Book Corner - Finished Reading

Mary Mary by James Patterson
Paperback
400 Pages
Fiction
Alex Cross Series

I know what your saying, 'Doc, another Patterson book, really?'. Yes, I
know, how cliche. I was a bit hesitant to start reading it, but darn
it,. it is easy to read Patterson novels.

I liked this one. Much more inline with Alex Cross, but a little bit
soft. I didn't think he was as edgy.

All in all if your a Patterson fan I'd say it's a good read, albeit a
couple of years old.

Tech Review - BTC 5113RF Wireless Keyboard

I was looking for a wireless keyboard with a built in mouse. There aren't many on the market so I just searched around until I found one that I thought would fit my needs (Ahem, price).

Searching on eBay I found a bunch of listings for the same wireless keyboard with built in mouse. Most from the same seller. This should have sent alarm bells going off in my head. I tried searching for user reviews of the keyboard but couldn't find any.

All in all I thought the price was reasonable, $29 including shipping (If it seems to good to be true).

The keyboard arrived and I am first greeted by poorly written instructions, that being Chinese English and didn't even explain what the additional keys on top were for.

It said that you had to change some dip switch settings on the keyboard and receiver which I thought was odd but I did it anyway.

I plugged it in, crossed my fingers and booted up my computer. I saw that the receiver did light up indicating that the operating system had detected it as a keyboard, that was good and that's about as far as it got.

I tried multiple dip switch configurations, swapped out batteries and have tried everything I know but I can't get the darn thing to work.

Now that I have the product model number I have been able to do some research and see that it is problematic across the board. I also see that a computer liquidator had been selling these keyboards last year for $4.99! Not including shipping but even with shipping it was less that 1/3 of the price I paid, but even the web site I found that was selling them at that price people said to stay away.

S

Beeps, Honks and Blasts

The many noises of Colombo, I realized I can pretty much just sum then up into beeps, honks and blasts.

Beep beep beep: That would be a dehumidifier announcing that it's full again. Three times a day it will do that. The water reservoir filled with nearly 3 liters of water which is incredible. I'll motivate myself to get up and empty it and try not to spill any of the water on the floor.

Beep beep beep: That would be the trishaw slowing down and trying to get my attention "Taxi?", I wave and shake my head they continue on.

HONK HONK HONK: Yes, caps for shouting. That would be the buses in Colombo driving recklessly but at least announcing it along the way. These horns are so loud I just want to grit my teeth.

BLAAAAAAAST: That would be the air horn of the trains passing 5 stories below us. It could be just a short blast of the horn, but more often than not when we least expect it the engineer will just go crazy and hold that horn for what seems like minutes. All the while we just want to rush out and throw something at the train. Worse yet is when two trains pass each other and in some unwritten code of the rails both engineers lay on the horns as they pass each other. It is nerve wracking.

(Picture: The cursed passing trains)

Victory Day Parade

Today was the big military parade in Colombo marking the victory over the LTTE last year. The parade was supposed to be last month but the torrential rains prevented it and supposedly four soldiers were killed by lightning while practicing. I can see this as the Galle Face Green is nothing but one big open field and if your standing out there in a thunderstorm with a rifle you're just asking for it.

All week we have watched the Sri Lankan navy patrol boats in front of the apartment do their maneuvers and the build up of arms display, tanks and such at the Galle Face Green and something we never experienced living here high speed fly buys of the Sri Lankan Air Force.

The government made today a bank holiday which pretty much is an excuse for any business to close. Couple this with closing the main street through Colombo thus making bus disrupting buses and you make for one quiet city this morning. Hardly anyone was at work.

Come the time for the big display my coworkers and I went out on the roof to watch the show.
First came the Russian built Hind helicopters, then the Navy boats of all sizes followed by turbo-prop plane fly overs (They had some really old planes) and eventually the jets did an afterburner fly over, quite loud.

Funny thing about the Navy is that they have a big troop carrier that has been used as a dinner cruise ship since the end of the war. I'm not kidding. They painted 'Visit Sri Lanka 2011' in big letters across the side, string lights on it and does sunset dinner cruises complete with the Navy band.

Well being that it's still pretty much the largest ship in the Sri Lankan Navy's inventory it did its part in the show, I thought it was funny that here it was being escorted by all of these gun boats and 'Visit Sri Lanka 2011' is painted across the side.

Story about the parade:
http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=202
Story about the dinner cruise ship:
http://www.facebook.com/JetLiner.cruise?v=app_2347471856