This is highly dubious. Miss Travel is a travel/social networking site that connects ‘Generous’ and ‘Attractive’ travelers. To, like, travel together, I guess. It all seems a bit like arranged prostitution and trafficking. This is part of a broader online trend to connect rich men to younger, attractive women. Sites like seekingarrangement.com connects women to ‘sugar daddies’ already. I guess Miss Travel is just taking that trend international. Wait, I checked, it’s the same guy doing both.

There’s nothing wrong with pornography, but there’s a lot wrong with porn. Nothing wrong with watching people have sex, but too often that sex is brutal, senseless and coerced. I mean how many couples are coming on each others faces every day? Hence, philosopher king Alain de Botton – after calling for a new atheism, replete with temple – is now calling for a new pornography. One which is “fit for thoughtful, good human beings”. Good idea.

Avengers is blowing up worldwide. Even in Sri Lanka, the 3D cinema (Majestic) is booked for days in advance. I caught the film this Wednesday and here’s what I thought. Basically, it’s entertaining fare.

Arunoda Susiripala is a great geek. Here is on the MTV Sports morning show, which I happened to host. I am not great at TV but I think this is still an interesting interview. If you’re a developer or user or in the online scene, you must know Arunoda. He’s developed Yalu, which is the most popular (SMS) app on AppZone, and he’s made money doing it. Then, like any good entrepreneur, rather than leaving a ladder behind him he left an elevator. His online service kodeincloud lets anyone create similar apps through a drag-and-drop interface. It’s now responsible for around 60% of the new apps on AppZone.

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 Carnage. Except this time Spiderman is friends with Iron Man, and Carnage has boobs. Amazing. I’ve realized, however, that Marvel never ends stories. They are all cliff-hangers. Sequels are the business model. They’re such assholes money machines.

Guy Gunaratne is a Sri Lankan Briton who I met while he was down here filming The Truth That Wasn’t There. I haven’t watched it cause it’s largely unavailable/expensive on the web, but I think I’m in it. I’ve had random drunken NGO types accost me but I don’t remember exactly what I said. Anyways. Him and Heidi are in the running for a meeting with Richard Branson to pitch their idea (and prototype) for layered web video, which looks cool. I recommend watching the video above and voting for them.

This ad was pulled for raising racist hackles, but I don’t get it. It’s not a great Indian imitation or anything, but I don’t see anything that offensive. I’m Sri Lankan, but still. The character is a Bollywood producer who likes Kim Kardashian and Snooki, which I wouldn’t call entirely rare. India is number two in Google searches for ‘sex’, btw. Pakistan is number one. It’s a caricature, but a human one and I think not especially racist.

I was watching this video on fan art and I saw these cool images of Internet meme faces, drawn quasi-realistically. These faces are used all over the world for all manner of jokes, including Sri Lanka – for everything from bus rage to dansal hijinks. It’s interesting seeing the usual line-drawn rage faces in quasi-realistic grossitude.

I hope you’re enjoying the Vesak weekend, celebrating the Buddha’s birth, enlightenment and death. I went to a calm and beautiful temple, took one of the new city buses downtown and walked around the Beira Lake. It hasn’t been a huge Vesak thus far, but the streets are packed with cheery and friendly people, lining up for dansal (free food and drink) and piled into the back of pick-up trucks and Dimo battas, to see the lights. Sri Lankan Buddhism is fundamentally a positive and beautiful thing. It’s nice to see it in the light.

I was recently in South India, briefly. One thing I noticed (after it was pointed out) was the dominance of a particular font, or typographic style moreso. On almost every wall or poster (often above trash or urine) they’d be using the same type of lettering. Top half one color, bottom half another – often with a white stripe through the middle. I kinda like it. It’s an interesting and striking style, and surprisingly ubiquitous.