Human nature

1. His eyes were watering from looking at the computer screen. The palms of both his hands were aching, but he was used to the sensation. His system was running a game for over four hours. The game involved creating a city, letting the player feel like god as he watched over his subjects. Resources had to be harvested, goods had to be controlled, the streets patrolled, and even the occasional enemy raid to be taken care of. This particular game had reached a point of equilibrium. Everything was perfect, the civilisation was set to blossom smoothly.
He brought up the console. Entered a few cheat codes, that would artificially force a factor into the game. A fire broke out. The health conditions deteriorated. Famine, and disease were commonplace. Riots broke out. The civilisation degenerated. He finally felt it was worth playing.

2. The rules were very specific. No glue. No bending. A standard, fresh pack of cards. 3 independent cameras. Always recording. No external help from anyone, or any machine in the placement.
Because he was a showman, he decided to go ahead and make it in the middle of the mall. Card castles used the oldest trick in the book. A bridge, or an arch made of stone often bewildered people. Everyone believed that placing the cards vertically was the difficult bit. Tuning into the slightest disturbances in the air. The vertical cards were not a problem at all. The horizontal cards, however, were another matter. They had to transfer the weight of the layers above them to the layers below them. The horizontal cards were where all the structural magic was hidden.
A little over ten days, and it was finished. Twenty seven point four eight meters high, a new record. The worlds biggest card castle. It was a work of art, however transient. He built it, he might as well take it down. That was the logic. He used a leaf blower.

3. The best fertilisers were used. The sprinklers came on every morning, at sunrise. The spray of water was controlled, short bursts every two hours. The soil was loose, damp and warm. Plenty or earthworms crawled about. These were not costly flowers. They were not put into bouquets or displayed as specialities. They were regular, every day flowers... marigolds, chrysanthemums and jasmins (Jenda, Guldaudi and Mogra). Colourful and fragrant as flowers were.
The lots would cycle. Every morning, one batch would be cut, bundled, and transported before the early morning prayers. The gardner would be careful, to lovingly make them perfect. They had to be, any imperfection was bad luck. They were bred for a single purpose, to be offered to God, in prayer.

4. They truly, really, loved each other.

Gmail Time Travel

photofunia

I picked up John Locke from Wikipedia, and took him over to photofunia








You can also divide by zero

heavy heart

If you take a walk around a bookstore like Crossword, you will see something horribly wrong. Children will be fiddling around with toys, a bunch of people will be gawking at the latest movies and music, and another lot will be lounging at the cofee bar. All the books are stacked in neatly arranged shelves, with shining glossy covers, with the bestsellers right at the front. The staff have no clue about the books, cannot reccomend a single title, and even have trouble directing you to the right section.
There are sacrosanct havens for biblophiles. A particular street or a particular shop. None more so than Strand. A long journey from home for a boy in his first decade of life, ended in a small, dusty and cramped shop near what was then Victoria Terminus. I picked out whatever I liked, and I could afford everything that my heart desired. Hunting amongst all the stacks, I was engrossed for a good portion of two hours. My father, who had come with me, was also equally engrossed. The clerk comes along, and tells me there is another section of the shop above - that's where all the children's books were.
I have visited the shop many times, but this was my first visit, and the most memorable one. It was the visit when I first met Mr. Shanbhag, and he left a lasting impression on me. He looked at everything I had picked up, and asked one of his staff to get a volume. It was a beautiful book in a velvet casing with pages edged with gold, and the letters printed in gold too. It was a book of M. K. Ghandhi's thoughts and sayings, and is one of my most prized posessions even now.
Sigh.

=_=

===Q===
1) Is there a cut-off for how young the kids are, or is it just the younger the better
2) Do you guys actually get off on CP? are there rings and stuff where such shit circulates?
3) Do you talk the kids into it, or do you just rape them?
4) Do you get an erection every time you see a small naked child?
5) Do you feel that it is a natural thing?
6) Are you uncomfortable around kids?
7) Is there any such thing as a closet-pedo
8) How does it feel?

===A===
1) Each person has his/her own age range preference. Mine is about 8-11
2) I don't do CP, I just visit legal websites that usually involve child modeling and candid pictures. There are rings and stuff where CP takes place, but no thanks, I don't want to get arrested.
3) I don't rape kids, fuck them, or talk them into it. It's illegal.
4) Yes, as long as it's a girl.
5) Yes.
6) Yes, just because society has made me feel that I am horrible, even though I know that I am not.
7) Most people are I would think. It's not like you can walk around with your friends and family and comments on sexy little girls asses.
8) Makes me feel frustrated, knowing that I can never have what I desire, unless I want to ruin my life.

Obama getting inaugrated

Watch it. Hope he is half as interesting as Bush. Dubya will be missed, despite everything. This is like Planet of the Apes in action.

DAT on Saturday

On Saturday morning, I gave the NID entrance test. The test is called DAT, which stands for Design Aptitude Test for their Postgraduate programme. The brochure they sent in was pretty well done, but some of the things, like the film course failed to impress. This will be true for anyone who has gone through the BMM gauntlet. The Mumbai test was in the JJ School of Arts, which was this huge impressive building teeming with eager young faces, many of whom had got their parents. Now when we were led to our seats, there was this huge wodden board with all kinds of paint splatters and scribbles on it. Everyone else took out these huge boxes of poster colours, and paint brushes and small bowls for storing the water. A few had fresh stock, but most of them were heavily used. I should probably say at this point of time that I cannot draw to save my life. So what the hell was I doing at an exam like this?
As things turned out, it was not as difficult as I thought it would be. It was just difficult in an entirely different way. One question, for example, gave you a banana and a pear, and asked you to make three 3d forms by combining these two forms. That floored me. But I drew a tap and a lemon squeezer and a chair and a footstool in pencil, while people around me were painting something in those tiny boxes. This also meant that my approach let me finish the paper faster, and this is what I would recommend to anyone giving these tests: you don't need to use your entire arsenal for every question.
The next part of the exam was a breeze. It had physics questions like which is the densest of three fluids, or what would be on top in a tank full of petrol, water and ice. The maths questions in this part were not really maths questions at all, they were more about the spatial arrangement of the numbers instead of the numerical value. For example, a question like 19683 : 48791 so 27172:? and the answer is 37272. There was also a pattern we had to fill out, and a map to fill in with four colours without the same colour being in adjascent areas.
What was missing from the test was any form of judging the applicant's aesthetics. Even something like a multiple choice question with a varied arrangement of bozes and triangles about which looks the most aesthetic would have helped at this purpose. Or a bunch of album arts, and which goes best with the title of the album. Also, for the New Media Management test, something like a choice of interfaces and which is the best, or the ideal site map for web site with say twenty pages or so would have been great. Pity.