STUFF]

Have you been threatened for blogging?

Which is yes, during the election I got death threats over the phone. I love it when people blackguard me in Sinhala because I have no idea what they’re saying. I asked the guy to come over for dinner and he didn’t know where I lived. So I hung up.

I’d say that it isn’t that big a deal, but I suspect that it is. That Sirasa Web Editor got shot in the street, and Keith Noyahr of the Nation got his teeth smashed in the street. So I do think the threat is there, but the para-powers that be haven’t quite cottoned on to blogging just yet. Which hopefully gives the scene time to get stronger.

I did say something at the end that I regret. About death threats, I said ‘that’s Sri Lanka’. And it’s not. I don’t believe that it is.

Posted on Tuesday, September 30th, 2008 in blogging, International, Video.