About Dups and dups.ca

So who is Dups? You might want to ask yourself, "what" is Dups. In 1993 a friend handed me a copy of the University of British Columbia student newspaper, "The Ubyssey", which proudly contained an article on Depleted Uranium Penetrators or as the article summarized for its readers: DUPs. The line "They have pictures of Iraqi children playing DUPs..." got wide applause from all my friends.

I am neither a Depleted Uranium Penetrator nor have I visited Iraq. I deny any involvement with conflicts abroad and I am not mounted on the HMCS Vancouver.

Instead I live in Montreal, Quebec in the fine country of Canada. I've managed to not be kicked out of Kelowna, British Columbia and Edmonton, Alberta. Home, however, is St. John's, Newfoundland on the very eastern end of North America. I was born in Sri Lanka and once called Papua New Guinea and Hong Kong my homes. Currently I work with one of the greatest Open Source companies in the world: MySQL AB where we attempt to make MySQL the most used and best databases in the world! I've also had the pleasure of working with one of the coolest companies in the world: BioWare Corp., you know the one that produced those little games called Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic...

I am proudly Canadian and on July 1, 2001 I was granted Canadian Citizenship. A number of my friends from Newfoundland gathered in Ottawa to witness this event and one of them, Craig Welsh even created a nationally broadcast CBC radio documentary called "They call him Dups" for Outfront (he neglected to mention the Depleted Uranium Penetrators).

In a fit of some masochism I decided my life would not be complete without an animal companion. To which end I rescued a cat from the St. John's SPCA. Despite my attempts to to get an animal that was self-sustaining, quiet and homely, I ended up with Pixel.

I fear the day I come home and find my cat sitting on the couch, a big grin fanning his face with the burnt embers of a cigar hanging on his lower lip. His eyes will turn to me, his paw reaching for the remote, and grumble: "Bring me my food... bitch!"

So who is Dups? Dups is a guy who has an incredibly long name which causes verbal diarrhea amongst westerners; falls into and out of adventure continuously; a slave to a feline; a proud Canadian who received pickled moose and frozen rabbit as welcome to Canada gifts; wrote and attempted to film a Shaft movie set in Newfoundland "Shaft on the Rock"; a Newfoundlander without a Newfoundland accent; a student press activist who got sued more times than was necessary; and finally a drunk who has the best friends in the entire world.

I hope you enjoy my site and celebrate my travels and my friends. I would love to hear from you, so please drop me an email. I wish you the best of travels!

Duleepa Wijayawardhana (Dups)